Making Sense - Sam Harris - May 19, 2015


#10 — Faith vs. Fact


Episode Stats

Length

24 minutes

Words per Minute

170.8165

Word Count

4,242

Sentence Count

174

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

12


Summary

Jerry Coyne is a biologist at the University of Chicago, and he's written over 100 scientific papers and several books, the most recent of which is Faith vs Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible. Jerry is one of the more frequent and articulate commentators on the clash between scientific and religious ways of thinking, and his has been a colleague and comrade and friend in this area for several years. In this episode, we talk about how Jerry got into science, how he got into biology, and how he ended up writing a book about it. He also tells the story of how he first met Christopher Hitchens, and what it was like to be in Hitchens' presence at a scientific conference in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And, of course, he talks about his new book, "Faith vs Fact," which is out now! If you're interested in learning more about his life and career, then you should definitely pick up his book, which is available for purchase on Amazon for about $99.99. You can also buy a copy of the book for 99.99 from Amazon, or you can get a copy for $99 at your local bookstore, or your local Best Buy, or wherever else you get your books are sold. You won't have to pay a premium rate, and you'll get 10% off of the final product, which includes shipping and shipping included in the course, plus shipping will be free, plus free shipping throughout the U.S. and shipping will get you an extra $10 or $16 a day, and shipping gets you a maximum of $99,99, and they'll get your choice of the product will be getting you a product that's going to get you all of that will be a good guy at a good place in the service will say it'll get you that's a good deal, a professional service, and a $5 or a friend will get it's best of it will also get you a carted it's all that place, and all of your choice, you'll have it's chance to decide that you'll also get it all that she'll get it, a good thing, a guide and a guide, and your guide will also receive it's $5 and a bunch of your guide to all that's that's it's a place to get that place will also you will have it, and so much of that, and more of it, you will get all that information, and there's a promo code, it's not just that, you get it will be that, right, you're not going to be it, it'll all that, they'll receive it, they're going to hear this, you've got it's guide and you're getting it, she's got it, I'm going to have it all you'll hear it, etc.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.
00:00:08.980 This is Sam Harris.
00:00:11.040 Just a note to say that if you're hearing this,
00:00:13.180 you are not currently on our subscriber feed
00:00:15.300 and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation.
00:00:18.380 In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense Podcast,
00:00:21.620 you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org.
00:00:24.280 There you'll find our private RSS feed
00:00:26.100 to add to your favorite podcatcher,
00:00:28.120 along with other subscriber-only content.
00:00:30.360 We don't run ads on the podcast,
00:00:32.540 and therefore it's made possible entirely
00:00:34.080 through the support of our subscribers.
00:00:35.860 So if you enjoy what we're doing here,
00:00:37.820 please consider becoming one.
00:00:46.940 Today I'll be speaking with Jerry Coyne.
00:00:49.540 Jerry is a biologist at the University of Chicago,
00:00:52.320 and he's written over a hundred scientific papers
00:00:54.460 and several books,
00:00:55.680 the most recent of which is Faith vs. Fact,
00:00:58.940 Why Science and Religion are Incompatible,
00:01:01.480 and I highly recommend that you pick it up.
00:01:04.280 Jerry is one of the more frequent and articulate commentators
00:01:06.840 on the clash between scientific and religious ways of thinking,
00:01:10.480 and he's been a colleague and comrade and friend
00:01:13.720 in this area for several years.
00:01:16.240 I should probably apologize for the audio here.
00:01:18.860 We did this interview remotely,
00:01:20.560 and the recording of Jerry's voice especially leaves something to be desired,
00:01:23.880 but you can hear the clarity of his thinking nonetheless.
00:01:27.140 So without further ado,
00:01:28.660 I bring you Jerry Coyne.
00:01:29.780 Hey, Jerry, how are you doing?
00:01:37.480 Fine, yourself?
00:01:38.620 I'm good, I'm good.
00:01:39.600 Well, thank you for taking the time to do this.
00:01:42.000 You are the first proper interview on my podcast,
00:01:45.520 which makes me happy.
00:01:48.620 Okay, well, I'm honored.
00:01:50.200 Nice.
00:01:50.860 Well, I was trying to remember where we met.
00:01:53.840 Was that in Mexico at the Ciudad de las Cidades conference?
00:01:58.540 Yeah, that's the first time I met you.
00:02:01.060 It might have been the first time I met Dan,
00:02:02.960 and it was certainly the first time I met Hitch,
00:02:04.740 and the last time as well.
00:02:06.520 That was a good conference.
00:02:07.720 It was a surprisingly well-organized one.
00:02:10.640 Yeah, unfortunately, I had to miss the big debate with you guys.
00:02:14.000 That was supposed to be nice,
00:02:15.380 but I had to get back to catch my flight.
00:02:18.520 If you missed the debate,
00:02:19.960 you missed Nassim Taleb's performance
00:02:22.680 where he gave voice to one of the most bizarre eruptions
00:02:25.680 of anti-science gibberish I can ever recall hearing.
00:02:29.100 That's on YouTube for any interested person to listen to.
00:02:31.940 Yeah, I didn't realize that was on YouTube.
00:02:33.720 I'll have to go back and look at it.
00:02:36.040 It was amazing.
