Looks like HuffPo lost one of my comments. I still have it, so here it is again:
Jainism? Interesting. (I've never hear of the Water Temple thing.)
Here's one verse from the chief book of the Vedas, Srimad Bhagavatam, Canto 5, Chapter 6, Text 9,. pertaining to the origin of the Jain religion:
"Sukadeva Gosvami continued speaking to Maharaja Pariksit: My dear King, the King of Konka, Venka and Kutaka whose name was Arhat, heard of the activities of Rsabhadeva and, imitating Rsabhadeva's principles, introduced a new system of religion. Taking advantage of Kali-yuga, the age of sinful activity, King Arhat, being bewildered, gave up the Vedic principles, which are free from risk, and concocted a new system of religion opposed to the Vedas. That was the beginning of the Jain dharma. Many other so-called religions followed this atheistic system."
If all you explore of religion are those invented by fallible human beings, while avoiding the teachings of the monotheistic Vedic traditions, which eternally emanate from the Personality of Godhead, then I don't see how you can make any "factual claims about the nature of religion."
The verse and purport that follow the one I quoted above pertain to the Jain religion and are entertaining, so I'll add that too:
"People who are lowest among men and bewildered by the illusory energy of the Supreme Lord will give up the original varnasrama-dharma and its rules and regulations. They will abandon bathing three times daily and worshiping the Lord. Abandoning cleanliness and neglecting the Supreme Lord, they will accept nonsensical principles. Not regularly bathing or washing their mouths regularly, they will always remain unclean, and they will pluck out their hair. Following a concocted religion, they will flourish. During this age of Kali, people are more inclined to irreligious systems. Consequently these people will naturally deride Vedic authority, the followers of Vedic authority, the brahmanas, the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the devotees."
PURPORT
"Presently [the early 1970s] the hippies in the Western countries fit this description. They are irresponsible and unregulated. They do not bathe, and they deride standard Vedic knowledge. They concoct new life-styles and religions. There are many hippie groups at the present moment, but they all originated from King Arhat, who imitated the activities of Lord Rsabhadeva, who was situated on the paramahamsa stage. King Arhat did not care for the fact that although Lord Rsabhadeva acted like a madman, His stool and urine were nonetheless aromatic, so much so that they nicely scented the countryside for miles around. The followers of King Arhat went under the name Jains, and they were later followed by many others, particularly by the hippies, who are more or less offshoots of Mayavada philosophy because they think themselves the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Such people do not respect the real followers of Vedic principles, the ideal brahmanas. Nor do they have respect for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Supreme Brahman. Due to the influence of this age of Kali, they are apt to concoct false religious systems. "
Before posting this I wanted to find out if the popular understanding of Jainism is atheistic. This statement (and others) from Wikipedia confirms that it is:
:"Jains do not believe in an omnipotent supreme being..."
I don't see how your research could be considered bona fide if you accept a manmade atheistic philosophy as religion. It is no surprise considering that the Vedas state that in this sinful age religion will be considered irreligion; and irreligion, religion.
Also of note is this statement from the Wikipedia article on Jainism:
"Traditionally, in our universe and in our time, Lord Rishabha is regarded as the first to realize the truth." That would be the same Rishabhadev described in Srimad Bhagavatam, quoted above. I presume this would lend credibilty to the Bhagavatam version for those who do not know to accept it as the final authority.
Sacred texts such as the Bible say so many things that almost any position can be supported by selecting the right passages. So it is with scientific hypotheses. In Stealth III, I listed six plausible scientific hypotheses about the nature of religion. If we are allowed to pick and choose among them, we can support almost any position. If we regard religion as destructive, we can call it a delusion or like the flame that fatally attracts the moth. If we admire religion, we can call it a group-level adaptation that in its purest form promotes universal brotherhood.
