GregB. is one of our best-read commenters. He is well-informed and wise.
He writes:
I’ve posted this a few times over the years of commenting here, so I figure this is a good place to do it again. It’s a summation of my opinion of my favorite book on science, Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark:
In this valedictory statement of scientific philosophy, Sagan elevates the idea and relevance of the scientific method in our daily and public lives. It is not something to “believe in,” it is a way of looking at the world with healthy skepticism and pragmatic attention to systematic, verified observation. “Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions.” (We don’t “believe in,” for example, climate change; we make decisions to accept the validity about the prevailing scientific research and interpretation of its findings.) Sagan uses examples in history including UFOs, superstitions, dragons and other mythical monsters, and a variety of other topics to explain how science has demonstrated these things do not exist and why we should not live in fear of them. He tackles those who promote anti-science such as fake approaches to treating and “curing” diseases, how to engage in the “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection,” and how public figures use these things to distort public dialogues about policy.
But the one thing that makes this book so special to me is Sagan’s connection of science to the civic education and engagement that is required of citizens in the modern world, which are essential if we are to be free. I think it worth quoting the final paragraph of this, the last book he wrote in his life, something he wrote when he knew had, at best, a few short months to live. These are quite literally the last public words of the greatest scientific communicator who has ever lived:
“Education on the value of free speech and the other freedoms reserved by the Bill of Rights, about what happens when you don’t have them, and about how to exercise and protect them, should be an essential prerequisite for being an American citizen—or indeed a citizen of any nation, the more so to the degree that such rights remain unprotected. If we can’t think for ourselves, if we’re unwilling to question authority, then we’re just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness. (emphasis added)”
“If we can’t think for ourselves, if we’re unwilling to question authority, then we’re just putty in the hands of those in power.”
The conservative drivers of the pickup trucks (about 7 of them) that drove through the strip mall a week or so ago would have given a resounding “amen!” to that statement, even as they followed authority like so many brownshirts. Herein lies the problem. We must ultimately accept someone’s authority. Whose authority we accept and why is usually based on our general world view. How can we develop a society where the world view of most people is healthy for society?
Many people I know would begin to answer that question with the assertion that adherence to the tenets of Christianity is the pre-requisite to that healthy society. An equal number of people suggest that Christianity lies at the base of all societal ills. Those who wish to exploit this divide tell their followers to reject science or religion to avoid the pitfalls they see in one or another. The acceptance of authority becomes a problem. It is a problem not solved by knowing about the first amendment.
I do not know how to effect the changes necessary to heal our world.
Roy The briefest answer to your note is to suggest we explicitly recognize the difference between WHO is in authority (as suggested in your note), and WHAT is in authority.
The whole point of having a “living” Constitution, the rules of evidence and law, and a peaceful transfer of power is to recognize the solid thread that keeps a dynamic order through the process of change . . . not a particular person, but rather an idea.
That is not to say we don’t need leaders . . . but that we need leaders who humbly recognize their authentic place in regard to that WHAT of authority and its guiding principles. Hence: the Oath of Office. Democracy means power of, for and by the people . . . who share that same idea. How do we get THERE?
A qualified education for all, then, becomes the horse that democratic freedom rides in on.
We’ve see plenty of evidence on this blog and elsewhere that way too many are trying to beat the horse and its rider to death? CBK
Roy, please read the part of the quote above excerpt you quote. I would argue that the pickup truckers you cite have very little knowledge of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or American history and its consequences. Their sense of “authority” is grounded in ignorance, which makes their assurance that much more tragic and dangerous. Quite simply, they don’t know what they don’t know. The smartest people I know know that they don’t know. And I agree the problem is not solved by know about the first amendment. But a long way toward heading that direction is an understanding of the first amendment–which includes its history since it was written and ratified–and the history of the Constitution. For example, as I have also written here numerous times, the most certain people who claim the second amendment is absolute and clear about the right to bear arms either fail to cite the militia clause or they pervert its meaning. One of my favorite rhetorical games with these folks is to ask them if they know anything about the War of 1812, the reason for the inclusion of he quartering clause in the Constitution, and the subsequent correspondence about the amendment from Madison, Adams, and Jefferson. I’ve yet to meet an “originalist” who knows anything about these issues.
