Garrow's Humour

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I wrote about the first series of Garrow's Law, and a second series has now started, which I'm pleased to report maintains the same high standards. It follows the partly true exploits of William Garrow, London barrister at the end of the eighteenth century, who practically invented cross-examination and appears to have played a great part in removing many injustices from the UK legal system. It's a triumph for writer and creator Tony Marchant.

Consider the second episode of series 2; in this, Marchant notes the iniquity of harsher sentences for women than men for the same offences. Phebe Harris was condemned to death by burning for counterfeiting coins (for which men would be hanged), and the sentence was executed on 21st June 1786. Thankfully, by 1790, when Sophie Girton was sentenced the same, she was pardoned (although still transported to Australia!), and the abolition of burning was well on the way.

He also weaves a story about a gay relationship uncovered by a spurned wife with the apparently widespread practice of blackmailing men by threatening to report them for sodomy (which carried the death sentence, even if consensual). Needless to say, a proportion of the male population indulged and discovery was much feared. Really thoughtfully done, although possibly a little anachronistic occasionally.

It highlights, I think, how far we've come in this country in a comparatively short time, but also how far we can fall, if primitive forces are allowed to prevail in our modern, liberal, secular societies. We have the prospect of an old man in a hat telling 1 billion people that they can now use condoms 'in certain cases'. Well, I don't think it should take a William Garrow to sort out these 'cases'; Catholics should tell the Pope to stick his 'certain cases' where the sun don't shine, and tell him to start thinking rationally and not doctrinally, where people's health is concerned.

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The Interrogative Moo?

Cover of The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?

h/t and apologies to Padgett Powell - The Interrogative Mood

Do cows ask each other questions? Are you cowed by questions? Do bears shit in the woods? Does a falling tree in an empty wood make a noise? Do we hear what we want to hear? Are we here because we were meant to be? Are we here because we had to be? Does a puddle have to be puddle-shaped? Do we have to be human-shaped? Does thinking have to be thinking-shaped? Do we have to be shaped? Does thinking about it make it different?

If we mishear, what misses the ear? If something misheard means something else, is that meaningful? What is the meaning of life? What is six times nine? When does life start? What about the meanness of life? Who will think of the children? What do the children think of Will? Will they ever freely think of Will? Is their will free?

When did you last see your father? When did you last see your Father? Where's your cap? Where's your gym kit? Where's your homework? Where's your shame? Where's your innocence? Wears the soap?

What's the time? Does time fly? Do flies time? Does time travel? Can the time be written down on a piece of paper? What is time's arrow? Can it fly backwards? Can things be undone? Can zips be undone? Can zip be undone?

What do you call two grains of sand? What do you call three grains of sand? What do you call four grains of sand? What do you call five grains of sand? What do you call six grains of sand? What do you call one hundred grains of sand? At what point does this amount to a paragraph? At what point does this amount to a blog?

Do all novels sound like The Interrogative Mood to Australians?

(Well, you get the idea with that one)

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If not Phlogiston, is this Supernatural?

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The natural/supernatural debate rumbles on.

Chris Schoen responds to Coyne, Blackford, Boudry et al whilst sort of agreeing with Steve Zara, PZ et al, but also gets it wrong, in my opinion:

But I'll allow that just as it's a tautology to say "if we define the supernatural as that which science can't examine, then science can't examine it," so too is it a tautology to say that "if we include the supernatural among that which science can examine, then science can examine it." 

Both of these are word games. The question is whether there is a category of phenomena (empty or otherwise) which science is not equipped to study, and the obvious answer to this is yes.

But surely that's just a word game as well, because a 'category' is just a human construct, so he's defining the problem into existence too, and begging the question. Steve is much closer to this, I think, by insisting science investigates reality; the rest is arbitrary categorising. We cannot know a priori what exists, or if "a category of phenomena (empty or otherwise) which science is not equipped to study" exists. That our mind is capable of imagining such a category is no more proof of its existence than it is of Guanilo's Island. It just means our minds are capable of imagining the non-existent. And this is backed by cognitive and other studies of supernatural thinking (see Boyer's Religion Explained, for example). Of course, if in fact science cannot investigate something, we have no other way to investigate it either.

Science can't study what it can't define, quantify and observe.

Which just defines the problem into existence, which he mentioned earlier.

