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33 responses to “On evolutionary biology and giving religion a “pass””

1. 

   Helen De Cruz

   April 15, 2014

   I think that comparing religious belief to belief in paranormal things like UFOs, tarot cards, etc, is just psychologically incorrect. This trope is often used by new atheists, but it does not align with psychological reality. In the psychology of religion, three groups are often compared to see how they score on a dependent measure (e.g., seeing agency, fear of death): people who hold religious beliefs, people who hold beliefs in paranormal entities (e.g., UFOs), and people who don’t believe in either. If one takes people who fall squarely into one of those three categories, one often finds differences between the believers in supernatural-not-religious things and traditional religious believers on various measures.
   Interestingly, church-going “conventional” Christians in fact are less prone to believe in astrology, bigfoot and other paranormal phenomena than spiritual but not religious or non-church-going Christians. Mencken et al. found no effect of Christian beliefs on endorsement of the existence of paranormal phenomena, see http://www.baylorisr.org/wp-content/uploads/stark_conventional.pdf
   One reason this psychological mistake of equating religious belief with belief in the paranormal is that, for the naturalist atheist, believing in God is mainly seen as subscribing to a bit of extra ontology. Now, a lot of that ontology is really weird: virgin births, people rising from the dead, and so on. But as you point out, belief in God to a religious person is far more than that, it is a practice woven into one’s life, a moral compass and lots of other things that define a person. It’s not the case that religious believers are unaware of the strangeness of these beliefs (an influential theory in cognitive science of religion says that religious beliefs are typically minimally counterintuitive, by which is meant that they violate our intuitive expectations; people know that humans don’t normally rise from the dead.) So it’s a fascinating question why religious believers hold these beliefs, but it is less perplexing to believers than to atheists, I think.

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2. 

   Toysmith.wordpress.com

   April 15, 2014

   This brings up two issues for me. The first is the distinction between religious beliefs (ontological and epistemological commitments) and religious practices (the act of prayer, reciting liturgy, etc.). The main thesis of Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God is that we – particularly Americans from the mid 19th century onward – have gotten into a lot of trouble by focusing on the former. Armstrong’s thesis is essentially that we should not throw out the baby of practice with the bathwater of beliefs that don’t hold up to 21st century scrutiny. (Critics have pointed out that her historical analysis is a bit selective; “belief” often determined whether one lived or died at the stake or the sword of the Crusader). Roberta seems to be arguing that religion as practice provides benefits.
   But I do take issue with giving religion a “pass.” I used to hold the “what’s the harm?” perspective, but the preponderance of evidence (mainly the tangible harm caused by acting on “strange” beliefs) is persuading me to be more activist. I encourage you to read Greta Christina’s Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless (http://www.amazon.com/Atheists-Angry-Things-That-Godless/dp/0985281529) to understand why the “new atheists” are passionate about their cause.

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3. 

   dmf

   April 15, 2014

   given the vast diversities of people who got to church’s here in the US I’m having a hard time imagining that there is a “conventional” believer or that there is a clear line to be drawn between the supernatural and the paranormal (what for example does one do with the imagined powers of prophecy?). Also is there a line between “weird” ontologies and those that are contrary to say the hard sciences?

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4. 

   Shawn Miller

   April 15, 2014

   The hard “new atheists” more or less completely misunderstand, and ignore the complexity of, religion. The basic problem is that they seem to conceive of religion as a list of beliefs, with the list containing some obvious doozies, e.g., transubstantiation, the story of Noah, etc. The list of beliefs that science generates seems so much more sensible b/c it is grounded in evidence; therefore, scientific modes of thought are better than religious ones. But religion isn’t equal to a body of doctrine, in the same way that science isn’t equal to a set of sentences (and science has some doozies of its own, e.g., superstring theory).
   Philosophers of science now know that understanding science requires attending to the practice of science. This is also true of religion, probably even more so. Religions are complex cultural artifacts that develop through time. Judging them on the basis of, e.g., the wrongheaded, dogmatic (possibly politically motivated) beliefs of creationists is absurd, and if we returned the favor to science, it might fare quite poorly, b/c we might find that, for instance, the overwhelming majority of people who have taken college physics have false beliefs about what an atom is (b/c the model of the atom in textbooks is often a mish-mash of concepts and is known to be at odds with the state of the art in atomic theory).
   Another point worth mentioning is that scientists are allowed to take a variety of positions regarding the reality of unobservables, such that holding that sub-microscopic entities are merely useful fictions that allow science to get on with it is a respectable position. However, the new atheists often bellow that unless a person believes the most literal, naive and simple-minded version of their religion, then they aren’t really religious.
   Science is complicated and it isn’t all of a piece. Nor is religion. A failure to recognize that is either dishonest, lazy or worse.

