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[Phys-L] Re: A Letter to Juliet from Richard Dawkins - part 2

Jack Uretsky would apparently have us believe that no message, no comment is
insulting in itself, that feeling insulted is in the mind of the beholder --
ahem! -- observer. Although there may be elements of truth in this
attitude, it does not stand up under scrutiny. It _is_ possible to disagree
without being derogatory, it is even possible to agree in an insulting
manner. A more germane question here is whether the Dawkins letter is
insulting to theists, or if the insult is only a perceived one. We now have
data that at least one person (R. McDermott) found the message insulting.
Uretsky's comment seems to indicate that he did _not_ find the Dawkins
letter to be insulting to theists, or at least not more insulting than
appropriate when dealing with such individuals. At least the implication is
McDermott only felt insulted because of personal (and presumably invalid)
reasons. Uretsky neatly avoids the question of whether or not an unbiased
observer would find the message insulting.

In Brian Whatcott's two-part message sharing this letter with the forum, I
see no source attributions, perhaps he would be kind enough to provide a
reference to the source? Is this a genuine Dawkins' letter? Is it private
correspondence or has it been published? I did a google search and found a
number of undated copies identical to Whatcott's post. I could keep
looking, but the individual bringing the topic to us in the Forum for
Physics Educators may have the answer at his fingertips, so I'll defer to
him on this.

If it's genuine private correspondence, a "bosom of the family letter", so
to speak, then the situation seems a little different to me than if this is
a published essay. Yes, the letter seems somewhat disparaging to me, too,
I'll have to side with R. McDermott on this one.[*] But in a private letter
from father to daughter a man shouldn't have to watch his words so closely.
If it is a published work, then I guess I would consider it a bit over the
line. Some anti-theists bring to their atheism an amazingly religious-like
fervor! Dawkins is of course a popular spokesperson (almost a crusader)
against Intelligent Design, so I would not be surprised to learn that this
actually is a published work, but it is not among his most logical
constructions, containing many blanket unsupported statements, as R.
McDermott has pointed out.

Moses Fayngold's response in this thread poses the question:

"Why is it OK to question any scientific issue, including the moral status
of science itself, but it is not OK to question anything about religion?
Why should such questions be offensive? Is it not precisely because a
feeling that such questions cannot be answered within the framework of any
religious system?"

I would submit that such questions indeed need not be offensive. Some will
take offense at any statements contrary to their own opinions or beliefs,
but that can't be helped. We can, however, make a genuine effort to present
our own conclusions in a non-disparaging way. In the letter, Dawkins
dismally fails at this, if in fact he tries.

What I tell my students is that science provides successively better models
to explain the universe and to predict results. If the model fails, we look
for a better one. At _no_ stage do we have a guarantee of Truth. But we
certainly won't stop using a theory that has good predictive value -- until
we come up with a better one. As a side note, the derogatory connotations
some people place on the word "theory" are simply not justified at all.

So my response to Moses Fayngold is that it is perfectly OK to question the
consistency and validity of different religions, it is also OK to question
the consistency and validity of the materialistic world-view many scientists
profess, although physics itself no longer lends much weight to the
determinism. The point we need to be sensitive about is that when belief
systems are challenged, people may feel threatened even if that is not the
intent. This is not a one-sided situation, only applying to non-scientists!
As humans, we need a cognitive structure in which to anchor new data, new
ideas, new experiences, new models. If too much changes at once, we feel
cut adrift. Even those "open to new ideas" can be asked to swallow too much
at once. Particularly where science ends and metaphysics begins, it is well
to keep the discussion on a non-antagonistic level.

It really shouldn't be a case of "us against them". I applaud conversations
that cause us to reexamine our assumptions in a non-derogatory way.

Ken Caviness
Physics
Southern Adventist University

[ * Some will choose to ignore my opinion on the question, since I am also a
theist. But remember, overgeneralization is bad. ;-) ]

-----Original Message-----
From: Forum for Physics Educators [mailto:PHYS-L@list1.ucc.nau.edu] On
Behalf Of Jack Uretsky
Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2005 3:43 PM
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
Subject: Re: A Letter to Juliet from Richard Dawkins - part 2

Dear R. McDermott:
Feeling insulted is a choice. Need I say more.
Regards,
Jack


On Sun, 11 Dec 2005, R. McDermott wrote:

How nice; a long, apparently reasonable message from Richard Dawkins that
goes out of its way to insult religion of all kinds. Especially
appropriate
here in a physics forum during the holiest time of the Judeo-Christian
year!
No doubt this appealed to you because you see religious people as enemies
of
science? A Wonderful self-fulfilling prophecy, since that attitude will
ensure the outcome. Richard makes his personal opinions clear, and makes
a
few errors as well:

"Scientists - the specialists in discovering what is true".