Since it is predicated on revealing laws, science cannot study that which is lawless ("capricious," in Russell's words.)

Well, surely it can; it can study anything that has an effect in reality. We may not be able to draw conclusions from those studies, however, and in particular I don't think we can conclude in favour of, or even prefer, a supernatural explanation.

I've often said, in response to theists who question how science has any jurisdiction over God, that it is so because theists say their God makes a difference in the world. That *difference* can be studied (and so far dismissed, as it happens). So science has historically dismissed claimed 'differences', and the vast number of these debunkings suggests that it's *reasonable* to infer that it will always be so. Not that it *will* always be so, but that it's a reasonable inference that it will always be so.

Realising their claims have been debunked, theists then look around and find some phenomenon that science has yet to explain and re-attach their theology to that phenomenon (consciousness, for example). And this will continue ad nauseam, since there will no doubt always be unexplained phenomena.

The claim that supernatural explanations cannot be accepted fundamentally derives from the simple observation that the phrase supernatural explanation is an oxymoron, and I don't see a way past that. 

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That Obscure Subject of Desire

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There have been many more posts arising from Steve Zara's strident proposal on supernatural evidence, including PZ Myers in support and Jerry Coyne against. In a discussion of this on Butterflies and Wheels, Steve said this:

The supernatural isn’t a thing, but a desire...

Ophelia Benson pointed out how quotable it was, so here I am! Philosophical naturalists must lean towards this view, of course, but it always seems a little bald when stated so straight-forwardly.


We know that absolutely everything we experience of the world is subjective, but most of us consider that some of these subjective experiences reflect an objective reality. So because our entire perception is a creation of our neuroscience based on our senses, we try to figure out which bits derive from real objects and which bits are just  creations of our neuroscience, as a consequence of our evolved biology. In principle, it is easy to understand how these subjective elements evolved. A mutation leads some members of a population to like the taste of sugary things, which provides life-sustaining energy; their behaviour is modified accordingly and they survive better than those members who don't like sugary things. Whilst most agree that sugar is an object, most would agree that there is no object of 'sweetness'. The evolutionary advantage needn't be so obvious, since pre-adaptations can cause changes to our biology too.

More controversially, we are faced with this problem when considering morals, and, as with Steve's quote, the supernatural. There is no evidence to show the supernatural exists, so sceptics can agree that it is reasonable to discount its existence. If one is being cautious, one would agree to examine any more incoming evidence for supernatural traces, ignoring the fact that one cannot know in advance what it would mean to be 'evidence of the supernatural'.

But we have the hypothesis that the supernatural is a figment of the human psyche. And the evidence supports this hypothesis. Nothing supernatural has ever been uncovered, and we have the evidence of thousands of years of human beings adjusting their supernatural ideas according to our understanding of the world - I mean, adjusting them to be beyond our understanding of the world (moderate theists), repeatedly, or simply asserting that their claims are beyond our understanding of the world (fundamentalists).

In the light of this evidence and history, I think any reasonable person should accept that there will never be any evidence for the supernatural. And this is before we allow that Hume on testimony shows that we could never accept any evidence for the miraculous, since our own perceptions are simply testimony.

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Theo-Science

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The criteria for the £1,000,000 Templeton Prize are laid out as:

The qualities sought in a Templeton Prize nominee include creativity and innovation, rigor and impact. The judges seek, above all, a substantial record of achievement that highlights or exemplifies one of the various ways in which human beings express their yearning for spiritual progress. Consideration is given to a nominee's work as a whole, not just during the year prior to selection. Nominations are especially encouraged in the fields of:

Research in the human sciences, life sciences, and physical sciences.
Scholarship in philosophy, theology, and other areas of the humanities.
Practice, including religious leadership, the creation of organizations that edify and inspire, and the development of new schools of thought.
Commentary and journalism on matters of religion, virtue, character formation, and the flourishing of the human spirit.

So, anyone who writes about science and religion could receive a £1,000,000 prize. Quite an incentive. What impact would that have? I wonder.

Science and religion have fundamentals at odds with each other. Science attempts to draw models of the world based on the best evidence that human methodology can uncover. In principle it is contingent, and never a complete explanation, since it's always open to variation based on new evidence. Religion settles arbitrarily on some preconceptions, vows never to examine those and proceeds to draw inferences about reality based on those preconceptions. In principle it is not contingent but a complete explanation; no evidence could gainsay its preconceptions.

