A Skeptics’ Skeptic

Selected Essays from the Rationally Speaking blog series

By Massimo Pigliucci

Copyright by Massimo Pigliucci, 2013

Cover: The skeptics being criticized here (left to right and top to bottom): PZ Myers, Lawrence Krauss, Penn & Teller, Jerry Coyne, Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, James Randi, Ray Kurzeil, and Richard Dawkins.

Published by RationallySpeaking.org, New York, NY

Kindle Edition

About the Author:

Massimo Pigliucci has a Doctorate in Genetics from the University of Ferrara (Italy), a PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Connecticut, and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Tennessee. He has done post-doctoral research in evolutionary ecology at Brown University and is Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His research interests include the philosophy of biology, in particular the structure and foundations of evolutionary theory, the relationship between science and philosophy, the relationship between science and religion, and the nature of pseudoscience.

Massimo is the Editor-in-Chief of the open access journal Philosophy & Theory in Biology. He has been elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science “for fundamental studies of genotype by environmental interactions and for public defense of evolutionary biology from pseudoscientific attack.”

In the area of public outreach, Massimo has published in national magazines such as Skeptic, Skeptical Inquirer, Philosophy Now, and The Philosopher’s Magazine, among others. He has also been elected a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Massimo pens the “Rationally Speaking” blog, hosts the podcast by the same name, and publishes the “5-minute Philosopher” videos on YouTube.

Other books and collections by Massimo Pigliucci:

Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem. Co-edited with Maarten Boudry, University of Chicago Press, 2013.

Science and Metaphysics: Selected Essays from Rationally Speaking. RationallySpeaking.org, 2013.

Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to A More Meaningful Life. BasicBooks, 2012.

Blogging as a Path to Self Knowledge. With Leonard Finkelman and David Johnson, RationallySpeaking.org, 2012.

Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk. University of Chicago Press, 2010.

Evolution - the Extended Synthesis. Co-edited with Gerd B. Müller, MIT Press, 2010.

Rationally Speaking: Skeptical Essays on Reality as We Think We Know It. RationallySpeaking.org, 2009.

Thinking About Science: Essays on the Nature of Science. RationallySpeaking.org, 2009.

Making Sense of Evolution: The Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Biology. With Jonathan Kaplan, University of Chicago Press, 2006.

Phenotypic Integration: Studying the Ecology and Evolution of Complex Phenotypes. Co-edited with Katherine Preston, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism, and the Nature of Science. Sinauer, 2002.

Phenotypic Plasticity: Beyond Nature and Nurture. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Tales of the Rational: Skeptical Essays About Nature and Science. Freethought Press, 2000.

Phenotypic Evolution: A Reaction Norm Perspective. With Carl D. Schlichting, Sinauer, 1998.

Contents

Introduction

Part I. The Skeptics

Dear Penn and Teller: Bullshit!

James Randi, global warming and the meaning of skepticism

About Sam Harris’ claim that science can answer moral questions

Science and the Is/Ought Problem

Genuinely puzzled: what exactly is Blackford saying about Harris?

Michael Shermer’s libertarianism

Michael Shermer on morality

Toward a science of morality. An annotated response to Michael Shermer

Science, morality, and genital mutilation

Part II. The Biologists

Beyond selfish genes

The trouble with memetics

Is Dawkins deluded? When scientists talk about religion

Is Richard Dawkins really that naive?

Jerry Coyne, then and now

Jerry Coyne on free will

PZ Myers is a witless wanker who peddles pablum

PZ Myers quits skeptic movement, should we care?

Part III. The Physicist

Lawrence Krauss: another physicist with an anti-philosophy complex

Krauss does it again, so soon!

Part IV. The Nut job

Ray Kurzweil and the Singularity: visionary genius or pseudoscientific crank?

Introduction: A Skeptics’ Skeptic

What? Another Rationally Speaking collection? So soon? What can I say, it’s summer, and I really like putting together these e-booklets of selected essays from the blog (this is the fifth, the second this year...). The one you are hopefully holding on your iPad, Kindle, smart phone or whatever is one that I had thought about for a long time before assembling it.

You see, I’ve been writing about “skepticism” (meaning, taking a skeptical stance on pseudo-science, pseudo-philosophy, pseudo-politics, and a few other “pseudos”) since as far back as 1997, when I began organizing Darwin Day events at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. From time to time, over the intervening 16 or so years, I found myself turning my gadfly-sh keyboard toward other skeptics, usually famous ones. The reason is that it seems to me that a community — such as the skeptic / atheist / humanist (S/A/H, for short) one — that prides itself in its intellectualism and openness to reason and evidence, ought to critically examine its own tenets and positions, especially when espoused by prominent members of said community.

Indeed, one of the gratifying things about being a skeptic is precisely that, by and large, we don’t act like a church. We recoil from dogmas, and we don’t ostracize dissenting members of our community, immediately rushing to build a new church down the street. Or do we? Well, okay, the recent history of the S/A/H community actually does sometimes eerily recall religious schisms and doctrinal disputes. Still, at least we don’t burn people at the stakes, or launch fatwas against them!

The gentle reader will notice that several of the essays included in theSkeptics’ Skeptic collection are, ahem, quite ironic, even sarcastic at times, certainly more so than the typical Rationally Speaking post. There are reasons for that. To begin with, the people targeted here are Big Boys who can definitely take the heat (many are academics, and academics are selected for having a thick skin). Moreover, rest assured that they can (and have, in several cases!) fight back with equal or larger force. But the most important explanation for my above-average forcefulness here is that I take public intellectualism seriously, and these people are somewhat major public intellectuals. They influence countless others, and they therefore bear the responsibility of writing rigorously as well as clearly. When they don’t (in my opinion, of course) I call them out.

It should go without saying, but I’ll say it any way: contra persistent insinuations to the contrary (by, say, The Discovery Institute, the inane “think tank” that promotes Intelligent Design creationism), these and other writings by yours truly do not signal the beginning of a move away from my philosophical naturalism, support for science, or defense of reason. They are simply cases in which I deploy precisely those tools to engage the best minds of the S/A/H, so that we as a broader movement can keep Carl Sagan’s famous “candle in the dark” alit against the always numerous and always powerful forces of obscurantism and repression.

cheers,

Massimo Pigliucci

Manhattan, Summer 2013

Part I. The Skeptics

Dear Penn and Teller: Bullshit!

(originally published on 24 September 2009)

I like Penn & Teller, the magicians and debunkers of pseudoscience and general inanity. I regularly use clips from their show in my critical reasoning class, despite cringing every time Penn indulges in his “fuck this” and “motherfucker that” exercise in free speech (it distracts the students from the real point, not to mention the always lurking possibility of an administrator asking me about the appropriateness of foul language in a philosophy class). Heck, I even recently went to Vegas to see them in person, had a photo taken with Teller, and managed to tell him (to his surprise) about how my students enjoy stimulating discussions triggered by the duo’s antics.

But as we have learned recently from the Atheist Alliance / Dawkins Foundation / Bill Maher fiasco, “skepticism” is sometimes too broad a label, as someone can be properly skeptical in politics but not about pseudoscience (Maher), while someone else may be great at debunking astrology and magnetic therapy, and yet also unable to shed some huge blinders when it comes to politically charged issues. The latter is, unfortunately, P&T’s case, as made excruciatingly clear by the 2008 (season 6) episode “Being Green” of Bullshit! I just watched it last night, and I found myself wanting to call up Penn to let go a few expletives of my own. Fortunately, I don’t have his phone number.

P&T have been very good at showing that just because one is concerned about the environment it doesn’t mean that one can think critically or act rationally. Their demonstration of well meaning environmentalists signing up to ban the “dangerous and ubiquitous” chemical known as dihydrogen monoxide (i.e., water) is priceless. In “Being Green” they pull off some of the same useful cautionary tales by showing how easily people can be duped by “green guilt” into all sorts of nonsense, like walking around with gravel (for which they paid real money) in their pockets in order to feel “connected with the earth.” Even more disturbingly, the episode raises some serious questions about large scale exploitation of pro-environment sentiment by web-based companies selling “carbon offsets” that are calculated in ways which the companies themselves have a hard time explaining.

But you know even our smart debunkers are running out of arguments when they choose to introduce former Vice President and Nobel winner Al Gore as an “asshole.” Again, there may be some legitimate criticism of Gore’s arguments and even tactics, but to give him the same treatment Penn & Teller usually reserve for real assholes, like con artists who sell snake oil to gullible people, just seems the kind of ad hominem attack that reflects badly on the attacker.

And going back to the issue of carbon offsets for a moment. It is one thing to alert people that they need to look into the companies that offer them, how the offsets are calculated, and how they are used. But P&T explicitly compare these offsets to the indulgences to avoid hell that were sold by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages (and which eventually helped bring about Martin Luther’s Reformation and the rise of Protestantism). I admit that it is funny to see P&T in medieval church garments, but really? Do they seriously mean to imply that the two are on the same level? Hell doesn’t exist, and the Vatican is a corrupt operation for making money and inducing misery (as P&T themselves masterfully showed in a more recent episode of their series), but we really are fucking up (to use Penn’s florid language) with the environment, and it is no joke.

Except, of course, that P&T’s libertarian blinders simply do not allow them to accept something that is so obvious to anyone who looks at the data and listens to the actual experts in atmospheric science: yes, Penn, global warming is happening; and yes, Teller, a good part of it is caused by human beings. Instead, the best P&T can do is to resuscitate a televisionweather man from the 1970s to assure us that global warming is a myth. And of course we have the predictable appearance of a guy from a libertarian think tank (the Cascade Policy Institute), who has no credentials that we know of, except being President of said think tank. (Note to self: create own think tank and declare yourself President. Make sure to have web site and business card. No thinking is actually necessary.) Needless to say, no one with a knowledgeable alternative viewpoint is presented during the show.

Instead, our libertarian heros keep telling us to relax, enjoy life, and drive SUVs, despite showing at the beginning of the episode a good number of frightening examples of all too real environmental destruction. Even Penn and Teller, however, have limits. Right at the end of the show, Penn enters a confessional (again with the Catholic Church!) and admits that he isn’t sure that there isn’t global warming, and that he isn’t positive that humans don’t cause it. But he tells us that even if that were true, heck, nobody knows what to do about it, so once again, go out and party all night long, because somehow technology and the god of free markets will solve every problem for us.

That, my dear Penn and Teller, truly is Bullshit!

James Randi, global warming and the meaning of skepticism

(originally published on 17 December 2009)

James “the Amazing” Randi is an icon of skepticism. The man has done more — over a span of several decades — to further the cause of critical thinking and to expose flimflammery of all sorts than arguably anyone else in the world, ever. That is why I was struck with incredulity and sadness yesterday when I read Randi’s latest take on global warming. He begins by stating that, contrary to scientists’ own self-image as almost preternaturally objective human beings, “religious and other emotional convictions drive scientists, despite what they may think their motivations are.” Well, true, to a point. Many philosophers and sociologists of science have said that before (and documented it), but your baloney detector should go up to at least yellow alert when someone starts a commentary on global warming with that particular observation.

The following paragraph is perhaps one of the most astounding I have ever seen penned by a skeptic. It reads in part: “some 32,000 scientists, 9,000 of them PhDs, have signed The Petition Project statement proclaiming that Man is not necessarily the chief cause of warming, that the phenomenon may not exist at all, and that, in any case, warming would not be disastrous.”

Wow, Randi fell for the old “thousands of scientists are against science” trick! First off, I’d like to see the 32,000 signatures (there is no link from the essay). Second, last time I checked, in order to be a career scientist youhaveto have a PhD, so how come only 9,000 of the signatories did? Did the rest not manage to finish graduate school? But more importantly: were the 32,000climatescientists? Because if not, then it doesn’t matter how many of them signed the petition. I can easily get thousands of medical doctors (are they “scientists”?) to sign a petition to the effect that evolution doesn’t occur, or an equivalent number of assorted PhDs to express doubts on quantum mechanics, and so on. Having a PhD in a particular field providesno expertise whatsoever in another field, and Randi, of all people, should have known this.

“History supplies us with many examples where scientists were just plain wrong about certain matters, but ultimately discovered the truth through continued research” continues the essay. Another logical fallacy. Yes, the history of science has documented many blunders made by scientists, which usually are redressed by the built-in self-correcting mechanisms of science itself. But to imply thattherefore the idea of human-caused global warming is another of these mistakes is like saying “Van Gogh was a great artist and he died penniless; I am penniless, therefore I am a great artist.” It is a non sequitur.

What sort of argument allows Randi to reach his conclusion about global warming? “The myriad of influences that act upon Earth are so many and so variable — though not capricious — that I believe we simply cannot formulate an equation into which we enter variables and come up with an answer.” Really? So Randi doesn’t think climate scientists are aware of the complexities posed by their own discipline? And they should give up building increasingly sophisticated climate models (which, by the way, don’t rely on “an equation”) because he thinks it’s too tough?

And then there is the often lurking ultra-optimism that so many climate skeptics display with no hint of contradiction: “Earth has undergone many serious changes in climate, from the Ice Ages to periods of heavily increased plant growth from their high levels of CO2, yet the biosphere has survived. We're adaptable, stubborn, and persistent — and we have what other life forms don't have: we can manipulate our environment. Show me an Inuit who can survive in his habitat without warm clothing... Humans will continue to infest Earth because we're smart.” So let me get this straight: we are not smart enough to model the changing climate, but whatever problem there is, weare smart enough to solve it. I guess what Walt Whitman used to say is true , great minds are large enough to accommodate contradictions.

But the real damning part of Randi’s essay comes when he says: “I strongly suspect that The Petition Project may be valid. I base this on my admittedly rudimentary knowledge of the facts about planet Earth. ... this my amateur opinion, based on probably insufficient data.” This is essentially saying that although Randi has no expertise whatsoever in a complex scientific field, together with very scant information on the specifics of the problem, he nonetheless “suspects” that the overwhelming majority of (PhD-holding) practitioners in that field have made a colossal mistake. So are we supposed to take his position seriously on authority alone (another logical fallacy)? And where does that authority come from? His undoubted ability to expose real nonsense like hand surgery?

Yesterday was a sad day for skepticism because Randi’s essay will now comfort legions of pseudoscientific “skeptics,” regardless of the fact that I’m sure this was not his intention. But what was his intention, exactly? If Randi were Penn & Teller, I would have a ready answer: it is the libertarian ideological bias of P&T that has led them more than once to talk real bullshit to their audiences about issues like global warming, environmentalism, world politics, and economics. But I do not know Randi’s political leanings, so I will not speculate further. My guess is that this is just classic Randi, who is known for occasionally shooting from the hip just to stir the waters a bit, with the honest intention of stimulating critical thinking. Except that these waters have been quite muddied already by big corporations who have been actively engaged in public deception about this issue for years, so that public opinion and politicians are already confused enough, almost to the point of paralysis. I really think this was an uncharacteristically bad target for Randi to choose.

More broadly, however, we need to pause and think carefully about the entire skeptical movement in light of episodes like this one. “Skepticism” in modern parlance indicates a science- or evidence-based approach to the examination of unusual claims, typically in the realms of the paranormal, astrology, alternative medicine and the like. More recently, skeptics have expanded their aim to include some controversial issues in science, under the reasonable position that science itself should not be exempt from critical analysis. Fair enough, except that science already has a large number of professional critics: scientists themselves (remember the peer review system?), as well as philosophers and sociologists of science. Moreover, while critical analysis of claims of the paranormal does not really require professional scientific expertise (indeed, Randi’s own spectacular career shows that the pertinent expert is more often a magician, since wannabe paranormalists often employ trickery to fool the public), actual science criticism does.

I am not suggesting that critical evaluation of science is a matter to be reserved only to people with PhDs. But I am suggesting that public figures like Randi, Penn & Teller, or Bill Maher (the Dawkins-award winner who thinks that vaccines cause autism and who is generally skeptical of “Western medicine”) are doing a huge disservice to both the skeptical movement and the public at large when they step into territory about which, frankly, they are simply not qualified to talk. The role of skeptics who are not professional scientists is to educate the public about critical thinking (Randi’s Foundation being one of the shiniest examples). This is done most effectively through the kind of public outreach — including spectacular demonstrations, tv shows and comedy sketches — that professional scientists don’t do because they don’t have the time and they are not good at it.

But these same people should remember that the mantle of “skepticism” does not provide one license to shoot from the hip and express a cynical attitude about anything and anyone. When we cross that line from positive skepticism into negative cynicism we do no favors to critical thinking. Instead, we undermine the whole notion and make the public as distrustful of serious scientists as they are and should be of Deepak Chopra. The public loses, and the Chopra's of the world run laughing all the way to the bank.

Postscriptum: Randi has just published a clarification of his first essay. Unfortunately, it doesn't really make things much better. He insists that he is not denying global warming per se, but "only" raising questions about the role of humans. But he repeats that he is not qualified to do so, that he still "merely expressed [his] thoughts." That's not good enough. James Randi is a major player in the skeptic movement, and that kind of position comes with responsibilities, one of which is that he really ought not to just wonder aloud about his opinions unless he has put in the time to do serious background reading on the matter at hand. I remain respectfully disappointed.

About Sam Harris’ claim that science can answer moral questions

(originally published on 6 April 2010)

The buzz in secular circles lately has been about a TED talk by Sam Harris, the author of The End of Faith, and Letter to a Christian Nation. The title of Harris’ talk is “Science can answer moral questions,” and you just know that as a former scientist and currently a philosopher, I simply have to comment on it. As it turns out, there is much that Harris and I agree on, but I think his main target is actually moral relativism, and that he would get more mileage out of allying himself with philosophy (not to the exclusion of science), rather than taking what appears to be the same misguided scientistic attitude that Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne have come to embody so well. But let us start with a summary of Harris’ arguments, with extensive quotations from the lecture, proceeding then to my commentary.

Harris begins with a rather startling claim: “The separation between science and human values is an illusion,” adding “facts and values seem to belong to different spheres [but] This is quite clearly untrue. Values are a certain kind of facts. They are facts about the well beings of conscious creatures.” This is a frontal assault on what in philosophy is known as the naturalistic fallacy, the idea — introduced by David Hume — that one cannot directly derive values (what ought to be) from facts (what is). As Hume famously put it inA Treatise of Human Nature:

“In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark’d, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, ‘tis necessary that it shou’d be observ’d and explain’d; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.”

Harris justifies his position by asking his audience to consider under what circumstances we feel that we have moral obligations: “Why is it that we don’t have ethical obligations toward rocks? ... Because we don’t think that rocks can suffer. ... [talking then about insects having a very limited inner life] This is a factual claim, this is something we could be right or wrong about.” He continues: “If culture changes us, it changes us by changing our brains. And therefore whatever cultural variation there is in the way human beings flourish can at least in principle be understood in the context of a maturing science of the mind,” implying that neurobiology — the field in which he is getting a doctoral degree — will soon be the key to moral discourse.

Harris then introduces the idea of a “moral landscape” describing the sort of ethical decisions that further or hinder human wellbeing, and just couldn’t help himself sneaking in some mystical fluff (he has a weak spot for Buddhism and transcendental meditation), suggesting that perhaps one way to access the structure of the moral landscape is by way of mystical experiences. Whatever.

The talk at this point takes a sharp turn, where Harris aims his fire at moral relativism, though he never actually mentions the term: “Just admitting that there are right and wrong answers to the question of how humans flourish will change the way we talk about morality.” Taking the example of several States in the US that allow corporal punishment of children, he asks: “Is it a good idea, generally speaking, to subject children to pain, and violence, and public humiliation as a way of encouraging healthy emotional development and good behavior?”

He then makes an analogy between human flourishing and physical health to show that though both are complex and varied, we can still make sense of the idea of “health” and act on it. Harris also makes the point that even if it turns out that there are “many peaks on the moral landscape,” i.e. many ways to flourish, this doesn't undermine the idea of an objective assessment of moral claims.

