Chortling over, PZ Myers posts on strategy for the anti-ID movement:
I’ve heard [ID proponent Phillip] Johnson speak, and he’s smooth and confident, and slyly appeals to his audience’s prejudices. Of course, he also lies like a (censored) [sic]. It simplifies lecture preparation if you can simply make up glib lies to fill in the holes, another strategy to which scientists will not resort.
This is another hard problem, and I can’t pretend to be a great speaker myself. I do think that what we need, though, is to be able to give talks with fire: a passion for the subject and well-warranted anger at the distortions of the creationists. We need to be able to both communicate the meaty information (the real strength of science) and the concrete meanings of that often abstract data. This is hard work. It’s also work that is rarely effective in a one hour talk, and takes a generation and a multitude to push the message across. We’re behind the creationists on that, and we need to get working on it.
Quite a feat considering the relatively miniscule funding behind ID. A Salon article cited by PZ states:
Intelligent design did not spread through culture on its scientific merits. It got a big push from religious and political advocates. Funded by millions of dollars from some of the same religious supporters that helped put President Bush in the White House (conservatives like Philip F. Anschutz, Richard Mellon Scaife, and Howard and Roberta Ahmanson), the Discovery Institute has pushed a fringe academic movement onto virtually all the front pages and TV sets in the country The New York Times has reported that the institute has granted $3.6 million in fellowships to 50 researchers since 1996. Those investments produced 50 books on intelligent design, innumerable articles, and two I.D. documentaries that were broadcast on public television
If funding directly correlated with public and scientific interest, there would be no contest here. But there’s more at play and a lot more at stake.
A few weeks back, Steve Fuller came under the microscope after giving testimony at the Dover trial defending the scientific merit of ID.1 I must admit a little guilty pleasure watching him push the buttons of the Science Warriors over at Michael Berube’s blog. I had the pleasure of meeting Steve last year as he was touring his book ‘Kuhn vs. Popper’, a fairly spirited, if somewhat incoherent, defense of Popper’s humanist values, and corresponding attack on Kuhn’s ‘intellectual irresponsibility.’ Yes, yes. I can hear your belly laughs from here, but, as esoterically delivered as they are - to a hostile, often shrill, bunch of commenters - Fuller raises a couple of points worth considering about the ‘purity’ of the scientific establishment:
1. Who’s allowed to speak:
‘[O]ur’ side pulled its punches in the Science Wars when it refused to come out and say that the scientific establishment may not be the final word on what science is, let alone what it ought to be.
This needn’t imply that Science is a tradition ‘just like any other’, which I’ll get to later, nor that the politics of reason is reducible to any other politics. But I’m still to be convinced that scientists have a privileged access to reality because ‘we’ went to the moon. Also, extending the logic, it’s worth pondering whether politicians ought to be granted privileged access to the political sphere, economists to markets, psychiatrists to the mind etc. and if not, why not.
But the flipside is the old Tarskian problem Popper was all too aware of: how do you believe a man who says that ‘all men are liars’? For isn’t Fuller also part of the Scientific Establishment? Or is Sociology some kind of superscience that can hover above normal scientific establishments? Raymond Boudon emphatically answered ‘no’ to this question almost 20 years ago, arguing that the fragmented discipline was itself ‘multi-paradigmatic’. I’d encourage you to assess Fuller’s testimony on its merits. Michael Berube does a good summary in the first part of this excellent response to Fuller - which also has some nice critical remarks/observations about the scientific establishment, Sokal’s hoax and the relationship between ideas and political movements.
2. Scientists can do (bad) metaphysics too:
‘ID people are mostly Christian’. So are most scientists of the modern era. In fact, the scientists these days who most loudly flaunt their anti-Christian, atheist colours can’t escape smuggling some kind of theistically inspired thought, including James Watson’s desires to play God, Steven Weinberg’s peculiar fascination with the aesthetic quality of simplicity and the anthropic principle (both of which have Newtonian provenance), Dawkins’ compulsive resort to design-based metaphors and nonsense talk about ‘design without a designer’ without much literal to replace it with.
For Fuller, this is where the ‘demarcation’ of ID really cuts:
If [we] judged scientific theories by what we think of what motivates them, then we wouldn’t have much science left. This is why it’s important to distinguish the contexts of discovery and justification: ID can be as religiously motivated as you like
Two things about this - one epistemological and one political. Much ink has been spilled and pixels lit over the whole notion of ‘discovery.’ In the popular imagination, like this New York Times article (reg req’d), things are out there in the world and scientists have eureka moments in the laboratory. So the ‘left’ and ‘right’ can go about redefining this neutral account:
In the early 1990’s, writers like the Czech playwright and former president Vaclav Havel and the French philosopher Bruno Latour proclaimed “the end of objectivity.” The laws of science were constructed rather than discovered, some academics said; science was just another way of looking at the world, a servant of corporate and military interests. Everybody had a claim on truth.