Much has been written about their compatibility, including by me, which, considering the above, is surprising. It's understood that *people* can be scientific and religious, happily, but that's not the same. People can be adulterous whilst thinking it's wrong to be adulterous too. People can hold contradictory positions; it's a 'feature' of our thinking. But it's trivially true that science and religion contradict each other as world views at the above fundamental level. A test of someone's theism would be to ask them if they would revise their beliefs if evidence came in to shake their preconceptions; if they say they would revise their beliefs, they aren't really theistic, but scientific. If they say no, they wouldn't, then Don't Pass Go, go Straight to Jail; they're not scientific.

So why is there so much 'science and religion' talk going on? Consider this:

Ophelia Benson talks about some strange developments, including...

The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion, by Peter Harrison, from the Ian Ramsey Centre at Oxford University. The Ian Ramsey Centre has links with Templeton.

A BBC program on science and religion by historian Dr Thomas Dixon, which suggests more harmony than there is. His published work includes Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction, with this blurb:

As Thomas Dixon shows in this balanced and thought-provoking introduction, many have seen harmony rather than conflict between faith and science.

Harmony? What does that mean? It means religion before science, so science doesn't get to tell religion it's wrong. As Ophelia points out, both Harrison and Dixon are members of the The International Society for Science & Religion, a Religion in Science organisation, founded by Anglican priest and Templeton Prize recipient, Sir John Polkinghorne. Dixon's also contributed to Science and Religion, New Historical Perspectives, with fellow ISSR members Geoffrey Cantor and Stephen Pumfrey, which has this blurb:

The idea of an inevitable conflict between science and religion was decisively challenged by John Hedley Brooke in his classic Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge, 1991). Almost two decades on, Science and Religion: New Historical Perspectives revisits this argument and asks how historians can now impose order on the complex and contingent histories of religious engagements with science.

Great, no conflict between science and religion, because they disallow science as an arbiter of religious claims. So who else belongs to this Society?

Michael Reiss, who recently wrote about Creationism in the classroom:

Effective teaching in this area can help students not only learn about the theory of evolution, but also better appreciate the way science is done, the procedures by which scientific knowledge accumulates, the limitations of science and the ways in which scientific knowledge differs from other forms of knowledge.

Oh yes, the *limitations* of science and those other forms of knowledge. Not really science *and* religion then. Religion, then science.

Here's another article, by Cathy Lynn Grossman; she's connected to Templeton too. She asks:

Do you think a baby conceived in test tube is still a child in the eyes -- or mind or hands, depending on your theology/philosophy -- of God? Does the science behind this merit the Nobel Prize for Medicine or condemnation in the realm of faith and ethics?

This sickening question doesn't seem to be about science and religion, but religion, then science.

As Jerry Coyne notes as well, there's a lot of accommodationism about. Elaine Ecklund has conducted a survey of scientists and religion that shows that scientists aren't very religious, but against her own data she says:

As we journey from the personal to the public religious lives of scientists, we will meet the nearly 50 percent of elite scientists like Margaret who are religious in a traditional sense...

So religion, then science again. Her work was funded by Templeton, you'll not be surprised to hear.

Not be outdone, at Cambridge we have The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, funded by Templeton. One of their aims is, supposedly:

Scholarly research and publication on science and religion, including the organisation of invited groups of experts to write joint publications.

Let's have a look; here's a paper called Nothing but a Pack of Neurons? by Dr Stuart Judge, a physiologist and neuroscientist. Scientific, is it? Well, there's a lot of expert science and intelligent discussion of the problems of dualism and non-dualism. But towards the end, Judge says:

What then of Jesus’s saying: ‘be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell’? This certainly reminds us that our Maker has the sovereign authority to do more than destroy our present embodiment. But does this use of the word soul (psyche) imply a separate kind of non-physical stuff that attaches to our bodies when we are alive and detaches from them at death, or can it be read as a way of indicating that from the point of view of the Creator our identity extends beyond space and time?

He's begging the question. So, we again have religion, then science. Perhaps that's a one-off? Well, no; here's Human genomics and the Image of God; and Creation and Evolution Not Creation or Evolution (the author gets this the right way round for a change!). It's all a travesty of science.