Science hasn't made real progress until it tests among the hypotheses, enabling us to accept some and reject others. Only then can we make factual claims about the nature of religion, leading to practical decisions on the basis of those claims. In Stealth IV, I asserted that the scientific study of religion has advanced to the point where we can make factual claims about the nature of religion. Even though evolution is a messy process and all of the major hypotheses might have a degree of relevance, most enduring religions enable religious groups to function as corporate units, or superorganisms, to use a more flamboyant term. In this respect, religious groups are much like other groups, such as governments and business corporations, whose collective purpose is more obvious. Why some groups become organized by religion and others by cultural systems that we call secular is a great question, but it can only be addressed after we accept the factual claim that religious groups do function as corporate units, in contrast to the radically different conceptions of religions suggested by the other major hypotheses.
That's where I part company with the new atheists. I claim that science has made progress and that we can use our factual knowledge to address the problems associated with religion, such as why people believe weird things (to borrow the title of Michael Shermer's book) and why cooperation within groups is often (but not always) accompanied by conflict among groups. Much remains to be discovered, and studying religion from an evolutionary perspective is an especially nascent enterprise, but we can do much better than pick and choose among hypotheses to support our preconceived notions about religion.
In contrast, the authors associated with the new atheism movement begin with a deep antipathy toward religion and select their examples from the text of science like so many parables from the Bible. Not only do they ignore, misrepresent, and selectively report the facts of religion, but their practical recommendations for solving the problems associated with religion are ineffective, silly, and worse.
Ineffective. Daniel Dennett is a world-renown philosopher who also writes about the big questions for a general audience. With Darwin's Dangerous Idea, he became a major interpreter of evolutionary theory and its philosophical implications. I value Dennett as a colleague and intellectual sparring partner and hope that my disagreement with him on the subject of religion does not damage our relationship. As David Hume said and the evolutionist/philosopher Massimo Pigluicci reminds us at the top of his blog, "truth springs from argument among friends." Dennett's book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon is notable for the degree to which he treats the scientific study of religion as a task for the future, as if no firm conclusions can be drawn on the basis of current knowledge. This stance gives him maximum elbowroom to interpret religion as primarily a delusion (as implied by the title), like the parasitic worm that commandeers ants by burrowing into their brains (the first example of the book). I have critiqued Breaking the Spell in detail elsewhere. For the purpose of this blog, I want to focus on the solutions that Dennett offers on the basis of his analysis of religion. His primary recommendation is universal religious education. If only religious believers could be introduced to the full panoply of religious belief, they would become less deluded about their own. I doubt that this policy would have a meaningful impact on the worldwide problems associated with religion. In America, for example, fundamentalist religions are immersed in a larger cultural milieu teeming with "memes" from secular life and other religions. Like a cell maintaining osmotic pressure, a given religion is designed to pump out contrary memes and maintain an internal environment containing the appropriate memes. Elsewhere in the world, does Dennett really believe that we'll solve the problems of the Middle East (for example) by teaching the Palestinians about Judaism and the Israelis about Islam? His policy recommendation might be well-meaning, but it is likely to be ineffective.
Silly. Richard Dawkins is a hero around the world as a champion of rational thought. His website is subtitled "a clear-thinking oasis." Thousands of people have been turned on to evolutionary theory through his many books. I recommend The Blind Watchmaker as a good tutorial and I even admire the gene's eye view of evolution, as long as it isn't taken as an argument against group selection. However, a funny thing happened to Dawkins on his way to becoming a public icon. He no longer regards himself as scientifically accountable for what he says, especially on the subject of religion. Part of the problem is that he has crawled so far out on a limb with respect to group selection and the impossibility of explaining widespread human cooperation from a Darwinian perspective, that the only way to get him down might be to saw off the limb. In this blog, I want to focus on the solutions that Dawkins offers on the basis of his analysis of religion. For example, he regards religious education as a form of child abuse, which will require setting up a vast foster care system staffed by rationalists. In his essay titled "Atheists for Jesus", he offers as his best solution a slogan with the oxymoronic power to "lead society away from the nether regions of its Darwinian origins into kinder and more compassionate uplands of post-singularity enlightenment." It is unclear whether Dawkins intends these suggestions to be taken seriously, but either way they are just plain silly.