00:02:37.380 He insinuated himself into this debate
00:02:39.760 that was already too crowded
00:02:40.940 with like three or four people on each side,
00:02:43.960 and he insisted that he had something
00:02:45.640 of compelling interest to all of humanity to say,
00:02:49.080 and then he got up there
00:02:49.880 and just laid down a word salad of a sort that...
00:02:53.100 Well, I guess you're used to word salad
00:02:55.100 in these kinds of debates, right?
00:02:56.960 I also remember from that conference,
00:02:58.640 this was the first time I witnessed
00:03:01.000 just how different a human organism
00:03:03.980 Christopher Hitchens was than myself.
00:03:06.740 I don't know if you recall,
00:03:07.700 but it was like a three-hour drive to Mexico City
00:03:10.800 from where the conference was
00:03:12.180 because the traffic was so brutal
00:03:13.580 at every hour of the night.
00:03:14.920 Yes.
00:03:15.480 And he had to go to D.C. the next day,
00:03:19.000 so he was flying in the morning.
00:03:20.520 He had like a 6 a.m. flight from Mexico City,
00:03:23.040 and he had an event that night in D.C.,
00:03:25.400 and I met him at the bar at midnight
00:03:27.300 where he was having a scotch and a club sandwich,
00:03:30.740 and he was not planning to sleep.
00:03:32.900 He was just going to get in the car,
00:03:34.180 get on the plane,
00:03:35.320 go to D.C. and perform again that night.
00:03:38.480 He had amazing stamina, that guy,
00:03:40.620 especially given the way he abused his body.
00:03:42.840 I'm glad he got to meet him once
00:03:44.100 before he died, so...
00:03:45.340 Yeah, yeah.
00:03:46.960 Well, I want to get into the topic of your new book,
00:03:50.160 but just a couple of questions
00:03:51.420 about how you got in a position to write it.
00:03:54.760 First, how did you get into science,
00:03:57.300 and what is your current focus in biology?
00:04:00.860 Well, getting into science,
00:04:02.040 you know, people have asked me that,
00:04:03.300 and that's not clear.
00:04:05.160 If I were to name something,
00:04:07.500 I suppose I'd say it was my parents,
00:04:09.440 because my dad was an animal lover,
00:04:11.020 so from the very first...
00:04:12.420 I can remember he was always dragging us
00:04:15.060 to zoos and things,
00:04:16.300 and then when I was a kid,
00:04:18.780 they bought me all kinds of science books,
00:04:20.520 you know, the golden book of geology,
00:04:22.460 the golden book of dinosaurs,
00:04:24.400 that whole series,
00:04:25.160 and I didn't really choose science
00:04:29.220 as a guest of profession
00:04:30.340 until I went to college,
00:04:31.360 and I took an introductory biology course
00:04:34.660 that was taught by an evolutionary biologist,
00:04:36.860 a guy named Jack Brooks
00:04:38.240 at William & Mary.
00:04:39.080 He was extremely charismatic,
00:04:41.440 and that's all it takes, basically,
00:04:43.060 to, you know, for the tipping point.
00:04:45.000 From that point on,
00:04:46.100 I was hooked on evolution,
00:04:47.480 and, you know, studied it throughout college,
00:04:49.400 and then went to graduate school,
00:04:50.680 so that's how I became a scientist.
00:04:52.880 My area of research has been pretty much
00:04:55.560 through my career with a few digressions,
00:04:57.720 the origin of species,
00:04:58.820 that is how one lineage
00:05:01.340 can branch into two or more lineages,
00:05:03.920 what are the genetic changes
00:05:05.060 that accompany the origin of species
00:05:06.860 that make these different lineages
00:05:09.060 reproductively separated from one another,
00:05:12.560 and are there any generalities
00:05:14.120 or regularities in this process
00:05:15.780 that we can study,
00:05:16.820 and which genes are involved in that process?
00:05:18.900 So, I was basically taking up the question
00:05:21.180 that Darwin started with his book,
00:05:23.480 The Origin of Species,
00:05:24.520 which he, of course, neglected to answer.
00:05:26.520 He didn't say anything about
00:05:27.680 the origin of species.
00:05:29.000 He talked about how a single species
00:05:30.640 would evolve,
00:05:31.740 and that question lay pretty much fallow
00:05:34.060 until about the 1930s and 40s,
00:05:36.080 and then became fallow again,
00:05:39.060 and I was interested in it,
00:05:40.960 so I started working on it
00:05:42.000 when I went to graduate school.
00:05:44.720 And you're working in Drosophila,
00:05:47.020 or what animals?
00:05:48.340 Yeah, and fruit flies.
00:05:49.760 If you want to study the genetics
00:05:51.540 of how species form,
00:05:54.300 genetics defined in a hard way,
00:05:56.840 then that means doing crosses,
00:05:58.440 not just sequencing DNA,
00:05:59.740 which we couldn't do anyway
00:06:00.760 when I started it.
00:06:01.980 So, if you want to, for example,
00:06:03.160 find out where and how many genes
00:06:05.140 distinguish two closely related species
00:06:07.140 for a character like, you know,
00:06:08.660 the sperm motility or behavioral isolation,
00:06:11.400 mating discrimination,
00:06:12.680 or any of their traits,
00:06:13.820 like how they look different or anything,
00:06:15.380 there's no way around that,
00:06:16.720 even in these days of DNA sequencing,
00:06:18.660 except to cross them.