So, now, let it be known that wherever you see the words 'Science and Religion', what you'll actually be getting is 'Religion, then Science', and, more than likely, a link to the Templeton Foundation somewhere in the background.

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Nouvelle Atheism

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Caspar Melville followed up his poorly argued piece on new atheism with a report on the debate that took place between Marilynne Robinson, Roger Scruton and Jonathan Rée, with Laurie Taylor chairing. I'm reproducing here the comment I made on RD.NET.

What a waste of an evening that sounds. Accommodationists sitting round chundering about tone whilst slagging off new atheists in an even worse tone. Maybe one day they will actually come up with some action points that aren't self-defeating.

I presume Melville misspelled accommodationist because someone here did? I realise this is pedantic, but can we please get this right? M & M, like the chocolates, not one M.

I suppose it [accommodationist] means that I am prepared to debate with people who have views that are different from mine, including those who have religious belief and those who liked the film Amelie. If this is what it means, then I am, and proud of it.

No, that's not what it means, else Dawkins would be one and everyone who posts on this board. Sheesh; how do these people get paid employment? There are two meanings:

1. An advocate of NOMA.
2. A tone troll; someone who waffles on about tone (which is important), but doesn't present any evidence to back up why the tone they prefer is the best one, and constantly falls foul of her own tone rules. For an example, see the You're Not Helping debacle.

I suppose if you think that this really is some kind battle [sic] – between religious believers (all in one camp) and atheists (all in another) you could believe that, but I don't (in fact I think this is very dangerous view).

Plainly not, with milquetoasts about!

I'm suspicious of arguments that sound like they have discovered the Truth. They always sound too much like dogma for my taste, and if the non-believing gang is against anything, surely it's dogmatism?

Exactly; the problem with accommodationists is they are telling people what to do, based on nothing but, well, dogma, apparently. That doesn't go down well amongst genuine sceptics.

Subsequently Steve Zara made this point:

For people like Melville to moan because the arguments of theology aren't addressed in detail by people like Richard is like someone saying that complaints about the UK's national eating habits are absurd because the fine and rare dishes served at The Savoy aren't being considered. The "fine dishes" (actually a form of homeopathic cuisine - the plates look empty) of theology aren't what the vast majority consume. When people want to try and understand and deal with religion, they have to confront the everyday reality of religion.

Very true, but the problem with faitheists, accommodationists is their lack of substantive argument. It is perhaps only to be expected. Atheism itself is pretty empty, being a lack of belief; attacking it from another atheistic viewpoint has always seemed a pretty pointless occupation. So this allusion suggested to me another for those of an accommodationist bent - that of Nouvelle Atheism - a tiny serving of the right ingredients that doesn't satisfy.

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Press Ganged Up

The visit of a dictatorial absolute monarch telling the plucky Brits how to behave would normally, you would think, bring howls of outrage from the famed 'free' press of the United Kingdom and its politicians. But they, and the television media, have been falling over themselves to fawn sycophantically over one of the most harmful men alive in the world today. Armies are mobilised to track down Bin Laden, who has a few thousand deaths to his name, admittedly, but this dealer in the death of millions gets an audience with the Queen and the thumbs up from all our political leaders! Ironic, then, that Pope Benedict XVI should start by saying, in a speech where he blamed Nazism on atheism:

Today, the United Kingdom strives to be a modern and multicultural society. In this challenging enterprise, may it always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate.

Secularism is the idea that *religion* be kept separate from government. It's difficult to see how this could get 'aggressive'. Secularism would protect Catholics in theocracies like Iran, if only the Mullahs believed in it.

Secular opposition to the Islamist government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been active in the country up until 1984, afterwards they were branded heretics and apostates by the clerical hierarchy, and eventually jailed and executed, or exiled.

So it would seem the Pope isn't too keen on something that would actually help some of his sheeple. Strange man. So, is the UK a hotbed of aggressive secularism? Look at this from the Daily Mail Comment page:

Doesn’t the Pope make a timely point when he warns against the march of ‘aggressive secularism’?

And this after lily-livered comments like this from the Daily Heil:

Yes, as Benedict humbly admits, the ‘unspeakable crimes’ of Catholic priests have brought ‘shame and humiliation’ on the church, while his own handling of the scandal has been lamentable.