On a completely different note, yesterday I finished reading a wonderful biography of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor, who was arguably most responsible for the ideas and policies of the New Deal. The author concluded, “The secret of France’s success was that she had done what she did selflessly, without hope of personal gain or public recognition, for those would come afterward.” One of the surprising parts of the book was the depth of her religiosity. She was a devout Episcopalian and often took extended retreats in a convent in Catonsville, MD and lamented the exclusion of the Bible and prayer in public schools. This, quote, I think kind of sums up what you sincerely wrote (not saying I agree, but I get her meaning):
“What they have done is bring about the glorification of secularization, which I think is terrible,” she said. “The founding fathers of this country founded it under God. ‘In God We Trust’ they put on the coinage. They began their Declaration and their Constitution with references to Almighty God. They jolly well knew they served God and not man, and that they had no hope of success with any nation so conceived if they didn’t do it under the will and under the rule of God.”
Whether one agrees or not, it’s all part of the substantive hodgepodge that belongs to be an engaged American citizen. There are no absolutes, only tensions to be reconsidered and debated by every generation.
GregB I am as warry of efforts and inroads of religious totalitarianism as anyone. However, I am AS warry of those who thwart all religion or who mimic religious consciousness, as the fascist does.(Perkins obviously knew what both meant in concrete terms.)
This point, however, speaks to your note on the TENSION between the secular and the religious where a takeover of either is certain death to anything deemed democratic.
Also, in its germane etymology, “secular” just means made distinct and shares its root with “second,” as in minutes and seconds, or sectional, etc. A secular democracy then DISTINGUISHES the political from the religious, and so again, is about our living in the tension that their many institutions reflect.
Secularism, on the other hand, is usually the bad dog in the neighborhood where religious ignorance is concerned. Alas, and as you suggest in your note, most in my experience have not thought through their own political field and so sign up for the Proud Boys or some other group reflection of their own ignorance. CBK
Roy: on this, I have to get back to Greg’s support of teaching scientific method and its schooling in factual evidential backup. As teachers, what else can we do?
My source for understanding the Trumpista mentality continues to be listening to the daily CPAN Wash Jnl show. Today they solicited opinions on whether Trump should continue his challenge, post-SCOTUS decision. Many Rep callers-in challenged the authority of govrs to mandate mail-in votes in order to mitigate covid spread via in-person voting, claiming such could only be determined by state legislature, demonstrating ignorance of their own state laws [as well as any common sense]. Surprisingly to me, many more called out the GA election as riddled with fraud, seemingly oblivious of GA’s by-hand recount and subsequent double-check by-machine recount. Most surprising of all: many Trumpistas cited the stat that it45 got more votes than any sitting president in history [74 million]—as though that somehow “trumped” Biden’s 80 million votes [ = the most votes for any presidential candidate in US history].
Perhaps the most important teaching message of the empirical scientific method is that scientists keep an open mind, always ready to revise their hypotheses/ conclusions based on the latest data. A corollary which also must be taught: when we see scientists (or anybody, i.e., the public) resisting the evidence of data, clinging to their positions despite data to the contrary, we have to ask whether they are being influenced by non-scientific data such as ego/ emotion.
Thanks for all these comments. Greg always gives us food for thought
Let us also remember that it’s not science as any particular data, but science as a method underpinning all kinds of data that is important: “Sagan elevates the idea and relevance of the scientific method in our daily and public lives” (my emphasis).
The other point is “in our daily lives;” and so how that same method is transposed into and informs the law at least in secular, constitutional democracies. I point to the importance of evidence in informing and making judgments of guilt or innocence, even that to be judged “not guilty” does not say “innocent.” It only means: not enough sufficient relevant evidence is present to inform our judgments. It’s also why Lady Justice is blindfolded. She cannot see WHO, but can only hear WHAT.
