I’m off to So Cal tomorrow for this event at Pomona College:

Although the number of American non-believers has doubled in the last twenty years, and the number of young atheists has quadrupled, atheists remain politically and publically underrepresented. Pomona College, for example, which has one of the least religious student bodies in the country, does not have an atheist organization on campus. The atheist movement is coming together, but despite significant developments it remains fractured. Some atheists seek allies with other minority groups and even liberal religious believers. Other more militant or “evangelical” atheists reject any such alliance and seek the destruction of religion itself. Today’s atheists have moved beyond the question of whether God exists. However, a number of questions are still left unanswered: what is atheist morality? Is atheism political? Should atheists ally with other minority groups, or even religious people? Should atheists organize as a group at all? Is atheism a social movement? How should atheists move forward? Please join the Pomona Student Union for a panel discussion confronting these questions and more.

The Speakers:

David Silverman: President of American Atheists, author of the NoGodBlog and host of the Atheist Viewpoint television show
Chris Mooney, writer, author of three books including the New York Times best seller The Republican War on Science and the new book Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future, co-author of the blog “The Intersection,” and contributing editor to Science Progress
Hemant Mehta, author of I Sold My Soul on eBay and the Friendly Atheist blog, and member of the Board of Directors of the Secular Student Alliance

We’re going to try to record this for Point of Inquiry….

The guest this week on Point of Inquiry is blogger, podcaster, and philosopher-skeptic Massimo Pigliucci of “rationally speaking” and CUNY. Here’s the show description:

It’s a longstanding debate in the philosophy of science: Is “demarcation” possible? Can we really draw firm lines between science and pseudoscience?

Massimo Pigliucci thinks so. In his new book Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk, Pigliucci attempts to rescue the notion that there are claims we can rule out, and claims we can rule in—a real means of determining what’s science and what isn’t.

Along the way, Pigliucci touches on howlers like creationism and astrology, and borderland areas of research like SETI—and weighs whether science can ever hope to test claims about the supernatural.

Massimo Pigliucci is chair of the philosophy department at CUNY-Lehman College. He was formerly a professor of ecology and evolution at Stony Brook. He’s a prolific blogger and commentator on issues concerning science and skepticism and a prominent battler of creationists and other nonsense peddlers.

Once again, you can listen to the show here, and you can order Pigliucci’s book Nonsense on Stilts here.

This week on Point of Inquiry, I’ve got one of my fellow Discover bloggers–Carl Zimmer–as a guest. Here’s the write up:

On the show this week, Point of Inquiry features one of our most distinguished science writers—Carl Zimmer. He’s the author of many acclaimed books, including Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea, and now he’s taken on an experiment: Publishing his next book, Brain Cuttings, as an e-book, digital only.

The book collects Carl’s many writings about the brain—including essays about why we zone out, whether Google is making us stupid, and perhaps most memorable of all, the Singularity folks who think our brains will soon be downloadable. Needless to say, Zimmer isn’t quite so sure.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Zimmer also discussed why science’s biggest undiscovered continent is inside our heads—and what our growing understanding of the brain means for the future of religion.

Carl Zimmer has been called “as fine a science essayist as we have” by the New York Times Book Review. He contributes regularly the New York Times science section, as well as numerous other publications, and blogs for Discover magazine’s Discover Blogs site. In addition, he’s the author of seven books, including Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life, and teaches science and environmental writing at Yale University.

You can listen to the show here, and order Zimmer’s new e-book, Brain Cuttings, here. Enjoy!

I need to do a better job of posting Point of Inquiry episodes other than those that I myself host. So here’s the latest: Bob Price interviewing philosopher John Shook about debating the existence of God with believers. Here’s the write up:

Our guest is philosopher and author John Shook, discussing his experiences debating religious believers and whether such debates are a good idea.

Some say no, that such spectacles merely serve believers by making it look like atheists take them more seriously than they deserve. Others say yes, because debates provide a precious opportunity to introduce believers to atheistic arguments they might otherwise never hear.

Price and Shook compare notes about debating superstar apologist William Lane Craig, discuss interesting insights on Presuppositionalism and Postmodernism, and talk about Dr. Shook’s new book, The God Debates: A 21st Century Guide for Atheists and Believers (and Everyone in Between), an introduction to major issues in the philosophy of religion, as well as debate topics old and new.

I’m listening now and like one of Shook’s sound bites: He said secular debaters should be “loud, proud, and prepared.” Indeed….listen to the full show here.

We’re getting more and more media attention to the goings on at the Council for Secular Humanism meeting of the weekend before last. Here’s Sharon Smickle of MinnPost.com:

We often wink, nod and speak in code — noting, for example, that Delaware’s GOP-endorsed senate candidate Christine O’Donnell has said she believes evolution is a myth. But few would stand up publicly to oppose the religious teachings that instruct a vast segment of America to agree with her.

And increasingly we are segmented into news and information pods where we can shut out any voices that threaten our views.

Myers and his New Atheist crowd would like their voices to penetrate your pods and rattle your beliefs. In a sense, they are political movement pushing to fill what they see as a vacuum in America.

Fat chance of that movement going very far in this country.

I agree about the pods part. I question whether the message of New Atheism can get into others’ pods when the gatekeepers of the pods just spin New Atheism as aggressive and abrasive, and demonize it.

Indeed, I tried to make the point in Los Angeles that confrontation, supposing that’s your strategy, isn’t even direct confrontation in the end. Due to the aforementioned pod effect, much of the criticism of religion is going to be channeled through a hostile messenger in our current media environment, if it is discussed at all.  (more…)

Last year, I replied to Sam Harris’s online critique of Unscientific America. More recently, I heard from two separate people that a similar critique appears in his new book, The Moral Landscape.

