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Fighting Fair

Entry 801, on 2008-06-24 at 21:50:59 (Rating 4, Religion)

I often get involved with discussions and debates (and arguments) over religious, spiritual, and paranormal issues. I'm already quite well informed on these issues and have the resources of the Internet at my command, and I have science and rationality on my side so why can't I always achieve a decisive victory?

I think its because I fight fair. I make it clear what I think and I give all evidence, on both sides of the debate, credit and consideration. And above everything else, I look at the big picture, including the merits of the opposition's points. And I never pretend that I have absolute knowledge or final proof.

A while back I blogged about the creationist I was debating with. It turns out that he is a very well known creation "expert" and the author of several books, so I was certainly arguing against a formidable opponent, even if his beliefs are nonsense when viewed from any reasonable perspective. I broke off the debate when he refused to play by the same rules of fairness I had adopted but later I started the conversation again and things went much better once I took him a lot less seriously.

About a week ago I sent him two questions which he never replied to. Up until then he had been quick to respond to my comments but I don't want to imply that I had beaten him on this occasion. Maybe he was away from his email, too busy, etc. I don't really know.

The two questions were good ones though. One was very general and one very specific. The general question asked him to distance himself from existing beliefs and look at the creation versus science debate impassively. What was more likely: that almost every branch of science (astronomy, biology, botany, cosmology, evolution, geology, etc) were all wrong, or that an old book with no support from any other source was wrong. The second question was what was his explanation of endogenous retroviruses. These are, in my opinion, one of the best proofs of evolution.

As I said, I never got an answer. I expected that he would have some sort of canned answer to the second question because by carefully selecting his evidence he had produced refutations of other scientific proofs which seemed superficially reasonable (but of course weren't really reasonable when considered together with all of the other evidence available).

The first question would be more problematic though. If creation is true then those sciences must all be substantially wrong, yet the huge majority of (although not all) scientists believe they are essentially true (and I admit there is debate over some of the details).

So either all of those scientists, with hundreds of separate and independent threads of evidence, are wrong or one old book is wrong. The answer seems clear, but there are a few possible explanations. First, maybe there is an agreement amongst scientists to deliberately distort the evidence to support naturalism. Or maybe God has deliberately left false evidence to test our faith, or give us some sort of freedom of belief, or something else along those lines (how can we understand the mind of God?).

Unfortunately for creationism all of these explanations are essentially conspiracy theories. As I blogged about in my 18-03-2008 entry "Conspiracies" its dangerous to assume that all conspiracy theories are false, but as they become more complex and involve more and more people they become increasingly untenable and its safest to assume they are false until better evidence becomes available.

Since science is built on revolutionary and original ideas it seems likely that, if there were major problems with the sciences such as evolution that a Nobel Prize would await anyone who could prove it. But the people who have tried, like Michael Behe, have turned out to be woefully inadequate. They presented their evidence, it was tested, and found lacking. Until something better comes along we should stick with the established theories which have been supported by the vast majority of evidence for many years. That's not what I call a conspiracy, its just common sense.

Comment 1 (1472) by Andrew on 2008-06-25 at 16:13:47:

The biggest problem with creationists is that they are like taggers. You might send one to jail, but the next one will soon appear. There seems to be one group who are just hopelessly misinformed. Then you see another group who just plain lie. You'll never hear the latter group tell a member of the former group: "no that is a misconception" - they tend just to remain quiet.

Comment 2 (1473) by OJB on 2008-06-25 at 21:30:23:

The worst thing is that you hear the same old thing over and over. You can point out something they say is wrong today but they'll use exactly the same thing tomorrow. The more "sophisticated" creationist are smarter though. They are just very selective with their facts - not necessarily wrong or lying. I call it "intellectual dishonesty".

The problem is that if you just choose the facts which you like and ignore the rest you can prove anything: look at the weird stuff concerning the FJK assassination - must be a conspiracy. So many people have been abducted by aliens - it must be true. Arthur Conan Doyle believed in fairies - they must exist. Get selective with your facts and you believe everything!

Comment 3 (1482) by SBFL on 2008-07-07 at 21:22:58:

Probably a bit off topic, but this was the latest article with the tag 'Religion' on the list at this present time, so that's why I comment here. OJB - I read an article in the NZ Herald today. It is so good I am going to republish the whole lot here. Enjoy.

Tapu Misa: Faith's critics as bad as zealots

"Back when I was on the other side of the religious divide, I came across a study linking religion and society's ills. I fell on it with some enthusiasm, eager as I then was for any anti-religion ammunition. But the 2005 study by American social scientist Gregory Paul, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, was so clearly spurious, even to my biased eyes, that I never used it.

Paul's suggestion that the less religious a country was, the lower its rates of homicide, suicide, childhood mortality rates, abortion and teen pregnancy - ergo religion is bad for society - was undeniably attractive, and overseas media certainly thought so.

But as a damning critique by George H. Gallup Jr, of the Gallup research company, pointed out, it was biased research based on a flawed analysis, and didn't "pass scholarly muster". Gallup said Paul had ignored the weight of empirical evidence, "from parenting and fatherhood, to mental and physical health," which suggested religious commitment had notably positive effects on the individual and society at large.

Sure, wrote Gallup, "a great deal of evil in the world has been perpetrated in the name of religion by fanatics and persons with distorted agendas".

But the data was clear. Spiritual commitment "serves both as a brake on anti-social activities and a powerful impetus to pro-social, even sacrificial, behaviour and attitudes. And the deeper the spiritual commitment, the more pronounced the effects. Indeed, a mountain of survey data from the Gallup and other survey organisations shows that when educational background and other variables are held constant, persons who are 'highly spiritually committed' are far less likely to engage in antisocial behaviour than those less committed. They have lower rates of crime, excessive alcohol use, and drug addiction than other groups."

