Cargo Cult Religion

Several bloggers have commented on this article by Tom Stern about Ken Ham’s creation museum published in The Point magazine.  While Stern’s article was generally OK in its presentation of Ham’s museum as pseudoscience unsupported by facts, he spoils the ending with a false conflation of science with religion.  And although he claims he isn’t doing this (“Of course science isn’t a faith: it builds bridges…” etc), he really is and in a most intellectually lazy way.  This is what you find towards the end of the article:

I was taught the earth is four billion years old and, going around the Museum, I realized I don’t actually know how “they” know that.

This isn’t the tired retort, often aimed at Dawkins et al., that science is just another faith. Of course science isn’t a faith: it builds bridges, it puts Americans on the moon and finds extraordinary new ways for us to kill each other. But it has more in common with faith than either the religious or scientific community would like us to admit. For Nietzsche, this was particularly evident in the consideration of scientific methods: there’s something comforting about the repetitive rituals of the scientific and technical life, which mimics the priestly cure of the Hail Mary or morning prayer. And there’s something silencing, too, about the way facts are presented to the public—as fossilized nuggets of information not to be questioned. Where once we used to turn to the priest for advice and guidance, now we turn to the scientific expert; we bend to the stamp of his authority, his status, his style—compare the expert witness in the courtroom to the priest at the hanging.

So science isn’t faith, but Stern doesn’t know how we know the age of the Earth and Nietzsche wrote something about the rituals of science being like religion, and so science really is like faith, except it isn’t.  I find it telling that Stern finds the the time to mention Nietzsche seven (count them) times (why?) but apparently doesn’t have ten seconds to put earth is four billion years old into Google and find out how we know the age of the Earth.  (If he had, he would have soon found this nice explanation of Isochron Dating.) 

So what if there is “something comforting” about the rituals of science?  Many secular activities include comforting things.  The rituals of baseball are comforting to fans, the ritual of cooking a meal for friends can be comforting, the rituals associated with Star Trek fandom can be comforting to trekkies… you get the idea.  But that doesn’t make these things religions.  Or if it does it uses a definition of religion that is so wide as to be virtually meaningless.  If everything is like religion, then nothing is.  In reality, the “rituals” of science (which are not “rituals”, but procedures), since they are performed for a reason, are further from religion than the rituals of baseball etc.  And frankly, I imagine many of the detailed procedures necessary for many science experiments are more tedious than comforting, anyway.  So Stern is wrong here in at least two different ways.

This idea that science has religious-like “rituals”, scientists are “priests”, or “men of the white cloth” (lab coats), science journals are “holy scriptures” etc etc is something I have heard a lot of recently.  It’s old, tired drivel.  Science can be questioned.  And, amazingly, this applies even to subjects that Tom Stern does not fully comprehend.  Science is questioned by both scientists and non scientists.  Only, unlike with religion, there is a basis for questioning and determining what scientific theories we accept and what we don't – the evidence.  What do they use in religion to determine what to accept?  Well, nothing really, other than what some authority just happens to think.  They have no externally verifiable basis for determining what is true and what isn’t.  By comparing scientists to priests, Stern is just lazily looking at the surface – what might appear to be happening – without delving any deeper.  Then it occurred to me this is just cargo cult religion. 

In 1974 Richard Feynman gave a lecture at Caltech where he described what he called cargo cult science - work that has the semblance of being scientific, but is missing the things necessary for real science:

In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to imitate things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas--he's the controller--and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land. [My bold.]

It struck me that referring to scientists as “priests”, or science journals as “holy books” is cargo cult religion.  Stern is examining scientific things that look similar to religion and using this to conflate the two.  But this conflation of science and religion is cargo cult religion the same way as pseudoscience is cargo cult science.  It may have the semblance of religion, but is missing the things necessary for real religion.  (Thankfully.)  Although science may have the appearance of some aspects of religion, it is different in all the ways that actually matter.

Of course, in an ideal world we should not just accept everything scientists tell us, but should examine their arguments to see if they are valid.  But not everyone has the time or the inclination to do this with every claim they hear.  Stern himself is proof of this.  And even scientists cannot be experts in fields that are not their own.  But just because each one of us hasn’t personally performed every scientific experiment ever performed in the history of the world, that doesn’t mean our acceptance of scientific knowledge is like religion.  We trust what science tells us because science has a track record of being right more often than any other method of inquiry.  But trust is not faith, and trusting experts in areas where we are not experts, is not religion.

Few if any of the similarities between science and religion are interesting or useful.  On the other hand, the differences between science and religion are profound.  Stern spoiled what could have been a reasonable expose of Ken Ham’s silly museum by dragging out this discredited canard once again.

Comments

[Chayanov]

I find it telling that Stern finds the the time to mention Nietzsche seven (count them) times (why?) but apparently doesn’t have ten seconds to put earth is four billion years old into Google and find out how we know the age of the Earth.

Telling, but not especially surprising.

[tk]

after having just ligated my nth PCR reaction into pCS2+ and transformed some bugs picked the colonies grown the minis digested the minis run the gel etc etc etc i can indeed attest that most scientific "rituals" are tedious to the nth degree [ ;) ] and most people would rather do anything else except "perform" them. with the exception, of course, of the post-seminar beers and pizza.