00:06:20.000 And fortunately, in fruit flies,
00:06:21.320 many closely related species
00:06:22.560 can be crossed under lab conditions,
00:06:24.740 and they have a generation time
00:06:26.060 of about 10 days to two weeks,
00:06:28.340 so you can go through 30 generations
00:06:31.220 of genetic manipulations in a year,
00:06:33.220 which makes them ideal
00:06:34.240 for this kind of study.
00:06:36.000 Of course, you can't do that
00:06:37.200 with any other organism,
00:06:39.120 except maybe, you know,
00:06:41.080 flatworms or any something,
00:06:43.040 but at least for studying flies,
00:06:46.100 I've gotten a great deal
00:06:47.260 out of that system.
00:06:47.980 Yeah, and so now you also
00:06:50.000 spend a lot of time
00:06:51.480 policing the boundary
00:06:53.300 of science and non-science,
00:06:56.480 and you've been a very vocal critic
00:06:58.980 of religious dogmatism
00:07:00.720 and, you know,
00:07:01.480 a real ally of mine on that front,
00:07:04.320 and you have a blog,
00:07:06.280 Why Evolution is True,
00:07:07.500 that you do most of that writing on,
00:07:09.460 and now you have a couple of books.
00:07:11.580 The first, Why Evolution is True,
00:07:13.880 where you go into the details
00:07:15.180 of answering that question,
00:07:17.080 and your new one,
00:07:18.520 Faith Versus Fact,
00:07:19.520 Why Science and Religion
00:07:20.480 are Incompatible,
00:07:21.400 deals with the collision
00:07:23.300 between science and religion
00:07:25.040 very directly and very usefully.
00:07:28.060 It's a book I highly recommend
00:07:29.320 people read.
00:07:30.560 What percentage of your time now
00:07:32.240 are you allocating
00:07:34.800 toward doing primary science,
00:07:36.680 and what percent is
00:07:37.820 this more public communication
00:07:40.180 of science slash defense of science
00:07:44.340 against unreason?
00:07:46.560 Well, I'm sort of at the tail end
00:07:48.000 of my scientific career.
00:07:49.240 I turned 65,
00:07:50.140 and I'm actually going to retire
00:07:51.680 within a year,
00:07:53.340 so the amount of new research
00:07:56.000 I'm doing is zero,
00:07:57.420 but I'm cleaning up
00:07:58.300 what I have done,
00:07:59.040 which means writing
00:07:59.660 the final papers
00:08:00.520 that I got on my last grants
00:08:02.680 and everything.
00:08:03.980 So right now,
00:08:05.440 and I've been halftime
00:08:06.420 for about a year and a half,
00:08:08.240 so right now,
00:08:08.720 I'm segwaying from science
00:08:10.700 into, you know,
00:08:13.060 more public kind of journalism,
00:08:15.100 writing, et cetera.
00:08:16.160 So right now, you know,
00:08:17.260 I probably spent about 80%
00:08:19.140 of my time doing the latter
00:08:21.100 and 20% of it doing straight science
00:08:23.160 because that just consists
00:08:24.400 of writing up the research
00:08:25.920 that I haven't finished writing up yet.
00:08:29.820 Right.
00:08:30.380 Well, the thing you focus on
00:08:31.780 in the new book
00:08:32.920 is this phenomenon
00:08:34.440 that we've come to call
00:08:36.340 accommodationism.
00:08:37.740 Can you explain what that is,
00:08:39.100 and, you know,
00:08:40.520 did you coin this word?
00:08:42.340 Where did this word come from?
00:08:43.480 Well, coin is a good verb for that.
00:08:47.040 I think I did,
00:08:48.380 but I'm not sure.
00:08:49.580 You know,
00:08:49.920 it's one of those words
00:08:51.020 that I use a lot
00:08:52.120 and I think people got from me,
00:08:53.420 but I'm not sure
00:08:54.040 I'm the originator of it.
00:08:55.160 So since I don't know that,
00:08:56.940 I'm not going to claim credit
00:08:58.120 for that neologism.
00:08:59.280 But, you know,
00:08:59.780 it is a good one
00:09:00.500 and people have picked it up.
00:09:02.180 In terms of what it means,
00:09:03.920 it's a view that is held
00:09:05.220 by both believers,
00:09:07.300 agnostics,
00:09:08.520 and, you know,
00:09:09.360 atheists themselves sometimes,
00:09:10.720 that there is no inherent conflict
00:09:13.360 or any kind of conflict
00:09:14.720 between science and religion.
00:09:16.360 There are various ways
00:09:17.460 that you can couch that compatibility thing,
00:09:22.240 but that's basically the view,
00:09:23.720 that there is no conflict
00:09:24.900 between the two areas.
00:09:26.060 And was the first clear
00:09:28.140 and clearly wrongheaded expression
00:09:30.460 of this Stephen Jay Gould's
00:09:32.560 non-overlapping magisteria?
00:09:34.140 Where do we get this notion
00:09:35.460 of fundamental compatibility?
00:09:38.200 Yeah, actually,
00:09:39.080 he's the guy that made it famous,
00:09:40.820 but I think,
00:09:41.840 I have actually the book here,
00:09:42.880 I can find the first expression of it.
00:09:45.140 In 1925 by Alfred North Whitehead,
00:09:48.000 I just have a quote from him here
00:09:49.300 that says that,
00:09:50.800 remember the widely different aspects
00:09:52.280 of events which were dealt with
00:09:53.720 in science and religion respectively.