The deeply committed are also more hopeful about the future, experience greater joy in life, contribute more time to helping people, are less likely to be racist, and more giving and forgiving than others.

"They have bucked the trend of many in society toward narcissism and hedonism. Teens with deep spiritual commitment are far less likely to get into trouble and more likely than their counterparts to be happy, be goal-oriented, be hopeful about the future, see a reason for their existence, succeed better academically, and serve others."

This is not the picture of religion's malign influence on individuals and society that New Atheists like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris have painted but then, says Jonathan Haidt, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, and self-described secular liberal, they're not exactly unbiased.

Despite their claims of rational, scientific detachment, they are as emotionally driven and dogmatic as the fundamentalists they despise. Haidt writes: "The New Atheists conduct biased reviews of the literature and conclude there is no good evidence of any benefits except the health benefits of religion."

Actually, despite some initial reluctance by scholars to take spirituality and religion seriously, there is now a growing body of evidence on the impact of religion. For example, some studies are showing faith can make a difference in lowering the rate of offending and drug use, and in motivating offenders to turn from a life of crime. Three independent New Zealand research projects show half of those who leave gangs do because they become Christian.

Arthur C. Brooks demonstrated in his 2006 book Who Really Cares? that religious believers in the US are far more giving than secular liberals, donating considerably more money, giving more blood and volunteering more of their time. They're more generous to all charities, including non-religious ones, and are some 57 per cent more likely than a secularist to help a homeless person.

When it comes to volunteering, there's no contest. Without the churches "dealing with many of our social ills," says George Gallup, "the tax burden would be crushing".

Last month, the Anglican Church in Britain released a commissioned report called Moral, But No Compass, which showed if a monetary value was put on the charitable work done by its congregations and clergy - some 50,000 volunteers providing a multitude of services "without judgment or conditions attached" - it would run into hundreds of millions of pounds. Yet the Government's secular agenda and a climate of liberal suspicion are undermining that work.

In an essay comparing the moral worlds of secular liberals and the religious, Jonathan Haidt writes: "Atheists may have many other virtues, but on one of the least controversial and most objective measures of moral behaviour - giving time, money, and blood to help strangers in need - religious people appear to be morally superior to secular folk."

Haidt isn't advocating religious conversion, but he does think it might be sensible for those engaged in scientific study to look more closely at the way religious people live and ask what they're doing right."

Comment 4 (1483) by OJB on 2008-07-08 at 14:41:19:

I don't see a lot of unbiased research on either side of this. I agree that a lot of the anti-religion material recently produced has been neither scientific nor unbiased, but I think Dawkins, for example, produced the book to get people thinking rather than as a truly scientific analysis of the issue. I think the way Gallup chose to interpret the numbers produced a bias at least as bad as the original one.

The Brooks book is hardly an example of a scholarly source. Really anything published as a book should be suspect. Any comment by an individual should be suspect. We need to look at the original social science research to see if the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

Then there's the completely separate question of whether its OK to believe something which isn't true if it produces some positive outcome...

Comment 5 (1490) by SBFL on 2008-07-16 at 21:54:09:

OJB said: "Really anything published as a book should be suspect. Any comment by an individual should be suspect."

Okay, let's just shut down all publicatons, free speech while you at it. Typical leftist POV - if it doesn't agree...shut it down!! Just ask Annette King (EFA) and Winston Peters! (Owen Glenn saga)

Comment 6 (1496) by OJB on 2008-07-16 at 23:20:03:

What is it with you and these continual accusations of leftist bias - whatever that means? All I'm saying is that everyone's opinion should be questioned instead of being accepted on face value. That includes claims from all sectors of the political spectrum.

Comment 7 (1501) by SBFL on 2008-07-16 at 23:41:37:

OJB said "What is it with you and these continual accusations of leftist bias"
...oh sorry, all of a sudden you claim NOT to have a leftist view of the world. Please! Your blog states otherwise. Accept who you are, otherwise make it clear where you stand.

Comment 8 (1507) by OJB on 2008-07-17 at 10:18:43:

It just seems that if I say anything you disagree with - even when it has nothing to do with my political stance (eg creationism) - you drag out the tired old line about the "loony left" or something similar. To gain greater credibility debate the point, not some nebulous political ideal.

Comment 9 (1533) by SBFL on 2008-08-22 at 20:49:06:

Actually I was debating the point, so far as the thread was progressing. Your comments were consistent with what I thought to be leftist (in the current environment) as per my 2008-07-16 at 21:54:09 comment. I wouldn't have considered that a rant or diversion.

Comment 10 (1538) by OJB on 2008-08-23 at 14:12:00:

I have sort of lost track of what the problem is here. I pointed out that books and comments by individuals should be treated with suspicion, not that they should be banned. At least scientific publications are peer reviewed so there is some greater chance of quality there.

Now the debate about the merits of creationism and similar beliefs has turned into something about political bias, and that really isn't relevant.

Comment 11 (1543) by SBFL on 2008-08-23 at 15:09:02:

Yes, but I can see where it was heading. It starts off with just 'view with suspicion' then eventually it's an all out ban, and freedom of expression is doomed!! Wouldn't worry too much about it.

Comment 12 (1546) by OJB on 2008-08-24 at 11:56:15:

I would never suggest a ban on anything because I disagree with all forms of censorship. But there are particular subjects and particular sources of information which should be viewed with suspicion. They shouldn't be ignored because things change, but often its just the same old junk over and over (creationists, for example).

Comment 13 (1549) by SBFL on 2008-08-24 at 23:08:55: Oh dear, you are trying.

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