It’s the anthropocene: Stuff gets around.

I haven’t read the new book yet, but I leafed through it over the weekend and found the two pages or so that discuss us. It’s essentially the same critique we answered before, and in a way that to my mind still reads as well composed and representative of what I think.

So rather than writing a new response–or trying to quote directly from a book I don’t have in hand yet–let me give an example of what Harris said before, and how we responded. For instance, Harris wrote the following:

While it is invariably advertised as an expression of “respect” for people of faith, this accommodationism is nothing more than naked condescension, motivated by fear. Mooney and Kirshenbaum assure us that people will choose religion over science, no matter how good a case is made against religion. In certain contexts, this fear is probably warranted. I wouldn’t be eager to spell out the irrationality of Islam while standing in the Great Mosque in Mecca. But let’s be honest about how Mooney and Kirshenbaum view public discourse in the United States: watch what you say, or the Christian mob will burn down the library of Alexandria all over again.

And I replied:

There is a bit of bravado here. The point is not to watch what you say, but to understand the context in which you are trying to communicate—and to recognize that most Americans are not going to be dragged all the way from fundamentalism to atheism thanks to the force of reasoned arguments. No matter how much we may wish it, it just isn’t going to happen. Giving them some more moderate stopping off points along the way is the only common sense approach if you want to change minds, or change the culture. In this sense, what is derided as “accommodationism” is actually an extremely important position between two poles on the intellectual spectrum, a position where many people will want to reside–right or wrong.

There was plenty more in this vein. You can read Harris’s original critique here, and our longer response here.

See here for Mark Oppenheimer’s report from last weekend’s secular humanism conference. He focuses closely on the panel featuring PZ Myers, Victor Stenger, Eugenie Scott, and myself:

At the liveliest panel, on Friday night, the science writer Chris Mooney pointed to research that shows that many Christians “are rejecting science because of a perceived conflict with moral values.” Atheists should be mindful of this perception, Mr. Mooney argued. For example, an atheist fighting to keep the theory of evolution in schools should reassure Christians that their faith is compatible with modern science.

“They resist evolution because they think everyone will lose morals,” Mr. Mooney said. “Knowing this, why would you go directly at these deeply held beliefs?”

The research I was pointing to includes a Time magazine poll from 2006, showing that for most Americans, if scientific research were to refute a strongly held religious belief, they would still cling to the belief; and things like the Wedge document, where moral decline is cited directly by anti-evolutionists as the reason for resisting the theory.

The article continues:

(more…)

From DJ Grothe, here’s a picture of the panelists from the accommodation/confrontation debate in Los Angeles on Friday. From left to right: Me, PZ Myers, Eugenie Scott, Victor Stenger:

We’ve just put up an in-studio (so to speak) edition of Point of Inquiry, which is a reprise of the “New Atheist/accommodationist” debate that took place Friday in Los Angeles at the 30th anniversary Council for Secular Humanism Conference. Here’s the show description:

Recently at the 30th anniversary conference of the Council for Secular Humanism in Los Angeles, leading science blogger PZ Myers and Point of Inquiry host Chris Mooney appeared together on a panel to discuss the questions, “How should secular humanists respond to science and religion? If we champion science, must we oppose faith? How best to approach flashpoints like evolution education?”

It’s a subject about which they are known to… er, differ.

The moderator was Jennifer Michael Hecht, the author of Doubt: A History. The next day, the three reprised their public debate for a special episode of Point of Inquiry, with Hecht sitting in as a guest host in Mooney’s stead.

This is the unedited cut of their three way conversation.

PZ Myers is a biologist at the University of Minnesota-Morris who, in addition to his duties as a teacher of biology and especially of development and evolution, likes to spend his spare time poking at the follies of creationists, Christians, crystal-gazers, Muslims, right-wing politicians, apologists for religion, and anyone who doesn’t appreciate how much the beauty of reality exceeds that of ignorant myth.

Jennifer Michael Hecht is the author of award-winning books of philosophy, history, and poetry, including: Doubt: A History (HarperCollins, 2003); The End of the Soul: Scientific Modernity, Atheism and Anthropology (Columbia University Press, 2003); and The Happiness Myth, (HarperCollins in 2007). Her work appears in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and The New Yorker. Hecht earned her Ph.D. in History from Columbia University in 1995 and now teaches in the graduate writing program of The New School University.

Again, you can listen to the show here.

Why do I get the feeling this one will be popular?

I guess there were some reporters in the crowd for my debate on Friday with PZ Myers and Victor Stenger (and with Eugenie Scott, who was in my broad camp). Here’s from an LA Times story that just appeared:

With that background, and with the legacy of 9/11 providing impetus to those who see religious fundamentalism as a threat, there was a sense of urgency at the Biltmore conference about finding the right approach. Should nonbelievers confront the religious or try to get along?

Even “accommodationist” atheists are not known for mincing words, and although there were periodic reminders that those at the gathering shared “99% of our intellectual DNA,” as author Chris Mooney put it, the disagreements were not exactly gentle.

When Mooney, a leading voice for accommodation, said there was nothing to stop a nonreligious person from being spiritual, Myers’ reaction was nearly physical. “Whenever we start talking about spirituality,” he said, “I just want to puke.”

Mooney said nonbelievers need to pick their fights and to form alliances with religious people who share their views on particular subjects, such as the importance of stem cell research.

I’m pleased that my sound bite about how we share “99 percent of our intellectual DNA” got in there, because it was central to my message. And while there’s certainly still a sharp debate here, my sense at the conference is that it’s actually turning somewhat healthier, more dialogue-like.

That’s a good thing.

You can read the full LA Times story here. Meanwhile, the next episode of Point of Inquiry, which should be available shortly, will have much more about this….