Richard Dawkins

[IdleRich]

"I honestly believe that is still question begging when considering the phrase 'there are no facts'. To state 'there are no facts' is not the same as stating 'it is a fact that there are no facts'. My inkling is that a more subtle deconstruction of the statement 'there are no facts' is possible, but accusations of meaninglessness are wide of the mark. With that, I'm going to leave it. Really."

Well, obviously I think you're wrong -and I think that the statement has to contain some kind of truth which it simultaneously disavows for it to do what you want it to do - but yes, let's agree to disagree.

"I'm not trying to argue that science is another religion. It does, however, rely upon metaphysics."

Of course. It's the jump from the latter statement to the former that has me tearing my hair out.

 

[slowtrain]

To get back on topic, you could say the same about myths, superstition, liturgy, scripture and so on.

Yes and I would say the same thing.

They are real and they are facts.

 

[Bangpuss]

If ours is only one universe out of thousands/millions/infinite numbers of possible others, does a fact have to apply there as well, six-hundred quadrillion miles away, where they may well be operating in a whole different time-space continuum, where time travel may be possible, where there are more than three dimensions? I'd say a 'fact' or a 'truth' for it to be universal has to hold true there as well. Trouble is, we ain't ever going to know...

 

[IdleRich]

The point is that whether or not we know is irrelevant. Also you could still have a fact of the form "rule x applies here and I make no claim for what happens elsewhere" so other universes or times or whatever pose no problem to the concept of facts in general.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yes and I would say the same thing.

They are real and they are facts.

Explain.

 

[Mr. Tea]

If ours is only one universe out of thousands/millions/infinite numbers of possible others, does a fact have to apply there as well, six-hundred quadrillion miles away, where they may well be operating in a whole different time-space continuum, where time travel may be possible, where there are more than three dimensions? I'd say a 'fact' or a 'truth' for it to be universal has to hold true there as well. Trouble is, we ain't ever going to know...

As Rich says, whatever is happening in regions of the multiverse that we can't access even in principle, it doesn't have much to do with what we can say about truths or facts. And even if there is some far-flung corner of reality where time runs backwards and gravity is repulsive, that doesn't change the fact that London is the capital of England.

 

[IdleRich]

If a fact is a description of a true state of the universe then whether or not they exist is a question about language (as presumably states of the universe do exist). Can we ever adequately describe anything or are we always approximating in ways which make things understandable for us and our human architecture? It seems to me that as we can create arbitrarily simple things within that universe and speak of facts relating to them then the existence of facts themselves is still trivial - and to deny them all but impossible - though to what extent that allows us to talk about, say, scientific facts I'm not sure. Then again, most scientists would say that science is a process of (hopefully) increasingly accurate approximation so that's not a particularly radical thing to say.

 

[IdleRich]

Who was the guy who said that there is only one fact and that fact is the state of the universe and all other things you discover are sort of parts of that fact?

 

[comelately]

What would need to happen for London not to be the capital of London? If David Cameron declared Chipping Sodbury to be the new official capital of England, would it be the capital of England? If he moved the parliament and the executive there? If the wikipedia entries were changed? If there was a referendum on which was the true capital and Chipping Sodbury won by a clear majority?

This is an extreme example and so I'm not trying to say that it isn't a 'fact' really, I'm just trying to suggest that the foundations for this conclusion are somewhat more fluid and mysterious than one, as a human living their life, pretends. A 'family resemblance' explanation of capital cities is probably a better fit for how we decide whether something is a capital or not - I think Amsterdam constitutes a pretty decent counter-example to the 'seat of government' test and I don't think it's being picky or disingenuous or particularly pomo to mention it.

I was watching The Enemies of Reason yesterday and Dawkins disputed the idea that a rock has the quality of 'rockishness', as proposed by some kind of spiritualist. He is then philosophically a nominalist and probably a (perhaps somewhat elitist) conventionalist, but my hypothesis is that humans are somewhat predisposed towards non-nominalist positions which necessarily cloud our judgement regarding the nature of facts, and thus of science (in different ways).

-----------

I was offered Reiki today. And a rose crystal.

Placebo effect appears to be scientifically proven (even when the patient knows it is a placebo, to an extent), yet it is now considered to be unethical within much of the medical community - though they were certainly at one time used more frequently. Now this can be explained as an ethical commitment to truth, an ethical commitment to the right of their patient to make a rational choice or a sort of (rule) utilitarian view about the consequences of placebos. The first two of these are clearly untestable and the third would be impossible to test perfectly; I'm not sure how you would test it at all really. Could you get a public consensus agreement that it was right of doctors to refuse to give a treatment that was proved to be effective? It would depend how you framed it to an extent, but my inkling is that you could not get a consensus on this basis.