Worse. Whenever Christopher Hitchens and his book God is Not Great are mentioned in the comments to my Stealth blogs, it is usually to say "Why should anyone take him seriously?" As a great provocateur, he will do anything to get a reaction--trashing God on Sunday, Bill Clinton on Monday, bikini-waxing his naughty bits on Tuesday, inviting journalists to have a feel during the National Book Award Ceremonies on Wednesday, and so on. Nevertheless, even a provocateur must play by certain rules. If he doesn't speak the truth, then his barbs have no sting and he isn't worth the time of day. In this blog, I am most concerned with the solutions that Hitchens offers on the basis of his analysis of religion. At the very least, we should expect the new atheists to avoid the kind of between-group conflict that Dennett blames on religious believers when they fight over "who has the best imaginary friend." Yet, in an article titled "The Genocidal Imagination of Christopher Hitchens", Richard Seymour documents statements such as this one:
We can't live on the same planet as them and I'm glad because I don't want to. I don't want to breathe the same air as these psychopaths and murders [sic] and rapists and torturers and child abusers. It's them or me. I'm very happy about this because I know it will be them. It's a duty and a responsibility to defeat them. But it's also a pleasure. I don't regard it as a grim task at all.
Who needs religious fundamentalists when we have Christopher Hitchens? Few atheists and rationalists would agree with him on this point--certainly not Dan Dennett, who e-mailed me that he finds Hitchens' views "very troubling indeed." Yet, this only underscores the larger problem that I am trying to identify with my Stealth blogs. Something has gone terribly wrong with popular intellectual discourse on religion. A few authors have occupied center stage, claiming to base their analysis on science and rational thought, when in fact their views are detached from the serious scientific study of religion and their practical recommendations are ineffective, silly, and worse.
In the final installment of the Stealth series, I will show how popular intellectual discourse on religion can become more enlightening and even more entertaining when anchored more firmly in the serious scientific study of religion.
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I have to admit that I have reacted somewhat strongly to this series of articles. And I think I know why - it's because you have started every article with the title, "Atheism as a Stealth Religion, ..." This bothers me for three reasons:
First, it indicates a sloppy use of language. It implies you are about to say something about atheism in general, but then you devote the rest of your article to attacking just FOUR strongly opinionated authors - Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and Harris. You are conflating ALL of atheism with a small subset dubbed the "New Atheists". Would you want someone to title an article, "All Evolutionary Biologists Are Insane", then devote the essay to attacking Richard Dawkins? If you have a beef with Richard Dawkins, how about this for a title, "Richard Dawkins is Just Plain Wrong".
Second, it implies that atheism represents a movement or organization of some kind. In point of fact, atheism is an IDEA - "I do not believe in god". Period. Is there an Atheism Society somewhere? Do they hold meetings, deliberate over doctrine, sing songs, perform rituals, and plan rallies? No. Atheists are not organized. Atheism is an idea, plain and simple - what individual atheists do with that idea (write books, post on Huffpo, etc) is entirely up to them. And even if we amend your title to, "The New Atheists as a Stealth Religion, ...", you still have far to go to indicate that these four authors have a meaningful following, or that they even collaborate in any way. What are the roles of these authors in the group? Do they work together - or did they arrive at their conclusions on their own? (I know, I've seen the "Four Horsemen" video - but there is probably also a video of 4 Harry Potter enthusiasts sitting around a table somewhere discussing the finer points of those books - not much of a religion.)
Third, there is this attempt to define religion as a superorganism. So let's follow this logically : You claim atheism is a member of the set "religion" (stealth or otherwise). Religion is a subset of the set "superorganism". Therefore, atheism is a superorganism. Wha? As I pointed out in the previous paragraph, atheism is not a movement - atheists are not organized, they do not generally work together toward some common goal. What are the roles of individual atheists in the "movement"? What are the goals or desired outcomes for the Body Atheism? What traits or behaviors does atheism possess to help it thrive and grow, like an organism would?
