Letters to the Editor
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That's what an atheist IS!
Steve Paulson asks E.O Wilson,
"To be a deist, you're saying maybe there was some creator, some presence, that set in motion the laws of the universe."
And E.O. Wilson answers,
"Maybe. That has not yet been discounted as a hypothesis. That's why I use the word provisional."
Paulson answers that he thinks that is a fascinating answer, because, " everything you've said up until now suggests that you should be an atheist".
Well, by definition he IS an atheist. He holds no belief in a god. He is open to the possibility of some god or force, but does not actively believe in one. Therefore, he is an atheist.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines atheism as, "Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a god".
Mr Wilson fits the first part of the definition, so he is an atheist.
Atheism is NOT a 'bad word"!
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God, Evolution... and the Upper Middle Class?
I'm afraid Ms.Swarz is carrying around some pretty heavy class baggage. Break a ten and get a sky cap, it's so much easier than carrying all that luggage through the airport!:)
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Science is creative
The dichotomy between science and art which often is used to imply boring versus creative is a false one. Science is a creative enterprise; it just takes a lot of groundwork and a lot of learning before anyone can get to the point of thinking creatively. The leading edge of science is driven by people who dream about possibilities, who combine knowledge in novel and inexpected ways, and then figure out how to ask their questions in ways that tell them an answer. The ideal scientist isn't bound by the truth of an answer. And to any naysayers who will claim that scienctists are depply invested in proving themselves right in order to get more publications, presentations, and the like, I say that the best scientists design their questions such that either way the data goes, the answer is interesting and worthy of publication. Debate Wilson, challenge his claims (after all, that sort of debate lies at the heart of scientific discovery), but please don't tell me that all scientists do is measure frames.
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Atheist?
Mr Wilson fits the first part of the definition, so he is an atheist.
Atheism is NOT a 'bad word"!
Atheism may not be a bad word, but I would say that Mr. Wilson instead better fits the classical definition of an agnostic: someone who is either skeptical about the existence of God, or who believes that there is simply not enough information to make a decision either way.
I would be hesitant to deny someone's self-proclaimed religious (or non-religious) identity. He doesn't identify as an atheist. That's good enough for me.
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Science and Religion and Bones to Pick
I'll throw my hat into the ring as this is something that I've devoted a great deal of thought to lately.
I read Consilience when I was a student of neuroscience at the University of Rochester. It quickly became my gospel, and subsequent classes on neuroethology and the neurochemical foundations of behavior further solidified this devotion. But as my studies advanced I grew away from strict materialism, hence the following:
Evolution is the change of form over time, but we know that time is relative. So evolutionism, and materialism as a whole, assume an absolute where none exists.
Time is motion, the change of forms measured in discreet units (think of an atomic clock). But these forms are only emergent patterns of energy in flux, energy that cannot be created or destroyed, and so have no intrinsic meaning. Energetically, then, reality "IS" whereas arising forms (you, me, the Universe) "WERE" and "ARE" and "WILL BE". Time, then, is a byproduct of how these forms interrelate (by speed, position etc... hence, relativity) and thus, like those forms, also lacks an intrinsic reality.
Our minds operate most typically within a particular biological niche, and thus a common psychological context, at levels of conciousness very much concerned with survival; we have sufficient complexity to perceive and be self-aware and so want to stay that way. How that translates into the Republican Party, the Iraq War and Christina Aguilera is fascinating, but doesn't change the intrinsic impermanence of form. Eventually, all patterns, everything, even time itself, is resolved from whence it came. And so no concept can be built on the interplay of changing forms that is absolutely durable or has meaning.
The goal of human religion, at its best, is to bestow a direct awareness of this paradox (of the eternal vs. the temporal) and to ripen our consciousness to the point where we are capable of making manifest the eternal in daily life. The Wilson interview's focus on the dilapitated states of contemporary Western religion does a great disservice to the traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The stories of these religions, along with other mythologies, project our minds beyond the fields of time and concept into the realm of the eternal. The moment these stories slip back into the conceptual realm they become meaningless; we look back and turn into pillars of salt.
In so far as I can tell, contemporary Buddhism is more directly appreciative of this whole dynamic. I have a particular fondness for the minimalism of Zen Buddhism, likely due to my scientific training. But no one religion holds the key. The answer, instead, lies in the ability of the individual to realize the true potential of whatever creed he or she follows and so realize the full potential of his or her humanity.
In the true spirit of Consilience, where Wilson calls for a coming together of all the great human disciplines, this article should have cast a much broader net. Faith, be it in a scientific absolute or strict religious dogma, is the departure point of a great journey of questioning that we have undertaken since the dawn of our species. But one must quickly depart from this harbor of faith and move into an ocean of experience. Without a disciplined practice founded on skeptical inquiry the experience of that which lies beyond conceptual thought remains hidden; "heaven is spread upon the earth but men are blind to see it."
Science is an exquisite description of our world of forms, and as it advances it reaffirms, like warfare and poverty and art and music, that we should be searching beyond them.