The import of scientific method on the law also came clear in Supreme Court just this week: with the general standard of the U.S. Constitution at the background, first, in not having “standing” by virtue of NO relevant precedent to even be heard in the Highest Court in the land; AND second, by NOT being able to present reasonable EVIDENCE to support their case.
Innuendo, hubris, disappointment in outcomes, desire, fear, or political power are not deemed reasonable evidence in science or in the Courts. Bending to these all-too-human frailties is still abhorrent in science and the law . . or even for LAWYERS to THINK that way. (Need I name names.)
If the United States still shines at all in the world, however, it’s because a high regard for truth, and the humility to accept it, as difficult to find as it can be at times, still provides the luminous backdrop of what we mean by evidence; and that regard for evidence as still at the heart of the sciences and the law in this country.
If ever there was a good thing about empirical method, we all saw and felt it walking the streets of our minds this week. CBK
Diane and Greg I commented, but was put into moderation. CBK
If the political powerful cultish, anti-science faction in the U.S. keeps denying science and facts blocking progress to clean up the environment, take vaccines, and do what’s right during pandemics, in time China will become the dominant power broker on the planet. If you haven’t read “The Man Who Loved China” nonfiction written by Simon Winchester, I recommend it.
Why? That book explains in detail with a load of factual evidence that for more than 1,500 years between the Qin Dynasty (221 BC) and the end of China’s golden age with the fall of the Song Dynasty (1276 AD), China was the most technologically advanced country/civilization on the planet. Even today, China is also one of the few countries on the planet where religions and lunatic cults have little or no power in anything.
And, China’s government is dominated by scientists and engineers.
“Nowhere in the world can you see the same admiration and respect from the public to their scientists and engineers other than in China. This is a little known fact. They admire such professionals so much to the point that they qualify these people to be worthy and capable in handling political affairs. The Chinese people believe that scientists and engineers, who eventually become technocrats, have a highly disciplined mind fit for public office.”
https://gineersnow.com/leadership/chinese-government-dominated-scientists-engineers
That’s an interesting thesis, & I’ll certainly recommend this to my book club. But it is true? We’ve watched China over the years: everything from the Cultural Revolution to Tienqnmen Square to forced relocation to the hinterlands to current takeover/ suppression of democracy in Hong Kong suggests otherwise. Idolization of scientists and engineers doesn’t count for much in the context of political tyranny.
Lloyd It’s been my experience that teachers in China are awarded similar respect. I’m for that. . . . The big “however,” there however, is the question of putting limits on the raising of questions. Uh Oh . . . . CBK
The Demon Haunted World
The demon haunted world
Of Rudy Ghouliani
Has recently unfurled
In creepy House of Donny
Haunted house of Donny” also works
Thanks to Bob Shepherd for the Ghouliani nickname
SomeDAM. Thanks, but no need to acknowledge. from Austin Kleon’s blackout poems:
https://austinkleon.com/2015/05/05/99-percent-robbery/
Views toward accepting science as fact vary according to politics, age and education according to recent research by the Pew Research Center. Democrats are more likely to accept scientific research results than Republicans. It is no surprise that Trump has stated,”I love the uneducated.” He knew that the uneducated are more likely to be misled and more susceptible to believing misinformation. Trump supporters overall tend to have less formal education than Biden voters.
We are starting to distribute the first Covid vaccine. In order for herd immunity through vaccine to be successful, we need the vast majority of people to be willing to take it. While confidence in the vaccine is on the rise, there is still much work to do in sub-groups to convince them that the vaccine is safe and effective. Anti-vaxxers and some members of the religious right are reluctant to take the vaccine. There is also a lower level of trust in the vaccine in African American communities as well due to the history of black people being used in unethical experiments such as the infamous syphilis experiment in Alabama.