So what did these nasty relativist constructivist types want to do?
“The only reason to take out ‘natural explanations’ [in a definition of science] is if you want to open the door to supernatural explanations.”
To be fair, he’s talking about putting ID in classirooms, but if it’s ultimately ‘my metaphysical way or the highway’ - a choice between Steven Weinberg’s Platonic insistence that society submit itself to natural laws, and something else - sorry Steven: I’m not waiting for the IPCC to submit an ultimate report. I happen to like the principle of being able to contest matters which concern the wellbeing of myself and my environment, a.k.a. democracy.
I don’t want to sound unsympathetic to the anti-ID, anti-religious right battles being waged in the USA; rather, as a critic of Bush I’m trying to understand the peculiar political coding of the controversy as best as I can: On the right, there are the humble, honest, people, just “the people”, under attack from the esoteric, elite, well resourced elite establishment (as per Greg’s excellent comment in Shaun’s post). On the left, it does matter that ID is so religious becaues its proponents also control a crafty PR machine which needs to be shouted down and out-shone with more data, more rigour, more intellectual honesty, more iconoclasm, more reality. Of course, these frames also operate in the culture wars. For Bill Moyers, it’s a “struggle to determine whether “we, the people” is a spiritual idea embedded in a political reality – one nation, indivisible – or merely a charade masquerading as piety and manipulated by the powerful and privileged to sustain their own way of life at the expense of others.”
Stuck in the middle is this thing called science. Or is it?
Daniel Sarewitz has just posted a scathing review of Chris Mooney’s Republican War on Science. In Sarewitz’s reading, Mooney’s concept of science could almost be personified as an innocent little girl: if there’s no ‘good evidence’ and environmental regulatory agencies have to act, they’re not abusing science in any way. “Of course not,” Sarewitz quips, “the pure of heart love science only for itself.” In other words, it’s not good enough for supposed representatives of the American scientific establishment to present it as Robert K. Merton would have dreamed: untainted CUDOS - Communalism, Universalism, Disinterestedness, Organised Skepticism. I’d be foolish not to acknowledge the immanent appeal of this heuristic for the scientific enterprise in an age of fragmented meta-scientific disciplines, each with a label for their epistemological and ontological positions more confusing than the last. Problem is, the institutional relevance of Merton’s ideal is as dead as Vannevar Bush. I think, like Sarewitz, that its political relevance is too.
Bringing atheism out of the closet is to first concede that evolution isn’t a value neutral theory but one intimately tied to progress - and all the modern aesthetic, representational and epistemic projects that go with it. Rattling the Weberian Iron Cage with his conclusion, Sarewitz suggests that the stakes of this concession are high:
In the end, Mooney’s desire to distance himself from such a value system simply replays the Democratic electoral defeat of 2002. In Mooney’s world, Republicans may be ruthless ideologues, but Democrats are soulless ciphers. From this perspective, it is easy to understand why Republicans won the election: at least they actually seem to believe in something. Were Karl Rove to read this book, I suspect he would be comforted.
- On whether ID should be taught in science classrooms, I agree with John Quiggin on the 2nd Berube thread - comment #34 - that ID should ‘get in line’ - regardless of whether it needs fresh recruits to develop a research program[back]
Just to clarify, I don’t believe any among the ‘humble, honest people’ who believe in The Creation over evolution are under attack by anyone, let alone any ‘esoteric, elite, well resourced elite establishment’. I believe they may feel that way, but that’s a different discussion, one that should address the source of their perception (and I might say ‘paranoia’).
I blame television and video games.
Well, isn’t the discourse of ‘élites’ central to all of the science and history warriors’ efforts? The reason ID is so accessible and attractive to laypeople is that it doesn’t really require an understanding of philosophy or science. All you really need is the sense that the ‘other’ doctrine—evolution—is the product of an élite you don’t understand and can’t be part of, and you have a social movement. Consider the battleground in Australian history, which has moved out of the lecture halls and into Brendan Nelson’s secret ARC-killing committee. It might not make any academic sense but it makes great political sense: somebody’s doing something about élites in the universities.
Remember that the whole stoush isn’t really about science and its place at all, the political fight the court ruled on was about who should have access to curriculum-setting in schools. It doesn’t get any more gritty than that.
Nice post dk.au. Some rushed thoughts so any errors are the fault of impending Christmas festivities.