Another example Harris introduces is that of Muslim women who have to cover their body completely so as not to offend their alleged god, regarding which Harris rhetorically comments that “it is the position, generally speaking, of our intellectual community, that we might not like this ... [but] who are we to say that the proud denizens of an ancient culture are wrong to force their wives and daughters to live in cloth bags?” As he correctly points out, we do in fact know a lot about human wellbeing and how it is affected by repressive cultural practices, so that wecan indeed be judgmental about such practices.

The final argument of the talk is supposed to reinforce the analogy between moral and scientific expertise, both of which are non-arbitrary: “Most Western intellectuals ... say, well, there is nothing for the Dalai Lama to be really right about or for [serial rapist and killer] Ted Bundy to be really wrong about. ... [One] likes chocolate, [the other] likes vanilla. ... Notice that we don't do this in science,” at which point Harris proceeds to compare differences of opinions about an expert in string theory and himself, claiming that the expert gets the right of wayqua expert. “This is just the point, ok, whenever we are talking about facts, certain opinions must be excluded. ... How have we convinced ourselves that in the moral sphere there is no such thing as moral expertise?”

Let me start my commentary by pointing out that I do agree with Harris’ criticism of moral relativism, for much the same reasons that he advances. However, Harris must be living in a semi-parallel universe if he is convinced that “most Western intellectuals” have no problem with burkas, female genital mutilation, beheadings of “blasphemers” and the like. Perhaps a small number of hyper-politically correct and culturally neutral postmodern cuckoos do subscribe to that notion, but it is hardly “the position, generally speaking, of our intellectual community.”

The analogy between physical health and wellbeing, or flourishing (a term borrowed from the philosophical tradition of virtue ethics, which traces back to Aristotle) is convincing, but not new: it is exactly the way neo-Aristotelian philosophers defend the idea that although the notion of flourishing is complex and multifarious, it is not in fact either arbitrary or useless. The same goes for Harris’ argument that even if there are multiple peaks on the “moral landscape” that does not preclude developing an objective notion of morality. Again, this is an argument well known in moral philosophy.

Where I begin to diverge from Harris is when he talks about moral propositions as a particular kind of empirical facts. First off, as I pointed out before on this blog, to say that something is objectively true is not the same as to say that it is a fact, an equivalence strangely implied by Harris’ talk. There clearly are notions that are objectively true — such as mathematical theorems — but that in no meaningful sense are “facts.” Also, for a notion to be objectively true does not mean that said notion is also universal: morality applies only to human beings and other relevantly self-aware social beings, not to rocks, plants, ants, or other solar systems (unless they are inhabited by self-aware social beings), although on this latter point Harris seems to agree with me.

Let us also set aside another often controversial point in these debates: that of the role of emotions in ethical judgment. As Hume famously pointed out in hisTreatise of Human Nature, “It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger,” meaning that no matter what logic tells us, we are motivated toact only if we are endowed with certain emotional reactions against, say, injustice. These emotions are a complex result of our evolutionary history and our cultural evolution, but they do not enter into the picture sketched by Harris, so we will just mention the issue and move on.

The crux of the disagreement, then, is embodied in the title of Harris' talk: in what sense can scienceanswer(as opposed to inform) ethical questions? Let me take one of Harris’ examples, the (highly questionable) legality of corporal punishment of children in several US States. Harris rhetorically asks whether we really think that hitting children will improve their school performance or good behavior. But that isn’t the point at all. What if it did? What if a scientific study showed that indeed, hitting children does have a measurable effect on improving those desirable traits? Harris would then have to concede that corporal punishment is moral, but somehow I doubt he would. AndI certainly wouldn’t, because my moral intuition (yes, that’s what I’m going to call it, deal with it) tells me that purposefully inflicting pain on children is wrong, regardless of whatever the empirical evidence says.

We can now turn to the wearing of burkas, another issue where Harris and I agree on the substance (it is wrong to force women to “live in cloth bags”), but for different reasons. My position is that I think it immoral for a society to impose that degree of restriction on individual choices (a restriction that, as Harris points out, is backed up by the threat of force and even of capital punishment). That is because as a philosopher inclined towards virtue ethics I think individual and societal flourishingought to be interconnected in a positive way, not in the negative one implemented in so many Muslim societies.

But Harris has to justify why he poses individual women’s wellbeing ahead of societal wellbeing, or even of the wellbeing of the families (and especially the males) of those women. Again, what if an empirical study were to show that — on balance — societies with restrictive rules about women’s attire and behavior flourish better, qua societies, than their more liberal counterparts in the West? Would that make forcing women to wear burkas morally right? I don’t think so.

These examples could be joined by many others making the same point: if we let empirical facts decide what is right and what is wrong, then new scientific findings may very well “demonstrate” that things like slavery, corporal punishment, repression of gays, limited freedom of women, and so on, are “better” and therefore more moral than liberal-progressive types such as Harris and myself would be ready to concede. The difference is that I wouldn’t have a problem rejecting such findings — just as I don’t have a problem condemning social Darwinism and eugenics — but Harris would find himself in a bind. Indeed, he seems to be making a categorical mistake: what he callsvalues are instead empirical facts about how to achieve human wellbeing. But why value individual human wellbeing, or the wellbeing of self-aware organisms, to begin with? Facts are irrelevant to that question.

Of course, I am in complete agreement that oursense of morality is an instinct that derives from our biological history, and that our moral reasoning is carried out by certain areas of the brain. But neither of these conclusions make evolutionary biology or neurobiology arbiters of moral decision making. Of course we do moral reasoning with the brain, just like we solve mathematical problems with the brain. Is Harris going to suggest that neurobiology will supersede mathematics? Of course our basic sense of morality has its roots in having evolved as social primates, but so do xenophobia, homophobia, and a bunch of other human characteristics that are not moral and that we don’t want to encourage.

So, how do we ground moral reasoning? This is the province of a whole area of inquiry known as metaethics, and I suggest that Harris would benefit from reading about it. Ultimately, ethics is a way of thinking about the human (and other relevantly similar organisms) condition. Just as we don’t need a good answer to the question of where mathematics comes from to engage in mathematical reasoning, so it is not very productive to keep asking philosophers for “the ultimate foundations” of what they do (if this sounds like an easy way out to you, remember that neither math nor science itselfhave self-justifiable foundations). A much more productive line of inquiry, it seems to me, is to combine the best of whatboth philosophy and science can offer in our struggle to make our world as just and moral as possible.

Science and the Is/Ought Problem

(this book review was published in e-Skeptic on 2 February 2011)

In 1739 the great Scottish philosopher and skeptic David Hume outlined in his Treatise of Human Nature the problem of mixing the way something is with the way something ought to be:

“In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark’d, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, ‘tis necessary that it shou’d be observ’d and explain’d; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.”

What Sam Harris wishes to do in his new book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, is to mount a science-based challenge to Hume’s famous separation of facts from values. For Harris, values are facts, and as such they are amenable to scientific inquiry. I think he is spectacularly wrong.

Let me first begin by making clear that there is much about which Harris and I agree. We are both moral realists, i.e. we believe that moral questions do have non-arbitrary answers, though our realism is, as will be clear in a moment, of a very different nature. We both agree that religion has absolutely nothing to do with morality, though I don’t think of it as “the root of all evil” either, to use Richard Dawkins’ phrase, which Harris seems to endorse with glee throughout this (and his previous) book. Lastly, as an obvious corollary of our moral realism, both Harris and I think that moral relativism is a silly notion, and that it is in fact downright pernicious in its effects on individuals and society.

Here is where the two of us disagree: I do not think that science amounts to the sum total of rational inquiry (a position often referred to as scientism), which he seems to assume. I do think that science should inform the specifics of our ethical discussions, and hence is in an important sense pertinent to ethics, but I maintain that ethical questions are inherently philosophical in nature, not scientific. Ignoring this distinction, I think, does a disservice to both science and philosophy. Finally, as a corollary of my rejection of scientism above, I do think that there are significant differences between science and philosophy, even though of course the demarcation line between the two is far from being sharp. Indeed, I think that a combination of these two disciplines — which used to be called “scientia” (knowledge in the broadest possible sense) — is our best hope for a more rational and compassionate humanity.

Before I get to the meat, let me point out that I think Harris undermines his own project in two endnotes tucked in at the back of his book. In the second note to the Introduction, he acknowledges that he “do[es] not intend to make a hard distinction between ‘science’ and other intellectual contexts in which we discuss ‘facts.’” But wait a minute! If that is the case, if we can define “science” as any type of rational-empirical inquiry into “facts” (the scare quotes are his) then we are talking about something that is not at all what most readers are likely to understand when they pick up a book with a subtitle that says “HowScience Can Determine Human Values” (my italics). One can reasonably smell a bait and switch here. Second, in the first footnote to chapter 1, Harris says: “Many of my critics fault me for not engaging more directly with the academic literature on moral philosophy … I am convinced that every appearance of terms like ‘metaethics,’ ‘deontology,’ … directly increases the amount of boredom in the universe.” That’s it? The whole of the only field other than religion that has ever dealt with ethics is dismissed because Sam Harris finds it boring? Is that a fact or a value judgment, I wonder?

Harris wants to deliver moral decision making to science because he wants to defeat the evil (if oddly paired) twins of religious fanaticism and moral relativism. Despite the fact that I think he grossly overestimates the pervasiveness of the latter, we are together on this. Except of course that the best arguments against both positions are philosophical, not scientific. The most convincing reason why gods cannot possibly have anything to do with morality was presented 24 centuries ago by Plato, in his Euthyphro dialogue (which goes, predictably, entirely unmentioned inThe Moral Landscape). In this dialogue, Plato’s favorite protagonist Socrates asks a young man named Euthyphro the following question: “The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods?” That is, does God embrace moral principles naturally occurring and external to Him because they are sound (“holy”) or are these moral principles sound because He created them. It cannot be both.

Moral relativism too has been the focus of sustained and devastating attack in philosophy, for instance by thinkers such as Peter Singer and Simon Blackburn, and this is thanks to the large metaethical literature that Harris finds so increases the degree of boredom in the universe.

Harris’ chief claim throughout the book is that moral judgments are a kind of fact, and that as such they are amenable to scientific inquiry. First of all, the second statement does not at all follow from the first. Surely we can agree that the properties of triangles in Euclidean geometry are “facts,” in the sense that nobody who understands Euclidean geometry can opine that the sum of the angles in a triangle is not 180° and get away with it. But we do not use science, or any kind of empirical evidence at all, to arrive at agreement about such facts. Morality, of course, is not mathematics, but it is easy to show that science only informs, doesn’t determine, our ethical choices. Consider abortion.Ifwe agree, for the sake of argument, that abortion is morally permissible before the fetus can feel any pain,then it is a matter for science to give us the best empirical estimate of when approximately that happens during human development. But notice that science cannot make us agree on whether that particular criterion (pain) is moral or not. We need to argue for it in some other way.

How? A friend of mine — who incidentally is usually very skeptical of philosophical arguments — has recently told me of a conversation she often has about vegetarianism, a conversation that is both a perfect example of applied ethical philosophy and a good illustration of why Harris is off the mark with his project. When one of her acquaintances questions the moral grounds of her vegetarian commitment, she replies by asking whether that person endorses bestiality. Taken aback, the interlocutor’s first reaction often invokes some sort of “yuck factor,” only to realize that this would be emotivism (one of the words that Harris thinks is incredibly boring), i.e., it doesn’t amount to a rational reason. The second line of defense, typically, is something like “bestiality forces the animal to comply with an action it has not given consent to.” My friend then smiles, smelling the philosophical kill now at hand. “But surely you will agree thateatingan animal isalso an action that we are forcing upon it without consent!” QED, the opponent has been forced — by the strength of the logical argument — to admit to a serious inconsistency in his thinking. Now he has a limited number of options available: become a vegetarian, grudgingly agree that bestiality is morally defensible, or look for another argument that distinguishes bestiality from meat eating. Notice that in all of this, no science of human emotions or animal husbandry was required, besides a basic knowledge of what kinds of things animals are.

Harris, I suspect, would not be content with this. He wants science — and particularly neuroscience (which just happens to be his own specialty) — to help us out of our moral quandaries. But the reader will wait in vain throughout the book to find a single example of new moral insights that science provides us. Harris tells us that genital mutilation of young girls is wrong. I agree, but certainly we have no need of fMRI scans to tell us why: the fact that certain regions of the brain are involved in pain and suffering, and that we might be able to measure exactly the degree of those emotions doesn’t add anything at all to the conclusion that genital mutilation is wrong because it violates an individual’s right to physical integrity and to avoid pain unless absolutely necessary (e.g., during a surgical operation to save her life, if no anesthetic is available).

Indeed, Harris’ insistence on neurobiology becomes at times positively creepy, as in the section where he seems to relish the prospect of a neuro-scanning technology that will be able to tell us if anyone is lying, opening the prospect of a world where government (and corporations) will be able to enforce no-lie zones upon us. He writes: “Thereafter, civilized men and women might share a common presumption: that whenever important conversations are held, the truthfulness of all participants will be monitored. … Many of us might no more feel deprived of the freedom to lie during a job interview or at a press conference than we currently feel deprived of the freedom to remove our pants in the supermarket.” If these sentences do not conjure the specter of a really, really scary Big Brother in your mind, I suggest you get your own brain scanned for signs of sociopathology (or watch a good episode of Babylon 5).

At several points in the book Harris seems to think that neurobiology will be so important for ethics that we will be able to tell whether people are happy by scanning them and make sure their pleasure centers are activated. He goes so far as telling us that scientific research shows that we are wrong about what makes us happy, and that it is conceivable that “evil” (quite a loaded term, for a book that shies away from philosophy) might turn out to be one of many paths to happiness — meaning the stimulation of certain neural pathways in our brains. Besides the obvious point that if what we want to do is stimulate our brains so that we feel perennially happy, all we need are appropriate drugs to be injected into our veins while we sit in a pod in perfectly imbecilic contentment, these are all excellent observations that show that science cannot answer moral questions. As Harris points out, for instance, research shows that people become less happy when they have children. What does this fact about human behavior have to do with ethical decisions concerning whether and when to have children?

Moreover, Harris entirely evades philosophical criticism of his positions, on the simple ground that he finds metaethics “boring.” But he is a self-professed consequentialist — a philosophical stance close to utilitarianism — who simply ducks any discussion of the implicatons of thata priori choice, which informs his entire view of what counts for morality, happiness, well-being and so forth. He seems unaware of (or doesn’t care about) the serious philosophical objections that have been raised against consequentialism, and even less so of the various counter-moves in logical space (some more convincing than others) that consequentialists have made to defend their position. This ignorance is not bliss, and it is the high price the reader pays for the crucial evasive maneuvers that Harris sneaks into the footnotes I mentioned at the beginning.

Genuinely puzzled: what exactly is Blackford saying about Harris?

(originally published on 16 February 2011)

Ever since my (frankly, negative) review of Sam Harris’ book,The Moral Landscape came out, staunch Harris supporters have told me that I really ought (is that a value or a fact, I wonder?) to check out what Russell Blackford has to say about the book. I respect Blackford, regardless of our disagreements on the epistemic limits of science, and even despite the fact that Jerry Coyne has come to refer to him as “Brother Russell” (Brother, really?). So I checked what Blackford has to say about Harris. It’s a long review, well worth the read, but it left me seriously puzzled, primarily because in a follow-up post, Blackford himself says that he pretty much agrees with my criticisms of Harris.

Blackford starts out with high praise for the book: “[harris] presents an eloquent, passionate, but scholarly defense of his particular take on the phenomenon of morality,” which led me to think he must have actually read a somewhat different book. I remembered the passion, but certainly not the scholarship. Blackford goes on: “In that sense, I need go no further. Is this book worth obtaining and reading? Emphatically yes.” But in fact he does go further, for quite a long while, essentially dismantling every single piece of Harris’ “scholarly” arguments. Don’t take my word for it, what follows is a series of extracts from Blackford’s own review. See if you get to the end and don’t feel as puzzled as I did when I finished reading it (the italics and parenthetical statements are mine).

Concerning Harris’ take on moral relativism and ethics:“Unfortunately, Harris sees it as necessary to defend anaïve metaethical position; and, although the defense itself is conducted with considerable sophistication,he does not seem to understandthe more sophisticated theories ... Harris reaches these conclusions only by offering what strikes me asa highly implausible and ultimately unsustainable accountof the phenomenon of morality ... Harris is impatient with all this, andoften resorts to outright scorn in rejecting considerations that don’t fit with his position.”

On values as scientific “facts”:“Harrisoverreacheswhen he claims that science can determine human values. Indeed, it’s not clear how much the book really argues such a thing, despite its provocative subtitle [seems to me that’s what the book is all about, but okay] ... Harris isnotthereby giving an account of how science can determine our most fundamental values or the totality of our values ... He is, however,no more successfulin deriving ‘ought’ from ‘is’ than anyone else has ever been [this was another central part of Harris’ project]. The whole intellectual system of The Moral Landscapedepends on an “ought” being built into its foundations.”

On “well-being”:“Unfortunately, [the idea that the point of moral systems is to promote well-being]would not assist Harris in insisting that moral questions have determinate, objectively correct answers ... There could end up being legitimate disagreement on what is to be done, with no answer that is objectively binding on all the disagreeing parties ... Harris, however, appears committed to the view that there are determinate and objectively correct answers to all moral questions, even if we cannot discover them in practice ... [but] I doubt that there really is a metric that we can use to gain fully determinate answers to questions of what will maximize well-being.”

On the objectivity of moral judgments:“‘How am I to act?’ and ‘How am I to live?’ It’s these questions that really matter, if we’re looking for guidance for our actions.Harris never provides a satisfactory responseto this line of thought, and I doubt that one is possible ... Harris seems to think that the course of conduct which maximizes global well-being is the morally right one because ‘morally right’ just means something like ‘such as to maximize global well-being.’But this won’t do... Harris toys with therather desperate ideathat even the word ‘should,’ or the expression ‘ought to,’ can be translated along the lines that ‘You should do X,’ or ‘You ought to do X’ means ‘X will maximize global well-being.’ Apart from theinherent implausibility of thisfor any competent speaker of the English language,it misses the point... Harrisdoes not seem to understandthis idea ... Leaving aside Harris’habitual over-reliance on the words ‘clear’ and ‘clearly,’often tosupport assertions that are not clear at all, Mackie [whom Harris dismisses for engaging in naïve philosophy] makes no such error.”

Now, given all the above, I understand why Blackford agrees with my criticism of Harris. The only thing he seems to complain about concerning my review is that I claim that Harris is affected by the common malady of scientism. But even there, Blackford writes: “In the end, the problems withThe Moral Landscapearen't so much about thinking that all problems can be solved by science. Even if Harris may sometimes seem to think that, the real problems are elsewhere.” Well, yes, there are plenty ofotherproblems elsewhere in the book, as Blackford’s own damning (though superficially positive) review clearly shows. But I do think that a major problem with the whole project is precisely the stubborn attempt to overextend the reach of science which is properly labeled as scientism. And Blackford implicitly agrees that Harris can fairly be accused of such, he just doesn’t agree that that isthe major problem with the book.

What I don’t understand is why — given all the above — Blackford concludes that Harris’ book makes a valuable contribution. Apparently, such contribution is to be foundnot in Harris’ idea that science can derive an ought from an is, but simply in Harris’ criticism of moral relativism, a criticism that Blackford himself labels as rather naïve in the middle of his review. So, I wish to thank “Brother Russell” for doing a masterful job at showing why Harris gets the most important parts of his project completely wrong. And to people who really wish to learn something about ethics and how moral judgment works, please do yourself a favor and read Michael Sandel’s wonderful Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? instead. You’ll thank me for that.