00:09:55.700 Science is concerned
00:09:56.580 with the general conditions
00:09:57.860 which are observed
00:09:58.900 to regulate physical phenomena,
00:10:00.940 whereas religion is wholly wrapped up
00:10:02.780 in the contemplation of moral
00:10:04.180 and aesthetic values.
00:10:05.820 On the one side,
00:10:06.680 there is the law of gravitation,
00:10:08.480 and on the other,
00:10:09.140 the contemplation of the beauty
00:10:10.760 of holiness.
00:10:11.840 What one side sees,
00:10:13.180 the other misses,
00:10:14.060 and vice versa.
00:10:15.220 So that's Whitehead in 1925,
00:10:17.600 anticipating Gould by 74 years,
00:10:20.780 saying basically the same thing,
00:10:22.260 that it's the separate magisteria view.
00:10:24.780 Gould, of course,
00:10:25.560 made the view famous
00:10:27.060 because he was a famous scientist,
00:10:28.940 the public lapped up his works,
00:10:31.040 and he wrote a whole book on this,
00:10:32.920 what he calls the NOMA,
00:10:34.200 or Non-Overlapping Magisteria Hypothesis.
00:10:37.040 Plus, everybody loved the idea,
00:10:39.120 you know,
00:10:39.300 why can't we all get along?
00:10:40.960 That's a very popular idea.
00:10:43.300 You can't be wrong
00:10:44.480 if you say something like that.
00:10:46.600 And, you know,
00:10:48.260 it was a famous book.
00:10:49.600 But, you know,
00:10:50.540 you see this kind of view
00:10:51.900 of non-overlapping magisteria
00:10:53.560 scattered throughout
00:10:54.760 the discussion of science and religion,
00:10:57.480 you know,
00:10:57.740 throughout the 20th century.
00:11:00.280 Just to be clear
00:11:00.820 about what non-overlapping magisteria are,
00:11:03.240 the idea is that
00:11:04.540 there are these two domains
00:11:06.280 of expertise that are separate,
00:11:09.020 and one is the purview of religion,
00:11:10.960 the other is the purview of science,
00:11:12.220 and they don't overlap.
00:11:14.260 So in principle,
00:11:15.220 there can be no conflict
00:11:16.540 between science and religion.
00:11:18.160 That's correct,
00:11:18.960 because it's like a Venn diagram
00:11:21.160 with two circles that don't intersect,
00:11:23.600 so there's no overlap.
00:11:25.380 I mean,
00:11:25.620 I think Gould was badly wrong about that,
00:11:27.620 but that was his thesis.
00:11:28.780 One sphere,
00:11:29.740 just to be clear,
00:11:30.600 is the domain of investigating
00:11:32.400 what's real in the universe,
00:11:34.840 and the other domain,
00:11:36.560 Gould said,
00:11:37.840 was the billiwick
00:11:38.960 of meaning,
00:11:39.820 morals,
00:11:40.180 and values,
00:11:40.820 which is the religious circle.
00:11:42.760 I just can never understand
00:11:45.860 why this idea
00:11:47.920 has a half-life
00:11:48.900 of more than, like,
00:11:49.920 90 seconds
00:11:51.020 among smart people.
00:11:52.280 Because clearly,
00:11:54.140 clearly every religion
00:11:56.240 is making claims
00:11:57.520 about certain invisible things
00:11:59.880 and certain ultimate fates
00:12:02.140 really existing
00:12:03.480 for people and souls
00:12:05.220 and various corners of the cosmos.
00:12:07.680 There are invisible spirits,
00:12:09.880 there are souls,
00:12:11.140 there are gods,
00:12:12.440 there's a hell you can go to
00:12:13.820 or successfully avoid.
00:12:15.440 These are all claims
00:12:16.520 about the way the universe is
00:12:18.840 and how someone like Gould
00:12:20.320 could think they don't trespass
00:12:21.780 on the terrain of science.
00:12:23.680 I can't even begin to see
00:12:25.700 how this confusion
00:12:26.920 is arising
00:12:27.580 in someone like him.
00:12:29.320 I think this book
00:12:30.320 is a bit disingenuous.
00:12:31.640 I knew Steve,
00:12:32.300 he was on my thesis committee,
00:12:33.660 and he was a die-hard atheist
00:12:35.240 if there ever was one.
00:12:37.100 I don't know if this book
00:12:38.060 was like a psychological burp
00:12:39.580 in him
00:12:40.020 or that it was a gambit
00:12:41.880 to gain popularity
00:12:42.940 with the public.
00:12:43.620 I just find it hard
00:12:44.900 to believe knowing Steve.
00:12:46.240 I mean, he's passed on now
00:12:48.100 that he would really believe this.
00:12:51.520 But, you know,
00:12:52.400 when faced with
00:12:53.300 the kind of argument
00:12:54.200 you made,
00:12:55.460 which I agree with 100%,
00:12:57.160 that almost all religions,
00:12:59.460 there may be a few outliers,
00:13:01.980 make statements
00:13:02.700 about what is real
00:13:03.400 in the universe,
00:13:04.120 Gould would claim
00:13:04.860 that that's not real religion.
00:13:07.460 So, for example,
00:13:08.860 creationism,
00:13:09.840 which is a staple
00:13:11.160 of Christianity
00:13:12.040 in the United States
00:13:13.300 and is accepted
00:13:15.240 by about 43%
00:13:17.020 of all Americans,
00:13:18.320 young earth creationism,
00:13:19.960 is the tenet
00:13:20.760 of Protestantism,
00:13:22.520 of many Protestants.