Really? What is "true". I always thought we determined what was untrue.

"First, tradition. A few months ago, I went on television to have a
discussion with about fifty children. These children were invited because
they had been brought up in lots of different religions. Some had been
brought up as Christians, others as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or Sikhs. The
man
with the microphone went from child to child, asking them what they
believed. What they said shows up exactly what I mean by "tradition."
Their
beliefs turned out to have no connection with evidence. They just trotted
out the beliefs of their parents and
grandparents which, in turn, were not based upon evidence either."

I suspect that one could argue about the nature of "evidence" here and
whether the believer had to personally experience the "evidence".
Certainly
Richard is not the arbiter of what is "evidence".

"Of course, since they all believed different things, they couldn't all be
right."

Not in every detail, of course, and some beliefs are clearly
contradictory,
but that does not preclude the possibility that one or more are
essentially
correct.

"Traditional beliefs often start from almost nothing; perhaps somebody
just
makes them up originally, like
the stories about Thor and Zeus."

By all means, let's imply that all religious beliefs are "made up".

"Most people in England have been baptized into the Church of England, but
this is only one of the branches of the Christian religion. There are
other
branches such as Russian Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, and
the Methodist churches. They all believe different things."

Not fundamentally they don't.

" The Jewish religion and the Muslim religion are a bit more different
still; and there are different kinds of Jews and of Muslims. People who
believe even slightly different things from each other go to war over
their
disagreements. So you might think that they must have some pretty good
reasons - evidence - for believing what they believe. But actually, their
different beliefs are entirely due to different traditions."

And Richard, the world famous religious expert knows this - how? Oh, it
must be "faith"..

"Of course, even in science, sometimes we haven't seen the evidence
ourselves and we have to take somebody else's word for it. I haven't, with
my own eyes, seen the evidence that light travels at a speed of
186,000 miles per second. Instead, I believe books that tell me the speed
of
light. This looks like "authority."

Why yes, Richard, it does indeed. But Richard has an answer to that
criticism:

"But actually, it is much better than authority, because the people who
wrote the books have seen the evidence and anyone is free to look
carefully
at the evidence whenever they want."

And as we have ALL seen, evidence is ALWAYS unambiguous, unslanted and
scrupulously interpreted. No one has ever fudged the data or written
something that was untrue or exaggerated. And the "writers of books"
ALWAYS
review the evidence (and are knowledgeable enough to understand it), and
CERTAINLY have no personal bias - Just like Richard.

On revelation:

"People sometimes say that you must believe in feelings deep inside,
otherwise, you' d never be confident of things like "My wife loves me."
But
this is a bad argument. There can be plenty of evidence that somebody
loves
you. All through the day when you are with somebody who loves you, you see
and hear lots of little titbits of evidence, and they all add up. It isn't
a
purely inside feeling, like the feeling that priests call revelation.
There
are outside things to back up the inside feeling: looks in the eye, tender
notes in the
voice, little favors and kindnesses; this is all real evidence."

I'm certainly uncomfortable with "revealed knowledge", but the above seems
to apply equally well to religion as there are lots of little pieces of
"evidence" to support this or that belief. And of course I do not have to
appeal to "authority" since it's written down in a book, and we've seen
how
Richard reveres books.

"So, once something gets itself strongly believed - even if it is
completely
untrue and there never was any reason to believe it in the first place -
it
can go on forever. Could this be what has happened with religions? Belief
that there is a god or gods, belief in Heaven, belief that Mary never
died,
belief that Jesus never had a human father, belief that prayers are
answered, belief that wine turns into blood - not one of these beliefs is
backed up by any good evidence."

And, being the sole arbiter of what is good evidence, Richard at a stroke
denounces all religion as "completely untrue".

Whatever Richard's private motives, this diatribe is insulting to anyone
with religious beliefs. I come on here to discuss physics, not to have my
beliefs insulted. That you felt it worthy of posting here, Brian, makes
me
wonder if this forum shouldn't be the "US against THEM" forum. I don't
know
your personal beliefs, nor are they any of my business, but I certainly
would not post something that I KNOW would be insulting to others. Some
time back I posted about my concern that the militant, anti-religious
attitude that some science people demonstrate is responsible for pushing
reasonable religious people into supporting such things as ID or
eliminating
the teaching of evolution. It is still my opinion that ID would be
nothing
more than a footnote in history (if it even surfaced) if some science
people
hadn't gone out of their way to alienate religious people. This posting
goes a long way toward making my point, and I'm sorry you felt it
necessary
to post it here. It would have been better to point to where it could be
found so that the anti-religious people could go there and feel better
reading Richard sticking it to those religious fools. If people who feel
strongly about religion are going to be made to feel unwelcome here, then
that says something about the motivations of this group.


--
"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley
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