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5. 

   Patrick S. O’Donnell

   April 15, 2014

   Here’s some titles that might be read in support of at least the spirit of this post:
   • Barbour, Ian G. Issues in Science and Religion. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966.
   • Barbour, Ian G. Myths, Models, and Paradigms: A Comparative Study in Science and Religion. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.
   • Barbour, Ian G. Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, revised ed., 1997.
   • Barbour, Ian G. When Science Meets Religion. New York: HarperCollins, 2000.
   • Brooke, John Hedley. Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
   • Brooke, John and Geoffrey Cantor. Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000 (1998).
   • Brooke, John Hedley and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. Science and Religion around the World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
   • Cottingham, John. The Spiritual Dimension: Religion, Philosophy and Human Value. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. [contains an important chapter on ‘science and religion’]
   • Dixon, Thomas. Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
   • Ferngren, Gary B., ed. Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
   • Gould, Stephen Jay. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York: Ballantine, 1999.
   • Harrison, Peter, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
   • Haught, John F. Is Nature Enough? Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
   • Haught, John F. Making Sense of Evolution: Darwin, God and the Drama of Life. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010.
   • Ruse, Michael. Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? The Relationship Between Science and Religion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
   • Stenmark, Mikael. Rationality in Science, Religion, and Everyday Life. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995.

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6. 

   Patrick S. O’Donnell

   April 15, 2014

   The following titles might be considered in support of at least the spirit of this post. Perhaps some readers might find one or more of them of interest.
   • Barbour, Ian G. Issues in Science and Religion. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966.
   • Barbour, Ian G. Myths, Models, and Paradigms: A Comparative Study in Science and Religion. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.
   • Barbour, Ian G. Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, revised ed., 1997.
   • Barbour, Ian G. When Science Meets Religion. New York: HarperCollins, 2000.
   • Brooke, John Hedley. Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
   • Brooke, John and Geoffrey Cantor. Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000 (1998).
   • Brooke, John Hedley and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. Science and Religion around the World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
   • Cottingham, John. The Spiritual Dimension: Religion, Philosophy and Human Value. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. [contains an important chapter on ‘science and religion’]
   • Dixon, Thomas. Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
   • Ferngren, Gary B., ed. Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
   • Gould, Stephen Jay. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York: Ballantine, 1999.
   • Harrison, Peter, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
   • Haught, John F. Is Nature Enough? Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
   • Haught, John F. Making Sense of Evolution: Darwin, God and the Drama of Life. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010.
   • Ruse, Michael. Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? The Relationship Between Science and Religion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
   • Stenmark, Mikael. Rationality in Science, Religion, and Everyday Life. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995.

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7. 

   Richard

   April 16, 2014

   Helen, I don’t think atheists (old or new) are interested in drawing a psychological comparison between religious beliefs and other paranormal beliefs. They’re drawing an epistemic comparison between the two – e.g., arguing that the former are just as irrational (or unsupported by evidence, or whatever) as the latter.
   If anything, I imagine that atheists make these comparisons precisely because they are aware of the psychological differences between paranormal beliefs and religious beliefs. They know that directly arguing that belief in God is irrational isn’t always successful, so they call attention to a belief that doesn’t have the same kind of psychological grip on believers (like belief in UFOs), and then try to show how that belief is epistemically on a par with religious belief.
   “Interestingly, church-going “conventional” Christians in fact are less prone to believe in astrology, bigfoot and other paranormal phenomena than spiritual but not religious or non-church-going Christians.”
   This doesn’t sound so surprising to me – I would expect a conventional church to want to have a ‘monopoly’ on supernatural phenomena, so it would teach its followers to be wary of various occult or pagan supernatural beliefs. Consider, for example, those stories of religious groups criticizing Harry Potter.

