“Must we really entrust the future of biomedical research in the United States to a man who sincerely believes that a scientific understanding of human nature is impossible?”
So Sam Harris asks in the New York Times. Harris’ column has received various replies, including a note from Will Wilson (who points out that Harris’ definition of science means belief in the immaterial renders one unable to study the material), and Alan Jacobs (who notes that the result of Harris’ view would be a religious test for government jobs: Believers would be, by the very fact of their belief, banned from holding office).
Another interesting portion of this attack on Harris, however, is the thinness of the result. I mean, I know Harris hates religion, but his description of why means that there is no intellectual activity outside science. Can theology reach a description of being? No. Philosophy? No. Art? No. If it ain’t science, it ain’t real.
This elevation of science to the sole explanation of everything is a hell of a faith. In every sense.
July 31st, 2009 | 4:12 pm
Joseph, glad someone picked this up. I like Harris. And his pack of black ops following Hume (who I love). I appropriate them. As valid checks on my faith. Against my sometimes lapse to fideism. My bias is that we need hard hitting agnostic and atheist interlocutors. I do, anyway.
I tried hard to grant Harris generous inferences. And still couldn’t find practical value in his criticism. I hold the biggest fault of the piece to be the irony of an alpha wolf from the empiricist pack howling against a scientist, that is, without any factual/empirical data showing evidence of bias so strong as to diminish job performance. I think that would be a valid howl. It was just an ad hom. At the end, I said, “Sam, put up, or shut up.”
But, I otherwise like him.
July 31st, 2009 | 9:36 pm
Joseph,
When will you retire the old grey lady?
August 1st, 2009 | 3:08 am
Theology, philosophy, Art. These things have considerable meaning to the people who are into them. But they are not objective to reality. Like Lazarus Long once said, “One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh.”. It should be clear that these things are a matter of personal preference, nothing more.
August 1st, 2009 | 9:41 am
Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Ampere, Mendel, Maxwell, Kelvin…
This is only a fraction of a list of names extending back through history of those who were both great scientists and deeply religious. A list mostly obscure to those with a naive understanding of science, like Sam Harris and his ilk.
Even if he and they are silly enough to believe his statement (” few things make thinking like a scientist more difficult than religion”), it is an insult to anyone who actually thinks about what they read when they read. Anyone who does so cannot take this intellectual light-weight seriously.
August 1st, 2009 | 2:38 pm
kurt9,
In that case, your philosophy that there even is such a thing as objective reality is just your personal preference.
August 1st, 2009 | 4:48 pm
“These things have considerable meaning to the people who are into them.”
Assuming you know what “things” and “people” are. But you can’t go there, because that’s, well, philosophy (more specifically, metaphysics).
The good thing for folks like us is that we can dismiss your claim by applying it to itself: Your claim–”these things have considerable meaning to the people who are into them”–is a thing that has considerable meaning to the person who is into it, namely, you. So, now you are trapped in an appalling loop of self-refutation whose only escape is through a Greek corridor that leads to an empty tomb that once held a crucified God who now lives.
August 1st, 2009 | 5:38 pm
Michael,
The issue is testability. Science is objective because its theories can be tested and falsified.
In any case, art, philosophy, and religion serve a different purpose than to describe objective reality. These are really a kind of art that exists to satisfy the well-being of those who are into these things. I have always said that religion is like arts. Some people simply cannot live without it. Others don’t need it at all.
As Lazarus Long would say, “One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh”.
August 1st, 2009 | 7:43 pm
Kurt,
The problem with your thesis is that you assume only the scientific method can give objective truth; but that idea is itself scientifically untestable and is a philosophical assumption. Science itself depends on philosophy and could not exist without it.
The difference between science and religion/philosophy is not that science deals with objective truth and religion with happy feelings — I believe in Christianity because I believe its claims are objectively true, not because they make me feel good — no, the difference is that science is limited to a particular content (the material universe) and a particular method (the scientific method.) Religion and philosophy deal with different content and use different methods of discovering truth, but their factual conclusions are intended to be no less objectively true.
Diversity in conclusions among various people is not evidence against these methods, either. As for Mr. Long, just because some men may laugh at another’s philosophy is no more evidence against philosophy than the fact that some men may laugh at other’s science is evidence against science.