It is important that we work to instill confidence in the findings of science as we launch a vaccine to curtail community spread of Covid. Believing in science and allowing scientists to conduct investigations free from politics and special interests are essential as we must use unbiased scientific evidence to address many of the world’s complex problems.https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/12/03/intent-to-get-a-covid-19-vaccine-rises-to-60-as-confidence-in-research-and-development-process-increases/
Diane Just to let you know, I have had TWO notes put in moderation today in this thread, and neither contained a link. Is this just arbitrary and mindless WordPress doing its thing . . . .or what? CBK
There’s no predicting. Sometimes it randomly does so when certain names are used. That’s why I occasionally name the 11th US president. I always goes into moderation. They’ll be posted eventually.
Arbitrary and mindless by WordPress.
Diane: LOL! You just killed my paranoia dead. Thanks for the laugh. CBK
Thanks a lot, Catherine. I have been put into moderation, and I thought it was because of my big mouth. I feel far less paid attention to by the host. I demand to be silenced and censored like everyone else with intention and deliberation!
Oh, Lord, I would love it if every high-school kid read this, Zinn’s People’s History of the United States, and Wright’s Stolen Continents: The Americas Through Indian Eyes Since 1492. For many years, I have tried to have a live and let live approach to religious acquaintances and friends. I have one friend, for example, who describes herself as a Christian fundamentalist who is nonetheless one of the least prejudiced, most personally generous and charitable person I know. However, even she has a terrible blind spot when it comes to her religious beliefs and my friends in the LGBTQX community. However, as I have watched the Trump phenomenon explode around the country, I’ve seen how it was rooted in ignorance, fear, and superstition, and much of that superstition is religious superstition. A few years ago, I joined my local Humanist Society, but in the meetings, there, I found a lot of people who were almost as narrow-minded as evangelicals–as given to making unwarranted assertions, in their case about matters like determinism and free will, dualism, etc. But because of Trump and the rootedness of his movement in an appeal to superstitious religious bigotry, I have increasingly been hearing in my head the words of Harvey Milk: YOU MUST COME OUT. That’s why I’ve decided not to be polite about this any longer. No, I am not a Christian. No, I do not believe that crackers become God. No, I don’t believe in virgin births and Original Sin and the sacrificial atonement and hell, any more than I believe in the Easter Bunny and spontaneous generation or astrology or phrenology. People adopt the religion they happen to have been born into. This ought to be a BIG CLUE. And as Wallace Stevens said, “Theology before breakfast sticks to the eye.” Indoctrinated into a cult, people go through life blind.
Underlying Sagan’s thesis is his firm commitment to the notions that some opinions are warranted, and some are not and that we should care about the difference. Religions make claims about the world. Those claims are true or false, warranted or unwarranted by facts. Wanting something to be the case doesn’t make it so. That’s childish, magical thinking, and people have to learn, have to be taught, not to think like that. I do not believe that religious propositions about the world have to be tiptoed around, treated as a special case. Like other propositions in metaphysics, they are warranted or not, based on strong or specious arguments. Let them stand or fall on their merits, not because “Well, we’re not supposed to talk about that in polite company.”
Thanks for writing your comment. “Tiptoed around”- the Trump march on Sat. was organized as the Jericho March (Ali Alexander was one of the speakers. He is credited by some among the GOP with crushing the anticipated Democratic blue wave.) Reuters referred to the Jericho March as such but, not the major networks that I viewed.
The evangelical websites had no such reticence.
Recommended reading, American Conservative, 12-12-2020 by Rod Dreher, about Saturday’s rally.
There is a great blind spot among certain groups with regard to LQBTQ people. Some seemingly moral individuals toss their gay children into the street in the name of religion. These young people are extremely vulnerable as they are often exploited. I have a difficult time seeing anyone that would discard their own child that could consider themselves religious, and they fail to see the hypocrisy of their actions. This is a tragic distortion of Christianity or any other religion. Jesus was known for associating with “undesirable” people including beggars and prostitutes. I doubt he would condone the rejection of young people in the name of Christianity.
Of course he wouldn’t. That Yeshua of Nazareth, he was a freaking wonderful person, wasn’t he!!!!
