Thoughts in a Haystack

Jerry Coyne is once again displaying for all to see the entire depth of philosophical reasoning and discourse he is capable of.

Naturally, that involves name-calling and passing the buck to others to do the heavy lifting, in this case, Ophelia Benson (not necessarily the best choice) and her commentariat. I suppose that's better than if he does it himself, given past results.

The particular occasion for Coyne's latest outburst is Josh Rosenau's piece at Thoughts from Kansas, "On vampires and ways of knowing." Josh's main point (if I may be so bold as to interpret) is that religion and science are making different sorts of "truth claims" and, so, the standards imposed on one sort are, at least, potentially inappropriate to apply to the other.

Of course, there can be intelligent and reasoned disputes about Josh's view. Coyne will have none of that, however. Invective and ridicule is the most he can muster.

But what I find most interesting relates to a post by Ed Brayton on what may seem like a different topic but which I think is deeply related to all of Coyne's posturings. Ed points out a recent exchange between David Frum and David Horowitz over whether conservatives should defend Glen Beck's "over-the-top" (read: "dishonest") attacks on Cass Sunstein. Frum's point is, basically, that the end does not justify the means, especially when the means contradict your own ends. As Ed puts it:

This is the mantra of extremists. No matter how bad they can admit their own behavior is, it's justified because the other side is even worse. Strength and vigor in one's opposition to the evil other side becomes paramount and no tactic can ever be too much because, after all, They are even worse and must be stopped.

The only basis Coyne offers, and the only one I can recall being offered by other enablers [people who, like Coyne, support creationists in their muddling of the nature of science], is that religion and science are incompatible because religions can make false empirical claims.

But so can art. I think that people who would read A Tale of Two Cities as an historical account of the French revolution are being just as bad as those who read the Bible as an historical account of the Bronze Age. It's perfectly possible to read Dickens or the Bible as true, but not as empirically true. And if the battle is between people who read the Bible in a non-empirical sense and those who don't, then it seems like we should strengthen the hand of moderate theists, not disparage them.

I wasn't aware that there was a movement to replace the teaching of European history with the view given in Dickens's novels, nor a push to deny people contraception because that's what Dickens would want, or to keep women subordinate because Mrs. Micawber would never desert Mr. Micawber.

Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 12:02 PM