All posts by John Casey

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General discussion

Argumentum ad religionem

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Puzzling words from the New York Times:

>This is different from the scientific assault on religion that has been garnering attention recently, in the form of best-selling books from scientific atheists who see religion as a scourge. In “The God Delusion,” published last year and still on best-seller lists, the Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins concludes that religion is nothing more than a useless, and sometimes dangerous, evolutionary accident. “Religious behavior may be a misfiring, an unfortunate byproduct of an underlying psychological propensity which in other circumstances is, or once was, useful,” Dawkins wrote. He is joined by two other best-selling authors — Sam Harris, who wrote “The End of Faith,” and Daniel Dennett, a philosopher at Tufts University who wrote “Breaking the Spell.” The three men differ in their personal styles and whether they are engaged in a battle against religiosity, but their names are often mentioned together. They have been portrayed as an unholy trinity of neo-atheists, promoting their secular world view with a fervor that seems almost evangelical.

I think there are three problems with this passage. In the first place, “assault on religion” casts the matter of the scientific analysis of religion in erroneously partisan terms. Even though some religions or religious people (and indeed only some of them) might consider scientific analysis of the phenomenon of religious belief to be an “assault”, there’s no need for the New York Times to adopt their perspective. There is in fact every reason not to. To do so is to assert that religious claims–taken here in their rich and varied multiplicity–belong to the same category as scientific claims–that is, claims supported by empirical evidence (which the article later denies anyway). Besides, any science that tends to undermine the claims of some religion would then have be understood in this silly perspectival way: the geological assault against the age of the world, and the meteorological assault against Biblical accounts of the flood, and so forth.

Second, there’s the matter of what these authors are assaulting. Are they assaulting religious belief? Or are they assaulting the justification for religious belief? Which religion? Are all people of faith the same vis a vis their relationship to science? Nope.

Finally, what makes their assault “scientific”? This latter point seems to be the more serious one. While one of these books is written by a scientist, another by a kind of scientist-in-training, and the last by a philosopher who is a big fan of science, that’s hardly reason to call their writing “scientific.” As I understand them–and readers of those texts are encouraged to respond here–Dawkins spends some significant amount of time on Atheological arguments of the philosophical type. Having been found to be false–or just assumed to be false in Dennett’s case–they proceed to explain belief in things that do not exist.

As was the case in yesterday’s post, the search for a balanced perspective does not necessarily begin with the assumption that there are two sides to every story, excluding of course that of the experts.

General discussion

Expertise

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First, read this Tom Tomorrow cartoon. Then consider the following ad for Ted Koppel’s “The Lost Tomb of Jesus: A Critical Look” on the Discovery Channel :

>Hear both sides of the story and see what the experts have to say.

Great. It was easier when there were only two sides–pro and con. Now there are experts too, and they’re on neither side.

Plain Bad Arguments, V.D.Hanson

See it now

1 Comment

VD Hanson writes:

>Given all of this country’s past wars involving intelligence failures, tactical and strategic blunders, congressional fights and popular anger at the president, Iraq and the rising furor over it are hardly unusual.

No kidding. No one disputes that claim. Then he offers a series of uncontroversial examples and concludes:

>The high-stakes war to stabilize the fragile democracy in Iraq is a serious, costly and controversial business. But so have been most conflicts in American history. We need a little more humility and knowledge of our past–and a lot less hysteria, name-calling and obsession with our present selves.

I would argue it’s too serious for arguments like this whose conclusions incoherently diminish the seriousness of the “serious, costly and controversial business” we have bungled ourselves into. The problem, contrary to what Hanson concludes, is a serious one. And it’s seriousness consists in its happening now and into the near or far future. Our having failed in the past even more miserably, in other words, doesn’t diminish our current responsibility not to fail in the future.

General discussion

More critical thinking

3 Comments

Thinking Blogger Award

Quick note:

SteveG at Philosopher’s Playground has proposed a contest for “best thinking blog.” This blog appeared among his five favorites–hurrah for us–go take a look at his post and participate.

In light of what he says, here are my unranked favorites: Philosopher’s Playground, Figaro Speech, Fallacy Files, Tibi Cogitate, and Truth to Power. I left out the hugely important ones like The Daily Howler and Glenn Greenwald.

Late Update: Here is the blog that originated the meme.

General discussion

Fuit Jesus

5 Comments

Here is some entertaining discussion from Fox News about the upcoming James Cameron documentary about the ossuary of Jesus and company. On the lighter side, perhaps this variation on an old joke should put the issue of Jesus’s bones in perspective:

>A Greek Orthodox, and Evangelical, and a Jesuit are doing an archeological dig in Jerusalem. They come across a Tomb that says, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, “Here lies Jesus of Nazareth, who claimed he was King of the Jews, and was executed at Passover under Pontius Pilate”.

>Excited by the find, they open the tomb, only to be horrified to find a crucified body.

>”Oh my goodness,” says the Orthodox. “The Church and all the good it does is based on a false event.”