Michael Shermer’s libertarianism

(originally published on 12 June 2008)

Michael Shermer (the well known author and publisher of Skeptic magazine) and I usually see eye to eye on all things skeptical. On matters of economics, however, we seem to depart rather sharply. He is a former Randian (as in Ayn Rand) and current moderate libertarian. I am an unmitigated progressive liberal (yup, I like very progressive taxes -- that is, steep on the rich -- welfare, universal health care, free education -- including college -- and a tiny military).

During the summer my lab at Stony Brook University reads a couple of books for fun and intellectual enrichment. One of them this year is Shermer’s The Mind of the Market. I will take issue here with the arguments he deploys in chapter 3 in particular, entitled “Bottom-up capitalism.”

One of the central ideas of the book is to build a parallel between Darwin’s natural selection and Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.” It isn’t that Shermer is trying to go back to so-called social Darwinism (which Darwin himself vehemently rejected), but rather to make the case that both biological systems and economies are “complex adaptive systems with emergent properties.” The conclusion to be drawn from this is that, just like natural selection yields results without the intervention of an intelligent designer, so we should let markets work their magic without government tampering (I simplify somewhat, you should read the book if you want the full treatment).

There are problems with the natural selection-economic markets analogy, of course. To begin with, it is not clear what markets maximize, if anything. Natural selection maximizes local fitness (of a particular population in response to a specific set of environmental circumstances). Free markets may maximize trade volume, for instance; or perhaps they minimize prices; or they augment per capita income, but it is hard to see why exactly any of these things would be necessarily good, since according to several studies published over the last few years they are all only loosely correlated with quality of life, or with other important priorities, like justice, equality, or environmental preservation.

Even assuming that letting markets operate on their own is a good idea in terms of the goals to be accomplished, the parallel with natural selection is rather apt in a way that libertarians won’t like: not only does natural selection not yield optimal outcomes (just whatever happens to work well enough), but it is extremely and painfully wasteful. Let us not forget that the overwhelming majority of species that ever existed went extinct, and that any improvement in the adaptation of a population of organisms happens at the cost of countless deaths and suffering among the less fortunate members of that population. Just like unbridled capitalism, essentially a pyramid scheme, makes a very small number of people very rich, but is built on the sweat and lack of a social net for the majority.

Even Michael, however, has limits (unlike many libertarians I know). After having extolled the virtues of Microsoft’s quasi-monopoly and having told us that Walmart is the best thing that could happen to small America and the world at large, he ends the chapter on a more moderate note. “There are extremists,” Shermer writes on p. 42 of the book, “who embrace the ideology of anarcho-capitalism. ... [But] in order to keep the free market both free and fair, we need political states based on the rule of law, with property rights, a secure and trustworthy banking and monetary system, economic stability, a reliable infrastructure, protection of civil liberties, a clean and safe environment, and various freedoms of movement, of the press, of association, and of education. We need a robust military for protection of our liberties from attacks by other states. We need a potent police force for protection of our freedoms from attacks by other people within the state. We need a viable legislative system for establishing fair and just laws. We need an effective judicial system for the equitable enforcement of those fair and just laws.”

In other words, we need a pretty pervasive government to both facilitate and control social activities, including economic ones! This is the classic libertarian version of wanting the cake and trying to eat it too. Whatever happened to leaving the markets alone to do their magic (something, incidentally, that Smith himself never advocated, aware as he was of human wickedness and crookery, well before Exxon Valdez and Enron)? Natural selection doesn’t require our or anyone else’s intervention to work, it truly does function “from the bottom up.” Not so economies, even by Shermer’s own account. Natural selection does work without the need for an intelligent designer, but it just seems perverse to ask human beings not to use their intelligence to improve on the workings of whatever invisible hand may blindly guide the markets.

Post-Scriptum: Michael’s response to my comments was subsequently published at the Rationally Speaking blog.

Michael Shermer on morality

(originally published on 21 January 2013)

Oh my, I thought I was done for a while chastising skeptics like Sam Harris on the relationship between philosophy, science and morality, and I just found out that my friend Michael Shermer has incurred a similar (though not quite as egregious as Harris’) bit of questionable thinking. As I explained in my review of Harris’ book for Skeptic, one learns precisely nothing about morality by reading The Moral Landscape. Indeed, one’s time on that topic is much better spent by leafing through Michael Sandel’s On Justice, for example. Anyway, apologies for the repetition, but here we go again. (For a fuller explanation of how I think moral philosophy works, see here; on science and philosophy here and here. For how the whole philosophy-science-morality shebang hangs in, take a look at chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 of Answers for Aristotle.)

Michael begins his piece by complaining that scientists have “conceded the high ground of determining human values, morals, and ethics to philosophers,” and arguing that this was a mistake. Indeed, Shermer says that such concession (when did it happen, by the way? Did the National Academy of Science pass a resolution under pressure from the American Philosophical Association?) comes at the worst time because new scientific tools and discoveries are gonna finally tell us from where we ought to get our values.

What are these tools? They include evolutionary ethics and neuroethics, among other fields. Now imagine that Michael had been talking about math instead of ethics. The idea would run something like this: “Scientists have conceded the high ground of resolving mathematical problems to mathematicians, just when the new disciplines of evolutionary mathematics and neuro-mathematics are coming on line.” My point is, I hasten to say,not that ethics is like math, but rather that evolutionary math and neuro-math would be giving us answers to different questions. An evolutionary approach to understanding our ability to reason mathematically could give us clues as to why we are capable of abstract thinking to begin with, which is interesting. “Neuro-mathematics” could then provide answers to the question of how the brain works when it engages in mathematical (and other types of abstract) thinking. But if you want to know how toprove Pythagoras' theorem, neither evolutionary biologists nor neurobiologists are the right kind of experts. You need a mathematician.

Similarly with ethics: we need an evolutionary understanding of where a strong sense of right and wrong comes from as an instinct, and a neurobiological account of how our brains function (or malfunction) when they engage in ethical reasoning. But it is the moral philosopher, not the evolutionary biologist or the neurobiologist, we should check with if we want to know whether a particular piece of ethical reasoning is logically sound or not.

This isnot at all to say that science is irrelevant to ethical reasoning. No philosopher I know of holds to that absurd position (except perhaps a dwindling band of stubborn theologians). But more on that point later.

Shermer proceeds immediately by blaming the is/ought problem as the main culprit for scientists’ misguided concession to philosophers (even though I bet dollars to donuts that the overwhelming majority of scientists has never heard of the is/ought problem). Indeed, Michael claims that the problem isa fallacy (I take it he is using the term colloquially, since I don’t see that entry listed in the vast catalogue of fallacies that professional philosophers and logicians have accumulated.)

Why is the is/ought problem a fallacy, according to Shermer? Because “morals and valuesmustbe based on the way things are in order to establish the best conditions for human flourishing.” Let’s unpack (as philosophers are fond of saying) that loaded phrase. First off, there is a prescriptive claim (“must”) that is not actually argued for. Sounds like Michael is engaging in some a priori philosophizing of his own.Whyexactlymust we base morals and values on the way things are (as opposed to, say, they way we would like them to be)?

Second, “the way things are” has, of course, changed dramatically across centuries and cultures (science tells us this!). Which point in the space-time continuum are we going to pick as our reference to ground our scientific study of morality? We better not just assume that the our own current time and place represent the best of all possible worlds.

Third, “human flourishing” is a surprisingly slippery (and philosophically loaded!) concept, not at all easy to handle by straightforward quantitative analyses. (If you want an idea of the sort of complications I have in mind, take a look here and here.) And of course it should go without mention that the goal of increasing human flourishing is itself the result of a value choice that cannot possibly be grounded in empirical evidence. Nothing wrong with that, unless you insist on a scientistic take on the study of morality.

Shermer then gives his readers a list of things that science can help us understand (presumably, as opposed to philosophy): these are facts about the amount of variation in psychological traits that is genetically determined, basic information about reciprocal altruism, facts about punishment in human societies, something about behavioral game theory, and the conclusion from behavioral economics that trade establishes trust.

I will not pick on any of these specific claims (we could start with the bit about 40-50% heritability of human behavioral traits, just for fun, but that would be a whole different post), because I simply do not see Michael’s point. Nobody has argued, to my knowledge, that philosophy can do a better job than science at finding out facts about the world, at least not since Descartes (who thought of himself as a scientist, by the way). That would be like arguing that chemistry is better than history at figuring out things about the Roman empire. Moreover, the list seems aimed at establishing the idea that morality better be built on an understanding of human nature. Indeed. Aristotle was certainly convinced of that, the utilitarians better agree too, and even a stern rationalist moralist like Kant had to concede that “ought implies can,” which means that in order to talk about morality we need at least to see what is actually possible for us to do (i.e., facts about human affairs matter). So Shermer’s list is entirely irrelevant to the question at hand, quite apart from the fact that some of the “facts” he lists are questionableon scientific grounds.

Next we are treated to the following q&a exercise: Shermer poses us the question “What is the best form of governance for large modern human societies?” To which he immediately answers: “a liberal democracy with a market economy.” What is the evidence for such an answer? “Liberal democracies with market economies are more prosperous, more peaceful, and fairer than any other form of governance tried.”

Again, let’s stop and unpack. Assuming once more that the facts are correct, one could begin by inquiring about the concept of prosperity. How is this measured? Economically? By degree of access to health care and education? By measuring subjective happiness? Because all these criteria yield different answers and rank societies differently. And are we extending this analysis back in time? How far, and based on what data?

Liberal democracies (which, incidentally, is a term that has very different meanings when applied to, say, the United States or Sweden) very likely are more peaceful than countries with different systems of government. But “fairness” is a complicated — philosophical! — idea, which requires a sophisticated conceptual analysis before we can even begin to measure anything at all. And incidentally, why is (presumably, across the board) fairness a better criterion for human flourishing than, say, a guarantee to universal health care and education that comes out of a very skewed system of distribution of other goods? There are many subtle discussions to be had about fairness (for recent examples on this blog see here and here), and it is hard to see how those discussions could be carried out without philosophical engagement. More broadly,no philosopher since Heidegger has indulged in writings aimed at showing that tyranny is better than democracy (and even Heidegger was not exactly a representative sample). The interesting debate is about how to deal with contrasting values within the context of a liberal, multi-ethnic, democratic society. Again, it is not clear who exactly is the target of Michael’s criticism.

Shermer then goes on to add a market economy to the mix of his favorite ideologies, claiming that “it decreases violence and increases peace significantly” (hardly surprising, coming from a well known libertarian). Once more, without even going to question the empirical assertion, shouldn’t we at least admit that “market economy” is a highly heterogeneous category (think US vs China), and that some market economies decrease fairness, do not provide universal access to health care and education, lower workers’ wages, and overall negatively affect human flourishing? How should we rank our values in order to make sense of the data? How do the databy themselvesestablish a guide to which values we should hold? And whyshould we follow whatever the current science says, as opposed to having discussions about where we would like science and technology (and economics) themselves to go?

But in fact Michael and I very likely don’t disagree that much about this whole thing after all. At the end of his essay he says: “in additionto philosophical arguments, we can make a scientific case for liberal democracy and market economies ...in addition to philosophers, scientists should have a voice in determining human values and morals” [my italics]. Well, if the contribution of science to human well being is in addition to that of philosophy, how exactly is the current state of affairs problematic? As an idea it goes back to Aristotle’s inquires into human nature, and very few professional philosophers would argue that science (or “facts”) is irrelevant to what they do.

The problem when scientists and skeptics write about philosophy is that quite often they are simply not familiar with the pertinent literature. Somehow philosophy — probably because it is a broad “meta-discipline” whose purpose is to reflect on what other disciplines do — encourages this idea that one doesn’t need to read it before dismissing it (I’m looking at you, Sam Harris, Lawrence Krauss and Stephen Hawking). [1]

Let’s start with Shermer’s allegation that the is/ought is a “fallacy.” To begin with, here is exactly what Hume wrote about it, in the aptly entitledA Treatise of Human Nature (1739):

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason.

Nowhere does Hume say that there is an in principle unbridgeable gap between is and ought. He is simply, very reasonably, pointing out that one cannot “imperceptibly” slide from one type of consideration to the other without providing explanations and reasons.

Second, Willard van Orman Quine, one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century, has done much work to argue that there cannot be a sharp distinction between matters of fact (what philosophers call synthetic truths) and statements that are independent of empirical findings (so-called analytical truths, like those of math and logic). Which implies that many modern philosophers wholeheartedly agree that of course science has something to say about values.

However, it also follows from Quine’s work that making the fact/value distinction permeable can result in a surprisingly uncomfortable outcome for scientistically minded individuals, biting them in the ass, so to speak. You see, negating a sharp distinction between facts and valuesdoes not mean that the latter reduce to the former, it means that there is a complex interplay between the two. From there it’s only a short step to realizing that facts themselves are not immune from value judgments and filtering, which in turn means that a “just the fact, ‘madam” sort of attitude is naive. It appears that science needs philosophy just as much as philosophy needs science, especially when it comes to clearly non-value neutral issues such as justice, fairness, and human well being.

Finally, Quine also pointed out a reason why science by itself is never going to be enough. All theories about the world are going to be underdetermined by the available data, meaning that there will always be more than one way to understand the meaning of “facts.” If this is the case, then we need extra-empirical considerations to make sense of those very facts (i.e., they don’t “speak for themselves”). Which is why careful reflection on meaning and logical implications (i.e., good philosophizing) will always be required.

Quine advocated for a strong “naturalistic” turn in philosophy, a stronger one than I would recommend, in fact (I'm writing a book about this...). But even his embracing of empiricism (and therefore science) still yielded a view of human knowledge as a complex web where facts and interpretations, provided by physical science, natural science, and social science, are going to be in reflective equilibrium with contributions from non-empirical investigations, be they from math, logic or, yes, philosophy.

The emerging picture, then, is much more nuanced and interesting than any simplistic dismissal of philosophya la Harris-Krauss-Hawking. Shermer, to his credit, comes closer to this nuanced call for aninclusion of science — together with philosophy — in our quest to make sense of the world and to make it a better place for ourselves. But there is no reason to be worried about scientists conceding any high (or low) ground to philosophers. It has never happened, it never will, and it isn’t what philosophers are asking for anyway.

Post-Scriptum: Michael replied to my post, and you can find his essay on the Rationally Speaking blog. The next two essays in this volume constitute my counter-replies, including as a follow-up to our live debate at the North East Conference on Science and Skepticism.

——

[1] Fortunately, there are skeptics out there who take a more nuanced approach to the philosophy-science-morality issue. A good example is represented by two essays keyboarded by Steve Novella at the NeuroLogica blog.

Toward a science of morality. An annotated response to Michael Shermer

(originally published on 18 February 2013)

Michael Shermer and I have been engaged in what I hope has been a productive discussion on the relationship between science and philosophy as it concerns the field of ethics. Roughly speaking, Michael contends that science has a lot to say about ethical questions (though he is not quite as reductive as Sam Harris, who contends that science is pretty much the only game in town when it comes to ethics). I respond that science provides informative background but grossly underdetermines ethical issues, which therefore require philosophical reflection. Michael’s opening salvo was followed by my response, with Shermer recently adding some thoughts, further articulating his position. The notes below are my point-by-point commentary on that third round. (Throughout, italics indicates Michael’s writing, with my comments immediately following.)

...I begin with a Principle of Moral Good: Always act with someone else’s moral good in mind, and never act in a way that leads to someone else’s moral loss...

Well, that sounds good (and mighty close to Kant’s famous categorical imperative), except for the significant degree of begging the question hidden in Michael’s principle (but not in Kant’s). What is a moral good? Reading the principle as it stands I would have pretty much no idea of how to actually act, or whether my acting would lead to someone else’s moral good or loss.

...Even if there is a God, divine command theory was refuted 2500 years ago by Plato through his “Euthyphro’s dilemma”...

Good point. So we have at least one example of a philosopher arriving at a major — and still standing — conclusion about morality regardless of empirical evidence or scientific insight...

...The Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) has a severe limitation to it: What if the moral receiver thinks differently from the moral doer? ... This is why in my book The Science of Good and Evil I introduced the Ask-First Principle: To find out whether an action is right or wrong ask first.

Besides the fact that the golden rule is strictly speaking a religious, not a philosophical precept, I don’t see the difference at all. The ask-first principle seems to suffer from precisely the same problem as the golden rule. What if someone wanted to be hurt, or humiliated, or being treated as inferior? Would that make it ok? It’s not just 12-yr old girls belonging to the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (to use Michael’s example) who may be morally incompetent or not sufficiently mature.

Most men, for example, are much more receptive toward unsolicited offers of sex than are women.

This is just a parenthetical observation, Michael, but that study has been debunked, together with a lot of the other questionable “science” about gender we get from a certain brand of evolutionary psychology...

... applying evolutionary theory to not only the origins of morality but to its ultimate foundation as well, it seems to me that the individual is a reasonable starting point...

Two problems here: first, Michael confuses evolutionary explanations for the origin of morality with the much more complex, and extremely culturally dependent, context of modern-day moral decision making. Natural selection has pretty much nothing to tell us about under what circumstances abortion may be acceptable or not, whether we should pursue drone warfare, or whether health and education should be considered as human rights. Second, morality is an inherently social phenomenon, so I’d say that the individual is precisely the wrong place to start.

... The survival and flourishing of the individual is the foundation for establishing values and morals, and so determining the conditions by which humans best survive and flourish ought to be the goal of a science of morality.

Natural selection has everything to do with survival (and reproduction), but pretty much nothing to do with flourishing. The latter, in turn, is an inherently cultural concept, that is difficult to articulate and whose specifics vary with time and geography. Which means that Michael’s “smooth transition” between is and ought is anything but smooth.

In his annual letter Bill Gates outlined how and why the progress of the human condition can best be implemented when tracked through scientific data...

This seems to me a good example of a recurring confusion on the part of those who claim that science can answer moral questions. No philosopher would doubt Gates’ statement. But that data becomes relevant only after one has already engaged in moral judgment and decided that we ought to reduce poverty. It is, rather, a very sensible way to check whether our actual policies are having the desired effect. Shermer et al. seem to confuse ethics with social policy. It is the first that informs the second, not the other way around.

This is why Bill Gates is backing with his considerable wealth and talent the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals program...

Good for Gates. But Bill Gates has also decided that public education is a rotten concept and has put his considerable wealth and talent in the service of undermining it. I think that was a bad decision, and yet I’m sure Mr. Gates can easily produce statistics that measure how well his misguided policy is being implemented.

A second example may be found on the opposite end of the economic scale in a study conducted for the National Bureau of Economic Research entitled “Subjective Well-Being, Income, Economic Development and Growth” by the University of Pennsylvania economists Daniel Sacks, Betsey Stevenson, and Justin Wolfers, in which they compared survey data on subjective well-being (“happiness”) with income and economic growth rates in 140 countries.

I am aware of that sort of survey, and I appreciate their value, as is clear in several chapters of my Answers for Aristotle (where I explore the relationship between science and philosophy in a number of areas of human interest, from morality to love). But “subjective” well-being has little to do with morality, since it is about the psychological satisfaction of an individual. That satisfaction can be easily increased by just hooking said individual to a perpetual drug machine, as philosopher Robert Nozick famously pointed out, something that can straightforwardly be argued would actually be morally wrong. Besides, again, morality is about how we behave towards others, not about how happy we feel.

Why does money matter morally? Because it leads to a higher standard of living. Why does a higher standard of living matter morally? Because it increases the probability that an individual will survive and flourish. Why does survival and flourishing matter morally? Because it is the basis of the evolution of all life on earth through natural selection.

Given what I have written so far, and in my previous post, I’ll leave it to the reader to unpack the above chain of reasoning and show where he goes wrong (hint: there are attwo problems with it, but I may have missed an additional one or two).

