Science & Faith, AGAIN

Today, the Harvard Crimson published an opinion letter from Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology that could be considered “militantly atheist.” The article’s called “Less Faith, More Reason,” and its direct thrust is that education requirements should have less about religion and more about science.

I’m going to address some of the points that I consider particularly prickly:

1. He complains that “missing from the report is a sensitivity to the ennobling nature of knowledge.”

2. “The discoveries of science have cascading effects, many unforeseeable, on how we view ourselves and the world in which we live: for example, that our planet is an undistinguished speck in an inconceivably vast cosmos; that all the hope and ingenuity in the world can’t create energy or use it without loss; that our species has existed for a tiny fraction of the history of the earth; that humans are primates; that the mind is the activity of an organ that runs by physiological processes; that there are methods for ascertaining the truth that can force us to conclusions which violate common sense, sometimes radically so at scales very large and very small; that precious and widely held beliefs, when subjected to empirical tests, are often cruelly falsified.

I believe that a person for whom this understanding is not second-nature cannot be said to be educated.”

3. “Religion is an important force, to be sure, but so are nationalism, ethnicity, socialism, markets, nepotism, class, and globalization. Why single religion out among all the major forces in history?”

4. “For us to magnify the significance of religion as a topic equivalent in scope to all of science, all of culture, or all of world history and current affairs, is to give it far too much prominence. It is an American anachronism, I think, in an era in which the rest of the West is moving beyond it.”

Ok. Response:

1. I’m not sure that the only knowledge that is ennobling is scientific. Or even that scientific knowledge is more ennobling in degree or kind than any other kind of knowledge, religious or not. I bet you any amount of money that Pinker doesn’t think as highly of historical or literary knowledge as he does of scientific. Science can be ennobling when we use it to improve the lives of people and the planet (say, vaccines). But it degrades us when we use it to pipe tons of pollutants into the atmosphere or use it to kill.

2. His idea of an “educated person” is fine. I appreciate the importance of science in nurturing the way we understand the world. But this assertion caught my eye: ” that there are methods for ascertaining the truth that can force us to conclusions which violate common sense, sometimes radically so at scales very large and very small.” Sounds like he’s going on faith there. (Oh no, the dirty dirty word!)

Additionally this definition of an educated person is basically atheist, based on that last sentence about “precious and widely held beliefs.” So is he saying that to be an atheist is the only way to be fully educated?

3. Why minimize the importance of beliefs held by billions upon billions of human beings? If you asked Muslim extremists, I think they would call their religion the reason for their actions, not necessarily economics or nationalism. Whatever we think their “real” problem is, isn’t it worthwhile to know where they’re coming from? It’s frankly dangerous to brush off religion as mere superstition when there are people who would kill for it. They will not be convinced by scientific or atheistic condescension.

4. Being “informed” is not elevating religion over other fields of study. I hardly think that the Harvard committee is prescribing religion fortheir students. They are simply recognizing that religion is important to a large part of the human race, and is therefore worthy of study (whether or not its ideas can be “empirically proven or disproven”).

Furthermore, that snide little comment about the rest of the Western world moving beyond the anachronistic study of religion: would France and Denmark be having such issues with its Muslim population if it was a little more considerate and informed about their beliefs?

So, the West is moving beyond religion. Should the United States follow? Pinker implies that the intellectual/social superiority of the West in this suggestion. What an imperialistic assumption. Let’s not sully ourselves with the beliefs of the third world, shall we? Someday, we’ll be able to help our little brown religious brothers out of the depths of their ignorance.

In any case, religion–as it’s taught in universities–is profoundly secular in many respects. Religion departments do not try to convert their students, but rather to educate them about what others believe. At Dartmouth, we had to take one PHR–a philosophy, history, or religion course,but we had to take two science courses. Pinker would no doubt approve, but I think that to require only one out of three rich and important disciplines is much too little.

The purpose of an education is to prepare the student to engage with and understand the issues of life and the modern world. Whether or not we as individuals espouse certain beliefs, it is necessary to become acquainted with as many of them as possible. And it is remarkably short-sighted to exclude the study of religion and faith from such an education.