Referring to atheism as a religion is simply meant to be provocative. It's an attempt to anger atheists (by labelling them as the thing they most despise) or to confuse the argument (by implying that they are no different from their opponents). What's weird is that it is a tactic most often used by THEISTS. For a self-described atheist to take this tack is odd indeed.
This is a reposting of my earlier reply to Wondering, which briefly appeared before mysteriously evaporating.
On movements: The Ayn Rand movement was commonly called a movement. It had an inner circle that ironically called itself "the collective" and still has a large following. Humanism is a movement and many humanists wish it was more effective. These are versions of atheism that qualify as movements. A movement is a collective effort by a group of people to achieve a goal. Religion as a whole is not a movement. There are many religious movements and elements of religion that do not count as movements. The same can be said of atheism. I just don't understand why you object to the word "movement" or the fact that the "Brights" was intended as a movement.
Something I have noticed about this and other comments is that atheists are often idealized as like the Marlboro Man, riding tall in his own saddle. The mere suggestion that atheists might band together to form a movement is treated as repugnant. If this was true, then atheism would be a profound failure. There SHOULD be an atheistic movement. It should be based on science and reason, and it should lead to coordinated action to solve the problems of modern life. If atheism can't do this, it isn't worth wanting.
For those who dislike my terms "stealth religion" and "superorganism," let me put it this way: "Atheism" is not necessarily the same as "science and reason." There are versions of atheism that are as distorted and purpose-driven as any religion. We need to be vigilant against some versions of atheism, no less than some versions of religion. And most enduring religions are designed to promote cooperation and coordination among their members.
Aargh! These cruel Huffpo gods - how they do vex us! Comments disappear, then reappear, like the Great Oz working his magic behind the curtain. Will they allow me to re-post my response which followed your original posting of this comment? I will try, but I will also pray (and sacrifice a goat).
Some thoughts :
Ayn Rand represented a cult of personality - equating atheists with the followers of Rand is like equating atheism with communism (a favorite tactic of True Believers).
Humanism is a philosophy quite different from atheism. Although the two are often linked, neither is necessary for the other. In fact, Wikipedia carries this under the definition of humanism : "Humanism clearly rejects deference to supernatural beliefs in resolving human affairs but not necessarily the beliefs themselves; indeed some strains of Humanism are compatible with some religions. It is generally compatible with atheism and agnosticism but doesn't require either of these." Now I'm no fan of using Wikipedia as a primary source, but most definitions say about the same thing. And yes, there are humanist societies.
The Brights are a more interesting case. I must admit that the fact that some people self-identify as Brights makes me a little queasy. But here's where I think the Brights might escape your hypothesis : the Brights take great pains to emphasize that no individual member speaks for the group when they present their own ideas. Thus taking issue with the writings of Dawkins or Dennett would still seem to imply that one should not tar all Brights (let alone all atheists) with the same brush. (Addendum: If the Brights stick to their founding principles, then all they seem to be saying is, "We are people who reject supernatural explanations". Period. The implication being that any attempt to understand atheism is welcome, but that the other Brights need not adopt that idea or be defined by it. If someone thinks atheism is a stealth religion, or a mutation, or whatever - all of these ideas are welcome so long as it is understood that those ideas are unique to the individual and not a position adopted by the group. Am I right? Or am I being too pollyannish?)
I don't want to seem like too much of a gadfly - I do like your approach in general. Any light that can be shined on these issues is more than welcome. I just think that labeling atheism as "stealth" or a "religion" is to use words that carry a negative connotation.
"Referring to atheism as a religion is simply meant to be provocative."
People call religion a belief. Atheism is also a belief. One is a positive belief, the other a negative belief about the same thing.
Personally I would be more inclined to call atheism irreligion.