The fact that there may be many types of democracies (direct v. representative) and economies (with various trade agreements or membership in trading blocks) only reveals that human survival and flourishing is multi-faceted and multi-causal, and not that because there is more than one way to survive and flourish means that all political, economic, and social systems are equal.

I’m afraid this is a straight straw man. To my knowledge, no moral or political philosopher has argued that “all political, economic, and social systems are equal,” so I don’t think this requires a response, except insofar as it shows that science enthusiasts tend to read little philosophy, moral or otherwise. (Which, of course, is fine, except when they then go on to make major claims about the limitations of moral philosophy.)

We know that belief in supernatural sorcery and witchcraft and their concomitant consequences of torturing and murdering those so accused is wrong because it decreases the survival and flourishing of individuals — just ask first the woman about to be torched. ... The ultimate solution is science and education in understanding the natural causes of things and the debunking of supernatural beliefs in sorcery and witchcraft. And it is science that tells us why witchcraft and sorcery is immoral.

Not at all. Science tells us that witchcraft and sorcery are unfounded superstitions, not that they are immoral. If they were real, and people really used them to kill innocents, then it would be perfectly moral to prosecute the perpetrators (though not to burn them alive. But again, why not? Because we think torture and the death penalty are immoral on ethical grounds, since they respectively cause needless suffering and are done out of revenge, neither of which are morally salient reasons). Also, about Shermer’s “just ask” principle: clearly it won’t work. Just ask the murderer who is serving life in prison if he’d rather do something else with his life. Certainly his ability to flourish has been curtailed by society, but presumably this is happening because of a (philosophically) justified moral judgment.

There seem to be two major sources of error in Michael’s reasoning about science and morality. First, his insistence on evidence-based decisions is perfectly appropriate to the implementation of policies, but it is entirely unclear how it applies to the sort of issues that moral philosophers actually discuss. Just as an exercise, try reading any chapter of Michael Sandel’s Justice and let me know which of the questions that Sandel discusses so clearly would be settled by empirical evidence. Again, empirical evidence is relevant to our ethical choices but it grossly underdetermines them.

Second, Michael keeps talking about survival and flourishing in a single breadth, invoking natural selection as working to increase both. This is absolutely wrong. Natural selection increases survival, and even that only insofar as it assures reproduction (after that, good luck to you, my friend!). Selection has nothing whatsoever to do with flourishing, the realization of which completely breaks any evolutionarily based “smooth transition” between is and ought. Not to mention, of course, that Michael should know that natural selection likely also produced a number of nasty behavioral patterns in humans (e.g., xenophobia), which we have been trying  — in good part through philosophizing about them! — to get rid of throughout the past couple of millennia.

So, again, science — or more broadly, factual evidence — most certainly has a place at the high table of any meaningful discussion about how to achieve human goals and fulfill human desires. But philosophical reflection remains central to ethics because ethics is about reasoning on the implications of and conflicts generated by those goals and desires. To put it as Kant did: “Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”

Science, morality, and genital mutilation

(originally published on 23 April 2013)

As readers of Rationally Speaking know, recently Michael Shermer and I have had a friendly debate over the role of science in answering moral questions. I commented on an initial article by Michael, invited him to respond on these pages, and provided a point-by-point commentary on his response. We then both appeared at the 2013 Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism, where Julia Galef moderated a spirited but, I think, informative discussion between Michael and me on the same topic.

A couple of days ago, Michael tweeted the link to the podcast episode, with these two comments:

Can science tell us what is ‘moral’? Shermer (yes) v. Pigliucci (no, not sure, don’t know, maybe, depends, doubtful)

and:

Is female genital mutilation wrong? Shermer (yes) v. Pigliucci (depends, sometimes, in some cultures yes in others no)

I was a bit surprised by this, as well as taken aback. Surprised because I thought I made very clear, during the live discussion, that I do think female genital mutilation is wrong, and gave my reasons for it. Taken aback because, frankly, tens of thousands of people may now think that I am a moral relativist (including my 16 years old daughter!), which I am most definitely not, and that I have no principled objection to female genital mutilation, which I definitely do.

After an email exchange with Michael, we both agree that I would publish this post to rectify the record, and that he would tweet it to his followers, with the same aim. Below you will find three items: first, a transcript of the bits of the podcast where I explain my position on female genital mutilation; second, a transcript of the bits of the podcast where I explain my position on the relationship between science and philosophy when it comes to ethical issues; third, a question that Michael sent me directly, asking me to include it in this post, and my response.

I want to thank Michael for yet another example of how to conduct civil and productive discourse in the skeptic community. We will continue to disagree, but hopefully our thoughts will stimulate discussion and understanding.

1. On female genital mutilation

@15:20 [Michael] So Massimo, back to my opening example. Would you say that in some cultures female genital mutilation is morally acceptable? You think it’s ok.

[Massimo] No, I don’t.

[Michael] Why? On what basis?

[Massimo] I don’t because I don’t think it is ethical to force especially a child, especially somebody who cannot actually object to it, to undergo pain for arbitrary reasons that are not useful to the person. It’s okay to undergo pain for reasons that are not arbitrary and are good for you. Like, you know, if you have to have an operation to get a tumor out of the way, well that’s going to cause you pain. And if I have to do it on a child, even without her consent, I think that’s ethically acceptable. But in [the other] case I don’t. Now, this was the short story, then we can get into a more complex discussion because in fact the choice of the child, the welfare of the child, is not just as simple as a question of, as a matter of, pain or not pain. There is also the societal context, because as it turns out if you don’t do it the children will suffer because they live in a certain society. Now I still think that doesn’t outweigh the idea that genital mutilation is wrong, so I still think it should be objected to.

@18:19 [Michael] I think we can do better than what you just said about female genital mutilation. I think we can do better than that. Than just say well, you know, in Western democratic cultures it’s wrong, but for those other cultures...

[Massimo] That is not at all what I said. I said that it is wrong, period.

[Michael] How do you know that it’s wrong period?

[Massimo} I think I explained that I think it’s wrong to impose pain for arbitrary reasons. And those are arbitrary reasons, as I said, as opposed to I’m going to cure you of a tumor.

[Michael] What are you basing that on?

[Massimo] That’s not based on any empirical evidence whatsoever, because what empirical evidence would that be, that people don’t want to feel pain and want to feel pleasure? If that were all the basis to our morality we could just hook ourselves to a drug machine for the rest of our lives. we would be very happy and not in pain. And yet most of us don’t think that’s a reasonable thing to do. Why not?

2. On the relationship between science and philosophy as it pertains to ethics

@19:54 [Massimo] By the way, I should, again, just in case there is some doubt, I should reiterate that I don’t think science is irrelevant. In fact, no moral philosopher thinks science is irrelevant, or [that] empirical evidence is irrelevant to these discussions. It’s a question of how do we balance things out.

@23:09 [Michael] Why not add [science]? It’s a great tool.

[Massimo] But who is arguing against adding it?

[Michael] You seem to be.

[Massimo] No, I don’t think so. We need to be careful about making this distinction. Again, I don’t think any reasonable moral philosopher would object to importing empirical evidence, empirical issues, into discussions of morality. The question is how much does that empirical information weigh.

@23:53 [Massimo] As I said during my talk before this discussion here, the major distinction, or a major distinction, between science and philosophy, and the reason I do think that they really do need to both work together on these and other issues, is that science deals with the empirical world, and philosophy tends to deal with logical possibilities. ... Logical possibilities are much broader than empirical possibilities, which is another way to rephrase Julia’s question a minute ago. Which is science constantly will underdetermine, the empirical information, will constantly underdetermine our ethical problems, because our ethical problems are a question of conflicts of values. We need to explain to ourselves and to others why is it that certain things need to take priority over others. The empirical information is relevant, but it doesn’t determine a unique answer.

3. Michael’s question and my response

Massimo, you and I agree that Female Genital Mutilation is morally wrong, but can you say that it is absolutely, objectively wrong? That is, can you do more than say you personally think it is wrong but you acknowledge that other people in different cultures than ours think it is acceptable, and that being the case you cannot condemn their actions against women as immoral? The point I was trying to make in my lecture and in our discussion is that I go so far as to say that there is no moral universe (culture, worldview, etc.) in which FGM is not immoral, based on the fundamental moral principle of not harming individuals. I argue that the individual is the fundamental moral agent because the individual is the primary target of natural selection, and thus it is in our nature to survive and flourish, and so actions that permanently rob us of our nature are immoral. Thus, I can deduce that permanently mutilating women robs them of their right to flourish as fully human individuals. Likewise, banning gays from getting married is immoral (and, conversely, gay marriage is moral) because it robs these individuals of their right to survive and flourish according to their nature. You apparently reject my argument for this basis of morality. You and I agree on these two issues (FGM is immoral, gay marriage is moral), but I think our disagreement is in WHY. I claim that FGM is absolutely and objectively morally wrong, and that we can defend this position in a solid scientific argument. You apparently disagree with this. If so, can you explain WHY you think FGM is wrong?

Michael, let me unpack your claim, before I explain (again) my position on female genital mutilation, gay marriage and the like. Your argument seems to be:

1. The individual is the primary target of natural selection.

2. (1) Makes the individual the fundamental moral agent.

3. Natural selection favors human survival and flourishing.

4. From (3), human nature demands the survival and flourishing of the individual.

5. Anything that violates (4) is immoral.

6. FGM (or the prohibition against gay marriage, or other things) violates (4).

7. Therefore, (from 2, 5 and 6) FGM is morally wrong.

Premise (1) can be questioned. Indeed, it is a well known problem for individual-based selection theories to explain the evolution of altruism and of moral sentiments more generally. Some sort of group selection seems necessary, though I don’t have a definitive position on that. Still, I will let this premise stand for the sake of argument.

To derive (2) from (1) is a non sequitur. Since natural selection has targeted every individual of every other species, and yet the category “moral” seems to apply only to human beings (and perhaps a few other species), something is clearly missing in your account. I suggest that what is missing is the evolution of a brain capable of self-reflection, as well as the entire phenomenon of cultural evolution. Those are crucial conditions that have to occur in order to be able to talk about morality. Nonetheless, let’s proceed as if.

(3) is clearly wrong: natural selection promotes the survival and reproduction of individuals, the concept of flourishing doesn’t enter into it. (Notice that already at this point your argument has crumbled, since all one has to show is that one or more of the premises is untenable. But let’s continue.)

(4) would indeed logically follow from (3), except for the fact that (3) itself is not true.

(5) is a stipulation for which you give no argument. I may agree, but then again it is easy to come  up with counter examples: when we punish a member of society for wrong doing we usually deprive him of his ability to flourish (and sometimes to survive, via the death penalty). But surely you will agree that that is morally permissible. Except that to justify punishment for moral wrong doing we need to explain why we allow exceptions to (5). This would quickly lead us to a philosophical discussion of rights, justice, etc.

(6) is a stipulation, with which I agree. But not for the reason you give, since in your case it is based on (4), which in turn relies on (3), and I reject the latter. (See below for my positive reasons.)

Given all the above, your conclusion (7) does not follow logically from your premises.

And yet, as you noted, we do agree that FGM is wrong, so I need to explain why by way of a different account from your own.

To begin with, the way you asked the question seems to me to lead to a false dichotomy:eitherone thinks that FGM is “absolutely, objectively wrong,”or one is a moral relativist. But the options afforded by moral philosophy are much broader than that. Once again, I am not a moral relativist. But you seem to be a strong moral realist (“absolutely, objectively”), which is a very untenable position (ironically, it puts you in the company of Kant — though for different reasons from his own — and that should make you feel uncomfortable).

My position is that morality in the modern sense is the result of a process of evolution favoring pro-social behavior (not “flourishing”), which we can trace to other species of primates, followed by millennia of self-reflection and discussion among human beings (i.e., cultural evolution, which doesn’t enter into your scenario at all). As such, I think moral precepts are contingently (as opposed to absolutely) and non-arbitrarily (as opposed to “objectively”) true. Neither of those two qualifiers comes even close to moral relativism. Thecontingencyarises from the fact that morality makes sense only for certain types of intelligent, conscious, social animals, like us. If we were a radically different type of organism we may have developed different moral norms, or perhaps no morality at all.Non-arbitrariness separates morality from, say, rules of etiquette. But ethics is often an issue of balancing contrasting rights and alternative norms of behavior, so that there may be more than one reasonable way to address a particular moral problem, and none of the reasonable alternatives may be objectively better than another one.

Let me give you a simple example before we finally turn to FGM. Consider Michael Sandel’s discussion of the recent practice of lobbyists in Congress to pay homeless or poor people to secure a place for them for a particular hearing in which they are interested (while presumably they have lunch at an expensive restaurant nearby). Some people consider the practice wrong, because it bypasses the standard system of queuing, which allows interested citizens (not just lobbyists) to attend congressional hearings. The idea is that buying a place in a queue goes counter to the egalitarian purpose of the queue, limits access to the democratic process by ordinary citizens, and undermines the integrity of the institution of Congress. Others, however, argue that the practice of queue-buying is justified because it deploys a market approach to the problem of limited seating (if you really want to go there, you show that by how much you are willing to pay), and it has the positive side effect of giving money to the poor or homeless.

Which view is absolutely, objectively right? Empirical evidence here simply doesn’t enter into it, since everyone agrees on the relevant facts (which, needless to say, are not “scientific” facts, but mundane, everyday observational facts). The way a moral philosopher would go about it (read Sandel’s chapter, it’s illuminating) is by unpacking the premises of the contrasting positions, exploring what they logically entail, thereby clarifying the problem. But at some point we need to decide what wevalue more: equal access by citizens to government, efficiency of the system, collateral benefits (such as money for the homeless), or what? There are plenty of wrong answers, but not necessarily a clear (absolute, objective) winner, and the empirical evidence — though relevant — underdetermines the problem.

And now back to female genital mutilation. As I said in the podcast (see transcripts above) I think it is wrongbecauseI subscribe to a broader moral principle: that it is wrong to impose pain on others, particularly if unable to object, for arbitrary reasons. From the broader principle I derive my specific objection to FGM, since the reasons advanced by its supporters are indeed arbitrary. The qualification that followed during the podcast, and which may have engendered your confusion about my position, is that even though FGM is wrong, there are a number of consequences for girls who do not undergo the procedure when they enter the adult population, since they will be shunned by men in their own society. This sort of consequence very much affects the ability of those women to flourish, don’t you think? Still, I remain convinced that, on balance, and despite the risk of not being able to marry and have a family, FGM is wrong and needs to be condemned. In other words, I think thosesocieties— and especially their male members — should revise their moral system. But this isn’t the result of any calculus about the women’s overall degree of flourishing, it’s the result of ethical reflection that leads me to condemn the practicedespite the fact that women who do not undergo it, in those societies, will very likely have lower flourishing than they would otherwise.

Now, you can ask me where the broader principle that causing pain for arbitrary reasons to non-consenting human beings comes from. There we agree that by nature human beings recoil from pain and suffering, so thatother things being equal this should be avoided. But I frame this within the context of my preferred moral framework, virtue ethics, not on an evolutionary account (because natural selection doesn’t favor flourishing — Aristotle himself was big on human nature, obviously without any input from evolutionary theory). Notice, of course, that there are plenty of other things we could ascribe to human nature (e.g., violence, xenophobia) which I think are wrong on ethical grounds, but which you would have a hard time criticizing (since they did evolve, possibly by natural selection).

[I should add, to hopefully prevent further misinterpretation, that we hardly need “science” to give us the basic outline of human nature, just like we don’t need, say, an fMRI scan to tell us that a girl undergoing genital mutilation is in pain. That said, in some cases we may want actual science, especially psychology, to come to the table with empirically relevant input.]

Finally, FGM is a bad example for our discussion, since we both agree that it is wrong, though we arrive at that conclusion very differently. Much more informative would be to debate cases where we disagree on the ethical judgment itself (perhaps the queue-buying one mentioned above?). That would be more revealing of our differences, but I guess we’ll have to leave it for another time.

Part II. The Biologists

Beyond selfish genes

(originally published as a column in Skeptical Inquirer in November/December 2007)

Richard Dawkins' classic book, The Selfish Gene (1976) presented to the public the astonishing idea that organisms are “lumbering robots,” controlled in their actions by “selfish” pieces of DNA bent on insuring their own reproduction, come what may. Dawkins' follow-up book, The Extended Phenotype (1982) attempted to meet some of the criticisms raised against The Selfish Gene, mostly that it presented far too simplistic a view of evolution, and that its tone and metaphors were too easily interpreted as fostering the myth of genetic determinism (despite Dawkins' denials over time that he subscribes to it).

Yet the damage was done. Far more people read Dawkins' first book (which was aimed at the general public) than the second, more scholarly one. Moreover, although The Selfish Gene was largely a popularization of technical ideas by evolutionary biologists like William Hamilton (Oxford University) and George Williams (Stony Brook University, NY), it began to be discussed in the literature as if it were a primary source, an unfortunate outcome both for Dawkins (who became a target for the sort of heavy criticism that is usually not aimed at popular books) and for the originators of the basic ideas themselves (who remained somewhat peripheral to the public discussion).

Be that as it may, it is time to lay the selfish gene metaphor to rest, or at least to seriously appreciate its strict limits. Dawkins' basic idea is that evolutionary biologists should adopt what he calls a “gene's eye view” of evolution, since the genes, not the organisms, species or any other level of biological organization, are really the targets of natural selection and chief actors in the evolutionary drama. This shift in perspective, which followed the explosive success of molecular biology beginning with the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, was based on the simple idea that genes, not organisms, provide historical continuity, since it is genes, not the traits of organisms, that are passed from one generation to the next. As Dawkins put it, evolution is about the “replicators” (the genes) though the latter's fate is in fact mediated at each generation by the “interactors,” i.e. the organisms that interact with the environment.

But a number of scientists and philosophers soon pointed out that things aren't quite that simple. One of the first criticisms leveled to Dawkins' view of the centrality of the gene was a simple observation made by geneticist Richard Lewontin and philosopher Elliott Sober. They emphasized that genes are never found isolated inside organisms, they are parts of genomes, and genes have to interact (through their products, usually, but not always, proteins) with other genes. Based on this logic, it is easy to construct models showing that – at most – selection acts on ensemble of genes (i.e., on genotypes), not on individual genes. Dawkins responded with the interesting maneuver of treating every other gene as a part of “the environment” of any focal gene under study. While this in a sense rescues the selfish gene idea, it begins to show the clumsiness of the approach, because now the remainder of the genome behaves simultaneously as a set of replicators, as a set of vehicles (because of other gene's interactions with the focal one), and as part of the “environment.”

Things got worse from that point on. Recent research by, among others, Mary Jane West-Eberhard (Smithsonian Institution) is helping to re-establish the classic Darwinian idea that selection acts (primarily) on organisms, not genes. Indeed, a phenomenon that had rarely been studied when The Selfish Gene came out, known as “phenotypic plasticity” (the ability of an organism to accommodate environmental variation by altering its own developmental trajectory) suggests that the first step in evolution may often be one mediated by the phenotype, with genetic changes following (as opposed to leading, as in the standard theory), eventually stabilizing whatever outcome is initially favored by natural selection.

An even broader challenge to the gene's eye view of things has been brought by the resurgence of the idea of group selection, which – in its naïve version – was a primary target of some of Williams' original work that inspired Dawkins. Williams had convincingly shown that there is no such thing as selection for “the good of the species” (a still amazingly popular misreading of the theory of evolution). However, recent work spearheaded by David Sloan Wilson (Binghamton University, NY) and others has succeeded in outlining what realistic conditions can in fact yield group-level selection, and empirical research supporting some group selective scenarios has began to accumulate (this is particularly relevant to the understanding of human evolution, especially evolution mediated by cultural traits).