Yes–Zinn’s is absolutely essential reading, although it was banned in some areas/schools recently. As I’d mentioned before, I am lucky enough to have my now-adult daughter’s annotated (at 16, when she was taking U.S. History) copy.
She’s brilliant, if I do say so myself.
(She’d interviewed Todd Farley, & it was posted on this blog in December 2012. Thanks, Diane!)
I’ll check that out!!!
Please remember that people like Martin Luther King, John Lewis, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Elie Wiesel, and one of my favorite presidents, Jimmy Carter, were/are all people of faith (there are many more examples). So are Pastors for Texas Children. I myself do the work that I do–trying to advocate for schools, democratic politics, friends, family–spurred on, supported, and basically required to my spiritual/religious beliefs. There is a long tradition of this with many people who have tried to do good things in society, including abolitionists.
I find it interesting to watch my English colleagues whitewash the texts of those who were inspired by God, such as MLK’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” through a secular prism. (Maybe I mixed my metaphors there . . . )
As far as believing one way because one’s ancestors do, why is that necessarily bad? Here is Elie Wiesel’s quote:
“One must wager on the future. I believe it is possible, in spite of everything, to believe in friendship in a world without friendship, and even to believe in God in a world where there has been an eclipse of God’s face. Above all, we must not give in to cynicism. . . .
“I would be within my rights to give up faith in God, and I could invoke six million reasons to justify such a decision. But I am incapable of straying from the path charted by my forefathers, who felt duty-bound to live for God. Without the faith of my ancestors, my own faith in humanity would be diminished. So my wounded faith endures.”
https://reformjudaism.org/god-indifference-and-hope-conversation-elie-wiesel
In addition some scientists are also believers:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/atheism-is-inconsistent-with-the-scientific-method-prizewinning-physicist-says/
I am fine if you don’t believe. That is your choice. (I do think life would be a little sadder, a little less hopeful for non-believers, kind of purposeless.) But I have plenty of atheist friends. My point is that your comments feel forceful against believers. I have lived in several countries and studied several religions, and any one of them is fine for me. I just happen to understand Jesus the best, so I practice that one. But I’d happily switch to another religion long before becoming atheist.
Also, it’s this kind of talk that pushes people out of the Democratic Party and into the arms of Republicans.
Please think “big tent” for both believers and non-believers. We don’t think of our faith as the Easter Bunny.
One last item: So what if it’s all made up? If it gets people to do good things and keeps them going during hard times, why knock it?
P.S. By the way, I’m a fan of yours, Bob, and mostly agree with your writings. 🙂
And I am a BIG fan of your post! I am very much aware of the good that has been done throughout the ages by people of faith. I’m a student of world religions and know many sacred texts. I think of these as the wisdom literature of the world. As far as purpose goes, I think that that argument is something like the one that people can’t be moral without ascribing to some religious faith. Doesn’t hold water, for obviously, there are a great many nonbelievers who lead very purposeful lives. See this on “meaning” and “purpose”: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/03/17/three-meanings-of-meaning/
Also, if you are interested, see this on the problems with mechanistic, Laplacean materialism: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/the-vast-unseen-and-the-vast-unseeable-2/
And thank you for your post! You make excellent points. I do stand by my contention that we should take seriously those metaphysical propositions for which there is a least some evidence.
And I agree with you about Jimmy. What a wonderful fellow. And he’s gotten better since his presidency. A great person. However, there are ideas central to the dogmas of many Christian churches that I believe to be extremely dangerous, including the notions of hell and Original Sin and the necessity for universal atonement, even on the part of newborn babies. My favorite religions text, btw, and I have read hundreds of them, from many different faiths (I have been a lifelong student of religions) is The Soul of the Indian (1913), by the Santee Lakota physician Ohíye S’a, aka Charles Alexander Eastman. It can be found here: http://pinkmonkey.com/dl/library1/digi155.pdf
And forgive me, for I came to my post from reading the comments on the Texas Republican Party website by people, many of them evangelicals calling for holy war and secession from the Union. This disturbs me enormously. After the utter tragedy and farce of the Trump maladministration, 46.9 percent of our electorate, by the latest count, STILL voted for this guy, so clearly, frighteningly clearly, there are many Americans who have no freaking notion what “evidence” means and can’t distinguish between the levels of warrant for the proposition like “F = m x a” and a proposition like “People who marry others of the same sex are going to hell.”