[Dunc]

I wonder if Stern regards receiving financial advice as being like religion too? There's ritual (the Ritual of the Statements and Receipts, the Ritual of the Tax Return, etc), there's the impenetrable mystery, the edicts from on high... I guess my accountant is a High Priest of The Church of Finance.

[AndyD]

When priests can put man on the Moon, or send a message to computer users around the world, or cure a serious ailment at a specified time - using prayer alone - I might take note of the similarities it has with science.

[GDad]

"But trust is not faith..."

I love it.

[richard]

He has incorrectly blended ritual with procedure. While they could be viewed as very similar the difference lies in the end result. A ritual does not produce anything save for the happy fellings of the faithful. A procedure produces a tangible product.

[David Bassett]

Being a fan of the Bad Science blog I am totally unsurprised that a journalist fundamentally misunderstands how we arrive at a scientific consensus.

[Ryan Michael Whitmore]

When priests can put man on the Moon, or send a message to computer users around the world, or cure a serious ailment at a specified time - using prayer alone - I might take note of the similarities it has with science.

Well, of course we didn't go to the Moon - it was a hoax. And God/Jesus/Thor/Odin/Shiva talks to people all the time. Finally, people will always believe that prayer cured whatever ailment someone had no matter the medical treatment they had; in the end goddidit and these people are so close minded nothing could convince them otherwise.

Dunno, sounds like something a bleever would think...

[valhar2000]

All Tom Stern ahs done is showcase his ignorance, a virulent ignorance at that. It is virulent because he uses his ignorance as though it were knowledge (or the ignorance of Nietzsche as though it were knowledge).

As David Basset says, not at all surprising when coming from a journalist. What happened to that golden age when journalists learned about subjects before reporting on them? Maybe it never existed...

[Liveliest Crib]

But trust is not faith, and trusting experts in areas where we are not experts, is not religion.

Exactly!

The difference between trust and faith is something science-is-another-faith advocates fail to grasp.

[Tom S. Fox]

In reality, the “rituals” of science (which are not “rituals”, but procedures), since they are performed for a reason, are further from religion that the rituals of baseball etc.

Skeptico, when will you finally learn the difference between than and that?

[hazel]

Much like doctors' stupid adherence to chemotherapy rituals in the face of obviously homeopathically treatable cancers.

Way to equate the value of a stupid ritual (negligible or negative) with scientific method (overwhelmingly positive).

[King of Ferrets]

...I can't figure out if the above comment is sarcastic or not...

[Skeptico]

:-)

Thanks - typo fixed.

[WScott]

But trust is not faith, and trusting experts in areas where we are not experts, is not religion.

I agree this is the crux of the matter. The problem, as Stern inadvertently illustrates, is this distinction isn’t self-evidently obvious to many non-scientists. The question is: who do you consider an “expert?” Someone who has spent years studying the matter? By that standard, Jenny McCarthy really is an expert on autism. (Put down the pitchforks – I’m using this as a negative example!) Someone with the right degree? There are plenty of quacks out there with degrees, not all of them from diploma mills.

A better answer might be “someone who does real science.” But that presupposes that you understand the scientific method well enough to distinguish good science from junk science. Without that understanding, it does look – from the outside – a lot like faith.

IMO, a lot comes down to better explaining science as a process – and a self-correcting one at that – rather than just a collection of facts.

[yakaru]

I think the trouble with the article isn't so much the author's lack of scientific understanding, but the way he deals with the issues from a totally egotistical perspective. He hasn't bothered to really deal with what he saw. He relates it to his knowledge of Nietzsche because that's what really interests him, and his mood on that particular day. It all goes by without touching him.

Ken Ham has come up behind him and screwed him up his intellectual butt, and he just shrugs it off. He's obviously smart enough to understand what's going on, but is just too lazy to think it through.

[Hayley]

Firstly, he is not exactly a journalist but a philosopher with a specific interest in Nietzsche.
You are generalising and "showing ignorance" by not researching the person you so consistently criticise.

Secondly, when he makes the claim about not knowing how "they" know the age of the earth, he making a personal epistemological point. This is not laziness.

Thirdly, you are missing the point with the comparison between science and religion: it is a cultural observation, reflecting upon the perceived position of science and scientists in the modern world. Their all-encompassing position of power in society has usurped a position that was long held by religion and religious leaders.

This, to me, does not seem to be an internal attack on the credibility of scientific practice (although epistemologically it is not at all an impossibility...) but rather a reflection on the relation between a dominating force in society (science) and the individual human being.

You are misconceiving its message, its purpose and its tone.

[Big Al]

...the perceived position of science and scientists in the modern world. Their all-encompassing position of power in society has usurped a position that was long held by religion and religious leaders.

Hayley, science has no power that does not come from common consent. Religion in days past had the power to subjugate people and kill them if they did not conform.

I am entitled to ask a scientist, "why do you believe that?" and expect an answer. I am also entitled to disagree with him, although he may reasonably ask me on whhat grounds I am disagreeing.

I don't have to kneel and kiss Richard Dawkins' hand to show my respect: indeed, I can call him a self-important charlatan and turn my back on him without fearing for my life or wellbeing.

Science modifies itself as time goes on and new evidence comes to light - I can see no sign of religions doing so even after the passage of centuries.

Scientists in no wise enjoy the social status of high priests.