I just read Ricky Gervais' op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Why I'm an Atheist. It's well written, and it's nice in a lot of ways. I couldn't help agreeing with a lot of things he says. Gervais doesn't have the mesoraphobia and political ambitions of Dawkins' New Atheist crew. However, when Gervais starts talking about science and religion, he shows some naivete, in my arrogant opinion. So here's a platonic dialogue, where Gervais' lines are taken from the op-ed itself.
Ricky: Science seeks the truth. And it does not discriminate. For better or worse it finds things out.
Daniel: What do you mean, "science doesn't discriminate"? Do you mean that science isn't biased? Come on. Lots of scientists are biased. The scientific community has no shortage of biases.
Ricky: Science is humble.
Daniel: Oh, come on. I'm sure the scientific community could be more arrogant than it is, and of course many scientists are humble, but on the whole, the scientific community is not humble.
Ricky: It knows what it knows and it knows what it doesn’t know.
Daniel: Does it? Did 18th century science know what it didn't know? Scientists who think they know what they don't know are arrogant indeed.
Ricky: Whatever you “believe,” this is not as effective as medicine.
Daniel: What is that supposed to mean? Effective at what? According to statistics, religion seems to be pretty "effective" at making people happy. Religion may not be as effective at medicine in curing pneumonia, but neither is vector calculus. So what?
Ricky: From what I’ve heard the very definition [of God] is a logical impossibility in this known universe.
Daniel: Who told you that? That's not science. I think you've been reading too much Dawkins.
Ricky: You know, you're right. I should take the paragraph about science out of my WSJ op-ed.
Daniel: Wait a minute, you're only supposed to say things in this dialogue that you actually said in the op-ed.
Ricky: Why are you complaining to me? You're the one writing this blog!
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In response to your post here:
ReplyDeletehttp://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2011/02/gnus-can-be-nice.html?showComment=1296725523713#c97253910504777183
I don't think that Russell wants his thread polluted with a discussion so far off topic. So here is what my reply:
Dawkins has characterised the practice of parents indoctrinating their children into the parents religious views as a form of 'child abuse'.
The subject of religious schools is closely related.
I would address these issues by an analogy. Within the past twelve months a proposed amendment to the teaching of sex education in English state schools, which would have made sex education for 15 year-olds compulsory was defeated, largely by the votes of religiously motivated dissenters.
In this case the question is quite clear: whose rights should have primacy the parent's or the child's.
The child has a right to receive the best available information about biology, relationships, STD's etc. This information is important and timely and may result in the avoidance of illness, unwanted pregnancy, abortion and possibly death.
The parent on the other hand, under the law as it stands, has the right to prevent the child being exposed to certain truths in order to perpetuate the parent's worldview.
I think the parent's who do this are failing in their responsibilities. I beleive the child's rights should take precedence. What about you?
I'm sorry my comment was off topic. I thought that it was directly addressing the issue of the real or perceived "aggressiveness" of the "New Atheists".
ReplyDeleteAnyway, to answer your question. Once you have mandatory public education, you can require children to be exposed to certain things in school. I can't think of any alternative to this, but it's very dangerous. The ruling party has the power to require schools to teach anything (except, oddly enough, religion). See the recent Texas textbook controversy, the controversies about Israeli history textbooks, etc. So ideally this power should be wielded with extreme caution.
One check on this dangerous empowerment of the state would be to say that the government can require material, but it can't censor material taught by private schools. Maybe we should assume that the government should never say what private schools cannot teach.
In particular, should private schools be required to teach sex education? Maybe. But private schools should not be forbidden from, say, advocating abstinence.
When you go beyond the walls of the classroom, you have an even bigger problem. When you start to throw around terms like "child abuse" when you talk about what parents teach their children, when you entertain the idea of regulating what parents can teach their children, you have crossed the line into Soviet-style fascism. Wouldn't you agree?
As a side note, Huxley said a very funny thing in his original speech that Dawkins is quoting, something along the lines of "It's hard to grow up Hasidic." What an unscientific thing to say. Surveys consistently show that religious people are happier than nonreligious people, and that very religious people are happier than moderately religious people. Regarding Hasidim in particular, there was a recently reported study that found that "very religious Jews" are the happiest group of people in the US. Would you say that atheists are "abusing" their children by reducing their prospects of happiness?