Finally, very recent evidence supporting the existence of a whole additional layer of heritable epi-genetic information (i.e., information that is not carried by the genes themselves), has even put in some doubt the sharpness of the original distinction between replicators and interactors, as pointed out by philosopher Paul Griffiths (University of Exeter, England) and biologist Eva Jablonka (Tel Aviv University), among others. All of this is greatly expanding our concept of what counts as hereditary material, to the point that biologists are seriously reconsidering what, if anything, genes really are.

As a result of these and other serious challenges, some biologists and philosophers of science have come to an understanding of evolution as a multi-level process, where natural selection can act directly on genes (there are, in fact, truly selfish genetic elements that reproduce parasitically inside the genome itself), individual organisms (as in classical evolutionary theory), social groups within species, and possibly even groups of different species (known as clades). Some authors have suggested that genes may still retain a special role because whatever change happens at higher levels is bound to be reflected (however indirectly) in changes in gene frequencies. But this “bookkeeping” role of genes in evolutionary biology is a far cry from grand statements about their alleged causal centrality. Evolution is indeed a much more fascinating and complex process than we thought until only a few years ago.

The trouble with memetics

(originally published as a column in Skeptical Inquirer in September/October 2007)

A meme, according to a by now standard dictionary definition, is “an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by non genetic means, especially imitation.” The idea (a meme in itself?) was first introduced by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book,The Selfish Gene. Dawkins' intention was to make the point that evolution by natural selection is not limited to genes, and it isn't an accident of life on earth. Rather, Darwinian principles are universal, and they apply to whatever other system features the basic characteristics of heritable variation in characteristics affecting fitness.

But we only know of one such system, namely life on earth, and that system is inextricably dependent on genes. Moreover, life on our planet probably evolved only once, and it isn't at all clear that such evolution was inevitable or even highly probable. So, how could Dawkins make the argument that Darwinian principles are universal (without waiting for the discovery of life on Mars)? Enter memetics. The basic concept is that there is, in fact, at least another class of “replicators” subjected to natural selection: memes, a word derived from direct analogy with genes (and with a nice Greek root in the wordmimema, which means “that which is imitated”), indicating that ideas, or mental constructs, can be though of as replicators competing for space inside human minds.

Memes have caught on, in a limited way. While the new term has made it into  dictionaries, a small number of books and even a dedicated technical journal have appeared discussing all things memetic. And yet, there is quite a bit that is rather unconvincing about the whole idea. To begin with, and unlike the case of genes, there doesn't seem to be any distinction between memes themselves and the phenotype they produce. Genes in some sense “encode” proteins, and proteins have a variety of effects that indirectly contribute to the fitness of the organism carrying those genes. In Dawkins' own terms, there is a distinction between “replicators” (the genes) and “interactors” (the organisms themselves).

But in the case of memes, the replicating “unit,” for example an annoying tune that gets into your mind, forces you to whistle it, and thereby gets stuck into somebody else's mind, is both replicator and interactor. This isn't necessarily a fatal problem, but it begins to point toward a disanalogy between genes and memes. And it gets worse.

The second problem with memes is that nobody seems to know what their physical basis is. Genes are – roughly speaking – pieces of nucleic acids (DNA or RNA), with known physical-chemical characteristics. But memes can be instantiated equally well inside someone's mind (where presumably they correspond to specific patterns of neuronal firings), on a computer's hard drive, or a book, or an iPod. While it is true that for decades after Gregor Mendel proposed the idea of genes biologists didn't know what they were made of either, the case for memes is worse because they seem to be a sort of “diffuse” entity, which can have many physical incarnations. Again, this is disanalogous with genes.

As a result of this ambiguity, it is pretty much impossible to tell what constitutes a meme. The typical examples in the literature vary from the above mentioned annoying tune to religion. The latter kind of meme is often referred to as a meme complex, or “memeplex.” This is again supposed to be in analogy with the fact that sometimes groups of genes with a common evolutionary history are found physically linked on a chromosome to form gene complexes, with the complex, rather than individual genes, being the target of natural selection. But the idea works for genes because of their identifiable, and stable, physical nature. In the case of memes, there is no way to tell what constitutes a memeplex, other than the arbitrary interest of the researcher.

As if all of the above were not cause for a pause, there is a further, more crucial, problem with the idea of memes: it is not predictive. Philosopher Karl Popper once said that evolutionary theory is not a scientific theory, but rather a “metaphysical research program.” What he meant was that it is not possible to falsify or test the theory because it is based on a circular definition: it says that natural selection favors the survival (and reproduction) of the fittest, but then turns around and defines the fittest as those who survive (and reproduce). Creationists are fond of this statement by Popper, without realizing that the philosopher himself eventually admitted that he was wrong. Popper had misunderstood the nature of evolutionary theory, having not realized that there are independent ways of making predictions about the fitness of organisms (based on our understanding of the functional ecology of their characteristics). This breaks the circle and makes evolutionary theory a standard scientific theory.

But Popper's objection remains valid for memetics: the only way to tell which memes are going to be successful, which tunes are going to stuck to your mind, or which religions are going to become popular, is by waiting and see what happens. That is, memeticists completely lack a functional ecological theory of memes. Without it, the whole enterprise is scientifically empty.

Indeed, memetics – at least for now – doesn't seem to add anything at all to the standard view of gene-culture co-evolution developed well before Dawkins' put down his ideas inThe Selfish Gene. Ideas clearly do evolve, and there is in fact somewhat of an undeniable analogy with the evolution of genes. But we don't need to push that analogy too far, and we certainly don't need a whole new vocabulary to make sense of it.

Finally, despite the questionableness of memetics, Dawkins' claim about universal Darwinism is probably correct, and we do have a non-biological example to study at our leisure: computer scientists have discovered the idea of “genetic” algorithms, i.e. computer programs that can literally evolve by mutation and selection, perfectly mimicking the biological process. Indeed, researchers in this field have independently rediscovered many of the laws and generalizations that population geneticists have produced ever since the beginning of modern genetics at the dawn of the 20th century. Darwinism, therefore, does seem to be a universal property of certain kinds of systems, but memes have a long way to go before becoming a sufficiently fecund concept for scientists to work with.

Is Dawkins deluded? When scientists talk about religion

(originally published as a column in Skeptical Inquirer in May/June 2008)

By some accounts, 2006 was the year atheists struck back. Three books in particular made the headlines across the world: Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation, Dan Dennett's Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, and Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. Dawkins received an especially large share of criticism for stepping beyond the boundaries of science, with theologians and biologists alike telling him that he made fundamental mistakes in both theology and science. By and large, he did neither, but he can be criticized for a somewhat sloppy philosophy.

Let us start with the charge that Dawkins' view of theology is naïve and that his arguments do not take into account the sophistication that modern theology has reached. For example, Jim Holt, writing in The New York Times (22 October 2006) says that Dawkins “dismisses the ontological argument [for the existence of God]” and yet “seems unaware that this argument ... comes in sophisticated modern versions that are not all that easy to refute.” Dawkins actually anticipated such criticism, and rejects the very notion that theology is a field of expertise. On p. 56 of The God Delusion he says “[I] wonder in what possible sense theologians can be said to have a province [of expertise]” (emphasis in the original), and on the following page: “I have yet to see any good reason to suppose that theology ... is a subject at all.” Indeed, the reason why the ontological “argument” for the existence of God (which essentially says that God exists by definition, He being the most perfect thing imaginable, and perfection “obviously” entailing reality) is difficult to reject logically is because it is fundamentally nonsensical, similar to asking what is the color of triangles.

Similarly, Allen Orr (himself an evolutionary biologist), writes in The New Yorker (11 January 2007) that “the most disappointing feature of The God Delusion is Dawkins's failure to engage religious thought in any serious way.” Orr – who wouldn't dream of accusing astronomers of failing to engage astrologers seriously – chastises Dawkins for citing Douglas Adams (the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and the “science popularizer” Carl Sagan (apparently, Orr is unaware that Sagan was a professional astronomer as well), rather than philosophers like William James and Ludwig Wittgenstein. But the real question is: did Wittgenstein and James say anything more meaningful about religion than Sagan and Adams? I doubt it, and so, obviously, does Dawkins.

The second charge, that Dawkins misapplies science itself in his criticism of religion is closer to the truth, but not for the reasons some of his fellow scientists apparently believe. For example, on 13 November 2006, Dawkins debated fellow biologist (and Christian) Francis Collins – of human genome project fame. According to Time magazine, which sponsored the debate, Collins disagreed with Dawkins' position that the truth or lack thereof of the proposition “God exists” can be ascertained scientifically, because “God cannot be completely contained within nature, and therefore God's existence is outside of science's ability to really weigh in.” What does “completely contained within nature” mean? Is God partially contained in it? Can science then say something about that part of God that is in fact contained within nature? And in what sense does nature “contain” things or, even better, fail to contain them? This is the same sort of sophistry that gives theology a richly deserved bad name.

Yet, Collins was onto something, albeit not for the reasons he thought. On the one hand, Dawkins is absolutely right when he says that any religion that makes specific claims about physical aspects of the world (and make no mistake about it, all of them do, in one form or another), then that religion is open to scientific inquiry. Moreover, wherever such inquiry has actually been carried out, religion lost, often spectacularly. In that sense, then, there is no compatibility between science and religion (pace both Gould and Pope John Paul II). Consequently, any believer whose faith depends on the truth of his religion's assertions about the physical world is out of luck.

But Dawkins is more ambitious than that, and that's where he falls short. On p. 31 of The God Delusion he defines what the “God hypothesis” consists of: “There exists a super-human, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us.” On p. 36 he specifies that “I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented.” It is this hubris that is Dawkins' downfall, because his science would have been sufficient for a devastating attack on the overwhelming majority of gods, and certainly of those that matter (largely the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition). But when he says, for example on p. 48, that the God Hypothesis (as previously defined) “is a scientific question,” he is wrong. It's a philosophical one.

The problem is that Dawkins, despite his alliance with Dan Dennett, is no fan of philosophy, repeatedly displaying the all too common attitude of intellectual smugness shared by other scientists, from fellow biologist E.O. Wilson to physicist Steven Weinberg. On p. 293 of the book, for example, Dawkins invents an imaginary moral philosopher in order to mock the whole idea that philosophy has something to contribute to our understanding of morality. Bad move, because it turns out that Dawkins' argument throughout The God Delusion is, in fact, a very compelling philosophical argument.

The “God hypothesis” is indeed unlikely beyond reasonable doubt, but this is not because science can refute such a vague hypothesis on empirical grounds. Rather, it is because one can build a compelling set of arguments – informed by science and thoroughly compatible with it – that to believe in anything despite the complete luck of evidence is, in fact, irrational. Being an a-theist is as reasonable as being an a-unicornist, but this ain't science, it's a good old fashioned philosophical argument.

Is Richard Dawkins really that naive?

(originally published on 28 April 2009)

Richard Dawkins doesn’t usually strike me as being naive, but one has to wonder when Dawkins abandons himself to the following sort of writing about his favorite topic these days, the incompatibility between science and religion, on his web site:

“If they’ve [the creationists] been told that there’s an incompatibility between religion and evolution, well, let’s convince them of evolution, and we’re there! Because after all, we’ve got the evidence. ... I suspect that most of our regular readers here would agree that ridicule, of a humorous nature, is likely to be more effective than the sort of snuggling-up and head-patting that Jerry [Coyne] is attacking. I lately started to think that we need to go further: go beyond humorous ridicule, sharpen our barbs to a point where they really hurt. ...You might say that two can play at that game. Suppose the religious start treating us with naked contempt, how would we like it? I think the answer is that there is a real asymmetry here. We have so much more to be contemptuous about! And we are so much better at it. We have scathingly witty spokesmen of the calibre of Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. Who have the faith-heads got, by comparison? Ann Coulter is about as good as it gets. We can’t lose!”

Oh, really? There is so much wrong with these few sentences that a whole book could be written about them, but since I am no Stephen Gould (who was famous for being able to magically turn a short essay into a book length manuscript, provided the right economic incentives), a blog post will have to do. First, though, some background. Dawkins is commenting on a recent essay by evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, who in turn was criticizing Eugenie Scott and her National Center for Science Education. While both Dawkins and Coyne profess admiration and respect for Scott and her organization (and so do I, for the record), they are upset by what they see as an “accommodationist” stance on the question of science and religion.

Scott — who is an atheist — has repeatedly said that one cannot claim that science requires atheism because atheism is a philosophical position, not a scientific one. She leverages the standard distinction between philosophical and methodological naturalism: if you are a scientist youhave to be a methodological naturalist (i.e., assume for operative purposes that nature and natural laws are all that there is); but this doesn’t commit you to the stronger position of philosophical naturalism (i.e., to the claim that there really isn’t anything outside of nature and its laws). Years ago, when I first met Genie Scott, I had a Dawkins-like problem with this. I saw the distinction as sophistic hair splitting, and told her so (she was my guest for one of the annual Darwin Day events at the University of Tennessee). Then I started taking philosophy courses, understood what she was saying, and found it irrefutable. I sent her an email apologizing for my earlier obtusity.

That said, both Genie and I do recognize that science is one of the strongestarguments for philosophical naturalism, and I suspect that in her case, as in mine, a pretty big reason for why we are atheists is because of our understanding of science. Still, the philosophical/methodological distinction is both philosophically valid and pragmatically useful, since it doesn’t serve the purposes of either science or education to fuel an antagonism between a small minority of atheistic scientists and 90% of the world's population (those taxpayers, on whose good will the existence of science and the stipends of most of said scientists depend).

Jerry Coyne, however (with whom I often disagree, especially on scientific matters), does have a point that Scott and the NCSE should address: if the National Center for Science Education claims neutrality with respect to the relationship between science and religion, then why — as Coyne observes — do they list on their web site (under “recommended books”) a plethora of obviously biased books on the subject? Why does the NCSE feel ok to endorse the vacuous writings (as it pertains to the alleged compatibility between science and religion) by pro-religion scientists like Francis Collins, Ken Miller, and Simon Conway Morris, to name a few? Either these books should be ignored, or the NCSE should also recommend the (equally questionable) works of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and so on. Either science can neither prove or disprove gods, or it can, the philosophical/methodological distinction cuts both ways. Genie, what’s up?

Now back to Dawkins. As we have seen, he claims that we would be better off being on the offensive against religionists, because we’ve got the evidence. Oh yes, and because Christopher Hitchens is a better rhetorician than Ann Coulter (though he doesn’t look half as good, unfortunately). The latter is certainly true, but to pick on Coulter is to stack the deck much too obviously on one’s side. The real problem is that,pace Dawkins, evidence has nothing to do with it, because this isn’t a scientific debate. Look, even the most outrageous version of young earth creationism cannot be scientifically falsified. Wanna try? Consider the following: if there is any obvious evidence of the fact that evolution has occurred, it ought to be the impressive and worldwide consistent fossil record. Moreover, using the geological column as a way to date events during the history of the earth predates Darwin (i.e., it was invented by creationists), and we keep discovering new intermediate fossils further documenting evolution every year.

But a staunch creationist will argue (I know this from personal experience) that god simply orchestrated the whole appearance of fossils and intermediate forms to test our faith. As stunning and nonsensical as this “theory” may be, it makes the creationist completely and utterly impervious to evidence: the more evidence you bring up, the more he feels validated in his faith, because faith is belief regardless or despite the evidence. Now Dawkins will say that these people are irrational ignoramuses, and they certainly are. But that misses the point entirely: the lowly creationist has just given the mighty evolutionist a humbling (if unconscious) lesson in philosophy by showing that evidence simply does not enter the debate. If evidence is out, then we are left with sheer rhetorical force. But there too, atheists are easily outmatched: Coulter notwithstanding, there are armies of professionally trained preachers out there who will trump Hitchens — in the eyes of their constituencies at least — even when the latter is perfectly sober. And the important keyword here is “constituency,” since these are the very same people that turn around and elect a creationist board of education, causing endless headaches to Scott and collaborators, headaches that are not in the least helped by Dawkins-style posturing.

And really, look at Dawkins’ prescription here. According to him we should be even more “contemptuous” than the religious fanatics are; we should “really hurt” with our “sharp barbs”; we “can’t lose” because truth is clearly on our side. One almost gets the feeling that if Dawkins had the resources of the Inquisition at his disposal he might just use them in the name of scientific Truth (a philosophical oxymoron, by the way). Thanks for the public relations disaster, Dick!

What are we to do, then? First, learning some good philosophy wouldn’t hurt the likes of Dawkins a bit. That way they would finally appreciate that Genie’s position is notjust a matter of pragmatism, and it has nothing to do with intellectual cowardice. Second, and more importantly, we really need to turn to psychology and sociology, the sciences that tell us how and when people change their minds. If we want a cultural change, we need to understand how cultures change. And by the way, let us remember that scientists are most certainly not immune to the same problem of walking around with a mind a bit less open than one would hope. Dawkins may like to think that science is about free inquiry that inevitably leads to people accepting new discoveries and renouncing old ideas based on the weight of evidence and rationality. If so, he hasn’t practiced science in a while (indeed, he hasn’t). As physicist Max Plank aptly said: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Analogously with creationism: changing minds is a painstaking, largely unrewarding, capillary job, which the National Center for Science Education does superbly. Dawkins & co. should simply get out of the way and let them do their work.

[Note: I became aware of this latest much ado about nothing debate through a fairly well balanced post by Paul Fidalgo at the DC Secularism Examiner, where you will find additional quotations from the various parties involved.]

Jerry Coyne, then and now

(originally published on 4 August 2010)

This seems to me a very reasonable philosophical position about the epistemic domain of science: “Science simply doesn't deal with hypotheses about a guiding intelligence, or supernatural phenomena like miracles, because science is the search for rational explanations of natural phenomena. We don't reject the supernatural merely because we have an overweening philosophical commitment to materialism; we reject it because entertaining the supernatural has never helped us understand the natural world.”

This one, on the other hand, is philosophically very naive and pretentious: “Anybody doing any kind of science should abandon his or her faith if they wish to become a philosophically consistent scientist.”

The funny thing is that these two quotes come from the same person, and were written only three years apart. The first one can be found in an article published online at Edge.org in 2007, the second one is from a blog entry posted in May of this year. The author is evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne. What is going on?

First, some context. In the Edge article Jerry was commenting on the sad showing at a Republican Presidential debate where three candidates — may their names forever be cast in shame: Senator Sam Brownback, Governor Mike Huckabee, and Representative Tom Tancredo — raised their hand in response to the question “does anyone herenot believe in evolution?” Coyne focuses mostly on Brownback’s follow up editorial in the New York Times, correctly lambasting it for its bad logic and even worse grasp of science. (Here is my own take on Brownback’s editorial.)

The blog entry is from Jerry’s own outlet, Why Evolution is True (the title of his book), and is a harsh — and from what I can see, largely well deserved — criticism of Karl Giberson, who previously had chided Coyne and other New Atheists (do they or don’t they like that label? Coyne seems to use it without trouble).

My point, of course, is that Coyne’s philosophy of science has gotten significantly worse in the past three years, ever since he has discovered activist atheism. I have commented on this topic before, using the standard distinction between philosophical and methodological naturalism, and explaining why — to use Coyne’s own example — even the appearance of a 900-ft Jesus in the streets of London would not convince him (or me) that there isn’t a natural explanation for the phenomenon (see A.C. Clarke’s famous third law and of course this classic episodeofStar Trek: The Next Generation). Here I am going to take a different approach and propose two more reasons why Coyne-2007 was right and Coyne-2010 is wrong.

The first reason to stick with science as an epistemic activity aimed at discoveringempiricaltruths about thenatural world is that gods are not hypotheses, to use Dawkins’ famous phrase in his book. Coyne and other scientists often dig up falsificationism from their limited inventory of philosophical knowledge and claim that the god hypothesis is falsifiable. Besides the fact that philosophers of science have moved well beyond falsificationism (to begin with, because of something known as the Duhem-Quine thesis), even for falsification to work one has to have a reasonably well defined hypothesis.