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1. I disagree with the statement that evolution is about progress. The pattern of evolution is a bush with many twigs and branches. I don’t see that there is a notion of progress inherent in evolution. In the 19th century the idea that evolution was a ladder with humankind at the top, the best of all. Evolution is value neutral in that all it describes is how life got where it was. A notion of progress is a value implied by our minds not by nature. Whether via an asteroid or some catastrophic disease our grip on earth is as tenuous as all the species that have gone before us.
I also think atheism has nothing to do with evolution (or science). It is a personal metaphysics that people accept or reject for any number of reasons.
2. The Daniel Sarewitz review is offline so I can’t make real assessment. Mooney has criticized the left when it comes to politicizing science. Mooney’s argument is that the Republicans have taken it to whole new levels.
3. Fuller’s testimony was bunk to be perfectly honest. This post of mine I have a go at outlining how to determine what is good science and what is bad science. Science is not a democratic process. If you want admission you need to have results. That is something ID has not done. The refusal of admission for ID is not about privileged access but simply due to their refusal to actually do science.
And this is the problem with ID apologists. They argue that ID is being denied because of its religious motiviations. Balderdash. It is being denied because of its lack of substance.
I think science would benefit form a pluralistic, open approach. And that is the responsibility of scientists to communicate their ideas and encourage participation (which is become more common). However in the end what stands as science is what works.
What Shaun said first—well done DK, fantastic post.
Shaun, I don’t think the backers of ID need to do science. They’re a fundamentally democratic movement, they’re not after establishing their theory scientifically, they’re after the proverbial fifty percent of votes plus one.
To be honest the model of political organisation, fundraising and activism around Intelligent Design is an absolute shining light for anyone despairing about the death of grassroots politics. Everything they do actually need to do they’re doing perfectly:
- Establishing links with sympathetic journalists and editors,
- Creating confusion about the standpoint of the opposition (science),
- Maintaining very large informal decentralised networks of volunteers and supporters,
- Mobilising behind a widely-held feeling of alienation,
- Mobilising influential supporters already in positions of discursive power, ie. politicians, religious leaders, celebrities, Presidents, Ministers of Education, etc. and most importantly of all,
- Positioning their cause in the argument as a reasonable ‘balance’, whatever that means.
If only a few other political causes could do as well as the Intelligent Design crew…
Agreed Liam that they did a lot of things right. but the backers if ID had a hell of a lost of anti-evilutionist history on which they rode in on. Without that their grassroots campaign would not have been as effective. And lets not forget the religious angle as a whole lot of emotion was involved.
Hence will the ID debate will get traction in religious schools it won’t go much further in Australia.
Of course the mistake was to take the battle that one step further. Apparently pro-ID lawyers had been spoiling for a fight in the courts regarding ID. It is history now but it is worth noting that the Discovery Institute (one of the main ID backers) pulled out of the trail. I think there was an assumption that if they got a right-wing judge then they would win. Even a Bush appointed Lutheran saw through their shenanigans.
Liam, yes the ruling was indeed about who has the rights to discipline young minds - gritty indeed - rather than simply the place of science itself. But scientific knowledge gains its power through its particular orientation to politics and religion. This is where I respectfully disagree with Shaun’s attempts at demarcation. Popper was not just a philosopher of science, but a philosopher of society - an Open Society. The dissolution of positivism after Ayer basically meant a concession that an unmediated access to the world was the wrong project to pursue for all sorts of reasons.
Shaun, my linkage of evolution to modern notions of progress was more of a sociological observation. Positivism was tied to mastery of nature, technology, and, for the likes of Comte, man too (Fuller’s actually a fan of Comte, Otto Neurath and Stephen Wolfram). It brought with it certain representations of the world - aesthetics, literature etc. eg. the film Gattaca.
I’m not saying that Darwinists aren’t doing a good job of explaining the world. They are. They should be encouraged. Fuller argues that this can be done with the help of ID, but his arguments have a sort of eeriely apolitical setting - as if dragging ID from its political foundations in evangelical Christianity is some sort of rational process.
And, what Liam said about ID as a social movement.
The linked post from Pielke is amazingly weak and the first commenter nails him. Working from an implicit symmetry principle, Pielke assumes (no evidence is provided) that the Democrats must be as bad as the Republicans and assails Mooney for not being even-handed. Not only does Mooney mention various exaggerations by Greens and leftist while making it clear that the Republicans have been far worse, but the whole exploitation of evenhandedness (appealed to by Pielke) is part fo the Republican strategy.
The link to Sarewitz is broken, but an association with Pielke is not a promising sign.
