Science, Religion, Lives, Rocks, Violins, Law (Dean)

In her guest contribution to the NYT Opinionator column, Barbara Herrnstein Smith does a better job than even Stanley Fish of teasing out the dynamics of the needless quarrel between SCIENCE (writ large, if vaguely) and RELIGION (ditto), and given her background she could probably do the same for SCIENCE and the HUMANITIES. Fish had addressed the topic in his prior column. I think her focus on "cognitive tendencies," however, is misplaced, and the rest of her column supports my view. Proponents of one "side" or the other of the "debate" aren't necessarily clinging to their beliefs, which anyway is just another way of saying that they haven't been persuaded. Smith thinks she's explaining a phenomenon by renaming it. As I see it, the opponents in the debate are just not listening carefully to its terms. When I rail against proponents of science (my shorthand for folks who produce popular scientific literature of the sort that pretends to have comprehended work in, say, the arts, or that pretends to be able to do science artistically or art scientifically), I don't usually oppose the substance of their arguments so much as the way in which they express those arguments. Call it, as Ruchira often does, their "style."

Look at those comments to Smith's column. Some readers have completely missed her point. One defends science against an example she makes using violin playing, her analogy utterly failing to make its meager point to the reader. She's simply saying that, for the most part, the two areas of human behavior have no quarrel with each other. One can imagine a situation in which practicing law and playing violin conflict: in a courtroom, for instance. For the most part, though, they dwell together peacefully. But the reader goes ballistic and generalizes--perfectly unscientifically--about the innocuousness of devoted violin players and the devious sickness of people who go to church on Sunday. This is crazy, yet I find this point-missing to be commonplace to both "sides."

Comments

[Andrew R.]

Point well-taken about the fruitlessness of the "two sides" conflict, Dean. Most people haven't studied epistemology well enough. There is a tendency by dogmatic religionists to underestimate the power of the scientific method, and say something like "Creationism is as valid a theory as evolution." Conversely, proponents of science tend to ignore how irrelevant scientific standards of truth are to vast areas of experience -- such as confronting the inevitability of death or the problem of evil. A hunger for explanation, comfort, or consolation are what drive people to religion. People don't embrace religion out of sheer stupidity, as the "Ditchens" seem to imply.