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8. 

   Nathaniel Comfort

   April 16, 2014

   Why doesn’t anyone discuss the race/class implications of this hard new atheism? Ever notice that these guys are all upper middle class white men? They can afford to be atheists. It’s a rich person’s debate.
   I’d like to take Coyne on a tour of East Baltimore on a Sunday morning, when you see both the drug addicts and winos passed out on the stoops and the hard-working, upright poor, in their Sunday best, heading to church. Personally, I am as atheist as they come, but to small, local religion as a positive force in tough communities I say “Amen!”

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9. 

   Charles R

   April 16, 2014

   “They help give meaning and purpose, a moral compass, and comfort in difficult times. I don’t think the same can be said about beliefs about UFOs, fairies, and tarot cards.”
   Why can’t it be said? Given the number of psychics, readers, and folks who study the various forms of tarot and the people who consult them, it seems a lot of people turn to these forms of divination precisely during difficult times for advice, comfort, understanding, insight. If we take Shawn’s point, and Helen’s earlier, above about attending to the practices involved to grasp how people live out their beliefs, then attending to how people use tarot cards or smudge their homes or speak with the spirits or the fay all around them is just as important here, unless we are, in his words, being “dishonest, lazy or worse” regarding the complexity of these cultural artifacts. From an anthropological standpoint, what counts as acceptable religion here: if a particular metaphysical viewpoint (http://clst307.wikispaces.com/file/view/perspectivism.pdf) holds that beavers or spirits see the world in a particular way and from a particular perspective, having their own analogical intentions, desires, regrets, and hopes, and if it situates this within cultural practices of transforming perspectives by adopting the skins of other beings, is this something as easily dismissed as UFOs, tarot cards, fairies or as easily retained as Christianity, Islam, or whatever is implicitly meant by ‘religion’? Doesn’t this kind of “multinaturalism” offer a significant moral compass—an entire ecology of moral judgments and intuitions—on a par with, say, Reformed Christian theology? Admitting the power of myth to shape perspectives while only allowing deference to the ones that have the largest numbers or political influence, or just the ones we like and find familiar, is not consistent with the spirit of charity being encouraged against Coyne’s unilateral dismissal. At least, I don’t think it is consistent. Perhaps there are good reasons to not be consistent on this point and be motivated by one’s own beliefs about what counts as religion and what counts as part of that dismissed category of admittedly similar beliefs.
   There is also a wide diversity in the significance people place in the existence of aliens, from those who take comfort in the knowledge that the universe is populated with more intelligent beings who are looking out for humans and eager to help them evolve to those who fear an inevitable disclosure of human governments colluding with alien regimes to mutilate humans and animals alike for food and research. If there is a candidate for a non-mainstream belief that’s open to collaboration with hard sciences, belief in aliens is one of the best, given how dedicated, sincere, and serious a number of the researchers are. If Stephen Hawking is going to take seriously that we should be prepared for nanotechnological self-replicators altering and terraforming our planet once we’ve called their attention to ourselves, then saying he’s being irrational and hokey on that point—or just saying he’s indulging in the fanciful—is to not take seriously how he reasons to his conclusion or why he’s not immediately dismissing the existence of aliens as useless speculation. But then maybe Stephen Hawking is not a good example of someone who can consider paranormal things from the standpoint of hard science. We all have our bad days.
   Just what is in mind when someone is casually dismissing these things? If the larger point is finding similarities in perspectives towards scientific investigation, exploration, conceptualization, or simply ways of thinking and studying, why not continue the process of finding allies even in these things—tarot, fairies, natural magics, aliens—one casually dismisses? Or is it irresponsible to challenge ourselves on something like this?
   I mean, if the basis for deference to the deeply held beliefs of others is how certain perspectives and viewpoints offer comfort and meaning to their lives, then criticizing the ardent new atheists for their oversimplification of cultural practices or challenging them to acknowledge the diversities involved regarding myths, narratives, and praxes is to not carry through with the principle: they also deserve a pass for all their metaphysics and anthropology shapes how they live in it, habits of belief and practice we might not share. They have a very strong myth concerning how humans live within the world; the myth gives them a moral compass and occasionally comfort as they live out their beliefs about beliefs. Either we challenge them as we challenge any others, or we let them have that pass while letting others pass.