 

[IdleRich]

An interesting question in itself but one that Dawkins would surely side-step (in this debate) by saying that religion is indubitably a placebo that makes the patient worse - and has horrendous side-effects on many people who aren't even related to the patient. Though that's a debate in itself of course.
But from the point of view of someone who believes that religion is both misguided (untrue) and has negative effects his actions seem pretty reasonable.
On balance I also think that religion is misguided and the negative effects outweigh the good and that's probably why I tend to agree with Dawkins' positions more often than not.

 

[Mr. Tea]

What would need to happen for London not to be the capital of London? If David Cameron declared Chipping Sodbury to be the new official capital of England, would it be the capital of England? If he moved the parliament and the executive there? If the wikipedia entries were changed? If there was a referendum on which was the true capital and Chipping Sodbury won by a clear majority?

Some combination of those things, yeah. I still don't think it would go any way towards supporting your assertion that "there are no facts". If London ceased to be the capital and some other town was named the new capital, then the old fact would become historical and a new fact would come into being. It would still be a fact that London was once the capital of England, just as it is still a fact that Winchester was once the capital of England.

I fail to see how any of this radically undermines the concept of a 'fact'.

If the capital-city example is too wishy-washy and ill-defined, then how about a fact like 'hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe'? Define 'hydrogen', 'element' and 'abundant' - the 'universe' bit is the easiest, since we can define it as 'the spatiotemporal extent of everything we can observe' - and you have a fact that doesn't rely on anything as imprecise as human demography or politics.

 

[comelately]

That's not really side-stepping the problem though, it's merely making another assertion. You are saying 'indubitably', but it's not like you or Dawkins are proposing to hold double-blind trials on the hypotheses that religion has overall negative consequences or could conceive what such trials would even begin to look like. Even if you could define negative consequences, which I heavily doubt, although Sam Harris is currently trying to resurrect 'utilitarianism as science' from the dead. As you concede, it's a 'debate' and that, for me, in itself highlights the limits of science and the issue that Dawkins is no more capable of completely restricting himself to the scientific domain than anybody else.

So when Dawkins strays from the path of true science, where does he wander? According to wikip, he suggests in The God Delusion that 'an atheistic worldview is life-affirming in a way that religion, with its unsatisfying "answers" to life's mysteries, could never be.' Life-affirming could broadly be defined as 'faith in life' yes?

Obviously that sounds jolly fine and better than its opposite, but such Nietzschean ideas are hardly unproblematic.

We also return to the issue of the good; is his philosophy good because it is the truth, because it is life-affirming or because of its utility? Or does it resemble the good through a combination of these things?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Well yeah, something as complex and thorny as "Is religion Good or Bad for people?" can obviously not be tested with any kind of scientific rigour. One person talks about this or that wonderful religiously motivated charity or some survey showing that religious people report greater life satisfaction that atheists; another person points out the Spanish Inquisition, the Taliban or whatever, and around we go.

There are however some (I think) fairly unquibbleable arguments against religion that don't rely on weighing up the sum total of good or bad influences they have on humanity. One is that people are more likely to do bad things when they are motivated by a false belief than when they're accurately informed about something. E.g., most people in developed countries no longer believe certain individuals have the power to hurt others through occult means; as a result, harmless old ladies are no longer routinely tortured and executed as "witches". Jews have historically been persecuted because, amongst other reasons, people believed they planned to take over the world, drank the blood of Christian babies and so on. Young girls are frequently raped in southern Africa because of a mistaken belief that sex with a virgin can cure HIV. And so on.

Another argument is that surely it's better to do good things and avoid doing bad things simply out of a sense of shared humanity - 'altruism', in other words, whether you believe it strictly exists or not - rather than because of the anticipation of an imagined reward or fear of an imagined retribution?

 

[IdleRich]

"That's not really side-stepping the problem though, it's merely making another assertion. You are saying 'indubitably', but it's not like you or Dawkins are proposing to hold double-blind trials on the hypotheses that religion has overall negative consequences or could conceive what such trials would even begin to look like."

I'm not saying that's what I think, I'm guessing that's what Dawkins thinks, but it's slightly unfair cos I'm putting words in his mouth. If you believe strongly that something makes something worse and it is a lie you're probably going to fight it, that's all I'm saying.
But the placebo example isn't really a good one because you quote the scientifially proven nature of the results when there isn't really an analogue if you replace placebo with religion. And without that part then the example is meaningless. What I mean is the problem you are posing is:

"placebo is a lie but works" is analagous to "religion is a lie but works"

So if there is a kinda scientific case for placebo then why not for religion? But you don't have (in fact you pretty much deny the possibility of having) the second half of the example in the analogy so the argument doesn't work.