If I may be so rude to interrupt these philosophical meanderings with some empirical data, Fuller’s claim that most scientists are mostly Christian doesn’t stack up to the (admittedly only one) survey I’ve been able to find on the topic: see this link. If you’ll pardon the snarkiness, it’s rather amusing that even in a piece from an ID’er that you’re quoting as “worth considering”, they still make claims (even if they are quite peripheral to the central point) that don’t stack up against empirical observations.
Oh, and excuse my philosophical naivete, but whether evolution is supported by empirical evidence is a scientific question. Whatever sociological, political, or philosophical conclusions you then draw from them are issues for those disciplines, not science. Yes, I am not so naive to not understand the value judgements behind the things scientists choose to research, and what lines of enquiry they pursue, and the methods by which they pursue them. And certainly scientists are dabbling in the black arts when they advocate public policy based on their theories and observations (and gut reactions, which is often all they have available for the matter at hand). But your conflation of these things is inappropriate, in my view.
Very interesting, dk.au.
Agree wholeheartedly with Liam - the same “pseudo-scientific” tactics combined with sophisticated PR/marketing/political techniques are at work in the equation of homosexuality with public health dangers by the Christian right.
I’m surprised no one has yet picked up on the last lines of Matthew Arnold’s poem Dover Beach:
um, Robert, the modern era didn’t start (and arguably was already in decline) in 1914. Sorry, I’m not sure what you mean about the inappropriateness of my connections. Policy decisions regarding GM food, water safety, nuclear waste disposal, air pollution, climate change all require scientific knowledge which will be given by advisers whose training means that they have particular ways of viewing the world and assessing risks and threats. I’m not arguing that some evil values seep into honest policy decision-making processes which require remedy, but as one of many rather mundane findings of Science Studies scholarship that need to be acknowledged before they can be overcome. I’m happy to refer you to reading material if you’d like. A lot of it is very accessible, particularly Sheila Jasanoff’s work.
Yes, dk.au, scientists have the *correct* and *rational* way of viewing the world and assessing risks and threats - it’s all the rest of you who don’t understand statistics and let the cognitive biases built into your Neanderthal brains do your thinking for you who have the problem
More seriously, I am well aware that scientists and other experts have their own worldview, and quite often their public policy recommendations are infused with assumptions based on that worldview which should be teased out when making public policy decisions (something which should obviously apply to other experts, most notably economists). But that doesn’t alter the fact that radioactivity decays at an exponential rate, people playing slot machines have bang-on identical activity patterns to pigeons receiving variable-ratio reinforcement in a Skinner box, and F=ma to so close an approximation that you nor I would be patient enough to ever detect a discrepancy. And, most pertinently, new types of living things evolve from old ones.
I’m not saying that Darwinists aren’t doing a good job of explaining the world.
I hope, dk, you’re not going to make a habit of using the term “Darwinists.” That language is part of creationists’ attempts to paint evolution as an ideology, a mere dogma propogated by closedminded fanatics.(oh, the irony) It is belittling.
They are not “Darwinists”, they are scientists. They are not “Darwinists” anymore than physicists are Newtonists or Einsteinists. They are they are biologists, chemists, astronomers, anthropologists, geologists etc etc.
Thanks to dk.au I’ve read the Sarewitz review of Mooney’s book. Now it is a little strange to be defending a book I haven’t read but I have read a lot of Mooney so I’m assuming the arguments are similar.
Sarewitz’s problem is that he forgets the title of the book is “The Republican War on Science.” Mooney is documenting a consistent and concernted effort to distort science by the elements of the right. That is not to say the left do not do so. This Interview with Mooney alludes to what type of governemnt with leftist leanins would approach science. However it isn’t as prevalent as what is happening with the right. I don’t see the point in Sarewitz whinging that Mooney does not document the left. It is not the point of the book. It smacks of a belief in the fallacy of balance and the bizarre idea of you must denounce everything if you denounce something.
Sarewitz also fails the political landscape that has created the Republican buzzwords “junk science” and “sound science.” Sarewitz makes the bizarre claim that these expressions are taken from the mainstream scicentific community. When you look behind Steve Milloy and his claims of ‘junk science’ Sarewitz is being very naive.
Sarewitz harps on the idea of “pure science” which is a strawman argument in the way which science should be used to determine policy. He dismisses are lot of reasoned argument about how we should approach science even if the science is not perfect yet still persuasive. Oh and the reference to Nazi attitudes to human rights and embyro research is plain bizarre. He also makes the mistake of confusing science with the agenda of scientists. I think there is a big difference here.
All in all I am not impressed by Sarewitz’s reasoning.
What Amanda said. The term ‘Darwinist” reflect more on how a person views evolution rather than those who the term is supposed to describe.