Science and religion.

[Strong Atheist]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-mooney11-2009aug11,0,6581208.story

[Bill McBlueState]

1. the truth of the matter versus how to present it

What I don't like about this article is that Mooney and Kirshenbaum muddle the distinction between

1) whether popular religions are consistent with scientific findings and

2) how scientists should deal with the public in light of their position on point (1)

Scientists need to be civil in talking to the public (Myersian rants would be inappropriate anywhere but a blog), but that doesn't mean you have to go as far as the AAAS and pretend there's no conflict between science and religion.

[Strong Atheist]

2. Yeah, I was not sure what to make of this opinion piece... food for thought... nt.

[laconicsax]

7. Their first paragraph is at odds with a central premise of their book!

Unscientific America says that scientists need to get better at communicating the ideas of their disciplines to combat scientific illiteracy.

So what do they do when they look at Richard Dawkins, a scientist who is fantastic at communicating the ideas of his discipline (so much so that he was a 'professor for the public understanding of science')?

Attack him and his upcoming book as unable to reach the scientifically illiterate because he isn't the *right* kind of scientist!

[charlie]

8. It's becoming apparent

Mooney is carving out a niche market for himself and will embrace any contrived situation that makes him the "good" atheist. His factual claims are refuted time and again (I mean factual, as in who said what, when), yet he never acknowledges, he just pens another woeful essay as the beleaguered defender of civility.

This is Jerry Coyne's assault, as Chris characterizes it, on the NCSE:

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/truckling-to-the-faithful-a-spoonful-of-jesus-helps-darwin-go-down

Coyne isn't some hothead, he doesn't assault anyone. Worse, Mooney lies about his objection to what the NCSE is doing:

In this, Coyne is once again following the lead of Dawkins, who in "The God Delusion" denounces the NCSE as part of the "Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists," those equivocators who defend the science but refuse to engage with what the New Atheists perceive as the real root of the problem -- namely, religious belief.

Bullshit. Coyne doesn't want the NCSE to pummel religion, he doesn't think their activities should involve religion OR ATHEISM at all. As part of their "outreach", they currently advise people on the proper way to interpret the Bible, fer chrissakes. He regards their stance, which lauds the positive aspects of religion and dismisses unapologetic atheism as strident dyspepsia, as incomplete, unbalanced, and disingenuous. IF they're going to befriend religion, they need to tell the other side of the story, too. The NCSE shouldn't be attacking religion or cooing how swell it is, it should abide by its avowed neutrality and stick to promoting science -- which is a world apart from Mooney's horseshit claim Coyne wants it repurposed as an atheist attack dog.

I'm really getting sick of this guy's natterings.

[moggie]

10. And the Dawkins book will reach more people than the M&K book

In fact - heh heh - it's already selling better on Amazon, before it's even published! (The Greatest Show on Earth: sales rank #700; Unscientific America: sales rank #1523). And it's not hard to find people who have been persuaded of the truth of evolution by Dawkins' earlier writing on the subject, so why dismiss this book before it's even published?

Mooney's had his fifteen minutes of fame, thanks to The Republican War on Science, but he's becoming a joke. Since he apparently knows best how to communicate science to the religious better than all those meeeean atheists, why doesn't he write the definitive epiphany-causing guide to evolution, and show the world how it's done? So far, this master framer is doing a remarkably inept job of communicating with anyone who doesn't already share his point of view.

[trotsky]

3. *yawn*

Just more "New Atheist" bashing. Pull the old tattered strawman out of the barn and beat it up some more, to the delight of Christians everywhere, from the science-accepting to the science-hating.

[Silent3]

4. Atheists speaking their minds vs. playing a strategic PR game...

...is a lot of what's at issue here, as well as whether speaking clearly negative views of religion, as abrasive and possibly counterproductive as it might sometimes seem in the short term, has long term strategic value in producing better public understanding and acceptance of science.

Science is clearly at odds with Biblical literalism, as well as other religious and spiritual beliefs which run directly into conflict with good scientific evidence.

I also think, however, that it's a very important part of a scientific approach to the world to simply say "I don't know" when you get as far as evidence and sound reasoning will take you, to not use our scientific ignorance as a "free zone" filled in by emotionally-motivated speculation and guesswork treated as lofty Truths.

[Rob H.]

5. Here's PZ Myers' takedown of their piece

Turns out there are some things they said that weren't true, surprise, surprise.

The Mooney/Kirshenbaum crusade flops again

Excerpt:

But then, these guys don't understand anything.

Long under fire from the religious right, the (National Center for Science Education) now must protect its other flank from the New Atheist wing of science. The atheist biologist Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago, for instance, has drawn much attention by assaulting the center's Faith Project, which seeks to spread awareness that between creationism on the one hand and the new atheism on the other lie many more moderate positions.

The NCSE is not under attack from us. I love the NCSE, and think it is a valuable institution; when I give science advocacy talks, I tell people to join the organization. That does not mean, however, that we therefore think that we cannot criticize the NCSE. Eugenie Scott isn't our Pope. We think that they've taken a wrong turn and are plainly speaking out in protest, while (at least in my case) still sending in our membership dues, and encouraging others to donate as well.

Our criticism is that promotion of "moderate positions". The NCSE should not be taking any position on religions at all. Mooney and Kirshenbaum have just berated Dawkins for being openly atheist, claiming that that means no creationist will ever listen to him. Do they think that if the NCSE endorses the Episcopalians and Methodists and Universalists, that that will somehow endear them to the fundamentalists?

[Strong Atheist]

6. Ah. Thanks for the correction. I find things, and post them if they look

interesting. I do not always know about the background...

:blush:


Thanks again!

[trotsky]

9. To call that a takedown is understatement. :)

Myers ends up showing perfectly how their conclusion contradicts their introduction. Hilarious!

[laconicsax]

11. Jerry Coyne's response:

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/mooney-and-kirshenbaum-self-destruct-at-last/

The “new atheists” have been on the scene for exactly five years, beginning with Sam Harris’s The End of Faith, published in 2004. But American’s attitudes to evolution have been relatively unchanged (with 40+% denying it) for twenty-five years. This means two things:

a. American illiteracy about evolutionary biology cannot have been due to criticism of religion by the “new atheists.”

b. The dominant strategy of scientific organizations engaged in fighting creationism over the past twenty-five years has been accommodationism: coddling or refusing to criticize religious people for fear of alienating those of the faithful who support evolution. This has been combined with incessant claims that science and religion are perfectly compatible. This strategy has not worked.

[libguy9560]

12. Science and religion must be kept apart

Period.