Karl Popper, the guy who invented falsificationism, famously thought that Einstein’s theory of relativity is an excellent example of science because it is eminently falsifiable. But he also rejected both Marxist theories of history and Freudian psychoanalysis as non-scientific because they were much too flexible: any historical event could somehow be interpreted as the result of class struggles, just as pretty much any human behavior can be “explained” through one type or another of sexual repression.

Conceptions of gods are infinitely more flexible (or vacuous, if you prefer) than either Marxist or Freudian theories, and they are thus simply not falsifiable. This is often (naively) mistaken to imply that no specific claim made by these theories can be rejected on empirical grounds. That’s as manifestly not true as it is besides the point: of course modern science can firmly reject the empirical claim that the earth is a few thousand years old; but since “the god hypothesis” doesn’t behave as a hypothesis at all from the epistemological standpoint, it doesn’t matter. In the cases we are discussing there is no science-like connection between theoretical constructs and empirically verifiable facts, so to “falsify” the latter is equivalent to shooting into a cloud of gas. It unnecessarily flatters and elevates religious belief to treat it as science.

The second point I wish to make is broader. Whenever I get into these discussions, Jerry and others who think along similar lines seem to conclude that I therefore do not have reasons to reject religious belief as the nonsense on stilts that it truly is. That is because they seem to equate science with reason, yet another position that is abysmally simplistic from a philosophical perspective. Science is conducted through the application of reason to a particular type of problems and in particular ways. But reason can be applied to other problems in other ways. Philosophy, of course, is an example, as it makes progress through the analysis and dissection of concepts, not via empirical discoveries. Logic and mathematics are additional obvious examples: mathematical theorems are neither discovered nor proved by using scientific methods at all. Unless one wishes to conclude that math is not a rational enterprise, then one is forced to admit that science = reason is a bad equation.

Indeed, even science itself is far from being an activity rooted in reason alone. A standard distinction in philosophy of science is made between the context of discovery and the context of justification. The first one deals with how scientists come up with new theories or ideas, the second one on how they proceed to empirically test or establish them. The notion is that the context of justification is where science works in a rational way, by logically connecting hypotheses and empirical facts. But discoveries are often haphazard and non-rational in nature, with scientists themselves being unable to account for how exactly they came up with a particular idea (often this happens during a walk, while taking a shower, while dreaming, or while on drugs — none of which are classical laboratory settings where people sit down and rationally work through the problem).

Things get even worse, as more recent suggestions, for instance that of Thomas Kuhn (whose notion of paradigm shifts is arguably the only other piece of philosophy of science of which most scientists are dimly aware) when he questioned the sharpness of the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification. This questioning would make Coyne and colleagues even more unhappy, because it goes in the direction of further reducing the relevance of reason to the scientific enterprise.

The two points I made here amount to claiming that many scientists do not understand the nature of science as well as philosophers do, and are hence prone to make exaggerated claims about how science works and what it can do. This should not surprise anybody, since the business of scientists is to do science, not to spend time thinking about its history and methods. That is why philosophy (and history) of science are scholarly activities that are legitimately distinct from science itself.

But when it comes to writing for the general public, I suggest that scientists stick to what they know best, unless they are willing to engage the literature of the field(s) that they wish to comment upon. When Coyne makes statements of the type “anybody doing any kind of science should abandon his or her faith if they wish to become a philosophically consistent scientist”, he literally does not know what he is talking about because he does not have a grasp of what it means to be “philosophically consistent” in this context. He has of course no obligation to study philosophy, but then he should refrain from writing about it as a matter of intellectual honesty toward his readers.

Jerry Coyne on free will

(originally published on 14 January 2012)

As readers of this and of my Chicago University colleague Jerry Coyne’s blog know all too well, Jerry and I rarely see eye to eye, and seldom have any compunction in letting the world know about our disagreements. This is yet another example, which actually covers a topic that has been debated recently at Rationally Speaking. The reason I’m taking up free will again is because Jerry recently published an op-ep piece in USA Today confidently assuring his readers that they “don’t really have free will.” I think many of Jerry’s assertions are unfounded, and for interesting reasons.

Jerry starts out by teasing his readers about their alleged choice of reading his editorial (from which, of course, one deduces that he had no choice about writing it either), and continues: “So it is with all of our other choices: not one of them results from a free and conscious decision on our part. There is no freedom of choice, no free will. And those New Year’s resolutions you made? You had no choice about making them, and you’ll have no choice about whether you keep them.” This in philosophy is known as nihilism, a position that is commonly associated with Nietzsche and that has more recently valiantly been defended by Alex Rosenberg (I know, I keep promising to address his latest book, but it’s long, and it’s taking me some time to digest it).

Jerry’s aim is made clear by the following sentence: “The debate about free will, long the purview of philosophers alone, has been given new life by scientists, especially neuroscientists studying how the brain works. And what they’re finding supports the idea that free will is a complete illusion.” I think that Jerry is wrong on two counts here: first, neurobiology simply cannot settle the question of free will, no matter what the data; second, Jerry focuses on a very small subset of the pertinent neurobiological literature, interpreting it incorrectly.

Before we continue, however, let’s hear Jerry’s definition of free will: “I mean it [free will] simply as the way most people think of it: When faced with two or more alternatives, it’s your ability to freely and consciously choose one, either on the spot or after some deliberation.” He continues: “A practical test of free will would be this: If you were put in the same position twice — if the tape of your life could be rewound to the exact moment when you made a decision, with every circumstance leading up to that moment the same and all the molecules in the universe aligned in the same way — you could have chosen differently.”

As Jerry knows, and immediately admits in the paragraph following this quote, such a test is anything but practical. In fact, it cannot be carried out, ever. Which is why I contend that Jerry and others who push the idea that free will (and consciousness, and moral responsibility) is “an illusion” are mistaken when they think they are doing so on the basis of science. Science, if nothing else, is about empirically testable hypotheses, to which the above scenario certainly does not belong. Rather, Jerry et al. are making a metaphysical argument, an approach with which I’m fine, to a point, as a philosopher, but that is strange coming from people who clearly despise the very idea of metaphysics and scorn anything that cannot be approached by the empirical methods of science.

Knowing that his “practical test” is impossible to carry out, Jerry resorts to two lines of evidence he thinks clinch the case against free will. The first begins with the truism that we are biological organisms made of physical stuff, so that we have to abide by the laws of physics. And these laws, according to Jerry, do not leave room for free will. Of course this conclusion depends on one’s concept of free will, and there are several on offer (more on this below). It also depends on entirely unargued for assumptions, including the following: causal closure (i.e., that the currently known laws of physics encompass the totality of causal relationships in the universe); a working concept of causality (one of the most thorny philosophical concepts ever); physical determinism (which appears to be contradicted by physics itself, particularly quantum mechanics); and the non-existence of true emergent properties (i.e., of emergent behavior that actually is qualitatively novel, and doesn't simply appear to be so because of our epistemic limitations). I have opinions about all four of these points, but I don’t have a knockdown argument concerning any of them. The point is, neither does Jerry.

(Let me make clear parenthetically that I am certainly not in favor of fuzzy / mystical concepts of free will, and that I am as much of a naturalist — in the philosophical sense of the word — as Jerry. I just don’t think any of the above issues has been settled, and since it is Jerry who is making an extraordinary claim — that we are profoundly mistaken in our first person experience about free will, consciousness and morality — it seems fair to point out that he lacks the corresponding extraordinary evidence.)

Jerry’s second line of evidence for the non existence of free will draws not from physics but from neurobiology. Here he comments on recent elaborations of the famous Libet experiments about human decision making (or what cognitive scientists, and an increasing number of philosophers, refer to as volition, to get away from the theologically loaded term “free will”). Libet and others have convincingly shown that when people are asked to signal when exactly they have become aware of making the decision of pushing a button in front of a computer screen, it turns out that the decision had been made hundreds of milliseconds to several seconds before, subconsciously. That is, the brain apparently puts things in motion that will result in the pushing of a button way ahead of us becoming conscious of having made the decision to push the button.

Why this has anything at all to do with free will is a puzzle. Not even Libet himself took his experiments to show that people don’t make conscious decisions, in part because reporting awareness of an urge (in this case, of pushing a button) hardly qualifies as a conscious decision. The latter is the kind of reflective deliberation that Jerry and I engaged in while composing our respective essays, and it is simply not measured by Libet-type experiments. Indeed, it is not surprising at all that we make all sorts of unconscious decisions before we become aware of them, as any baseball batter, or anyone catching a falling object on the fly, will readily testify. Furthermore, as Alfred Mele has argued in his book on the topic, and contrary to Jerry’s take on the neurobiological literature, there is ample empirical evidence that we do engage in conscious thinking (largely catalyzed by the prefrontal cortex), as well as, and in continuous feedback loop with, our subconscious processing of information. (Incidentally, I find it strange when some people argue that “we” are not making decisions if our subconscious is operating, since presumably we all agree that our subconscious is just as defining of “us” as conscious thinking is. Accordingly, “my brain made me do it” is hardly a defense that will fly in a court of law except, and for good reasons, in pathological cases such as behaviors resulting from brain damage.)

To recap so far: I think Jerry’s position on free will is not scientific (it is a metaphysical stance), and his two “lines of evidence” are lacking because of unargued for philosophical assumptions and because of his misreading of the neurobiological literature. But just for the sake of argument let us suspend judgment on all of this and ask Jerry the obvious question: why do we have such a pervasive “illusion” to begin with? Apparently, he knew this was coming, and answered thus in the USA Today article: “where do these illusions of both will and ‘free’ will come from? We’re not sure. I suspect that they’re the products of natural selection, perhaps because our ancestors wouldn’t thrive in small, harmonious groups — the conditions under which we evolved — if they didn’t feel responsible for their actions.”

As far as I can tell there is no empirical evidence whatsoever to support such speculation. To the contrary, we know of plenty of social animal species that seem to thrive very well indeed without requiring the illusion of free will to keep them in line. Certainly social insects don’t need to be fooled that way, and it is hard to imagine even species of social mammals, including most primates, needing to engage in deliberate reasoning before deciding how to behave toward fellow group members.

Jerry cannot resist the temptation of inserting a dig at philosophers toward the end of his essay: “philosophers have concocted ingenious rationalizations for why we nevertheless have free will of a sort. It’s all based on redefining ‘free will’ to mean something else.” There are two problems with this characterization of philosophers’ modus operandi: to begin with, it’s a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If philosophers didn’t inform their reasoning with the latest science they would be criticized (justly) as being stuck in medieval scholasticism. But when they do take science on board they get accused of “rationalizing.”

In the above comment Jerry also ignores that philosophers have been debating various concepts (not definitions, because they are not ex-cathedra pronouncements) of free will for a long time. Competing approaches to free will have been put forth, among others, by Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, and more recently Daniel Dennett and Harry Frankfurt, to name but a few. It is a profound mischaracterization of the history of philosophy to present various takes on free will as being simply reactive to the latest scientific discoveries. And of course some philosophical accounts of free will are more (and some less) in synch with scientific findings (which, it is worth bearing in mind, are themselves always tentative and sometimes spectacularly overturned). Nothing general about the nature of philosophy follows from that.

By the end of his USA Today essay Jerry finally gets to the crux of the matter: the implications of the alleged lack of free will for religion and morality. On the first count, Jerry claims that the death of free will spells the death of religion, although ironically he then mentions the Calvinist view of pre-determination. In fact, plenty of religious beliefs are compatible with lack of free will, so it seems like religion will survive even this assault (as befits an infinitely malleable tradition of made up stories).

Jerry’s second conclusion is that moral responsibility is therefore also an illusion, and that we should finally face up to this truth. Besides the obvious point that, according to his own view nobody has any choice about whether to face up to anything, what would this mean in practice? Jerry puts it this way: “we should continue to mete out punishments because those are environmental factors that can influence the brains of not only the criminal himself, but of other people as well. Seeing someone put in jail, or being put in jail yourself, can change you in a way that makes it less likely you’ll behave badly in the future.” And he goes on to say: “[we need to contemplate] the notion that things like consciousness, free choice, and even the idea of ‘me’ are but convincing illusions fashioned by natural selection ...  With that under our belts, we can go about building a kinder world.”

At this point I’m truly puzzled. How is it possible to argue that we “should” do X in order to achieve Y if, as Jerry’s intellectual kin, Alex Rosenberg, would put it, “the physical facts fix all the facts”? It is hard for me to make sense of a position that denies that we have any choice in any matter, while at the same time advocating that we should or should not do certain things rather than others. How can we have a choice to contemplate (or not) what Jerry is proposing? How can we then decide to build a kinder world? And since morality itself is an illusion, why should we try to build a kinder world anyway? I’m sure I’m missing something, but I would very much like to know what that something is.

In the end, skepticism about free will seems to me to be akin to radical skepticism about reality in general (the idea that all of reality is an illusion, or a computer simulation, or something along those lines): it denies what we all think is self-evident, it cannot be defeated logically (though it is not based on empirical evidence), and it is completely irrelevant to our lives. If it teaches us anything, it is to humble us into contemplating the possibility that we may know (in the case of radical skepticism) or be able to act (in the case of free will skepticism) much less than we often smugly think — and we can all use an occasional lesson in humility. That said, we should then proceed by ignoring the radical skeptic in order to get back to the business of navigating reality, making willful decisions about our lives (including New Year’s resolutions, which actually succeed surprisingly often), and assign moral responsibility to our and other people’s actions.

PZ Myers is a witless wanker who peddles pablum

(originally published on 15 April 2010)

No, not really, but I got your attention, yes? On the other hand, these are precisely the words used by PZ in a recent post, aimed at criticizing Michael De Dora’s observations about a recent debate in Knoxville, TN on the wording of a biology textbook.

Let me start with a full disclosure: Michael is a friend, and of course one of the contributors to this blog. But this post has little to do with that, it deals with the substance and the tone of PZ’s remarks, both of which are highly relevant to the quality of discourse within the atheist community (currently, pretty low), something I deeply care about.

First the form. PZ’s post reads like it was written by an intemperate teenager in the midst of a hormonal rage. Among other things, he calls De Dora “witless,” “wanker,” “wishy-washy,” and “sloppy-thinking”; he accuses Michael of engaging in “cowardly intellectual dishonesty” and of using a “quisling” approach. So that we are crystal clear on just how low thesead hominem (a logical fallacy!) attacks go, let me refresh your memory about the dictionary definitions of some of these terms:

Quisling = a traitor who collaborates with an enemy force occupying their country;

Wanker = a person who masturbates (used as a term of abuse);

Wishy-washy = feeble or insipid in quality or character, lacking strength or boldness;

Witless = foolish, stupid, to such an extent that one cannot think clearly or rationally.

If PZ thinks that this sort of language belongs withinany thoughtful writing about rational discourse, he really needs to look up the dictionary definitions of rational, thoughtful and discourse. Then again, it is precisely this sort of theatrics that apparently makes him so popular, as nothing gets people’s attention on the internet so much as shouting as LOUDLY as possible, regardless of the vacuity of what one is actually saying.

And speaking of content, what was so witless, wanky, wishy-washy, and witless about De Dora’s post? Oh, he dared question (very politely, and based on argument) one of the dogmas of the new atheism: that religious people (that’s about 90% of humanity, folks)ought (and I use the term in the moral sense) to be frontally assaulted and ridiculed at all costs, because after all, this is a war, and the goal is to vanquish the enemy, reason and principles be damned. Michael had simply noted that the recent controversy in Tennessee was a bit less clear cut than usual: while of course creationism doesn’t have a leg to stand on, and of course biology textbooks should teach evolution without apologies, De Dora also noted that using the word “myth” when the book refers to the biblical story of creation was an uncalled for breach of the principle of separation of Church and State (if invoked in the context of a biology class in a public school). Therefore, on that narrow technical ground, and on that ground only, the creationist who complained had, in fact, a point.

Contrary to PZ’s invective, acknowledging this point is in no way a cowardly act of intellectual dishonesty. On the contrary, it is a paragon of intellectual honesty because one is able to maintain the nuance that is necessary in distinguishing positive science education from gratuitous religion bashing. (And please, do note that I’ve got plenty of credentials in the department of religion bashing, but I try to do it in what I consider the appropriate manner and context.)

In yet another example of his sledge-hammer approach to discourse, PZ states that De Dora’s contributions in several recent writings have been “notable only for their fuzziness and willingness to accommodate any nonsense from religious BS artists.” If by fuzziness one means subtle reasoning, well PZ can certainly not be accused of that. But nothing I have seen written by Michael in any way “accommodates” religious nonsense, on the contrary, he is very clear in his rejection of religion in general and creationism in particular. It is the principle of Church-State separation that is at issue, as well as the ethics of insulting people’s beliefs for the sake of scoring cheap rhetorical points with one’s own converts.

The other point that Michael raised, and that PZ loathes, is the one about the epistemological boundaries of science. I have written on this recently, so I will not revisit the issue except to add two quick points: first off, I really wish that scientists who write about philosophy would bother to take epistemology 101, that way they would avoid embarrassing themselves with naive statements about the proper domain of scientific inquiry. Second, surely we can agree that the epistemology of science is an area where we can have a reasonable exchange without having to resort to labeling our interlocutors witless, wankers and the like, yes?

Here is another example of how PZ gets it horribly wrong:

“Somebody says the universe appeared magically a few thousand years ago, I guess that has to be a valid answer on the test question, ‘How old is the universe?’. To actually state that it is about 14 billion years old, and make such an answer a necessary part of the student's grade...why, that is philosophy or theology, and not to be discussed in science class.”

Wow, I counted at least four gross mistakes in just this one paragraph, a pretty high rate for a self-appointed defender of evidence-based rationality: 1) in the course of this discussion De Dora never said or implied that young-earth creationism is a valid answer to a test question; 2) he has also never argued that a student who gave that answer instead of the scientifically grounded one should somehow get a pass; 3) Michael has never said that this is a philosophical or theological issue (PZ is referring to a different statement by De Dora, about the epistemological boundaries of science, see comment above, but that statement cannot reasonably be construed in the way PZ unreasonably construes it); and 4) of course these issues should be discussed in a science class (here I do disagree with Michael), but no discussion is helped in the least by referring to what half of your students deeply believe as “myth.”

PZ finally goes on to criticize the Center for Inquiry itself, the organization for which De Dora works, as being guilty of giving a soapbox to a “milquetoast marshmallow” and of standing for the Church of Fatuous Incompetence. Which, as CFI’s Ron Lindsay drily observes, is a bit ironic: “I find it remarkable that in the space of a few months, CFI is alleged to have been taken over by ‘atheist fundamentalists’ and then by those who are wishy-washy about religion. Was there a coup and then a counter-coup of which I was unaware? Both aspersions, of course, lack empirical support, and it is regrettable to see them being made by two learned individuals, Paul Kurtz and PZ Myers, who claim to base their beliefs on evidence.”

And that is precisely why I bothered to write this post. It isn’t a matter of defending a friend, who is perfectly capable of doing so himself. Or to attack PZ personally — I never met the guy, and I occasionally enjoy his antics. But this to me represents the latest example of an escalation (downwards in quality) in the tone and substance of the discourse on atheism, and I blame this broadly on the rhetoric of the new atheism (the only “new” aspect of which is precisely the in-your-face approach to “reason”). With few exceptions (mostly, Dennett), what we have seen in recent years is much foaming at the mouth, accompanied by a cavalier attitude toward the substance, rationality and coherence of one’s arguments. And now we have seen a new low consisting of childish insults to a fellow atheist and writer who is clearly fighting the same battle as the rest of us.

I am often told by my non-activist friends (pretty much all of whom are agnostics or atheists themselves) that the problem with the new atheism is that it looks a lot like the mirror image of the sort of fundamentalist rage that we all so justly abhor. I always shrugged at this accusation as being overblown and missing the point, after allwe— unlikethem— are on the side of reason and true human compassion. Now I’m not so sure.

