New Atheism – Whatever it Takes

From here:

For example, Hitchens, a columnist for Vanity Fair and author of the book God Is Not Great, told a capacity crowd at the University of Toronto, “I think religion should be treated with ridicule, hatred and contempt, and I claim that right.” His words were greeted with hoots of approval. Religion is “sinister, dangerous and ridiculous,” Hitchens tells NPR, because it can prompt people to fly airplanes into buildings, and it promotes ignorance. Hitchens sees no reason to sugarcoat his position.

Sounds like hate.

New Atheist Logic Lends Support to ID Movement

For some time now, I have had a fascination with the similarities between the ID movement and the New Atheist (NA) movement.  One thing that is becoming clear is that when the NA’s argue that science has determined God does not exist, it becomes much harder for them to argue that ID is not science.

I myself have long argued that ID is not science.  But I also think science cannot determine whether or not God exists (ie., NA is not science).  So look what happens when one tries to maintain that ID is not science while arguing that science has shown God does not exist.

Minority of Scientists are Atheists

I missed the most significant result from the Pew Research survey:

Scientists, Religion, and Politics

We often hear that, unlike the general public, the majority of scientists are atheists and, in some way, this is supposed to support the notion that science and intelligence lead to atheism.

Yet a recent Pew Research survey shows that scientists are also different from the general public when it comes to their political views.

Sorry folks, I think it would be silly to argue that intelligence, reason, logic, evidence, etc. lead people to choose a political party or political viewpoint. Political viewpoints revolve around the values people hold dear and intelligence, reason, logic, evidence work to support and advance those values, not determine what they should be. So what we have here is something akin to a control on the atheism/scientist statistics. That is, the high percentage of scientists who are atheists may be as significant to the debate about God’s existence as the high percentage of scientists who are Democrats.

It Can’t Happen!

Jerry Coyne writes:

Indeed.  Well, here are two more things that can’t happen, given what we know about modern biology: a human female can’t give birth to offspring unless she is inseminated, and people who are dead for three days don’t come back to life.

It is interesting to note the sense of certainty that Coyne possesses, as if science has delivered the Absolute Truth that the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ “can’t happen.” Of course, long before modern biology was born, common experience (dogma?) have taught us that a human female can’t give birth to offspring unless she is inseminated, and people who are dead for three days don’t come back to life. Christians did not need to wait for modern biology to discover these claims about Jesus were miracle claims. They have always been acknowledged as miracles from the beginning. So it is hard to see the relevance of modern biology when it comes to this question.

More significant, however, is the manner in which Coyne contradicts himself.

The Wisdom of Haldane?

New Atheists are often proud of the fact that their familiarity with theology is so superficial. For example, philosopher Anthony Grayling rationalizes flippant dismissal of theology as follows:

For example, if one concludes on the basis of rational investigation that one’s character and fate are not determined by the arrangement of the planets, stars and galaxies that can be seen from Earth, then one does not waste time comparing classic tropical astrology with sidereal astrology, or either with the Sarjatak system, or any of the three with any other construction placed on the ancient ignorances of our forefathers about the real nature of the heavenly bodies.

Of course, such arrogance comes at a price and that price can be the flaunting of one’s ignorance. For example, Lawrence Krauss kicked off his WSJ defense of New Atheism with a quote that both Coyne and Myers embraced with glee:

My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world. – JBS Haldane

Yet the Haldane quote demonstrates profound theological ignorance.

Fringe views of science

To make the case that science can determine whether or not God exists, Coyne believes that miracles can be part of a science. Yet the majority of scientists and philosophers insist that miracles can never truly be part of science. For example, philosopher Theodore Drange expresses this mainstream position:

It could never be a scientific finding that a miracle occurred, for science is the attempt to understand reality in terms of the laws of nature. To say that a miracle occurred is to abandon the scientific (= naturalistic) perspective on the matter. If a scientist were to end up with such a belief, then it would be incompatible with the scientific point of view. It would be as if to say, “Here is something that could never be naturalistically explained and so it lies outside the domain of science.”

Another way to think of a miracle is that it represents a Gap – something that cannot be explained by natural laws.

Coyne’s willing to include miracles in science

Coyne writes: “In a common error, Giberson confuses the strategic materialism of science with an absolute commitment to a philosophy of materialism. He claims that “if the face of Jesus appeared on Mount Rushmore with God’s name signed underneath, geologists would still have to explain this curious phenomenon as an improbable byproduct of erosion and tectonics.” Nonsense.”

Actually, Giberson has a better handle on science that does Coyne. Lets’s imagine that we wake up tomorrow, turn on the TV, and find reporters from all over the world excitedly showing pictures of Mt. Rushmore which now has a fifth head that appeared sometime during the night – the face of Jesus with God’s name signed underneath. Millions of Christians would see this as a sign from God and when Coyne himself traveled to see it in person, he would fall on his knees.

But what about the role of science?

Science and metaphysical commitments

Jerry Coyne writes, “Scientists do indeed rely on materialistic explanations of nature, but it is important to understand that this is not an a priori philosophical commitment.” Yet this is a rather odd assertion given what Coyne claimed toward the beginning of his article:

A meaningful effort to reconcile science and faith must start by recognizing them as they are actually understood and practiced by human beings. You cannot re-define science so that it includes the supernatural, as Kansas’s board of education did in 2005. Nor can you take “religion” to be the philosophy of liberal theologians, which, frowning on a personal God, is often just a hairsbreadth away from pantheism. (emphasis added)

If we cannot “re-define science” to include the supernatural, it stands to reason that there is indeed an a priori philosophical commitment to materialistic explanations. It does not bode well for Coyne’s case if such a fundamental contradiction is laid out in the very same essay.

Coyne and the nine-hundred-foot-tall Jesus

Prof. Jerry Coyne writes, “Despite Gould’s claims to the contrary, supernatural phenomena are not completely beyond the realm of science. All scientists can think of certain observations that would convince them of the existence of God or supernatural forces.” We’ve already seen that Coyne changes the focus from science and its realm to people who happen to be scientists and their perceptions. So let’s consider the fall-out from this change in focus.