I don't believe that a non-belief of a belief is therefor a negative belief, or the flip-side of the original belief, believe me.
Bravo ! Bravo! Wondering, (I'm sorry I wondering, belief I inadvertant adressed this to Heeven, the first time I posted it.)
And it does nodda, nothing to support a greater scientific paradigm, with all due respect to professor Wilson, because it creates a serious distraction from the science it self. Bad metaphor and analogy for conceptual understanding to build a new paradigm on.
Hey Dap!
Yeah, I saw that, but it didn't matter. (Thanks for the compliment, tho.) Now for the most important question of all :
How did you manage it? HOW DID YOU EDIT YOUR OLD COMMENT?
What divine powers allow you to edit mistakes? Oh, to remove blunders! Please explain, or I will have to assume that the supernatural really DOES exist.
Damn, my mischievous side wants to mess with your head on this one, but the truth is the Huffington post system is having some type of glich, so it wipped my first comment, as it has done with a response professor Wilson wrote to you.
I just re-posted and put in the remark when I did. Darn I could of had a lot of fun with this. Agape.
Now, What happened to Dr. Wilson's eloquent response to wondering's comment? WTF?
Indeed! I wrote a nice response that briefly appeared. Where did it go, HuffPost????
Maybe this is a bit anal retentive but...
The sentence, or part there of: "If you have a beef with Richard Dawkins" I ascribed or connect to Heeven, writing.
It was driving me crazy, as to why I address the comment to the wrong person.
This may be a good example of how long and short term memory affect our thought processes, and store things in our schemata?
Well, let's see. The Ayn Rand movement is commonly called a movement. It had a name, an inner circle ironically called "the collective" and still has a large following. Humanism is called a movement and many humanists would like it to be more effective than it usually is. So there is ample precedent for calling VARIOUS VERSIONS of atheism a movement. A movement is a coordinated effort to achieve a given goal. All of religion is not a movement. There are many religious movements and elements of religion that don't count as movements. The same goes for atheism. The Bright movement was an attempt to mount a coordinated effort to achieve a given goal. i just don't understand why you should object to the word movement.
In this and numerous other comments, there seems to be an ideal of the atheist as like the Marlboro Man, riding tall in his own saddle. The mere suggestion that atheists might actually come to a consensus on something and then try to achieve a common goal based on the consensus is treated as repugnant. if this was true, then it would represent a profound failure of atheism. There SHOULD be an atheism movement. It should be based on factual knowledge derived by science and reason, and it should lead to coordinated action to solve real-world problems. If atheism can't do this, it isn't worth wanting.
For those who object to my terms "stealth religion" and "superorganism," I can put it this way: "Atheism" doesn't necessarily equal "science and reason." There are versions of atheism that are as distorted and purpose-driven as any religion. Atheists who value science and reason need to be appropriately critical of some versions of atheism for the same reason that they criticize religion. And most enduring religions are designed to promote cooperation and coordination among their members.
Some thoughts :
Ayn Rand represented a cult of personality - equating atheists with the followers of Rand is like equating atheism with communism (a favorite tactic of True Believers).
Humanism is a philosophy quite different from atheism. Although the two are often linked, neither is necessary for the other. In fact, Wikipedia carries this under the definition of humanism : "Humanism clearly rejects deference to supernatural beliefs in resolving human affairs but not necessarily the beliefs themselves; indeed some strains of Humanism are compatible with some religions. It is generally compatible with atheism and agnosticism but doesn't require either of these." Now I'm no fan of using Wikipee as a prime source, but most definitions say about the same thing. And yes, there are humanist societies.
The Brights are a more interesting case. I must admit that the fact that some people self-describe as Brights makes me a little queasy. But here's where I think the Brights might escape your hypothesis : the Brights take great pains to emphasize that no individual member speaks for the group when they present their own ideas. Thus taking issue with the writings of Dawkins or Dennett would still seem to imply that one should not tar all Brights (let alone all atheists) with the same brush.