PZ Myers quits skeptic movement, should we care?

(originally published on 6 May 2013)

PZ Myers, the cantankerous evolutionary biologist / blogger who writes atPharyngula, has officially announced that he is leaving the skeptic movement. Although PZ has been uneasy for a while with several aspects of grassroots and organized skepticism, the straw that broke the camel’s back apparently came during the recent Freethought Alliance meeting in Orange County, CA, in disgusted reaction to another speaker’s remarks. That other speaker is none other than Jamy Ian Swiss, who apparently gave a talk very similar to this one, in which he chastised PZ personally for engaging in a brand of skepticism that, in Jamy’s opinion, is outside the bounds of science.

Nothing like telling a scientist that he isn’t being scientific to piss him off, though admittedly PZ’s threshold for getting pissed off is pretty low. I have no dog in this fight, since I am on record disliking PZ’s rhetoric and I have told Jamy several times in private that I don’t like his approach either — ironically, for similar reasons to my rejection of PZ’s! Nor, frankly, is it particularly interesting to discuss, let alone adjudicate, a minor kerfuffle that is likely to soon become yet another distant blip in the history of skepticism. But there is something to be learned here, which is why I will use this specific incident to make a broader point about what I think is really problematic in the skeptic movement.

Let’s start by taking a closer look at what exactly PZ is complaining about:

it is clear that “scientific skepticism” is simply a crippled, buggered version of science with special exemptions to set certain subjects outside the bounds of its purview. In addition, its promoters are particularly sensitive to having their hypocrisy pointed out (that, by the way, is what triggered his [Swiss’] outburst — you’d have to be stupid or a liar to think that skepticism gives religion special privileges.)

To begin with, skepticism is not, nor has it ever aspired to be, science. It is a grassroots movement with the triple aim of debunking paranormal claims, defending science in the public arena, and promoting critical thinking (all activities for which scientists have little patience and even less direct incentive). The “certain subject” that PZ thinks people like Jamy shouldn’t be giving a special exemption to is, of course, the supernatural. The idea is that science has no bounds, and that it can (and ought to) be applied to any claim whatsoever, no matter how far such claim may be from anything resembling a scientific hypothesis. As readers of RS know, the issue of demarcation projects (science vs pseudoscience, science vs philosophy) is one about which I think and write a lot. It’s also well known that my take is closer to Jamy’s (on this particular issue) than to PZ’s, though I think the matter hinges on non-trivial aspects of epistemology and philosophy of science, and is not something that can be easily settled on the basis of the somewhat simplistic arguments that abound among skeptics (who, after all, are neither epistemologists not philosophers of science).

Regardless, I recognize that very smart people (such as my co-editor for a forthcoming book on this very topic, Maarten Boudry) have different opinions on whether and in what sense science can address supernatural claims, and that they have good arguments with which to back up those opinions. I most certainly don’t think that Maarten and several others are “stupid or liars” just because they happen to disagree with me. Keep that particular comment by PZ in mind, we’ll get back to it soon.

PZ’s rant continues thus:I was also annoyed by the skeptic movement’s appropriation of the term “scientific” all over the place…except that it’s a “science” that doesn’t make use of accumulated prior knowledge, that abandons the concept of the null hypothesis, and that so narrowly defines what it will accept as evidence that it actively excludes huge domains of knowledge.

Ah, yes, one should not dare to appropriate the label “scientific” without proper warrant. Except of course that “warrant” here shouldn’t be equated with “agrees with PZ Myers.” By the way, the concept of null hypothesis is a bit outdated PZ, you may want to read Chapter 10 of my Making Sense of Evolution to bring you up to date on that particular issue. At the very least we should agree that formulating null hypotheses is by no means a necessary condition for doing science (and it certainly isn’t a sufficient one).

So don’t call me a “skeptic”. I’ll consider it an insult, like calling a writer a stenographer, a comedian a mime, a doctor a faith healer, a scientist a technician. I’m out.

Be my guest, but please don’t insult a large swath of people, both professional academics and not, who value that label because — at its best — it refers to the sort of intellectual rigor and curiosity embodied by philosophers like David Hume and scientists like Carl Sagan. At any rate, why do you insist in being so unpleasant even with people you mostly agree with? (Oh, I forgot, you did that to one of my friends too, and I called you on it.)

That’s pretty much it: PZ thinks the supernatural should not be “exempted” from scientific skepticism (a term he considers an insult to science anyway), and on that basis he is willing to call others names and to quit in a huff. Suit yourself, PZ, we’ll survive without you. But it would be a pity to let this episode go without learning a lesson or two.

I think the primary problem with the skeptic movement — of which I am and remain a proud member — is that too many people, both among the “leaders” and the rank-and-file, seem to be in it for the sheer pleasure of calling others out as idiots. Typically this contempt is reserved for religious people, believers in pseudoscience, etc., but occasionally we turn the guns on some of our own and shoot just as joyfully.

No, I am not suggesting that skeptics should refrain from criticizing other skeptics. I have done (and, be warned, will continue to do so!) my fair share of that, because I think there is value in open dialogue and shared critical analysis of other people’s and one’s own ideas. I am rather talking about the easy insult and dismissal without engaging in actual arguments, the first one being contrary to standards of common courtesy among fellow travelers (I mean, there are plenty of targets out there who really do deserve sarcasm and insult, the current leadership of the NRA being just one example among many), the second one simply being contrary to the whole idea of a Hume/Sagan type skeptical inquiry.

Yes, yes, I realize that I have been intemperate myself on occasion. Nobody’s perfect. But I have apologized for such blunders, and I continue to honestly strive to keep myself on this side of the admittedly fuzzy lines between irony and sarcasm, (strong) criticism and insult, or reasoned argument and outright dismissal.

I’m not the only one to have noticed that there is a problem here: just watch my friend Phil Plait’s famous “Don’t be a dick” talk, presented at TAM 2010, already three years ago. Phil’s comment introducing the talk to his readers was: “I can’t promise that I won’t be a dick. But I will strive mightily to try. That’s the most I can do, and the most I can ask of anyone.” Indeed, but somehow I can hardly imagine PZ coming even close to such a pledge. As is well known, the first step is always to be able to recognize that there is a problem. Will the skeptic community be able to do that, with or without PZ Myers?

Part III. The Physicist

Lawrence Krauss: another physicist with an anti-philosophy complex

(originally published on 25 April 2012)

I don’t know what’s the matter with physicists these days. It used to be that they were an intellectually sophisticated bunch, with the likes of Einstein and Bohr doing not only brilliant scientific research, but also interested, respectful of, and conversant in other branches of knowledge, particularly philosophy. These days it is much more likely to encounter physicists like Steven Weinberg or Stephen Hawking, who merrily go about dismissing philosophy for the wrong reasons, and quite obviously out of a combination of profound ignorance and hubris (the two often go together, as I’m sure Plato would happily point out). The latest such bore is Lawrence Krauss, of Arizona State University.

I have been ignoring Krauss’ nonsense about philosophy for a while, even though it had occasionally appeared on my Twitter or G+ radars. But the other day my friend Michael De Dora pointed me to this interview Krauss just did with The Atlantic, and now I feel obliged to comment, for the little good that it may do. And before I continue, kudos to Ross Andersen, who conducted the interview, for pressing Krauss on several of his non sequiturs. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Krauss is proud (if a bit coy) of the fact that Richard Dawkins referred to his latest book, entitled “A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing,” as comparable to Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” on the grounds that it upends the “last trump card of the theologian.” Well, leave it to Dawkins to engage in that sort of silly hyperbolic rhetoric. (Dawkins still appears to be convinced that religion will be defeated by rationality alone. Were that the case, David Hume would have sufficed.) The fact is, Krauss’s book is aimed at a general audience, popularizing other people’s (as well as his own) work, and is not the kind of revelation of novel scientific findings that Darwin put out in his opus, and that makes all the difference.

Krauss’s volume was much praised when it got out in January, but more recently has been slammed by David Albert in the New York Times:

“The particular, eternally persisting, elementary physical stuff of the world, according to the standard presentations of relativistic quantum field theories, consists (unsurprisingly) of relativistic quantum fields... they have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of where those fields came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular kinds of fields it does, or of why it should have consisted of fields at all, or of why there should have been a world in the first place. Period. Case closed. End of story.”

That’s harsh, and Krauss understandably doesn’t like what Albert wrote. Still, I wonder if Krauss is justified in referring to Albert as a “moronic philosopher,” considering that the latter is not only a highly respected philosopher of physics at Columbia University, but also holds a PhD in theoretical physics. I didn’t think Rockefeller University (where Albert got his degree) gave out PhD’s to morons, but I could be wrong.

Nonetheless, let’s get to the core of Krauss’ attack on philosophy. He says: “Every time there's a leap in physics, it encroaches on these areas that philosophers have carefully sequestered away to themselves, and so then you have this natural resentment on the part of philosophers.” This clearly shows two things: first, that Krauss does not understand what the business of philosophy is (it isnot to advance science, as I explain here); second, that Krauss doesn’t mind playing armchair psychologist, despite the dearth of evidence for his pop psychological “explanation.” Okay, others can play the same game too, so I’m going to put forth the hypothesis that the reason physicists such as Weinberg, Hawking and Krauss keep bashing philosophy is because they suffer from an intellectual version of the Oedipus Complex (you know, philosophy was the mother of science and all that... you can work out the details of the inherent sexual frustrations from there).

Here is another gem from this brilliant (as a physicist) moron: “Philosophy is a field that, unfortunately, reminds me of that old Woody Allen joke, ‘those that can’t do, teach, and those that can’t teach, teach gym.' And the worst part of philosophy is the philosophy of science; the only people, as far as I can tell, that read work by philosophers of science are other philosophers of science. It has no impact on physics what so ever. ... they have every right to feel threatened, because science progresses and philosophy doesn’t.”

Okay, to begin with, it is fair to point out that the only people who read works in theoretical physics are theoretical physicists, so by Krauss’ own reasoning both fields are largely irrelevant to everybody else (they aren’t, of course). Second, once again, the business of philosophy (of science, in particular) isnot to solve scientific problems — we’ve got science for that (Julia and I explain what philosophers of science do here). To see how absurd Krauss’ complaint is just think of what it would sound like if he had said that historians of science haven’t solved a single puzzle in theoretical physics. That’s because historians dohistory, not science. When was the last time a theoretical physicist solved a problem in history, pray?

And then of course there is the old time favorite theme of philosophy not making progress. I have debunked that one too, but the crucial point is that progress in philosophy is not and should not be measured by the standards of science, just like the word “progress” has to be interpreted in any field according to that field’s issues and methods, not according to science’s issues and methods. (And incidentally, how’s progress on that string theory thingy going, Lawrence? It has been 25 years and counting, and still no empirical evidence...)

Andersen, at this point in the interview, must have been a bit fed up with Krauss’ ego, so he pointed out that actually philosophers have contributed to a number of science or science-related fields, and mentions computer science and its intimate connection with logic. He even names Bertrand Russell as a pivotal figure in this context. Ah, says Krauss, but really, logic is a branch of mathematics (it’s actually the other way around), so philosophy can’t get credit. And at any rate, Russell was a mathematician (actually, he was largely a logician with an interest in the philosophy of math). Krauss also claims that Wittgenstein was “very mathematical,” as if it is somehow surprising to find a philosopher who is conversant in logic and math. Nonetheless, Witty's major contributions are in the philosophy of language.

Andersen isn’t moved and insists: “certainly philosophers like John Rawls have been immensely influential in fields like political science and public policy. Do you view those as legitimate achievements?” And here Krauss is forced to reveal his anti-intellectualism, and even — if you allow me gentle reader — his intellectual dishonesty: “Well, yeah, I mean, look I was being provocative, as I tend to do every now and then in order to get people's attention.” Oh really? This from someone who later on in the same interview claims that “if you’re writing for the public, the one thing you can’t do is overstate your claim, because people are going to believe you.” Indeed people are going to believe you, Prof. Krauss, and that’s a shame, at least when you talk about philosophy.

Krauss also has a naively optimistic view of the business of science, as it turns out. For instance, he claims that “the difference [between scientists and philosophers] is that scientists are really happy when they get it wrong, because it means that there’s more to learn.” Seriously? I’ve practiced science for more than two decades, and I’ve never seen anyone happy to be shown wrong, or who didn’t react as defensively (or even offensively) as possible to any claim that he might be wrong. Indeed, as physicist Max Plank famously put it, “Science progresses funeral by funeral,” because often the old generation has to retire and die before new ideas really take hold. Lawrence, scientists are just human beings, and like all human beings they are interested in mundane things like sex, fame and money (and yes, the pursuit of knowledge). Science is a wonderful and wonderfully successful activity (despite the more than occasional blunder), but there is no reason to try to make its practitioners look like some sort of intellectual saints that they certainly are not (witness also the alarming increase in science fraud, for instance).

Finally, on the issue of whether Albert the “moronic” philosopher has a point in criticizing Krauss’ book, Andersen points out: “it sounds like you’re arguing that ‘nothing’ is really a quantum vacuum, and that a quantum vacuum is unstable in such a way as to make the production of matter and space inevitable. But a quantum vacuum has properties. For one, it is subject to the equations of quantum field theory. Why should we think of it as nothing?” Maybe it was just me, but at this point in my mind’s eye I saw Krauss engaging in a more and more frantic exercise of handwaving, retracting and qualifying: “I don’t think I argued that physics has definitively shown how something could come from nothing [so why the book’s title?]; physics has shown how plausible physical mechanisms might cause this to happen. ... I don’t really give a damn about what ‘nothing’ means to philosophers; I care about the ‘nothing’ of reality. And if the ‘nothing’ of reality is full of stuff [a nothing full of stuff? Fascinating], then I’ll go with that.”

But, insists Andersen, “when I read the title of your book, I read it as ‘questions about origins are over.’” To which Krauss responds: “Well, if that hook gets you into the book that’s great. But in all seriousness, I never make that claim. ... If I’d just titled the book ‘A Marvelous Universe,’ not as many people would have been attracted to it.”

In all seriousness, Prof. Krauss, you ought (moral) to take your own advice and be honest with your readers. Claim what you wish to claim, not what you think is going to sell more copies of your book, essentially playing a bait and switch with your readers, and then bitterly complain when “moronic” philosophers dare to point that out.

Lee Smolin, in his “The Trouble with Physics” laments the loss of a generation for theoretical physics, the first one since the late 19th century to pass without a major theoretical breakthrough that has been empirically verified. Smolin blames this sorry state of affairs on a variety of factors, including the sociology of a discipline where funding and hiring priorities are set by a small number of intellectually inbred practitioners. Ironically, one of Smolin’s culprit is the dearth of interest in and appreciation of philosophy among contemporary physicists. This quote is from Smolin’s book:

“I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today — and even professional scientists — seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historical and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is — in my opinion — the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.” (Albert Einstein)

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Postscript: As people have pointed out, Krauss has issued an apology of sorts, apparently forced by Dan Dennett. He still seems not to have learned much though. He confuses theology with philosophy (in part), keeps hammering at a single reviewer who apparently really annoyed him (in the New York Times), and more importantly just doesn't get the idea that philosophy of science is NOT in the business of answering scientific questions (we've got, ahem, science for that!). It aims, instead, at understanding how science works. Really, is that so difficult to understand, Prof. Krauss?

Krauss does it again, so soon!

(originally published on 17 September 2012)

I had taken physicist Lawrence Krauss to task for his intemperate (and badly informed) remarks about philosophy just a few months ago. Krauss — apparently prompted by Dan Dennett — issued a non-apology of sorts in Scientific American shortly thereafter, thereby showing he had learned precious little from what should have been an embarrassing incident. Now he has done it again, this time in a debate with philosopher Julian Baggini published by The Guardian. I think Baggini went a bit too easy on Krauss, but the reason I’d like to comment on the specifics of the debate (other than the self-indulgent one of poking a bit more fun at Krauss, who is a big guy and can take it) is that I think we can learn something of general import from these ongoing skirmishes between philosophers and scientists.

The title of the piece featuring the debate is “Philosophy vs science: which can answer the big questions of life?” which seemsprima facie a bit ill conceived, given that one could reasonably argue that science and philosophy address different kinds of “big questions in life.” Be that as it may, Baggini begins with a proper acknowledgment of the successes of science and states that he doesn’t feel proprietary about the domain of philosophy, but, he says “there are some issues of human existence that just aren’t scientific. I cannot see how mere facts could ever settle the issue of what is morally right or wrong, for example.” (As readers of RS know, I quite agree,pace Sam Harris.)

Krauss, predictably, will have none of it, categorically stating that as far as he is concerned, it’s all “merely distinguishing between questions that are answerable and those that aren’t. To first approximation, all the answerable ones end up moving into the domain of empirical knowledge, aka science.” Krauss is clearly wrong here, and he ought to know it. Despite some scientists’ tendency to consider logic and math as “sciences” (they aren’t, by any sensible definition of science — indeed, logic is clearly a branch of philosophy), the answer to neither logical nor mathematical questions hinges on empirical knowledge, so we have at least two clear (and ample) examples of Baggini’s basic contention that not all questions admit of scientific answers.

But Baggini brought ethics, not math, into the discussion, so Krauss aims his response straight at moral decision making: “Getting to your question of morality, for example, science provides the basis for moral decisions, which are sensible only if they are based on reason, which is itself based on empirical evidence.” Seriously? I would have thought the other way around: “empirical evidence” isn’t something that stands on its own. Facts are facts only within a given theoretical framework (as Darwin famously observed), and reason and evidence better play with each other in a mutually reinforcing fashion. It just isn’t as simple as “just the facts, madam.”

Krauss continues: “Without some knowledge of the consequences of actions, which must be based on empirical evidence, then I think ‘reason’ alone is impotent.” Well, yes, but I don’t know any philosopher who would claim otherwise. Let’s say you are a consequentialist when it comes to moral decision making. You do rely on empirical evidence (broadly construed, more on this later) to make specific decisions, because after all you care about the likely consequences of your actions, so you need some way to estimate what such consequences might be. But the prior decision to adopt a consequentialist stance in ethics is not the result of “facts,” it derives from your philosophical reflections on what ethical judgments are and how best to carry them out. You need to read Mill, not Einstein.

But of course Krauss has drunk the Harris cool-aid in full: “Ultimately, I think our understanding of neurobiology and evolutionary biology and psychology will reduce our understanding of morality to some well-defined biological constructs.” He, like Harris before, confuses an understanding of the mechanisms of X with the epistemic status (true, not true, undecidable, etc.) of X. To see the point simply, imagine if a neuroscientist told you that he wanted to scan your brain while you were trying to demonstrate the Pythagorean theorem. Said neuroscientist would be able to tell you all sorts of fascinating biological facts about which parts of your brain were involved in the task, how much of each neuropeptide you were using while carrying it out, etc. What he would have absolutely nothing to say about is whether you got the proof right. You’d need a mathematician for that.

Baggini makes a similar point very nicely and reasonably: “No factual discovery could ever settle a question of right or wrong. But that does not mean that moral questions are empty questions or pseudo-questions. We can think better about them and can even have more informed debates by learning new facts. What we conclude about animal ethics, for example, has changed as we have learned more about non-human cognition.” Yup, exactly: science can (and should) inform moral thinking, but it doesn’t determine it.

He continues to give a basic lesson in philosophical reasoning to Krauss: “What is disparagingly called scientism insists that, if a question isn’t amenable to scientific solution, it is not a serious question at all.” And that is one of the best definitions of scientism available. That thereare questions that are not answerable scientifically and yet are perfectly meaningful should be clear to anyone who considers ethics, logic or mathematics, among other things.