>”Oh my goodness,” says the Evangelical. “The Bible, which has guided by entire life, is nothing but a lie.”

>”Oh my goodness,” says the Jesuit. “There really was a Jesus.”

In the variation I heard, it was a Dominican, a Franciscan and a Jesuit; the Franciscan wanted to worship the bones.

Ignoratio Elenchi, Politicians

There ought to be a law

Two former Justice Department officials complain about Europe’s–in particular Italy’s–use of the courts to undermine some aspects of the war on terror, such as the practice of extraordinary rendition:

>The Italian case involves a 2003 CIA mission to apprehend an Egyptian cleric named Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr. Suspected of terrorist ties, Nasr was seized in Milan and transported to Egypt, where he claims he was tortured. This was, of course, an “extraordinary rendition” — a long-standing and legal practice that generally involves the cooperation of two or more governments in the capture and transportation of a criminal suspect outside of normal extradition proceedings. It was through such a rendition that the terrorist “Carlos the Jackal” was delivered for trial to France from Sudan in 1994.

Of course the question is whether the Italian government had given their consent. According to their prosecutor, they had not:

>Yet the United States must still vigorously resist the prosecution of its indicted agents. If they acted with the knowledge and consent of the Italian government (as The Post’s Dana Priest reported in 2005), they are immune from criminal prosecution in that country. Although foreign nationals traveling abroad are ordinarily subject to local judicial authority, international law has long recognized an exception for government agents entering another country with its government’s permission.

“If” is the key word. The Italian prosecutor so far seems not to share that view. For the sake of the people ordered to rendition Nasr, let’s hope he’s wrong. This seems like it would be then a straightforward factual question. But the authors quickly shift gears:

>Unfortunately, the effort to prosecute these American agents is only one instance of a growing problem.

The growing problem of breaking the laws of allied nations? Not quite.

>Efforts to use domestic and international legal systems to intimidate U.S. officials are proliferating, especially in Europe. Cases are pending in Germany against other CIA agents and former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld — all because of controversial aspects of the war on terrorism.

One man’s “controversial” is another’s “illegal.” What would the solution be, one might wonder, to this problem:

>Accordingly, Congress should make it a crime to initiate or maintain a prosecution against American officials if the proceeding itself otherwise violates accepted international legal norms.

This all seems to miss the point of the argument. Perhaps the conclusion ought to be that US officials should not prosecute the war on terror in a way that violates accepted international legal norms.

Appeal to Ignorance, George Will, Lack of Evidence, Red Herring, Things that are false

Weird Science

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Yesterday in my seminar on the philosophy of religion we had a discussion about burden of proof. Burden questions seem to be a tricky mix of psychology, politics, and epistemology–to name a few things. And this goes back to the second feature of critical thinking–at least the second one we came up with here (yesterday)–i.e., know where you stand. This doesn’t mean of course that you should know and defend where you stand, and be aware of the status of the questions before you (the first step–maybe). So, where do you stand relative to the burden of proof on any given topic? On some topics determining where the burden falls is hard, on others, it’s easy. Just ask the people who know better. Say, I don’t know, scientists on scientific questions.

So if your knee-jerk reaction to a scientific question is to question it, then you ought to know that you have a high burden of proof to overcome. Someone please tell George Will:

>Climate Cassandras say the facts are clear and the case is closed. (Sen. Barbara Boxer: “We’re not going to take a lot of time debating this anymore.”) The consensus catechism about global warming has six tenets: 1. Global warming is happening. 2. It is our (humanity’s, but especially America’s) fault. 3. It will continue unless we mend our ways. 4. If it continues we are in grave danger. 5. We know how to slow or even reverse the warming. 6. The benefits from doing that will far exceed the costs.

>Only the first tenet is clearly true, and only in the sense that the Earth warmed about 0.7 degrees Celsius in the 20th century. We do not know the extent to which human activity caused this. The activity is economic growth, the wealth-creation that makes possible improved well-being—better nutrition, medicine, education, etc. How much reduction of such social goods are we willing to accept by slowing economic activity in order to (try to) regulate the planet’s climate?

Hard to know what George Will, famous climate skeptic (see also here), could mean by “clearly true” in this instance. But I think it’s something like “not even I–who read Michael Crichton’s science fiction novel about global warming hysteria–can doubt that one any more.” I know that’s a little mean. But Will doesn’t bother even trying to support his claim–clearly at odds with current qualified scientific consensus–with any evidence (at all–not even bad evidence). Instead he changes the subject:

>We do not know how much we must change our economic activity to produce a particular reduction of warming. And we do not know whether warming is necessarily dangerous. Over the millennia, the planet has warmed and cooled for reasons that are unclear but clearly were unrelated to SUVs. Was life better when ice a mile thick covered Chicago? Was it worse when Greenland was so warm that Vikings farmed there? Are we sure the climate at this particular moment is exactly right, and that it must be preserved, no matter the cost?

