Science, Religion, and Framing

 
There was a conference on framing at the AAAS meeting last month [How Matt Nisbet Conned AAAS]. When the meeting was first being organized I wrote to the moderator, David Goldston, to complian about the lack of balance and fairness. He replied that he had nothing to do with inviting the speakers. He told me that, as moderator, he intended to play "devil's advocate" to ensure fairness.

Goldston has written up a summary of the meeting for Nature (Goldston, 2008). In that article he cautions us that the public may not be as hostile to science as we think. With that in mind, it is wise, acording to Goldston, to develop ways to make science more appealing to a religious public.

Recognizing the complexity of public attitudes, a number of scientists and other scholars are trying to develop language to discuss evolution in ways that might build bridges to the religious. These efforts were the subject of a well-attended panel I moderated at last month's annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, Massachusetts. Some panellists, in effect, advocated co-opting the language of religion. For example, Kenneth Miller of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the author of a leading textbook on evolution and a practising Catholic, talked about embracing the notion of life having a design, but explaining it as the result and embodiment of evolution. Others, such as Matthew Nisbet, a communications scholar at American University in Washington DC who organized the panel, suggested moving the discussion away from scientific theory and talking about the medical and other benefits that have resulted from understanding evolution.

No doubt all these approaches are worth trying, and the general message of the panel — that scientists should address the public with respect rather than contempt — is well taken. But the panel failed to grapple with two important facets of the way science and religious attitudes intersect.

What are those two facets? The first is the fact that the fight is not about science alone. It's about a whole range of social issues that upset the religious right.

The second point is more interesting ...

Second, the panellists tiptoed around the fact that scientific discovery can genuinely undermine religious beliefs. The focus of the panel was on teaching evolution, but discoveries in genetics and neuroscience are likely to be far more problematic in the long run. The two fields are verging on drawing the ultimate materialist picture of human nature — humans as nothing more than proteins and electrical impulses, all machine and no ghost, to play off Descartes' formulation. This view will challenge not only fundamentalist views about the soul, but more widely held notions about what it means to be a person. That will further complicate age-old questions about the nature of individual responsibility and morality.

That's a good point. What does it have to do with the conference and with the views advocated by people like Miller and Nisbet? Would using the language of religion and talking about design—as Miller suggests—make believers more comfortable about becoming materialists? Will advertising the medical benefits of science—as Nisbet sugggests— relieve the angst of learning that God has no role to play in the universe? I don't think so. Framing science isn't going to hide the fact that it is antithetical to many of the core beliefs of the religious.

So far, so good. At least Goldston dropped a little hint to suggest that he wasn't completely taken in by the Nisbet propaganda.

But wait. In his last paragraph Goldston goes completely off the rails revealing why he was chosen as moderator.

Responding to these issues will be difficult for scientists and non-scientists alike. New discoveries about the human genome and neuroscience will no doubt be clearly linked to potential medical advances, but they may also raise new questions about what kinds of interventions are appropriate. The conundrums may leave even atheists longing for some theological guidance on how to decide what is moral. And wandering about this uncharted territory may make the well-rehearsed battles over evolution seem like the good old days.

What nonsense. Atheists don't need "theological guidance" to work through these problems. As a matter of fact, atheists are well placed to deal with the issues once the stranglehold of religion is broken. That's because atheists have long been deciding what's "moral" in the absence of God. We're good at it.

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Goldston, D. (2008) The Scientist Delusion. Nature 462:17. [Nature] [doi:10.1038/452017a]
[HatTip: Pete Dunkelberg]