John Haught - Where's The Tea?

John Haught relented and allowed the release of the video of his debate with Jerry Coyne: Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? (Spoiler: Haught says yes; Jerry no.) This was only after Coyne allowed Haught to post this complaint. Haught’s initial refusal, and his lengthy complaint got me to do one thing I rarely do, namely watch an hour and a half long (with questions) video of a debate. Having watched it, I can say that Haught’s complaint directed at Coyne:

…you used the event primarily to launch a sneering and condescending ad hominem.

…is entirely without merit. I watched the whole thing and there was no ad hominem – Jerry Coyne attacked Haught’s arguments only. Haught needs to learn the meaning of ad hominem.

Haught also accused Coyne of misrepresenting Haught’s views, of taking them out of context:

You grossly distorted every quotation you used, and then you coated over your [mis]understanding of these statements with your own uncritical creationist and literalist set of assumptions about the Bible and theology.

The burden of proof is with those making the positive claim, so if Haught wants to claim that Coyne took his quotes out of context, it is up to Haught to show, in context, what the quotes actually meant and that this was different from the way Coyne represented them. In fact, I challenge Haught to take just one quote that Coyne used incorrectly, and explain what it meant, in context. Just one will do. As far as I know, he hasn’t done this anywhere (if anyone wants to post a link to where he has done this, please do). Until he does, we are justified in dismissing this claim without evidence, just as it was asserted without evidence.

There is one part of Haught’s talk that I wanted to examine. Haught is claiming that science and religion are compatible, it’s just that religion has access to some additional “layers” that science can’t access. To explain this, he uses a metaphor of a teapot boiling. You can watch him talking about this in the video, but I found a transcript of Haught’s testimony at the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial transcript where he makes the exact same argument, so to save transcribing the video I’m just going to quote that:

I think most of the issues in science and religion discussions, most of the confusion that occurs happens because we fail to distinguish different levels of explanation. And so what I advocate is layered or -- layered explanation or explanatory pluralism, according to which almost every phenomenon in our experience can be explained at a plurality of levels.

And a simple example would be a teapot. Suppose a teapot is boiling on your stove and someone comes into the room and says, explain to me why that's boiling. Well, one explanation would be it's boiling because the water molecules are moving around excitedly and the liquid state is being transformed into gas.

But at the same time you could just as easily have answered that question by saying, it's boiling because my wife turned the gas on. Or you could also answer that same question by saying it's boiling because I want tea.

All three answers are right, but they don't conflict with each other because they're working at different levels. Science works at one level of investigation, religion at another. And it would be a mistake to say that the teapot is boiling because I turned the gas on rather than because the molecules are moving around. It would be a mistake to say the teapot is boiling because of molecular movement rather than because I want tea. No, you can have a plurality of levels of explanation. But the problems occur when one assumes that there's only one level.

He’s saying that by analogy, “the water molecules are moving around excitedly…” is the scientific explanation while “I want tea” is the religious type of explanation: they’re different but not incompatible, and science can’t provide the latter explanation. The problem for Haught is that his metaphor is self-refuting. Science can tell us about water molecules vibrating, but it can also tell us if the kettle is on because someone wants tea. For example, we could observe the kettle and see if someone pours the boiling water into a teapot and makes tea. We can also check to see of someone drinks the tea or if they just pour it down the sink. In other words, “I want tea” is testable, so it is a scientific explanation. A huge flaw in Haught’s analogy is we know tea exists! Haught still has to show that there are religious explanations for things that are both (a) correct and (b) different from anything science or secular reasoning provides. In other words, Haught needs to show us that the “tea” in his analogy exists. Where’s the tea? Haught’s metaphor may demonstrate that such explanations could exist, but he has given us no reason to suppose that they do.

Jerry also pointed this error out in the Q&A (starting at time 15:05), stating that Haught “hasn’t given us a single bit of evidence” that  these other layers exist. So Coyne did respond to points that Haught made, despite Haught’s claim that he didn’t. So as as an argument it fails, and as a complaint that Coyne didn’t respond, it fails.  And yet, this seems to Haught’s main argument. One wonders which debate Haught was at.

There is just one other aspect of Haught’s talk that I want to deal with. This starts a couple of minutes into the Q&A session, and is so wrong that I transcribed the whole thing. He labels Coyne’s approach as “scientism” and criticizes it like this:

Scientism is the belief, the belief (I emphasize that term) that science is the only road for truth. Science says take nothing on faith as you just heard Jerry say, but it takes faith to accept scientism. Therefore, we shouldn’t accept scientism. The logic of this is so unsurpassably watertight that really once you say that you dismantle the intellectual credibility of everything that Jerry just said.