00:13:23.880 And that's a claim
00:13:24.500 about the real world.
00:13:25.500 I mean, Genesis talks about
00:13:26.600 basically how old
00:13:28.080 the earth is
00:13:28.660 if you calculate it back.
00:13:29.800 It talks about everything
00:13:30.720 being formed at once.
00:13:31.800 It makes statements
00:13:32.840 about Noah's flood.
00:13:33.860 All of these things
00:13:34.500 are not only scientific statements,
00:13:36.080 but they're scientifically checkable.
00:13:38.480 So, you know,
00:13:39.120 what Gould did
00:13:39.800 when faced with that
00:13:40.640 is he said,
00:13:41.040 well, that's not real science.
00:13:42.760 I mean, sorry,
00:13:43.200 that's not real religion.
00:13:45.160 That's,
00:13:46.680 I don't even remember
00:13:48.020 what he calls it.
00:13:48.680 I talk about it in my book.
00:13:50.280 But he finessed the problem
00:13:51.760 by just defining a way
00:13:53.440 as not religious,
00:13:55.540 those statements
00:13:56.120 that religion makes
00:13:57.080 about reality.
00:13:58.160 And so, of course,
00:13:58.880 you know,
00:13:59.160 tautologically,
00:13:59.940 he was correct,
00:14:01.300 but it doesn't make sense.
00:14:02.560 And theologians
00:14:03.260 have glommed on
00:14:04.420 to this evasive maneuver
00:14:05.800 he made.
00:14:06.680 Now, you know,
00:14:07.500 in some circles,
00:14:09.180 it's still popular
00:14:10.240 to deny that religion
00:14:12.040 does not make statements
00:14:13.600 about reality.
00:14:14.440 There was an article
00:14:15.440 by Tanya Lorman
00:14:16.480 in last Sunday's
00:14:17.820 New York Times
00:14:18.960 referring to another paper
00:14:20.900 by a,
00:14:21.760 I think,
00:14:22.580 a Belgian philosopher
00:14:23.680 who claims
00:14:24.520 that religious statements
00:14:25.560 of fact
00:14:26.020 aren't the same
00:14:26.780 as the kind of fact
00:14:28.000 that we think of
00:14:28.920 when we say
00:14:29.320 there's a table here
00:14:30.260 or, you know,
00:14:31.600 the earth is 10,000 years old.
00:14:33.100 They're what he calls
00:14:34.520 statements
00:14:34.860 of religious cretance.
00:14:35.880 They don't have
00:14:36.240 the same factual
00:14:37.160 or epistemic content
00:14:38.520 as factual statements.
00:14:40.280 So there's a whole lot
00:14:41.240 of so-called
00:14:42.400 sophisticated religious people
00:14:44.000 who take a different
00:14:45.800 attack from Gould
00:14:46.660 and claim that
00:14:48.100 religion is not about
00:14:49.160 factual statements
00:14:50.160 at all.
00:14:51.060 And, you know,
00:14:51.660 I would take issue
00:14:52.380 with that
00:14:52.900 and I assume
00:14:53.760 you would too.
00:14:54.980 So, you know,
00:14:55.660 they too
00:14:56.320 would sign on with NOMA.
00:14:57.400 But most theologians
00:14:58.420 have rejected
00:14:59.880 Steve's statement
00:15:01.080 because,
00:15:02.080 just on the religious side,
00:15:03.640 because they recognize
00:15:04.580 that their own faith
00:15:05.540 makes claims about reality.
00:15:07.320 To take Christianity
00:15:08.700 as the example,
00:15:09.900 if you think
00:15:10.700 that Jesus really existed,
00:15:12.520 you're making a claim
00:15:13.480 about a historical person.
00:15:16.300 And if you think
00:15:17.500 that he really survived
00:15:18.500 his death
00:15:19.020 and in some sense
00:15:20.760 persists
00:15:21.540 and can hear your prayers
00:15:22.960 and that he may be
00:15:24.280 coming back to earth
00:15:25.380 to raise the dead
00:15:26.420 in turn,
00:15:27.720 you're making claims
00:15:28.300 about biology,
00:15:29.100 you're making claims
00:15:29.600 about the human survival
00:15:31.120 of death,
00:15:31.660 you're making claims
00:15:32.340 about telepathic powers
00:15:33.980 of a now invisible carpenter,
00:15:35.980 you're making
00:15:36.300 very likely claims
00:15:37.520 about human flight
00:15:38.680 without the aid
00:15:39.420 of technology.
00:15:40.480 Yep.
00:15:41.400 It's very frustrating.
00:15:42.960 And this is,
00:15:43.460 as you,
00:15:44.520 I think,
00:15:45.280 suggested,
00:15:46.000 also related
00:15:47.400 to the idea
00:15:48.540 that many people have
00:15:49.480 that religious beliefs
00:15:51.000 don't actually lead
00:15:52.380 to any significant
00:15:53.880 human behavior
00:15:54.920 in this world
00:15:55.520 because religious beliefs
00:15:57.000 are in principle vacuous
00:15:58.320 and they're only about
00:15:59.520 solidarity and community
00:16:01.800 and finding this
00:16:02.860 sort of nebulous meaning
00:16:04.380 in life,
00:16:05.160 they don't actually lead
00:16:06.800 to concrete behaviors
00:16:08.040 that we need to worry about.
