Post a Comment On: Internal Monologue

Amanda Marcotte on Dawkins on scientists who pretend that there's no conflict between a scientific world view and a supernaturalist one:
In sum, Dawkins argues, and I agree, that scientists tend to say that religion and science don’t conflict because they have ulterior, if completely understandable, motives. The government controls research and education funding, and they answer to a public that is largely stuck with an irrational preference for religion. The public wants to enjoy the benefits of science without taking on the challenge to magical beliefs. The “no conflict” line, which I’ve peddled before and will probably be lulled into peddling again is a way to get the public to resolve this contradiction. The problem is that it’s bullshit. And this is why, which Dawkins keys into, the religious right in America keeps pushing legislation that will immediately get challenged by civil liberties organizations---they want to put religion vs. science on the stand and heighten the contradictions. They want to get scientists under oath to weasel around points where the contradictions become obvious, to make people realize you can’t hand wave the conflict away. As Dawkins notes, if he was put on a stand and asked if he was an atheist and if his study of evolutionary theory helped make him that way, to say no would be an outright lie. To be political, he’d have to weasel around, and the public would see through his inability to give a straightforward answer. Considering that the vast majority of scientists are atheists in one sense or another, right wingers just have to keep pulling stunts where scientists have to own their atheism and its grounding in science over and over to make their point.Let's just come right out and say it: supernaturalism is crap, and far far too much of religion is built on supernaturalism.

(I'm actually not sure if the vast majority of scientists are atheists, though. This is something one would have to get data on.)