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10. 

    Richard

    April 16, 2014

    Some people do discuss the race/class implications of the new atheists. More specifically, I’ve seen people accuse some of them (such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali) of contributing to Islamophobia.

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11. 

    Patrick S. O’Donnell

    April 16, 2014

    Personally, I don’t think it’s helpful to characterize this issue in the first instance as a problem (insofar as the ‘new atheism’ can be described in terms of a ‘problem’) peculiar to “upper middle class white men.” Nonetheless, and while I’m not a Marxist when it comes to the “explanation” of religion as such, I do think there’s much to be said for Marx’s perception of religion as an “expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering.” Indeed, viewing religious identity and behavior as often individually and collectively embodying the “sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions,” does, I think, better enable us understand no small part of what counts for religion in our world (and yet not exhaust, so to speak, the ‘meanings’ of religion). And it’s a blindness or obtuseness about that dimension of religion(s) that afflicts the new atheists in their more vociferous polemical moments.

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12. 

    Roberta L. Millstein

    April 16, 2014

    Wow, that’s quite an uncharitable read for someone who seems concerned about uncharitable readings. I really don’t know where to start debunking all of the inferences that you drew from one sentence, and to be honest, it’s not really worth my time. If you want to try again with a less hostile reading, that would be great, i.e., maybe just make your positive point without accusing me of saying things that I didn’t say.

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13. 

    Neil

    April 16, 2014

    Following up on Helen’s comment: one salient difference between believers in UFOs (and the like) and the conventionally religious, which explains why we ought to regard the second as (at minimum) less irrational than the first is that accepting one such paranormal belief predicts accepting many others. So people who believe in alien probes are also more likely to believe in Bigfoot, in ghosts, in the claim that 9/11 was an inside job, and so on. They are even more likely to assent to contradictory conspiracy theories (that Elvis was killed by the CIA and that Elvis is still alive). Religious belief tends to be more circumscribed. So paranormal believers make bad allies in the fight for science; religious believers not so much.

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14. 

    dmf

    April 16, 2014

    do you have any data along the lines of these assertions?

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15. 

    Neil

    April 16, 2014

    Don’t have access to my files right now (travelling), but one place to start is with the work of Stephan Lewandowsky. He has data on the general credulity of people who accept conspiracy theories.

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16. 

    dmf

    April 16, 2014

    interesting work but don’t see anything related to the post here:http://www.cogsciwa.com/ is there something elsewhere that addresses beliefs in the super/para-normal?
    Do you know Bruce Hood’s work on such beliefs?

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17. 

    lkm

    April 16, 2014

    “I happen to think that religious believers who accept the theory of evolution are our best allies in the fight to keep good science education in public schools. That’s because they show people that they don’t have to give up their deeply held beliefs in order to accept….”
    I’m confused here. Generally, where else would such “allies” come from–other than from a broader pool of religious believers associated with a doctrine that renders them most susceptible to rejecting evolution? This seems to me akin to claiming that the best allies in the fight against racism are racialists (e.g., James Watson). Some racialists appear to like to understand themselves this way, which they then use to buttress the reasonableness of their racialism.

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18. 

    Roberta L. Millstein

    April 16, 2014

    I’m not just saying that religious-accepters-of-evolution are the only source of possible allies. Some have in fact been good allies. Kenneth Miller is a prime example. He testified at the trial over the teaching of intelligent design in Dover, PA, and was an important witness who helped the judge return the verdict that he did. Francisco Ayala is another prominent example of a religious person whose contributions to evolutionary biology are extensive and laudatory.
    I don’t think that by saying this, I am committed to saying that someone like James Watson is a good ally in the fight against racism. It seems to me that the two situations are sufficiently different that the analogy does not hold, especially since I am not sure that someone like James Watson, isn’t, in fact, a racist. On the other hand, based on what I know of their work, I am confident that people like Miller and Ayala are not sneaking non-evolutionary beliefs into their evolutionary biology.