I don't want to seem like too much of a gadfly - I do like your approach in general. Any light that can be shined on these issues is more than welcome. I just think that labeling atheism as "stealth" or a "religion" is to use words that carry a negative connotation.
Bravo ! Bravo! Heeven...
And it does nodda, nothing to support a greater scientific paradigm, with all due respect to professor Wilson, because it creates a serious distraction from the science it self. Bad metaphor and analogy for conceptual understanding to build a new paradigm on.
Dr. Wilson,
I found time this morning to read your article in this months Skeptic mag. (i get the print version). That was a very interesting piece, and I think I'm beginning to understand some of your work. I'm having trouble understanding the finer points of within group selection and between group selection, and why one or the other has been discarded (or not). I have to read things a few times to get stuff through my head. I'll read your books as well.
Anyway, I wanted to thank you for the book tip in that article. "War and Peace and War" looks fascinating and is right up my alley, as it dovetails with so much I've read in the last year or three. I just ordered it. My pile it getting huge, I'm going to need to stay away from HuffPo to make progress. I hope your blog here continues even after this series.
Happy to oblige! Part of my role as blogger is to act as a conduit of information and it's a pleasure see readers following up on my suggestions. At some point there should be a contest to see who has the largest pile of books in waiting :)
Hi, HeevenSteven, I"m following your advice to continue the conversation up here where the indentation effect is less off-putting. Before I go on, can I just butt in to say I"ve found Peter Turchin"s War and Peace and War really fascinating, especially when read in conjunction with David"s work. Wish I could find the time to read it properly cover to cover.
Down below, HeevenSteven, you asked:
"But is it not arrogant as well of these people who knock on our doors to tell us what's best for us? Should we just see these people as pathetic and misguded, that they need to believe unsupportable tripe to give their lives meaning; or is it wiser in the long run for us to politely discuss with them what WE think? Is it not superior of us to think we're right without letting them in on the 'secret'."
Just briefly (because I"m going to have to retire from the discussion and get back to my studies before I fail something!), I think it comes down to the find art of balancing priorities. I"d like to take a leaf from the doctor"s dictum and try to make my pre-eminent principle that of "do no harm". In the case of my Jehovah"s Witness visitor this means giving lesser priority to my own sense of trampled autonomy, because I can"t be sure my attempt to help her see the irrationality of her beliefs will in fact help her, assuming I could actually persuade her anyway.
Dap, can I respond to you here at the same time about the Dor and Jablonka article. IMHO the broad theoretical import is as valid as ever. The enormous rift between formalist and functional approaches in linguistics remains very wide it seems, and so Dor and Jablonka"s call to use new (multi-level/ multiple) perspectives in evolutionary theory to make sense of the data accumulated on both sides of the divide remains highly relevant.
I"m sorry I won"t be able to dip my toe in again for a while, but thanks very much for the discussion.
Dear whitecap,
Once again thanks for the discourse, and in-put
Agape.
Dear HeevenSteve,
Thanks for the kind words below. Remember back when you used to say what a hard "read" I was? Maybe I've had some improvement over the years now. But make no mistake, I still struggle with my dyslexia, it took me some time to write that, and damn it, I still made a few mistakes. Agape.
Hey, I just found a really interesting looking book you've probably seen and even read: Blank Slate, by Steven Pinker. Looks like my pile's never going to shrink.
Hello SadSong,
I've given up worrying about mistakes. Editing has always been such a bore for me, and once a mistake is made I can read it 10 times and not find it because I think I'm reading what I want to say even when the words aren't there. Cognitive science; eh.
Hi again HeevenSteven, reading my own comment back now, I'm afraid they come across as fatuous unless I add that I don't for a minute think that resolution of these issues is simple at the inter-group level. At the level of the secular state, one of it's cornerstones and ultimate priorities is of course the protection of personal autonomy in religious and political belief. I found David's thoughts on related issues in the chapter "The Social Intelligence of Nations, or, Evil Aliens Need Not Apply" in his book "Evolution for Everyone" very interesting.