Krauss comes close to acknowledging the point, and then manages to screw up again, all in one sentence: “I do think philosophical discussions can inform decision-making in many important ways, by allowing reflections on facts, but that ultimately the only source of facts is via empirical exploration.” The part after the “but” is either not true or tautological. Depending on what you mean by “facts” it may not be true: do mathematical theorems count as facts? If so, they do not require empirical exploration to be determined true or false. If we stick to straightforward empirical facts, of course their only source is, well, empirical! But we are talking about knowledge and understanding, for which facts are a necessary but not sufficient condition.

Krauss then proceeds to gleefully engage in more logical fallacies, chiefly the naturalistic one (deriving an ought from an is), a favorite of Harris too: “Take homosexuality, for example. Iron age scriptures might argue that homosexuality is ‘wrong,’ but scientific discoveries about the frequency of homosexual behaviour in a variety of species tell us that it is completely natural in a rather fixed fraction of populations and that it has no apparent negative evolutionary impacts. This surely tells us that it is biologically based, not harmful and not innately ‘wrong.’” First off, scriptures don’t “argue,” they simply lay down the (allegedly divine) law, without argument (the chief difference between religion and philosophy). Second, and most importantly, so what if it had turned out that homosexuality wasn’t “natural”? Would it follow that it is wrong? Vaccinating your kids is not natural, but surely it is the right thing to do. Conversely, the tendency for human beings to settle disputes by violenceis natural, but most of us would agree that it is the wrong way to go about it. There simply is no logical connection between something being natural/unnatural and the same thing being right/wrong, just as Hume had warned (did Krauss read Hume? I doubt it). Baggini, incidentally, points out the same to Krauss, though in a more restrained fashion. Kudos for his patience.

Krauss then changes the subject (his words) and wants to convince Baggini that there is no difference between “how” and “why” questions. An interesting approach, because — in his mind — if we can show that there are no “why” questions then science becomes the ultimate arbiter of any meaningful issue. (Again, this isprima facie contradicted by math and logic, which are not concerned with “why” and yet do not require empirical evidence to settle their questions, but let’s go along with it for a moment.)

His example is Kepler’s quest for “why” there are six planets in the solar system (according to the best astronomical knowledge of the time). Kepler thought he got the answer when he realized that there are only five Platonic solids (the faces of which are composed by regular polygons). Each Platonic solid can be circumscribed by a sphere, and if such spheres separate the orbits of the planets, then there can be only six planets. Kepler, as we know, was wrong on the number of planets and on his proposed explanation, but astronomers made progress when they turned his “why” into a “how” and figured out that the answer was to be found into Newton’s laws of mechanics.

The history of science aspect of Krauss' story is likely a bit simplistic, but of course nobody would object to his account of “why” vs “how” in science. However, Baggini immediately points out that why questions come to the forefront whenever we consider agency: “if we want to know why someone made a sacrifice for a person close to them, a purely neurological answer would not be a complete one. The full truth would require saying that there was a ‘why’ at work.” Indeed. Now, I don’t want to get into yet another debate about free will, because people simply tend to talk at cross-purposes in that context. At the very least we can agree that — epistemically speaking — we need to deploy high level cognitive concepts like motivations, reasons, etc. to make sense of human behavior. Which means that “why” questions are very much alive and well, thank you very much.

At any rate, even if one were to concede to Krauss that in some broad sense everything comes down to “how” things work, all the above considerations about the insufficiency (and sometimes irrelevance) of empirical facts to settle certain questions still hold, and philosophy gets to live another day.

But Krauss isn’t going to be happy with this, he really wants to push his scientism to its logical endpoint, thus insisting: “Certainly, we already understand many aspects of sacrifice in terms of evolutionary biology. Sacrifice is, in many cases, good for survival of a group or kin. It makes evolutionary sense for some people, in this case to act altruistically, if propagation of genes is driving action in a basic sense.” This pop evolutionary account confuses the origin of a behavior (say, the evolution of an altruistic instinct to protect one’s progeny) with the kind of moral reasoning that is of interest to modern human beings in complex societies. To return to the example of math from above, it would be like saying that evolution explains our ability to solve, say, Fermat’s last theorem because it was adaptive to be able to count a few items in the Pleistocene’s savannah. The latter is likely true, but the former doesn’t follow at all.

Now, what are we to make of all of this? I am not particularly interested in simply showing how philosophically naive Krauss is, as much fun as that may be. Rather, I want to ask the broader question of what underlies Krauss’ (and others’) take on science and philosophy. It’s a broader conversation that we have been having for a while on this blog and will no doubt continue, but I’d like to attract the reader’s attention to a fundamental mistake underlying pretty much everything Krauss has said throughout his debate with Baggini: he has (implicitly) built the following argument:

Premise 1: Empirical evidence is the province of science (and only science).

Premise 2: All meaningful / answerable questions are by nature empirical.

Premise 3: Philosophy does not deal with empirical questions.

Conclusion: Therefore, science is the only activity that provides meaningful / answerable questions.

Corollary: Philosophy is useless.

Now, P2 is awfully close to the philosophical (!!) position known as logical positivism (in the US, logical empiricism), which has been demolished by the likes of Quine, Putnam, Kuhn and others. I have argued above that there are plenty of questions whose nature is not empirical, or not wholly empirical, and yet are meaningful. P3 can be interpreted in more than one way: yes, philosophy isn’t in the business of answering empirical questions (just like math and logic), but it is a caricature of the field to claim that empirical facts are irrelevant to philosophical considerations, and no sane philosopher would defend such claim.

This would already be enough to show that both the Conclusion and the Corollary are false, and we could go home with the satisfaction of a job well done. But I want to add something about P1. This appears to be a widespread assumption among scientists, recall for instance Jerry Coyne’s argument that plumbing is a science because it deals with empirical evidence, which plumbers use to evaluate alternative “hypotheses” concerning the causal mechanism of your toilette’s clog. But there is a fallacy of equivocation at work here, as the word “science” should be used in one of two possible meanings, but not both:eitherKrauss, Coyne et al. mean that (a) science is any human activity that uses facts to reach conclusions;or they mean that (b) science is a particular type of social activity, historically developed, and characterized by things like peer review, granting agencies, complex instrumentation, sophisticated analytical tools etc.

(b) is what most people — including most scientists — mean when they use the word “science,” and by that standard plumbing is not a science. More importantly, philosophy thencan reasonably help itself to facts and still maintain a degree of independence (in subject matter and methods) from science.

If we go with (a), however, some nasty consequences ensue. Besides the fact that we would have to grant the title of scientist to plumbers, it would follow that I am doing “science” every time I pick the subway route that brings me somewhere in Manhattan. After all, I am evaluating hypotheses (the #6 train will let me get to 86th Street at the corner with Lexington) based on empirical evidence (the subway map, the directly observable position of the stations with respect to the Manhattan street grid, and so on). You can see, I hope, that this exercise quickly becomes silly and the word “science” loses meaning.

An additional consequence of (a) is that two can play that game, turning the table on people like Krauss: if everything involving empirical evidence counts as science, then everything involving critical reflection counts as philosophy, which means that really we are all philosophers and that philosophy departments ought to get the lion’s share of federal funding and campus resources! Yes, this is areductio ad absurdum, but it is only slightly more absurd than the scientism defended by Krauss and company. QED.

Part IV. The Nut job

Ray Kurzweil and the Singularity: visionary genius or pseudoscientific crank?

(originally published on 11 April 2011)

Everyone keeps telling me that Ray Kurzweil is a genius. Kurweilhas certainly racked up a number of impressive accomplishments. Kurzweil Computer Products produced the first optical character recognition system (developed by designer-engineer Richard Brown) in the mid-‘70s, and another of his companies, Kurzweil Music Systems, put out a music synthesizer in 1984. A few years later Kurzweil Applied Intelligence (the guyreally likes to see his name in print) designed a computerized speech recognition system further developed by Kurzweil Educational Systems (see what I mean?) for assistance to the disabled. Other ventures include Kurzweil's Cybernetic Poet, Kurzweil Adaptive Technologies, and Kurzweil National Federation of the Blind Reader. In short, the man has a good sense of business and self-promotion — and there is nothing wrong with either (within limits).

However, the reason I’m writing about him is because of his more recent, and far more widely publicized, role as a futurist, and in particular as a major mover behind the Singularitarian movement, a strange creature that has been hailed as both a visionary view of the future and as a secular religion. Another major supporter of Singularitarianism is philosopher David Chalmers, by whom I am equally underwhelmed, and whom I will take on directly in the near future in the more rarefied realm of academic publications.

Back to Kurzweil. I’m not the only one to have significant problems with him (and with the idea of futurism in general, particularly considering the uncanny ability of futurists to get things spectacularly and consistently wrong). John Rennie, for instance, published a scathing analysis of Kurzweil’s much taunted “prophecies,” debunking the notion and showing that the guy has alternatively being wrong or trivial about his earlier visions of the future.

(Here is a taste of what Rennie documented, from a “prediction” Kurzweil made in 2005: “By 2010 computers will disappear. They'll be so small, they'll be embedded in our clothing, in our environment. Images will be written directly to our retina, providing full-immersion virtual reality, augmented real reality. We'll be interacting with virtual personalities.” Oops. Apparently the guy doesn’t know that one should never, ever make predictions that might turn out to be incorrect in one’s own lifetime. Even the Seventh Day Adventists have learned that lesson!)

It is pretty much impossible to take on the full Kurzweil literary production, the guy writes faster than even I can, and I fully expect a book length rebuttal to this post, if he comes across it in cyberspace (the man leaves no rebuttal unrebutted). Instead, I will focus on a single detailed essay he wrote entitled “Superintelligence and Singularity,” which was originally published as chapter 1 of hisThe Singularity is Near(Viking 2005), and has been reprinted in an otherwise insightful collection edited by Susan Schneider, Science Fiction and Philosophy.

In the essay in question, Kurzweil begins by telling us that he gradually became aware of the coming Singularity, in a process that, somewhat peculiarly, he describes as a “progressive awakening” — a phrase with decidedly religious overtones. He defines the Singularity as “a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed.” Well, bythat definition, we have been through several “singularities” already, as technology has often rapidly and irreversibly transformed our lives.

The major piece of evidence for Singularitarianism is what “I [Kurzweil] have called the law of accelerating returns (the inherent acceleration of the rate of evolution, with technological evolution as a continuation of biological evolution).” He continues by acknowledging that he understands how so many people don’t get it, because, you see, “after all, it took me forty years to be able to see what was right in front of me.” Thank goodness he didn’t call it the Kurzweil law of accelerating returns, though I’m sure the temptation was strong.

Irritating pomposity aside, the first obvious serious objection is that technological “evolution” is in no logical way a continuation of biological evolution — the word “evolution” here being applied with completely different meanings. And besides, there is no scientifically sensible way in which biological evolution has been accelerating over the several billion years of its operation on our planet. So much for scientific accuracy and logical consistency.

Kurzweil proceeds with a simple lesson meant to impress on us the real power of exponential growth, which he claims characterizes technological “evolution.” If you check out the original essay, however, you will notice that all of the diagrams he presents to make his case (Figs. 1-6) are simply made up by Kurzweil, either because they do not show any actual data (Fig. 1) or because they are an arbitrary assemblage of “canonical milestones” lined up so to show that there has been progress in the history of the universe (Figs. 2-6).

For instance, in Fig. 6 we have a single temporal line where “Milky Way,” “first flowering plants,” “differentiation of human DNA type” (whatever that means), and “rock art” are nicely lined up to fill the gaps between the origin of life on earth and the invention of the transistor. In Figs. 3 and 4, a “countdown to Singularity” is illustrated by a patchwork of evolutionary and cultural events, from the origin of reptiles to the invention of art, again to give the impression that — what? There was a PLAN? That the Singularity was inherent in the very fabric of the universe?

Now, here is a bit that will give you an idea of why some people think of Singularitarianism as a secular religion: “The Singularity will allow us to transcend [the] limitations of our biological bodies and brains. We will gain power over our fates. Our mortality will be in our own hands. We will be able to live as long as we want.” Indeed, Fig. 2 of that essay shows a progression through (again, entirely arbitrary) six “epochs,” with the next one (#5) occurring when there will be a merger between technological and human intelligence (somehow, a good thing), and the last one (#6) labeled as nothing less than “the universe wakes up” — a nonsensical outcome further described as “patterns of matter and energy in the universe becom[ing] saturated with intelligence processes and knowledge.” This isn’t just science fiction, it isbad science fiction.

There are several unintentionally delightfully ironic sentences scattered throughout Kurzweil’s essay: “The future is widely misunderstood ... The future will be far more surprising than most people realize,” etc. Of course, “most” people doesn’t include our futurist genius, despite the fact that he hasalready been wrong about the future, and spectacularly so.

And then there is pure nonsense on stilts: “we are doubling the paradigm-shift rate every decade.” What does that evenmean? Paradigm shifts in philosophy of science (a la Thomas Kuhn) are a fairly well understood — if controversial — concept. But outside of it, the phrase has simply come to mean any major change arbitrarily defined. Again, not the stuff of rigorous analysis, and far less of serious predictions.

And there is more, much more: “a serious assessment of the history of technology reveals that technological change is exponential. Exponential growth is a feature of any evolutionary process.” First, it is highly questionable that one can even measure “technological change” on a coherent uniform scale. Yes, we can plot the rate of, say, increase in microprocessor speed, but that is but one aspect of “technological change.” As for the idea that any evolutionary process features exponential growth, I don’t know where Kurzweil got it, but it is simply wrong, for one thing because biological evolution does not have any such feature — as any student of Biology 101 ought to know.

Kurzweil’s ignorance of evolution is manifested again a bit later, when he claims — without argument, as usual — that “Evolution is a process of creating patterns of increasing order. ... It’s the evolution of patterns that constitutes the ultimate story of the world. ... Each stage or epoch uses the information-processing methods of the previous epoch to create the next.” I swear, I was fully expecting a scholarly reference to Deepak Chopra at the end of that sentence. Again, “evolution” is a highly heterogeneous term that picks completely different concepts, such as cosmic “evolution” (actually just change over time), biological evolution (which does have to do with the creation of order, but not in Kurzweil’s blatantly teleological sense), and technological “evolution” (which is certainly yet another type of beast altogether, since it requires intelligent design). And what on earth does it mean that each epoch uses the “methods” of the previous one to “create” the next one? Techno-mystical babble this is.

In his description of the progression between the six epochs, Kurzweil dances a bit too close to the infamous anthropic principle, when he says “The rules of our universe and the balance of the physical constants ... are so exquisitely, delicately and exactly appropriate ... that one wonders how such an extraordinary unlikely situation came about.” Can you say Intelligent Design, Ray? This of coursehad to follow a paragraph including the following sentence: “we do know that atomic structures store and represent discrete information.” Well, only if one adopts such a general definition of “information” that the word entirely loses meaning. Unless of course onehas to force the incredibly chaotic and contingent history of the universe in six nicely lined up epochs that start with “Physics and Chemistry: information in atomic structures.”

The jump from epoch 2 (biology and DNA) to 3 (brains) is an almost comical reincarnation of the old scala naturae, the great chain of being that ascended from minute particles and minerals (Kurzweil’s physics and chemistry age) to plants (epoch 2), animals (epoch 3), humans (epoch 4) and... Well, that’s where things diverge, of course. Instead of angels and god we have, respectively, human-computer hybrids and the Singularity. The parallels are so obvious that I can’t understand why it took me forty years to see them (it didn’t really, it all came to me in a rapid flash of awakening).

Where does Kurzweil get his hard data for the various diagrams purportedly showing this cosmic progression through his newscala naturae? Fortunately for later scholars, he tells us: theEncyclopedia Britannica, the American Museum of Natural History (presumably one of those posters about the history of the universe they sell in their gift shop), and Carl Sagan’s cosmic calendar(which Sagan used as ametaphorto convey a sense of the passing of cosmic time in hispopular book, The Dragons of Eden). I bow to the depth of Kurzweil’s scholarship.

And finally, we get to stage 6, when the universe “wakes up.” How is this going to happen? Easy: “[the universe] will achieve this by reorganizing matter and energy to provide an optimal level of computation to spread out from its origin on Earth.” Besides the obvious objection that there is no scientific substance at all to phrases like the universe reorganizing matter and energy (I mean, the universeis matter and energy), what on earth could one possibly mean by “optimal level of computation”? Optimal for whom? To what end? Oh, and for this to happen, Kurzweil at least realizes, “information” would have to somehow overcome the limit imposed by the General Theory of Relativity on how fast anything can travel, i.e. the speed of light. Kurzweil here allows himself a bit of restraint: “Circumventing this limit has to be regarded as highly speculative.” No, dude, it aint’ just speculative, it would amount to a major violation of a law of nature. You know, the sort of thing David Hume labeled “miracles.” (channel Sagan’s version of Hume’s dictum: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)

Would you like (another) taste of just how “speculative” Kurzweil can get? I’m glad you asked: “When scientists become a million times more intelligent and operate a million times faster, an hour would result in a century of progress (in today’s terms) ... Ultimately, the entire universe will become saturated with our intelligence. This is the destiny of the universe.” Oh? The universe has a destiny? And, pray, who laidthat out?

At this point I think the reader who has been patient enough with me will have gotten a better idea of why I think Kurzweil is a crank (that and the fact that his latest book,Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever is co-authored with Terry Grossman, who is a proponent of homeopathic cures — nobody told Ray that homeopathy is quackery?).

Allow me, however, to conclude with what may well turn out to be a knock down argument against the Singularity. As we have seen, the whole idea is that human beings will merge with machines during the ongoing process of ever accelerating evolution, an event that will eventually lead to the universe awakening to itself, or something like that. Now here is the crucial question: how come this has not happened already?

To appreciate the power of this argument you may want to refresh your memory about the Fermi Paradox, a serious (though in that case,not a knockdown) argument against the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent life. The story goes that physicist Enrico Fermi (the inventor of the first nuclear reactor) was having lunch with some colleagues, back in 1950. His companions were waxing poetic about the possibility, indeed the high likelihood, that the galaxy is teeming with intelligent life forms. To which Fermi asked something along the lines of: “Well, where are they, then?”

The idea is that even under very pessimistic (i.e., very un-Kurzweil like) expectations about how quickly an intelligent civilization would spread across the galaxy (without even violating the speed of light limit!), and given the mind boggling length of time the galaxy has already existed, it becomes difficult (though, again, not impossible) to explain why we haven’t seen the darn aliens yet.

Now, translate that to Kurzweil’s much more optimistic predictions about the Singularity (which allegedly will occur around 2045, conveniently just a bit after Kurzweil’s expected demise, given that he is 63 at the time of this writing). Considering that there is no particular reason to think that planet earth, or the human species,has to be the one destined to trigger the big event, why is it that the universe hasn’t already “awakened” as a result of a Singularity occurring somewhere else at some other time? Call that the, oh, I don’t know, “Pigliucci paradox.” It has a nice ring to it.

Table of Contents

Copyright

About the Author:

Other books and collections by Massimo Pigliucci:

Introduction: A Skeptics’ Skeptic

Part I. The Skeptics

Dear Penn and Teller: Bullshit!

James Randi, global warming and the meaning of skepticism

About Sam Harris’ claim that science can answer moral questions

Science and the Is/ Ought Problem

Genuinely puzzled: what exactly is Blackford saying about Harris?

Michael Shermer’s libertarianism

Michael Shermer on morality

Toward a science of morality. An annotated response to Michael Shermer

Science, morality, and genital mutilation

Part II. The Biologists

Beyond selfish genes

The trouble with memetics

Is Dawkins deluded? When scientists talk about religion

Is Richard Dawkins really that naive?

Jerry Coyne, then and now

Jerry Coyne on free will

PZ Myers is a witless wanker who peddles pablum

PZ Myers quits skeptic movement, should we care?

Part III. The Physicist

Lawrence Krauss: another physicist with an anti-philosophy complex

Krauss does it again, so soon!

Part IV. The Nut job

Ray Kurzweil and the Singularity: visionary genius or pseudoscientific crank?