That’s an argument from ignorance! Who knows–maybe global warming will be good for us. We could farm in Greenland. Since we can’t tell either way, let’s do nothing.

Argument Analysis, General discussion

Where am I?

6 Comments

Yesterday I wondered what a second rule of critical thinking might be. The first one was to identify the nature of the issue before you. Lee, a commenter, proposes one worth repeating:

>I propose for the second rule:

>“How does it fit with what I already know, or my presumptions?”

>But I do think that it is important to include a little introspection about “why do I care?” or “Why am I thinking about this” because sometimes how one answers that question reveals a motive or bias that would influence ones thinking. It might be cause to “think twice”. For example, in a discussion, podcast, article, if one reads something that sparks a reaction, is it a reaction that comes from (say) emotion, disagreement, or confusion? Politics and religion are two areas that I can think of off the top of my head that would fit the type of subject I’m talking about. My reaction could be (say) anger, support, competition or completely self serving. Answering the question of “why do I care” might start one off on the right foot.

Well. He proposes more than one. I’ve put the one I’m drawn to in bold. So in addition I think to some basic identification of the issue before you, you also ought to have the self-awareness to discover your own orientation toward it. I think that makes a good deal of sense. Anyone have any examples of this he or she’d like to share?

Argument Analysis, General discussion

Think

1 Comment

Matt K–frequent commenter–writes (I hope he doesn’t mind my putting this right up here on the front page):

>I wonder if there is a set of necessary and jointly sufficient conditions that constitute good critical thinking. We may not be able to articulate this set of conditions, but I suspect we can come close. I usually ask myself if the information that I provide about how one critically thinks is sufficient enough to allow the person to do it successfully.

>If we analyze the points given by Bartholomew and Radford it would appear that a person could not be a successfully critical thinker with just what was provided. I’ll focus just on one problem. Statement four tells us that we should analyze assumptions and biases. Exactly how is one supposed to do this given the few other guidelines that are provided? What I suggest is that one needs to have a rule set that defines what is good reasoning and what is incorrect reasoning. Perhaps the eight provided statements are meant to serve as the foundational axioms of the rule set. If so, then it appears that the rule set is incomplete. I have no means to know that when I analyze assumptions and biases if I have done anything worthwhile or simply wasted my time. Perhaps Bartholomew and Radford mean that I should merely identify biases and assumptions in people’s arguments, which seems like a good start. But what should I conclude when I discover these assumptions and biases?

>I generally view simple guidelines, like the ones given by Bartholomew and Radford, as being good common sense suggestions. However, if one wants to be a good critical thinker one needs to do more than merely follow these few common sense guidelines. It’s doubtful, though not impossible, that one can do algebra correctly without knowing the rules. I believe that critical thinking works in a similar way. Most people have an intuitive sense of how to logically think, but to do it well consistently one needs to have a full set of rules to tell them when they are doing it correctly and when they are not.

I’d agree with him about the intuitive part. Thinking critically is an activity quite unlike the other activities one can acquire by learning. But one learns to do it somehow.

But I’m curious about the idea a set of rules for responsible thinking. And I thought I’d ask the crowd to help us add to them. Some have already provided their rules in the comments. But I’d like to proceed a little more systematically. Yesterday I wrote that one ought to have an initial sense of what the cognitive task is. Anyone want to suggest a second step?

Argument Analysis, General discussion

Critical

12 Comments

Don’t take the title as an endorsement of this process. Lots of great comments yesterday about the nature of critical thinking–thanks to the commenters who took their time to pass along their thoughts, give suggestions, or give substantial descriptions of their own intellectual evolution. In light of these comments I thought I’d start a little series on various aspects of critical thinking. I can’t say at this point how often this will take place–that depends on what the newspapers cough up–but with the help of the readers of this site, I hope at least to make some headway.

A few years back I helped the old chair of my department author an assessment rubric on critical thinking. It seemed to me that we were just describing the various aspects of thinking which is “critical.” It struck us immediately that we weren’t going to find a set of mutually sufficient and necessary conditions for critical thinking. I’m even unhappy with the word. A few years later I knew why. In an assessment workshop using a modified version of the rubric I had co-authored, someone–actually two or more–argued that some papers on marketing were insufficiently “critical” because they failed to challenge capitalism. That seemed extreme, and illustrated for me the idea that there’s a lot more to critical thinking than critical thinking.

But back to the rubric. In the course of authoring this rubric–don’t get the idea that this thing was sui generis (we modified and adapted the rubrics of others)–it occurred to me that no single activity would constitute critical thinking in the way that I had come to think about it. Even my courses on critical thinking, when examined in light of the rubric, only cover one of 12 or so components of such a rubric.

I’d call it “rigorous” thinking but it’s too late for that. Now to the first step. This one, for many, is absolutely insurmountable:

>1. know, determine, discover, or wonder what you’re thinking about.

In other words, are you explaining a fact, arguing that some state of affairs obtains, critiquing someone else’s explanation, argument or investigation?