And clearly there are a lot of people who cannot bring themselves to say, in answer to a question, “Well, people don’t really know the answer to that.” In other words, they suffer from Othello’s tragic flaw, and requiring absolute certainty: “To Be Once in Doubt is To Be Resolved.” (Othello, III.iii)
I agree, btw, with this fellow, Marcelo Gleiser, with regard to atheism. See my essay, linked to above, called “The Vast Unseen and the Vast Unseeable: Reconciling Belief and Nonbelief.”
A point that seems to elude some- an individual’s faith is separate from religion in the public square.
Setting up a false choice, a person must abandon his religious beliefs in order to support separation of church and state makes the lessening of conservative control more difficult. When a conservative religion has a well-organized GOP-supporting political structure, a review about remaining a member seems reasonable because of what the clergy is doing in the name of its congregants.
The discussion about how religion harms societal advancement and what remedies exist is undermined by tribalists. Describing the knee-jerk reactions is a starting point.
Hey, Bob. Loved all your comments and will look up those sites as soon as I get through all the research papers I’m grading. I think that writing here on this blog helps me sharpen my writing skills, so thanks for letting me practice with you (hopefully, not on you–haha). Wish I could share my real name, but it’s not safe to do so. It would be fun to meet you someday.
Oh, one more idea: In the same way that Republicans need to stand up and be counted in support of fair elections and democratic principles and institutions at this moment in time, Christians need to stand up and be vocal about what it means to be Christian–loving thy neighbor, helping those less fortunate, and not making money one’s God. I was proud of the Washington, D.C., Episcopal priest who clearly stated that the bible-waving Trump did not represent her church.
Those fundamentalist “Christians” are not Christian to me.
Montana teacher,
If you have time to see a movie and if you have Netflix, watch “The Prom.” Its a funny, upbeat film about a high school in Indiana where conservative Christian parents cancel the senior prom rather than let a girl bring another girl as her date. Broadway to the rescue. Everyone learns a lesson in love and tolerance.
Montana teacher, I freaking love your posts. More like you! I am reminded of a passage in George Santayana’s Reason in Religion in which he says that it’s a simple matter for worm-eaten old satirists to point out the scientific inaccuracies of religion (Joshua’s commanding the sun to stop dates from a time when people thought that the sun was a little ball that traversed the sky) but much more difficult to understand why religion has so often been the inspiration of the greatest artistic expressions (the Ramayana, the Saint Matthew Passion) and of virtue (those Abolitionists you mentioned). Also reminded of William James’s observation in The Varieties of Religious Experience (and the reiteration of this in Aldous Huxley’s The Perennial Philosophy) that despite the differences of the major world religions, if you look at how the “saints” in those religions conducted themselves in their everyday lives and at their most fundamental values and beliefs, you will see little difference. My touchstone there: Rumi.
Oh, and Montana Teacher, good luck with those research papers! I loved teaching the research paper and seeing what kids came up with, but I always wished a had a LOT more time to grade them!!!
The DAMon Haunted Blog
The DAMon Haunted Blog
Is something you should fear
It’s worse then rabbid dog
And worse than rancid beer
It haunts you when you lie
And haunts you when you hype
And haunts you when you try
The sell the golDAMmed tripe
👻
And some DAMien was an exorcist, right?
Or is it edsorcist?
In case you missed it, the final skit on SNL last night was wonderful. Fits nicely here:
Oh, this is beautiful.
I thought this skit perfectly nailed the Trump supporter mentality.