For someone who criticizes Coyne for not fully understanding his opponent’s position and for getting all his knowledge from creationist websites, Haught sure seems to like criticizing a distorted version of Coyne’s position – a simplistic version that is frequently presented on creationist websites. I don’t know if Coyne ever said that science is the only road to truth – I doubt it, and I certainly don’t think he said so in this debate. I’m pretty sure that Coyne’s position (and mine) is that science has proved to be the most reliable method we know for evaluating claims and figuring out how the universe works. And we do have evidence for that. (How does Haught think we can all watch him on our computers at home? Did the technology for this come from something other than science? Obviously not.) If Haught is claiming that there is a better method, it is up to him to justify that claim. Haught needs to explain his different method for evaluating claims, and provide evidence that it does indeed provide additional, correct information not available to science. If he cannot do this then this is just a fallacious and vacuous appeal to other ways of knowing. And the logic of this is so unsurpassably watertight that unless Haught can explain his other way of knowing (and show that it really provides new, different and correct information) Haught has dismantled the intellectual credibility of everything he just said.

Other reviews of the debate

Choice in Dying has a post Q&A: Haught on God: Bitter, Impolite and Wrong, where he says many of the things I have been saying, only longer.

Comments

[Tom S. Fox]

A more accurate analogy would be to say that the religious answer is, “the tea fairies make the tea boil.”

[Yakaru]

I also noticed that, Tom - his tea analogy would support his position perfectly if his wife were a non-physical entity that is entirely undetectable by science, except for the gas occasionally being mysteriously switched on and making the water boil.

Haught's obfuscations are in such an advanced stage, that I'm not all that surprised that he couldn't recognize his own theology in the de-obfuscated way Coyne presented it. Must be infuriating to have ones entire profession and field of enquiry completely demolished by an outsider in 25 minutes.

[Ryan W.]

Ugh. The fallacious appeal to other ways of knowing. When I bring this up, they always counter with something about my "faith" in science.

I don't have faith in science; it works, demonstrably so. It works so god damn often I have trouble not trusting it.

[Nico]

OMIF (Oh my imaginary friend) Skeptico is back!

[Porto]

Welcome back!
Luck me that don't take you out of my feed reader.

[Bronze Dog]

One thing I should bring up whenever someone tries Haught's tactics is to continuously ask what the "extra layers" are, and how a consensus (snicker) was reached about them. Of course, as you can probably guess from that parenthetical comment, I'm aware of no religious consensus.

There's no religious consensus on how many gods there are: Some religions have none, some have numerous gods, and some have just one. Even the definition of "god" also varies widely, even within a religion if you get down to nitty-gritty details.

As time goes on, these disagreements multiply as new religions and new apologetics spring up. Those of us who pay attention to cargo cult sciences recognize this as a sign that there is no objective basis connecting the field to reality.

[Hans Bjolde]

The thought that religion could continue to slow the progress of truly brilliant minds who are genuinely exerting all efforts to interpret the clues presented to us by the natural universe surrounding us is so tiresome.
Those without the resolve to grow beyond a primitive, less frightening, and comfortable view of their world are likely to remain there.

[jre]

Welcome back, Skeptico!

[Big Al]

Hi Skeptico! Great to see you back again, mate.

I found the clip very amusing.

On the one hand, Haught looked cool, crisp, prepared and with a slick, professional, folksy line in patter.

Coyne looked as if he'd had five minutes' warning of the debate after drinking way too many cups of coffee. It looked like "So very little time, so very, very much evidence to go through."

Yet I know which guy came across as more believable, not difficult since one of the speakers was spouting fluent but facile gibberish and the other was trying to cram a huge amount of ample rebutment into a very short time.

One looked like a slick PR-trained politico-religious MIB and the other looked like... a human being.

I loved Coyne's "metaphor versus literal truth" motif, and the very important fact that it's impossible a priori to tell the difference.

And also I find it amusing that Haught falls back on the other religious mainstay when contradictions are identified "You're reading me out of context" without ever explaining why and where, or what the proper context is.

You'd think these college-trained religious authors, who have the voice of Almighty God Herself whispering constantly in their ears, would be able to get their arguments across clearly, wouldn't you?

[Guy McCardle]

I agree that some people should really learn what an ad hominem attack is.

You might want to check out my new site called http://www.theinconvenienttruth.org> The Inconvenient Truth.

[JOE]

Abit off topic here ,but just wanted to say that this is now my favorite blog(AND JUST TWEETED ABOUT THIS BLOG) and skeptico is my new hero LOL.His science and logic are fantastic and I love what he said to joe vitali about "the secret" and the"law of attraction" Iam no quantum mechanic sciencetist and my knowledge of it is limited(Ihave tried to read and watch a lot of it ,but much is a bit over my head) But I always felt that the LOA people had taken one fact of quntum physics out of context(all particals vibrate) and built an entire cult around it.And as for as this debate between John Haught and Jerry Coyne,it is clear one has facts,logic and a clear understanding of science ,while the other tries to use a analogy,that really does not fit the situation.(and y any chance do you have a news letter?)

[genewitch]

welcome back, i hope you write more.