00:16:09.960 So jihadism
00:16:11.120 is not the result
00:16:12.000 of what any specific
00:16:13.500 Muslims believe,
00:16:14.580 it's politics,
00:16:15.600 it's economics,
00:16:16.780 and so religious belief
00:16:18.460 is not worth worrying about.
00:16:20.580 It's an attitude
00:16:21.100 that many of our fellow
00:16:22.120 atheists hold
00:16:23.560 and therefore they have,
00:16:26.340 they see no reason
00:16:27.300 to oppose
00:16:28.360 people's religious certainties
00:16:30.440 even when they're seeming
00:16:32.000 to encroach
00:16:33.220 in the public sphere
00:16:34.820 and in the kinds
00:16:35.720 of public policies
00:16:36.540 that members
00:16:37.580 of our own government
00:16:38.460 want to enact.
00:16:39.640 They continually doubt
00:16:41.060 that religion
00:16:41.720 is at the bottom
00:16:42.600 of those policies,
00:16:44.440 whether it's opposition
00:16:45.180 to gay marriage
00:16:46.060 or embryonic stem cell research
00:16:48.140 or whatever it is
00:16:49.260 in the context
00:16:50.220 of the United States.
00:16:51.220 And I find it
00:16:52.180 incredibly frustrating
00:16:53.380 to interact
00:16:54.340 with this kind
00:16:55.300 of denialism,
00:16:56.640 which is the other side
00:16:57.460 of what you're calling
00:16:58.520 accommodationism.
00:16:59.400 Yeah, it's interesting.
00:17:00.440 There's actually two claims there.
00:17:01.720 The first one is that
00:17:02.720 religion does not make
00:17:04.560 any meaningful statements
00:17:05.960 about reality.
00:17:07.000 And the second claim,
00:17:08.120 which can be separate
00:17:09.020 from that,
00:17:09.560 is that religious beliefs
00:17:11.520 don't lead to behavior.
00:17:13.360 I mean, those things
00:17:13.900 aren't necessarily connected
00:17:15.460 with one another,
00:17:16.780 but it would be
00:17:17.460 an interesting exercise
00:17:18.360 to see if those people
00:17:19.480 who claim that religious beliefs
00:17:21.040 don't have epistemic content
00:17:22.660 are the same people
00:17:23.560 who deny that,
00:17:25.680 you know,
00:17:25.880 for example,
00:17:26.380 belief in the Quran
00:17:27.280 leads to suicide bombing.
00:17:29.140 I think somebody
00:17:31.080 like Karen Armstrong
00:17:32.080 would instantiate
00:17:33.080 both of those views.
00:17:34.800 She has this apophatic
00:17:36.040 view of religion
00:17:37.040 that you can't say
00:17:38.260 anything about God.
00:17:39.220 And of course,
00:17:39.700 she goes around
00:17:40.260 and claims that
00:17:40.920 everything bad
00:17:42.280 that religious people do
00:17:43.520 is not based
00:17:44.180 on religion themselves.
00:17:45.800 So, you know.
00:17:47.060 Well, Scott Atran,
00:17:48.120 the anthropologist,
00:17:50.220 has linked those two ideas
00:17:52.020 very explicitly
00:17:52.660 in the way he talks
00:17:53.380 about Islam,
00:17:54.020 that these beliefs,
00:17:55.400 religious beliefs,
00:17:56.000 are in principle vacuous.
00:17:58.580 They have no
00:17:59.300 propositional content
00:18:00.260 about the world
00:18:01.080 that could motivate anybody
00:18:02.160 to do anything differently
00:18:03.540 and therefore,
00:18:05.720 nobody does anything
00:18:06.660 differently on their basis,
00:18:08.400 i.e.
00:18:08.800 nobody blows himself up
00:18:10.200 for that reason.
00:18:11.020 Yeah, I was going to say,
00:18:11.960 I think we had something
00:18:13.020 like a bit of this conversation
00:18:14.580 when you were here
00:18:15.200 in Chicago last.
00:18:16.220 And I would like to ask
00:18:17.320 those people,
00:18:17.920 okay, what would it take
00:18:18.860 to convince you
00:18:19.600 that they really were
00:18:20.380 motivated by religion?
00:18:22.040 I mean, they're like theologians
00:18:23.320 in a way that there's nothing
00:18:24.700 you can tell them
00:18:25.540 to disabuse them
00:18:26.640 or no evidence whatsoever
00:18:28.200 that would convince them
00:18:29.460 that they're being motivated
00:18:30.720 by religion
00:18:31.320 because they can always
00:18:32.560 think of a way
00:18:33.280 that it's something else.
00:18:34.760 So I'd like to ask them
00:18:35.740 to write down a list of,
00:18:36.940 okay, what would it take you
00:18:38.500 to show that...
00:18:40.080 I mean, I saw your interchange
00:18:42.560 at Tron.
00:18:43.500 I guess it was in 2006.
00:18:44.980 I read that yesterday
00:18:46.340 and I was simply astounded
00:18:47.440 that he could say
00:18:48.100 the things he did about,
00:18:50.940 you know.
00:18:51.460 I mean, and then you showed
00:18:52.620 a video of a Muslim preacher
00:18:54.320 reciting from the Quran
00:18:55.760 and he said it was very moving.
00:18:57.840 And I looked at that
00:18:58.600 and it was.
00:18:59.400 The words were beautiful.