I have been disappointed all fall with the less than sharp writing at SNL, especially Jim Carrey’s annoying and pointless portrayal of Jim Carrey dressed as Joe Biden. I am all for making fun of Biden and I thought Woody Harrelson’s Biden was very funny last year, but Carrey was himself in a Biden costume. But even as a kid, I never thought that Chevy Chase “tripping” as Gerald Ford was funny after the first time. Are you old enough to have seen Dan Ackroyd’s Jimmy Carter? Now he was hilarious!
But this was finally SNL back to doing decent political satire. It was brilliant to have the sports team analogy. And I hope they get Woody or someone else to do a funnier Biden! Maybe Dan Ackroyd! Ackroyd is still a little young to play Biden (after all, he’s not yet 70) but I bet he could pull if off ; )
Totally agree.
Recommended reading- American Conservative, 12-12-2020, by Rod Dreher about the Trump rally on Sat. organized as the Jericho March.
Dreher accurately describes the rally’s supporters instead of the popular portrayal of them as caricatures of stupidity.
James K. Polk
Polk puts you in moderation!
I see. Polk is moderated. 😐
I was trained in behaviorism for my undergraduate degree in psychology. Scientific method was applied to behavior. I learned a lot of interesting stuff that till rings true. However, I also learned the limitations of trying to explain all behavior in such terms. I have related before an instance of awakening that a professor of abnormal psychology told to us. I don’t remember the story as he told it but I do remember his point. In his example he explained treating a patient with some aberrant behavior using methods dictated by behaviorism. He was able to extinguish this behavior only to have the patient break out in a severe case of the hives. Behaviorism did not allow him to consider what internal mental processes might be directing the behavior. We cannot control all the variables, so we invent statistics that control the observable outliers never asking ourselves the import of those aberrations. Obviously, there are situations in which the scientific method provides us with relevant and useful data, but we as teachers know each student is more than the sum of whatever mountain of data we manage to compile on him or her.
Wonderful example, speduktr! The Behaviorist curse that fell upon psychology in the US and in Great Britain for much of the twentieth century is an abject lesson in how science, like religion, is not immune to unwarranted absolutism. When I was first teaching, in the 1980s, there were still schools in the US that we requiring Behaviorial Objectives for every lesson plan, twenty years after the seminal papers on language structure (Chomsky) and improvisation (Lashley) blew the Behaviorist program to smithereens. And in the late 1970s, in my education classes, I was being taught that it was unscientific to consider what was going on in student’s heads (rather than limited myself to observing their behaviors). Imagine that? Totally blinkered by ideology. Another good example of this absolutism among scientists is Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union. However, Sagan’s book addresses this very subject: Those who hew to an ideology don’t grok the scientific spirit, which is that of skepticism and tentative, evolving understandings. Witness the pseudoscience of contemporary “data-driven” Education Deform. No, the use of numbers doesn’t make something scientific, and our standardized testing in ELA is not science. It’s numerology.
Bob This deserves repeating: “Those who hew to an ideology don’t grok the scientific spirit, which is that of skepticism and tentative, evolving understandings. Witness the pseudoscience of contemporary ‘data-driven’ Education Deform.” <–as you probably see here, the problem is not a specific scientific field, but the unexamined and skewed philosophical views that underpin it.
I think Gates and many who have his ear are STILL thinking that data means what it meant back in your rightly-noted behaviourist times. Or, as you say, that it’s “unscientific to consider what was going on in student’s heads . . . ” Oyveh! (<–probably misspelled)
Anyway, the problem is NOT that “the use of numbers doesn’t make something scientific,” but that ONLY the use numbers . . . positivist science and statistics . . . doesn’t make for a science the gives an account of the fullness of human beings, or for qualified (ahem) cognitional and other educational theory, or applied statistics to anything human, namely to students and “standardized testing in ELA.”