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19. 

    lkm

    April 16, 2014

    Maybe I’m not understanding your use of “ally.” The religious believers you cite aren’t, I would have thought, allies but fellow evolutionary theory believers. Since, despite being religious believers, they don’t accept a religious doctrine that leads them to reject evolution, they are in that (most relevant) regard no different from other evolutionary theory believers–which is why it’s unclear what “pragmatic” value they’re in a position to add.
    In any case, I wasn’t suggesting that you were “committed” to any view about the relation between racialists and racists. The concern was not that racialists were sneaking racist beliefs into their racialism. Rather, the concern was that racialists (or religious believers) could be viewed as especially good anti-racists (or anti-IDers) by virtue of some of their core, not-so-reasonable beliefs inadequately supported by (or beyond the reach of) science–which seems somewhat perverse.

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20. 

    Roberta L. Millstein

    April 16, 2014

    Maybe I need to clarify a bit. It seems to me that views like Coyne’s would tend to alienate people like Miller and Ayala. In his talk, he gave the impression that such people hold a set of views that are inconsistent and irrational. So yes, from my point of view Miller and Ayala are “fellow evolutionary believers.” But Coyne didn’t seem to see it that way.
    Having said that, though, I think that Miller and Ayala are in a position to do more for the cause than I can — the cause, in this case, being a proper understanding of evolution and its evidence, and a rejection of teaching religious-based views like creationism in the public schools. They can and do help that cause even if they never say anything about their religious beliefs; merely showing that it is possible to be a full proponent of evolutionary biology while being religious shows other religious people that they need not give up their faith in order to accept evolution. They make it easier for other religious people to be open to the possibility that there is good evidence for evolution. That is their pragmatic value.
    Maybe this is my view and not yours (and my apologies for not knowing your views better), but I think there is at least prima facie reason to worry about the connection between racialism and racism. I know that some have worried about such a connection. On the other hand, I don’t have analogous worries about Miller and Ayala, again, because they have given me no reason to have such worries. (Of course, it is in principle possible that someone’s religious views could problematically affect their scientific practice, and I can think of at least one prominent example where there is reason to think this).
    I hope this helps, i.e., I hope I haven’t just stepped into a pile of quicksand. 🙂

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21. 

    Eric Winsberg

    April 16, 2014

    I think we need to distinguish between the fact that the new atheists might “contribute” to Islamophobia, and the fact that some new atheists, in particular, seem to actually be racist Islamophobes.

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22. 

    lkm

    April 16, 2014

    That is helpful. Appreciated. Given your characterization of Coyne’s approach, I’m sympathetic to your response. My sense, too, is that “new atheists” tend to gratuitously go beyond what is respectful and contextually relevant. In that spirit, let me clarify that I was not suggesting a fuller comparison between religious believers who support evolutionary theory and racialists.

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23. 

    Roberta L. Millstein

    April 16, 2014

    Thanks, and thanks for the clarification. 🙂

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24. 

    r

    April 17, 2014

    I think Charles R @8 actually makes quite a good point in the conclusion of his post, which I would gloss as follows:
    Ordinarily, when people profess beliefs, we take ourselves to be able to rationally criticize them on epistemic grounds without needing to first examine the broader pragmatic and practical role those beliefs play in their proponents’ lives. After all, we can rationally criticize people’s beliefs without ever having met them, or knowing the first things about their codes and practices (I have never met Peter Klein, but I nonetheless strongly suspect infinitism is not the answer to the regress of justification; and that not just for me, but for him too). As such, asking that criticism of religious beliefs in particular be evaluated on a practice-first epistemology-last basis sounds like special pleading.
    One way to bring this out is to note that New Atheists are themselves a community with practices and so on: they arguably have the core belief that religion is not just wrong but irrational, and coordinate together in communal ways and also with the end of ushering in a new areligious age. The criticism of them, as in the first four or so posts, has attacked their core belief that religion is irrational on the basis that it is epistemically defective–it does not really comprehend the actual nature of religious belief and life, or the subjects to which they ought to be standard. But that criticism has not proceeded with an eye to New Atheists’ lives or practices. It has said: they are wrong, they don’t understand what they’re talking about, and that’s that. So they ought not think about things that way, what with how it’s wrong and all. But this would appear to be a double standard: strict epistemological standards for evaluating the beliefs embedded in the New Atheist movement, forgiving practical standards for the beliefs embedded in religious teachings.