And yes, millions find it impossible to accept the Vatican’s continuing opposition to the use of condoms in tackling Aids.

He's *so* humble, with his demands to be heard and followed, *so* humble. The Comment wibbles on:

But who can doubt that the Pope’s central theme deserves a hearing in a society increasingly devoted to instant self-gratification?

And yet what else have we seen from the Catholic hordes in the past few days but an appallingly self-indulgent festival of instant self-gratification? The fatuous Peter McKay in the same paper on the same day makes the point for me:

But those who turned out to protest about Benedict's visit, on the grounds that he held incorrect views on homosexuality, women and condoms, seemed shrill and ill-mannered alongside the hundreds of thousands of people who received obvious pleasure from seeing and hearing the Pope in Britain.

What does the Telegraph think?

In his speeches, His Holiness has shown a clarity of thought to shame the woolly utterances of Britain’s politicians, throwing down the gauntlet to our overly secularised society and insisting – as this newspaper has on many occasions – that religion still has a vital role to play within our culture.

More of that aggressive secularism the Pope was warning about? No, just more sycophantic chundering about how wonderful this professional harbourer of child abusers is:

Before the Pope’s arrival, there was one particular issue that concerned many: the vile abuse of children perpetrated in several different countries by members of the Church’s hierarchy over several decades, and the efforts that had been made to conceal those crimes. Here, the Pope has shown great moral courage. As well as meeting some of the victims, he has addressed the topic on repeated occasions, expressing his “deep sorrow” about these “unspeakable crimes”, which have caused “immense suffering”, and brought “shame and humiliation” to the institution that he leads.

What good are a few weasel words to the thousands of child abuse victims around the world? Words are not enough. And why should others care about *his* institution? It's time for the Pope to *act*, and it should also be time for journalists who have a conscience to speak up. But it seems we have very few of those. Here's the Guardian Editorial:

If the pope has not done much reconciling, then neither have his militant opponents. The thousands who traipsed through London chanting "he belongs in jail" may not see any connection between themselves and the anti-papist mobs of the past, but there is a failure to afford sincere faith the respect it is due.

So every time someone wants to protest against the Catholic Church they are automatically linked to anti-papist mobs of the past? What a disgraceful thing to say about people with *genuine* grievances.

In the Sunday Times (behind a paywall) faitheist extraodinaire Bryan Appleyard was at it again with his boring framing of the Protest the Pope demonstration:

It was noisy. A truck led the way manned by two chanters leading a quasi-religious call-and-response ritual

....

The crowd shrieked back in unison. It was a bizarre coalition of unreconstructed hippies, feminists, gays, condom users and all-purpose angry folk. And then there were the suddenly child-protecting zealots.

Wow; another disgusting thing to say, as if the people protesting were Johnny come latelys only interested in child abuse for politically expedient reasons. And what's bizarre about feminists, gays and hippies forming coalitions? Has Appleyard attacked the bizarre (and doomed) attempts at ecumenical coalition?

Our Prime Minister said of the visit:

The Holy See can also be a partner for us with great influence across the world and we have incredibly important work to do together on fighting poverty and disease, on winning the argument to get to grip with climate change, and on promoting a multi-faith dialogue and working for peace across our world.

Can it be a partner? Can it really? And how does one reconcile the beliefs of people who believe in things just because they do? This Conservative seems very welcoming to this absolute monarch telling us what to do, but doesn't seem so keen on the EEC doing the same:

The steady and unaccountable intrusion of the European Union into almost every aspect of our lives has been made worse by the Lisbon Treaty.

Oh for a similar injunction against this meddling Pope.

Atheist Deputy PM Nick Clegg said:

It was very exciting. Whatever your views of Catholicism, he is the leader of one of the great world religions. I can understand all the debates that are raging but we should be giving a very, very warm welcome to him.

Should we be giving a 'very, very warm welcome' to anybody responsible for the cover-up of crimes around the world, and one who hides behind state immunity to ensure he's safe from prosecution? Or just those with a significant percentage of the electorate hanging on their every inanity? Blimey, the mind boggles.

And I haven't even started on the wall-to-wall coverage of this evil man's visit by the TV networks. So forgive me for thinking that the UK is a long way from being anything like the sort of secular society that would actually *safeguard* the beliefs of lunatics like Benedict XVI.

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