00:19:00.960 The musicality was great.
00:19:02.500 And he was talking
00:19:02.980 about hellfire
00:19:03.760 and how people were weeping.
00:19:07.260 You know, it's hard to believe
00:19:08.340 that any kind of emotional reaction
00:19:11.500 like that could,
00:19:12.560 not because by belief
00:19:14.460 in the propositions
00:19:15.320 that the preacher
00:19:16.040 is actually laying out
00:19:17.000 at the time.
00:19:17.920 It wasn't the music
00:19:18.740 that was making them cry.
00:19:20.880 It was the fact
00:19:21.700 that they were part
00:19:22.380 of this great movement
00:19:23.520 of belief.
00:19:25.480 So I think to anybody
00:19:26.760 who's not blinkered
00:19:28.520 by some kind of
00:19:29.560 accommodationist's desires,
00:19:31.220 it's palpably obvious
00:19:32.520 that so much behavior
00:19:33.720 is motivated
00:19:34.380 by religious belief.
00:19:36.340 I mean, look at creationists.
00:19:38.280 If they don't really believe
00:19:39.460 in the tenets of Genesis,
00:19:41.000 why are they trying
00:19:41.700 to force them
00:19:42.280 to be taught
00:19:42.840 to everybody in schools?
00:19:44.600 Why are they opposing evolution
00:19:45.800 if it's just some kind of,
00:19:47.000 you know,
00:19:47.980 metaphor that they see
00:19:49.200 in Genesis?
00:19:50.160 I don't think that's the case.
00:19:51.520 I think they really do believe
00:19:53.040 that the words of Genesis
00:19:54.420 are true
00:19:54.940 and that's borne out
00:19:55.900 by polls
00:19:56.980 that show that
00:19:57.960 a substantial proportion
00:19:59.380 of Americans
00:19:59.940 take the Bible
00:20:00.740 as literal truth.
00:20:01.660 Yeah, and you made
00:20:02.820 in that conversation
00:20:03.760 in Chicago
00:20:04.280 the very useful observation
00:20:06.260 which I have now
00:20:07.440 reiterated many times
00:20:08.840 which is
00:20:09.280 this is a double standard
00:20:11.360 that people like
00:20:12.660 Atran and Armstrong
00:20:13.980 and everyone else
00:20:15.640 has not copped to
00:20:17.160 because they never ask
00:20:18.700 that we justify
00:20:19.960 or that we doubt
00:20:21.680 the political
00:20:23.160 or economic rationales
00:20:25.100 put forward
00:20:25.540 for human behavior.
00:20:26.240 So for instance
00:20:27.400 when someone like
00:20:28.120 a member of the KKK
00:20:29.220 says
00:20:29.860 I'm doing all this stuff
00:20:31.320 because I hate black people
00:20:32.540 you know
00:20:32.900 I'm really a racist
00:20:33.740 and this is my
00:20:34.640 core political ideology
00:20:36.680 nobody doubts
00:20:38.280 that racist hatred
00:20:40.000 of black people
00:20:40.840 is really motivating
00:20:42.160 this person.
00:20:43.000 We would never try
00:20:43.780 to look for
00:20:44.540 an underlying
00:20:45.380 motive there
00:20:46.920 that negates
00:20:48.140 the claim
00:20:49.160 that he is in fact
00:20:50.220 really racist
00:20:50.940 but when we have
00:20:51.600 someone expressing
00:20:52.340 their religious opinions
00:20:53.640 or their religious expectations
00:20:55.000 the idea that
00:20:55.880 they're going to get
00:20:56.300 into paradise
00:20:56.900 behaving a certain way
00:20:58.380 or the idea that
00:20:59.120 that homosexuality
00:21:00.560 is anathema
00:21:01.260 to God
00:21:02.360 the accommodationists
00:21:03.640 insist upon
00:21:04.820 finding some layer
00:21:06.360 below that
00:21:07.200 which is the true
00:21:08.180 reason why
00:21:09.540 a person is behaving
00:21:10.840 as he is.