"So when Dawkins strays from the path of true science, where does he wander? According to wikip, he suggests in The God Delusion that 'an atheistic worldview is life-affirming in a way that religion, with its unsatisfying "answers" to life's mysteries, could never be.' Life-affirming could broadly be defined as 'faith in life' yes?"

Sounds like it. I always get the impression that his heart isn't really in it when he's talking about this stuff though to be honest. It's kind of like he's got his mission and then people start asking him questions like "isn't this really empty?" so he's had a quick think and stuck this on top. Could be wrong of course, again I'm second guessing.

"We also return to the issue of the good; is his philosophy good because it is the truth, because it is life-affirming or because of its utility? Or does it resemble the good through a combination of these things?"

I think it's the truth. Or, while that is a controversial phrase, let's say that we use a kind of sliding scale, fuzzy concept kind of thing - would you accept that some things are more true than others? It may not be a fact that London is the capital of England but it is closer to being a fact than me asserting that my little finger is the capital of England. I reckon that religion is unnacceptably far towards the little finger end of that scale.
I also believe, while accepting that it's difficult or impossible to measure, that religion tends to have a negative effect, certainly these days and I don't want it to have any say in making laws in my country. So I suspect the utility of what he is saying is also part of why I think it is "good".
Of course you could ask this question for religion - is it good cos it is true, cos it of its utility, cos of something else?
(Well, I say his philosophy, I mean his anti-religious philosophy, not whatever else he happens to think)

 

[comelately]

Some combination of those things, yeah. I still don't think it would go any way towards supporting your assertion that "there are no facts". If London ceased to be the capital and some other town was named the new capital, then the old fact would become historical and a new fact would come into being. It would still be a fact that London was once the capital of England, just as it is still a fact that Winchester was once the capital of England.

At this point I assert that taking my 'there are no facts' statement in isolation is to burn a straw-man, but I appreciate that this is not deliberate. A perhaps more eloquent restatement of my position is that either both statements ('there are facts', 'there are no facts') are meaningful or neither are, and that both statements can be legitimately used.

If you know what a fact is, then tell me what a fact is? Please don't give me an example of what you consider to be a fact, without pointing out what makes it a fact. The point about family resemblances (which I think you have conceded) is that it doesn't give you that, a fact is not a fact because it has a quality of 'factishness'.

I fail to see how any of this radically undermines the concept of a 'fact'.

If your concept of a fact is 'something that resembles other facts', then suggesting there is an infinite regress problem is not a particularly radical critique. You're heading straight for 'first cause' or 'God' as it is sometimes known.

 

[Slothrop]

If your concept of a fact is 'something that resembles other facts', then suggesting there is an infinite regress problem is not a particularly radical critique. You're heading straight for 'first cause' or 'God' as it is sometimes known.

Although abstract logical first causes don't generally encourage people to turn up in special buildings on prespecified days, partake of no hotdog buns on friday or deny legal rights to gay people...

 

[Mr. Tea]

I would call a fact something like "a statement that is well supported by empirical evidence". Would you significantly disagree with that?

 

[comelately]

I'm not saying that's what I think, I'm guessing that's what Dawkins thinks, but it's slightly unfair cos I'm putting words in his mouth. If you believe strongly that something makes something worse AND it is a lie you're probably going to fight it, that's all I'm saying.

I agree, but my point is we are now in family resemblance, infinite regress, waheguru territory.

But the placebo example isn't really a good one because you quote the scientifially proven nature of the results when there isn't really an analogue if you replace placebo with religion.

My point wasn't that that they were completely analogue. The testing issue is on one side, the side that's all about testing (or at least pretends to be). I'm not saying anything quite as direct as 'if placebo, why not religion?' I can see how that might be inferred, but I hope you can see there is a difference between somebody apparently committed to testable propositions devoting a considerable part of his life to arguing for something that is fundamentally untestable and somebody who takes a less verificationist/falsificationist, more narrative-based, viewpoint doing the same.

Sounds like it. I always get the impression that his heart isn't really in it when he's talking about this stuff though to be honest. It's kind of like he's got his mission and then people start asking him questions like "isn't this really empty?" so he's had a quick think and stuck this on top. Could be wrong of course, again I'm second guessing.

You're probably right, but it's not like it's not part of the book he chose to write. If he is not interested in these questions, then others clearly are and that just feeds my initial critique that he does not really grasp the importance these issues have for others.

Or, while that is a controversial phrase, let's say that we use a kind of sliding scale, fuzzy concept kind of thing - would you accept that some things are more true than others?

No I don't think a 1 dimensional sliding scale of factishness works.

 

[Slothrop]

I would call a fact something like "a statement that is well supported by empirical evidence". Would you significantly disagree with that?

Isn't "empirical evidence" another word for "other facts", though?

 

[comelately]

Isn't "empirical evidence" another word for "other facts", though?

Bingo