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25. 

    Charles R

    April 17, 2014

    Roberta, I’m sorry for misunderstanding what your claim was and producing based on that misunderstanding an uncharitable reading.
    I read you as saying that you cannot say of tarot cards, UFOs, or fairies that believing in them offers people “meaning and purpose, a moral compass, and comfort in difficult times.” I read this as saying you do not think those kinds of beliefs provide people with meaning, purpose, moral compasses, comfort in difficult times. If this is not what you meant to say, and my reading is not charitable, then I’m not able to work from what you said to the intention you had in writing that. I want to understand what you’re saying, but clearly I failed if you don’t see yourself in what I took were implicit in what you did say and how you were arguing to Coyne’s point. That is, it seemed to me you didn’t challenge Coyne on the point that belief in the paranormal is as irrational as religious belief, instead you separated religion from the paranormal not through their epistemic stances (which is how Helen clarifies the difference in her comment, I take it)but by identifying specific effects upon the believers and then claiming those effects do not hold for beliefs about the paranormal. You stated this was a pragmatic stance. My thought was that if the pragmatic route is the way to go, then extending it to tarot, UFOs, fairies will likewise discriminate between acceptable and unacceptable versions of those beliefs—it’s not the epistemic mode, nor the content, but the pragmatic results of how those beliefs affect people living together and sharing space with one another. I didn’t see why this pragmatic response to Coyne’s argument could not be extended into our assumptions about the paranormal believers and why they do what they do.
    I know I can be polemical. I’m trying to work on that, and I apologize I failed in this instance. It did read to me that you were the one being dismissive of others’ sincere beliefs, so I hope from this standpoint you can see why I thought a measure of justly regarding those believers is in order. But you are completely correct: being polemical on that point prevents me from seeing what you see how you see it.
    Let me try this. Are you saying that you would give beliefs in tarot, UFOs, fairies the same kind of pass if those believers practiced their lives in a way that analogously conformed to how the religious believers live who are morally directed, comforted, and existentially settled (or unsettled, as it may be for some ardent believers)?

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26. 

    Roberta L. Millstein

    April 17, 2014

    “Are you saying that you would give beliefs in tarot, UFOs, fairies the same kind of pass if those believers practiced their lives in a way that analogously conformed to how the religious believers live who are morally directed, comforted, and existentially settled (or unsettled, as it may be for some ardent believers)”
    Yes, I would. As a non-religious person, it certainly does not matter to me whether a belief is part of a mainstream religion or a minority religion, or not even part of what we might consider religion at all. However, my impression is that in the U.S. (where the majority of debates about creationism take place, although a couple of other countries are gaining on us) that in general, beliefs UFOs, fairies, and tarot cards are not enmeshed in the rest of believers’ lives to the same degree, although of course such beliefs have some degree of meaning to them. That is, of course, an empirical claim about which I could be mistaken.

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27. 