To put that in the briefest form, in business and manufacturing, we throw out anomalies. Whereas in education, the anomaly is someone’s child who need more, not less, attention. CBK
And often that anomaly is something to be treasured. I have a couple friends who are pretty far out on the Autism spectrum. One is an aerospace engineer, and his attention, obsession you might call it, is extremely valuable in his job. The other is a number theorist, and his obsession about details serves him extremely well in his work, where being very, very careful about the steps in the proof is essential. It takes all kinds, for real.
Bob What you say is SOOOO true. But there is more to it . . . how a culture, a nation, a group, a family or a friend treat those who cannot contribute in such a way says more about US than it does THEM.
But you are right that intelligence is far from “monolithic;” and history shows that insights come in many ways and often from unexpected sources and unexpected ways. And the business-manufacturing or positivist-science mentality just doesn’t cut it where understanding human beings is concerned. CBK
It’s interesting how these failed philosophies, like Positivism, linger on in popular beliefs among those who don’t even know where those beliefs come from.
Bob Exactly that: “It’s interesting how these failed philosophies, like Positivism, linger on in popular beliefs among those who don’t even know where those beliefs come from.”
Between me and you and the lamp post, 20th century philosophy wreaked havoc in trying to come out of our earlier philosophical problems, but doing so in horribly haphazard and half-truth ways. Might I say privately :o) that it had its similarly-horrible influence on education and the many professional and theoretical fields that feed into it, like psychology and sociology and philosophy itself.
Might I say in this private context that it can be unraveled and probably will, IF we can get through the intellectual-moral-political-and spiritual issues that still hang around in every conversation under the sun, without committing cultural suicide. CBK
One of my favorite stories is about how Wittgenstein, after the publication of his Tractatus, was invited to join the Positivists of the Vienna Circle. They thought him one of them because he had written about the limits of what could be clearly said, clearly asserted and verifiable. The Tractatus famously concluded with the line “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” (Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.”) But unlike the Positivists, who wished to throw out ethics and aesthetics and metaphysics as unverifiable nonsense, Wittgenstein held that those things that we struggle to speak clearly about (or can’t speak clearly about at all) are the ones that are most important.
Bob You say that Wittgenstein wrote: ““Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
That is not to say that we cannot or do not raise further questions . . . which speaks further to the needed humility of scientists and philosophers . . . of everyone, when you think of it. CBK
LW himself came to understand exactly what you are saying, CBK, as you probably know. Thus his Philosophical Investigations, which repudiated the earlier but still extremely valuable work.
Bob I read Wittgenstein, but a long time ago. I do think, however, that Aristotle’s wonder and, for the sciences in a critical environment, the raising of questions is the real glue that connects the scientist with their science, and not their answers, or even their hard-won discoveries. CBK
“To put that in the briefest form, in business and manufacturing, we throw out anomalies. Whereas in education, the anomaly is someone’s child who need more, not less, attention. ”
Yes!!! Also likely to do so in “scientific research.” Someone may eventually look at the anomalies but too often the target is central tendency.
Thank you for this. Years ago a good friend of mine who was attending Cornell when Sagan was a professor there was driving around when he took a turn and found someone suddenly directly in his path. He slammed the brakes stopping inches from the rattled pedestrian. Sagan, who had a reputation around campus for not suffering fools gladly, turned to him, angrily slapped the hood of his car and yelled “Hey watch where you’re f***ing going!”.
We’d do well to heed his words today.
Sounds like perhaps Sagan would have been wise to take his own advice. From what you said, I see no evidence that your friend wasn’t watching where he was going, or Sagan would have been flattened.
As the post states, Greg is best read and most wise. He synthesizes a library of information making the material applicable to today’s situations. He has stated in other threads that he is alarmed. His warnings should be heeded.
The Jericho marches on Sat. in D.C, Georgia, Penn., Mich., Wis. Nev. and Arizona pose a threat. Michigan’s legislature closed today due to threats to Michigan’s electoral college vote. The fears were heightened by the comments of a GOP state legislator.
The extent of conservative religious support for Trump is a topic covered in the Rod Dreher article in the American Conservative, 12-12-2020. He makes clear that the prevailing media modus operandi that Christian evangelicals are acting singly is bogus.