As promised a week ago, I have been pursuing the intersection of religion, science and political society -- a realm ever bit as energetic as your average hadron collider.
The superstitious skeptic, Professor Daniel Dennett
Noted atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett was spreading his ‘gospel’ at Harvard recently, i.e., his new book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon. Dennett opened ironically by embracing naturalism, a religion rooted in natural phenomenon. He even encouraged donations to the lecture’s sponsor, the Center for Naturalism. This immediately brought to mind what might have been the reaction if, say, Exxon Mobil, had sponsored a lecture by Pat Michaels, a noted skeptic of global warming.
It is striking the extent to which secularists, the driving force behind the modern skeptical movement, are themselves insular to skepticism. If you are willing to stand up and be counted as a vocal critic of superstition, then anything you believe is presumptively rational – and consequently your exhortations on public policy are blithely accepted by followers. If Pat Michaels would only open his lectures by denouncing intelligent design instead of debunking climatological scare tactics, he could count on a much broader academic engagement of his ideas.
Continue reading "Doubting the doubters - A white paper on the black magic of skeptics" »