    Charles R

    April 17, 2014

    So, I was very wrong about how to read what you wrote, and I see that. I should have just kept it to the question, and thanks for being very clear with me about what I did.
    My experiences with pracitioners of tarot, believers in UFOs, even those who acknowledge fairies or the fay have involved a wide continuum of enmeshing, so I acknowledge this is somewhat personal for me when it comes to those who take these things as seriously and sincerely as other religious people—just as there are a lot of religious people I’ve known who really didn’t place much meaning in Jesus but a lot in the economy or talk radio. I think what’s really fascinating for me have been the people who think about ghosts, for example, with acceptance but indifference, and that’s the sort of person who fits oddly into this kind of discussion about how the beliefs and practices associated with them (paranormal things) work alongside scientific methodologies. Because, on the surface, we might be inclined to say they are not sincerely holding to their beliefs—that temptation Shawn points to with the new atheists regarding the not-really-religious—but as with what Shawn is talking about when it comes to how we posit the reality of atoms or molecules, there are plenty of people for whom molecules or speciation are real but have no emotional, existential investment in them. Ghosts, like atoms or demes, are just part of the world, they’ll say, but there’s not enough time to focus on that right now because it’s a lot to take in and bills are coming due. But we don’t think of the people indifferently accepting atoms, demes, evolution as being irrational. We think they’re normal, maybe? But, maybe I’m thinking too much like Quine here. Lay people who go about their lives without really thinking about what an atom could be but accept their reality aren’t being held to the same kind of judgment as people who accept the reality of aliens but don’t really think about what an alien is. Or maybe they are.
    I guess I’m wondering why it matters how certain beliefs produce certain forms of meaning-making, moral structuring, comfort, when how Coyne was arguing focuses on the right evaluation of what’s true and what’s false—does a lack, should a lack, of these benefits shape how we think about people who are indifferently accepting atoms, molecules, evolution? How will it matter if we have an education system that produces people who are as ardent about evolution as the enmeshed believers are with their religion, or will it matter if the education system produces people who are as indifferent and unmeshed towards that as the paranormal-believing folk towards their beliefs? Is one more preferable than another?

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28. 

    Susan

    April 18, 2014

    When people who believe in fairies run around trying to wreck science education for the kids, I will stop giving them a “pass” – whatever it means to give them a “pass” in the first place. I don’t even know what is meant by “belief” in tarot cards. They’re quite real and quite interesting on a number of intellectual levels. If you think that “reading” them somehow predicts the future, like tea leaves or birds or entrails, then I rather doubt it. But the cards themselves? Totally real. So maybe they get more of a “pass” (?) than certain religious beliefs.

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29. 

    Roberta L. Millstein

    April 19, 2014

    Good question as to exactly what Coyne meant by giving religious evolution supporters a “pass.” I think he meant something like the following: science-oriented people tend to be critical of various supernatural or occult beliefs, referring to them as pseudoscience, lacking in evidence, etc. Yet, he seemed to be saying, those same people are silent on religious beliefs — they give religious beliefs a “pass.”
    As for “belief” in tarot cards, belief that they (or the person who is reading them) can predict the future, yes.

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30. 

    Alan White

    April 19, 2014

    I once had a dear friend declare that she had just had her 13th aura adjusted by a psychic expert, to which I replied straight-faced–she was a friend–“Well, at least your 12th aura was all right.” This was an outrageous bit of pseudoscience that helped her through her husband’s death from ALS, which as a sort of “Tuesday’s with Morrie” experience I’d also had, and grieved with her. My remark was mildly satiric, given her full-fledged bullshit beliefs, but not pressed as real criticism.
    The problem is not such mano-a-mano encounters, but socio-political expressions of a purely religious nature that have profound impact on public policy. E.g., no one should think that ultraconservative positions on abortion are anything but religiously motivated–the issues on the moral status of the relevant entities are wide open to reasoned disagreement and to pretend otherwise is to shut down inquiry altogether. It’s at the level of public policy that the so-called “New Atheists” have an ax to grind. We have abortion clinics that are being shut down for no other reason that faith-based positions oppose them, and that is harming a lot of people. That isn’t over-reach for the NAs–that is a legitimate protection of interests resisting the attacks of opposing forces much less rationally motivated.

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31. 

    Roberta L. Millstein

    April 19, 2014

    I agree with you that the important issue is not the religious or other supernatural beliefs of individuals when those beliefs play a role only in their own lives, but rather, the role that such beliefs can play in public policy. However, it was my impression that Coyne objected to all such beliefs. Perhaps he holds the view that you cannot have one without the other, or that one will often lead to the other.

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32. 

    Alan White

    April 19, 2014

    I agree Roberta. Perhaps the issues pragmatically resolve into larger ones of socio-economics. Conservative versus more liberal billionaires who can tilt public discourse one way or another based on variably rational beliefs, and where beliefs about religion serves economic ends as well. The truth can be depressing given some assessment of the tilt.

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33. 

    Roberta L. Millstein

    April 19, 2014

    Ah, yes, the bigger picture, what is really behind all of these political decisions: money. I guess scientists, like philosophers, too often focus on the reasoning and the evidence and forget where the persuasive power really lies.

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