Thanks Whitecap. I have lots of reading to do. I understand the do no harm thing, and yes none of this is simple.
One more thing, just in case you do return here; If I were to read one overview on the science of linguistics, what would you recommend. I'm completely ignorant here. I got interested when I read books by Spencer Wells, and Nicholas Wade about using DNA and linguistic evidence to trace human migration out of Africa. I also have J.P. Mallory's "In Search of The Indo-Europeans." in my pile.
Whwn I left here last night, after an hour gaetting up to speed and crafting a fair sized comment, there were 22 comments with 2 pending; now there are 18 comments with 0 pending, and mine nowhere to be found. Nice series, I'd love to contribute, but guess I'll wait till they iron out all the bugs in the new format.
Huffington post is no longer allowing stealth agnostics to comment. :)
Hey, just be glad the sickly green font disappeared. It was giving me a headache. :)
Dear Professor Wilson,
While I surely appreciate your scientific discipline, I still have a many issues with this approach, especially when dealing with the conflation of "evolutionary processes with regard to religion."
I am of the mind, that you're missing many issues of import, for instance, the aberrant, the capricious, the epidemiological, the geological and other factors just to name a few aspects with regard to religion and other mythologies in humankind's psyche (mind's eye).
Yet, don't get me wrong, I am enjoying your series and learning from it, but I see many loose ends that cannot be put together. But most of all I see no reason for the bashing with regard to how others deal with the "GOD" paradigm, especially when the hypothesis you're promoting deals with *the Darwinian model* which the religious already have quite an aversion to with regard to biological science. I just can't foresee the benefit to a better or more acceptable understanding, even if you should find a way to pull all the ends together.
That's my take on it, yet I'm enjoying the exploration. Agape.
I certainly agree that religion is a HUGE topic, many things rather than a single thing, and a fuzzy set that phases into other categories. Also, everyone should remember that the blog format is extremely constraining. Blogs must be short, and detailed scientific inquiry must be long! As for how others deal with the GOD paradigm, if you check the Evolutionary Religious Studies website (http://evolution.binghamton.edu/religion/), you'll see that I and my colleagues are trying to establish a discipline that is fully inclusive, representing the full diversity of opinion among evolutionists, along with religious scholars and others newly encountering the evolutionary perspective. I'm also happy to talk on cordial terms with religious believers, without trying to hide my own atheism. In all these respects I am a non-basher, but the new atheism movement is a different enterprise, as I have been trying to show in my stealth blogs. Finally, it's great to be tolerant of different opinions, but scientific progress requires rejecting some hypotheses in favor of others. It's not intolerant to say that there is much, much more evidence favoring the group-level adaptation hypothesis than the virulent cultural parasite hypothesis, for example.
Yes. If Prof W. takes issue with the claims of these other authors, then a scientific (or even logical) attack on their claims is entirely permissible. But to simply label their conclusions as "silly" or "ineffective" is no better an argument than the claims he wishes to dismiss. Show that these other authors are WRONG, not silly.
Prof W. has taken acception to my assertion that he is shoe-horning religion into his pet concept of the superorganism. But what compelling evidence makes THAT claim any better than the claims of Dennett or Dawkins? (Perhaps the next article will clear that up.) I will repeat a question I asked below : To better indicate why religions are superorganisms, please list human groups or institutions which are NOT superorganisms? If we cannot, then "superorganism" is just a label for "any group of human beings", which makes calling religions superorganisms nothing special.
Wondering, ol'buddy, I'm thinking this is partly about build a biological paradigm for Prof.W. and of course he is going to view things from that aspect. Plus you know teachers have to be concerned with the way in which they present things, we still have not moved very far from the scopes monkey trial.(?) Hard to figure what are the motives or forces that move human beings actions. Some of this teaching stuff is even the technique of behavior modification.(?)
Posted February 27, 2008 | 05:33 PM (EST)