Darwin v. God reprise
In my Darwin v. God post, I was getting at something like this:
Science has, at least since the Enlightenment (if not much longer), confined its ken to facts and descriptions of the natural world. In appealing to evolution to criticize a certain human practice (in this case, religion), Science has taken on a normative project. Instead of merely describing or investigating facts, and informing what we should believe, Science is here prescribing a way we should act.
However well Dawkins thinks he understand the facts concerning evolution and other things that might conflict with religious belief, he has taken a huge step out of his discipline by attempting to prescribe a way to act. This is why I accused Dennet of applying a double standard. Wouldn't he complain if (as sometimes happens) a religious authority attempted to explain to us what we should believe about the natural world? I should note that this criticism is aimed only at Dawkins in his capacity as a scientist. Dennet, as a philosopher, can talk about whatever he wants. (This is the two-edged sword of Philosophy: we are conversant in everything, experts in nothing.)
Now this might be an old-fashioned and too-limited view of how Science actually functions in society; but I think it is safe to say that Dawkins and co. are not subtly launching an assault on the idea that Science confines itself to facts. Far from it, as Dennet specifically mentions that he thinks the scientific method is the proper mode of inquiry when dealing with religion.
Anyway, this is just point one of my attack on Dawkins's project. The second point I made was that he probably got the facts wrong. I mean, it is likely that religion has played a largely beneficial role, even from a purely evolutionary standpoint, in human development.
Science has, at least since the Enlightenment (if not much longer), confined its ken to facts and descriptions of the natural world. In appealing to evolution to criticize a certain human practice (in this case, religion), Science has taken on a normative project. Instead of merely describing or investigating facts, and informing what we should believe, Science is here prescribing a way we should act.
However well Dawkins thinks he understand the facts concerning evolution and other things that might conflict with religious belief, he has taken a huge step out of his discipline by attempting to prescribe a way to act. This is why I accused Dennet of applying a double standard. Wouldn't he complain if (as sometimes happens) a religious authority attempted to explain to us what we should believe about the natural world? I should note that this criticism is aimed only at Dawkins in his capacity as a scientist. Dennet, as a philosopher, can talk about whatever he wants. (This is the two-edged sword of Philosophy: we are conversant in everything, experts in nothing.)
Now this might be an old-fashioned and too-limited view of how Science actually functions in society; but I think it is safe to say that Dawkins and co. are not subtly launching an assault on the idea that Science confines itself to facts. Far from it, as Dennet specifically mentions that he thinks the scientific method is the proper mode of inquiry when dealing with religion.
Anyway, this is just point one of my attack on Dawkins's project. The second point I made was that he probably got the facts wrong. I mean, it is likely that religion has played a largely beneficial role, even from a purely evolutionary standpoint, in human development.
Labels: religion
posted by Brian at 3:29 PM
1 Comments:
I guess the easy way to counter my argument would be to say that religion is a set of beliefs that, because of certain facts, are false, and that, since the job of science is to document facts and use them to form true beliefs, it is well within the bounds of science to criticize false beliefs. My argument only works if you take religion to be a set of practices rather than a set of beliefs.
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