00:21:11.720 Yeah this is a good example
00:21:12.900 of confirmation bias
00:21:14.240 I mean theologians
00:21:15.240 behave the same way
00:21:16.360 you know
00:21:17.160 they'll accept evidence
00:21:18.200 that substantiates
00:21:19.320 their religious beliefs
00:21:20.280 but anything that
00:21:21.060 goes against it
00:21:22.020 they you know
00:21:22.860 they reject
00:21:23.680 or work it into
00:21:24.560 their you know
00:21:25.620 worldview somehow
00:21:26.700 these accommodationists
00:21:28.160 in terms of politics
00:21:29.160 and religion
00:21:29.780 are exactly the same way
00:21:31.340 and I can't help
00:21:32.100 but believe
00:21:32.700 that this is just
00:21:33.700 one more symptom
00:21:34.780 of the unwarranted
00:21:36.300 respect that people
00:21:37.820 have for religion
00:21:38.760 and faith
00:21:39.380 they just cannot
00:21:40.640 bring themselves
00:21:41.500 to claim that
00:21:42.260 religion could make
00:21:43.180 anybody do anything bad
00:21:45.060 I mean if people
00:21:45.760 like us can admit
00:21:46.580 that religion
00:21:47.140 can sometimes
00:21:47.940 make people do good
00:21:49.080 I don't see why
00:21:49.760 they can't admit
00:21:51.000 the same thing
00:21:51.600 on their side
00:21:52.140 yeah
00:21:52.420 and let's
00:21:53.700 put a finer point
00:21:55.360 on that
00:21:55.740 because I
00:21:56.340 freely admit
00:21:57.300 that religion
00:21:58.140 can cause people
00:21:59.520 to do extraordinary
00:22:00.820 things which
00:22:01.980 are good
00:22:02.660 and many of which
00:22:03.680 could be unthinkable
00:22:04.860 but for
00:22:06.100 that specific person's
00:22:08.440 religious beliefs
00:22:09.120 it's certainly possible
00:22:10.620 that there are people
00:22:11.820 who would only go
00:22:12.920 to Africa
00:22:13.540 to aid in a famine
00:22:15.180 because of what
00:22:16.560 they believe
00:22:16.980 about Jesus
00:22:17.620 and about the importance
00:22:18.740 of spreading his word
00:22:19.760 and that those same people
00:22:21.420 couldn't find
00:22:22.700 a truly rational
00:22:25.000 secular motive
00:22:26.340 to behave that way
00:22:27.700 it's not to say
00:22:28.260 that rational
00:22:29.100 secular motives
00:22:30.020 don't exist
00:22:30.840 but for any one person
00:22:32.340 it's quite possible
00:22:33.760 that he's not going
00:22:35.000 to get out of bed
00:22:35.500 in the morning
00:22:35.860 and do good
00:22:36.580 but for believing
00:22:38.460 certain irrational
00:22:39.620 things about God
00:22:41.060 or about his fate
00:22:42.600 after death
00:22:43.140 that's totally possible
00:22:44.620 and there seems
00:22:45.760 no reason to deny that
00:22:47.040 yeah that's another
00:22:47.860 example of the double standard
00:22:49.140 I mean if we can admit
00:22:50.280 that religion
00:22:50.880 is such a psychological
00:22:51.980 motivator
00:22:52.640 that it will drive
00:22:53.740 missionaries
00:22:54.440 to places that are
00:22:55.700 well God forsaken
00:22:57.320 in both respects
00:22:58.680 and sacrifice
00:22:59.760 basically their
00:23:00.660 well-being
00:23:01.520 in their lives
00:23:02.360 to do this kind of stuff
00:23:03.560 why do they deny
00:23:05.060 that it could also
00:23:05.740 motivate people
00:23:06.500 to do things
00:23:07.720 that we consider bad
00:23:08.700 but they consider good
00:23:10.040 for their religion
00:23:11.160 I don't really understand
00:23:12.180 the whole thing
00:23:12.680 except that the people
00:23:13.920 that usually do that
00:23:14.940 show this overweening
00:23:16.500 respect for faith
00:23:17.600 yeah
00:23:18.100 now so what do you
00:23:18.740 make of someone
00:23:19.400 like Francis Collins
00:23:20.640 because obviously
00:23:21.740 one argument
00:23:23.140 that we hear
00:23:24.140 for the compatibility
00:23:25.280 between science
00:23:26.200 and religion
00:23:26.680 is essentially
00:23:28.140 an existence proof
00:23:29.260 in the person
00:23:29.800 of someone
00:23:31.060 like Francis Collins
00:23:32.220 here you have
00:23:33.080 a scientist
00:23:33.600 who is a working
00:23:34.560 scientist
00:23:35.040 who is in fact
00:23:36.300 in Collins' case
00:23:37.560 an evangelical Christian
00:23:38.760 so there it is
00:23:39.720 proof that science
00:23:40.940 and religion
00:23:41.460 are compatible
00:23:42.360 and he says
00:23:43.580 that they're not
00:23:44.100 only compatible
00:23:44.760 but mutually supportive
00:23:46.680 what do you make
00:23:47.740 of the riddle
00:23:49.180 of his mind
00:23:50.460 well there's two
00:23:51.400 claims there
00:23:52.120 the first one
00:23:52.740 is compatibility
00:23:53.360 the second
00:23:53.920 is spatial support
00:23:55.280 I would take
00:23:56.500 the second one
00:23:57.240 first
00:23:57.520 if you'd like to
00:23:59.480 continue listening
00:24:00.080 to this conversation
00:24:00.940 you'll need to
00:24:01.920 subscribe at
00:24:02.600 samharris.org
00:24:03.520 once you do
00:24:04.740 you'll get access
00:24:05.320 to all full-length
00:24:06.220 episodes of the
00:24:06.860 Making Sense podcast
00:24:07.620 along with other
00:24:08.840 subscriber-only content
00:24:10.060 including bonus episodes
00:24:11.900 and AMAs
00:24:12.980 and the conversations
00:24:14.020 I've been having
00:24:14.560 on the Waking Up app
00:24:15.480 the Making Sense podcast
00:24:17.040 is ad-free
00:24:17.900 and relies entirely
00:24:19.300 on listener support
00:24:20.200 and you can subscribe
00:24:21.520 now at
00:24:22.480 samharris.org
00:24:23.380 for more people
00:24:25.400 hi
00:24:28.440 h
00:24:30.920 h
00:24:32.280 hi
00:24:37.440 i
00:24:37.480 hi
00:24:37.800 hi
00:24:39.780 hi
00:24:40.300 hi
00:24:40.380 hi
00:24:40.980 hi
00:24:41.980 hi
00:24:44.560 hi
00:24:44.740 hi
00:24:46.520 hi
00:24:47.380 hi
00:24:49.220 hi