August 1st, 2009 | 10:57 pm
Kurt9: Whatever you may think, no one can understand human nature without knowing something about art, religion, philosophy, and their ilk. They are part of human nature, not just “things people are into,” and can’t be tested by scientific means. And they were considered paramount for most of recorded history in all human cultures — while science is a newcomer, best used by educated people to “do stuff.” If you’re into that sort of thing.
August 3rd, 2009 | 12:28 am
I believe in Christianity because I believe its claims are objectively true
I see no reason to believe this. Every religion can claim that its version of the truth is the real thing. Each of these claims is equally legitimate.
Whatever you may think, no one can understand human nature without knowing something about art, religion, philosophy, and their ilk.
My experience is that sociobiology is the most useful means to understanding human nature.
August 3rd, 2009 | 10:25 am
Kurt9, do you have a conscience? Prove it to me. I don’t mean “explain it sociobiologically,” I mean, “convince me of the reality of this immaterial thing called your conscience.”
If you cannot, why should I waste my time presenting evidence to a jury which may lack a conscience?
The point here is not to score a stunning rhetorical blow against you in a combox, which I doubt I have done, but to suggest to you that there are indeed mmaterial things which science cannot measure that nevertheless are part of our normal human experience.
August 3rd, 2009 | 2:14 pm
…but to suggest to you that there are indeed mmaterial things which science cannot measure that nevertheless are part of our normal human experience.
Of course this is true. However, these are matters purely of personal preference.
I like to hang out on tropical beaches. Can science explain why I like to do this and others do not? Of course not. However, it doesn’t matter because I don’t try to make those who do not like to hang out on tropical beaches hang out of them with me and the people who are not into S.E. Asia beach travel do not try to keep me from doing so myself.
However, I do believe, based on personal experience, that socio-biology can explain much of human behavior and, especially, interpersonal relationships. The fact that Roissy’s “Game” works so well, even in cases where all of the participants know full well that Game is being played, makes it very clear to me that sociobiology is the best intellectual tool for understanding the nature of interpersonal relationships.
August 3rd, 2009 | 2:20 pm
I think the real debate here is not whether science can provide a sum-all explanation of all of human experience. Clearly this is not the case. The real debate is if any non-scientific explanation or model can be used as an objective standard like science. Obviously the answer is no.
August 3rd, 2009 | 6:05 pm
However, these are matters purely of personal preference.
Surely you cannot mean this seriously. Do you mean to say that you merely “prefer” to have a conscience? That tomorrow your taste might change? Sorry, that is the way a madman talks, and I’m willing to bet you are not insane.
Please review Aristotle. He can show you the way out. I believe Frank Beckwith mentioned this above. Good luck!
August 3rd, 2009 | 8:23 pm
Kurt9,
“My experience is that sociobiology is the most useful means to understanding human nature.”
Surely, you don’t mean this (although, you may) at the level that its methodological naturalism is axiomatic, that is, in part taken on faith, however different from non-transferable, non-falsifiable religious faith.
And if you hail sociobiology as more “useful” than the sortie of other sciences using metrics and empirical data to “understand” human nature, then it’s a simple preference statement that you’re making.
Since there’s nothing yet in sociobiology that remotely resembles a body of Newtonian accumulated and confirmed “understandings” (to state the obvious), nor yet enough of a body of coherent findings for sociobiology to establish even a presumption of credibility for founding laws, nor for expert witnesses in court testimony, nor for such things as medical etiologies and pathologies – which disciplines “understand” human nature. And which, with economics, sociology, and empirical psychology cross the borders from science into applied and clinical “understandings” of human nature – really, all of which have more established taxa and accumulated bodies of data than sociobiology for “understanding.” So far.
I agree with your sentiment as an aspiration. But, it’s boosterism. The state of the science, well, isn’t quite a state. Yet.
Your rejection of religion as failing inter-subjective tests is a bit premature in an age which will see the next several generations of scientists undertaking the most rigorous and relentless empirical studies of religious experience ever known.
Sociobiology along with neuroscience will likely establish a respectable core of empirical data in these next generations.
But, it’s simply too early to rule in or out the extent to which religious experience will pass or fail inter-subjective tests for passing knowledge.
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