Reason Rally Reasoning?

[ApologiaPhoenix]

How unreasonable are Unreasonables?

The link can be found [url=http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/reason-rally-reasoning/here[/url]

The text is as follows:


What great reasoning can we expect to see from Unreasonables at the Reason Rally? Let's find out on Deeper Waters.

Recently, someone found a link of an article that could indicate what we can expect to see at the Reason Rally. This concerns the camp quest of Richard Dawkins. The link can be found here.

Indeed, stellar reasoning we do find here. That is, if you take stellar to mean "I wonder what planet this reasoning was thought up on."

Astronomy, critical thinking, philosophy and pseudo-science are covered at Camp Quest.<

The first, maybe. However, as for the last three, most of that is material we wish Unreasonables would learn for themselves. Critical thinking does not mean thinking critically of every opinion that disagrees with you and is also religious. Philosophy does not mean finding what can be demonstrated scientifically. pseudo-science does not mean "Anything that has anything in it that is not 'natural', whatever that means.

There are some atheists who can do philosophy and critical thinking well of course. They're also able to actually engage with the ideas of their opponents rather than tossing out sound bites. New atheist types like Meyers, Dawkins, etc. are not included in this group. Forget having to go and study the theistic arguments that have gone on for centuries. Just toss out "Who made God?" or "Can God make a rock so big He can't lift it?" or just claim evolution renders them all moot. After all, who has time to waste on that darn study. Just make sure those darn theists study evolution before they say anything. They surely shouldn't comment on what they haven't studied after all.

Moving on we see this:

One of the most popular exercises is the invisible unicorn challenge. The children are told there are two invisible unicorns who live at Camp Quest but that they cannot be seen, heard, felt or smelt, and do not leave a trace. A book about them has been handed down through the ages but it is too precious for anyone to see.

It's almost as if some people think that theistic arguments do not have to be taken seriously ever since learning the word "fairies." Never mind that there are differences such as God is a metaphysical necessity in the theistic worldview for the existence of anything whatsoever, or that our book can be seen and read by anyone, or that because of the nature of the entity an argument can be made that is supposed to end in certainty rather than just a possibility. Let's just go with unicorns.

The children are supposed to disprove the existence of the unicorns for all the adults who claim to be staunch believers in them. What are the rewards?

a £10 note with a picture of Charles Darwin on it signed by Richard Dawkins, or a "godless" $100 bill, printed before 1957 when "In God We Trust" was added to paper currency in the US.

So far, the challenge has been unmet. The camp director, Samantha Stein, wishes to make one thing plain about the challenge:

Stein said that the exercise was not about trying to bash the idea of God – just to make the children think critically and rationally.

For the first part, color me skeptical. For the second part, how does this do it? Perhaps it would help if children were instead taught the laws of logic and were taught how to spot and recognize logical fallacies. Perhaps it would help if they were taught how to use a library and proper research skills. Perhaps they should be told there are other web sites out there for study besides Wikipedia.

Instead, children are taught automatically that being reasonable means being an atheist. My contention is that there are reasonable people on both sides and unreasonable people on both sides. There are some atheists who really do actually engage with the other side and learn their arguments. These are ones who are worthy of respect. Most others instead just toss out sound bites and think that this is sufficient.

They also quickly are seen to be in over their head, but then that invincible ignorance kicks in. This is what is known as the Dunning Effect. Of course, the atheist has to be right because, well, they're the atheist and they're the champions of reason and as educated as this Christian might appear to be, we all know really that they're just insecure and believe blindly because they were scared into doing so or they just want to.

It could never be because they just think the evidence is compelling.

If this is the kind of reasoning we can expect to see at the Reason Rally, then I hope every atheist out there attends it. I am quite thankful for what Dawkins, Meyers, Stenger, Harris, and others have done in further increasing the ignorance of the atheist movement. Let them keep doing so!

In Christ,
Nick Peters

[Hamster]

Harris is coming out with a book that denies free will so you're going to the reason rally whether you like it or not

[fm93]

"We're outraged at this religious indoctrination of all these young minds, so we're going to send them to a special camp that solely teaches them atheist platitudes without showing them the other side's arguments."
--"Rational" freethinkers

[Leonhard]

..critical thinking, philosophy and pseudo-science are covered at Camp Quest

...as for the last three, most of that is material we wish Unreasonables would learn for themselves.

You object... to a camp where kids are being taught philosophy and critical thinking? Even in ancient greece I didn't see Socrates or Aristotle turning away interested people saying "Learn this stuff for yourself". Maybe I'm reading you wrong.

Critical thinking does not mean thinking critically of every opinion that disagrees with you and is also religious.

You're right, thinking critically ideally would be thinking critically of every opinion even the ones you love. This seems to be the spirit of the camps.

pseudo-science does not mean "Anything that has anything in it that is not 'natural', whatever that means.

That certainly depends on the situation. Its really, really, really hard to imagine a consistent way to do science on something which is not natural. In fact it might be completely impossible if there's no tangible way that this 'non-natural' substance interacts (if it ever does) with the world. I suspect that you might be using the word 'science' here in the way the scholastics did it, but then you're just making a mistake of language. I'm well aware that the scholastics called theology a science, and I know they made some point of calling it 'the highest science'. So what? What we call science properly began in the eighteenth century. In the institute of science as it exists now, could you make statements about spirits? I think you've defended that it can't, that modern science deals only with empirical knowledge about the natural world.

If someone then dresses their belief in sciency sounding words, is it then fair to call it pseudo-science? Something that looks like science in order to gain the respect science has, without actually doing any real science of its own?

New atheist types like Meyers, Dawkins, etc. are not included in this group.

They've been a significant part of the effort to trash creationism in all its forms, whether old earth or young, and even the brances of that movement like "ID", "Teach the controversy" and "Strengths and weaknesses". Though most of that honor belongs with NCSE. Personally I think both Christian intellectuals and atheists should stand together on this issue at least.

I agree that Dawkins and Myers attempts to wade into theological arguments have been cringe-worthily bad.

However one thing they were highly influential in doing, for which I take my hat off, was to create a solidarity between atheists. Before them atheists were just these cranky guys on their own. They held their opinion and just felt that the world was religious and since there were obviously many more religious people than them, it was better to just take the world as it is and go along with it. Dawkins showed a lot of atheists that there's plenty we're all angry about, which is one thing we have in common. There's also plenty of issues atheists want implemented, stuff that we feel should be different. Through these commonalities they managed to create solidarity. Atheist's went from saying 'I', to being able to say 'We'. They made a movement. Its a flawed movement sure, and there's tons to improve upon and hopefully we will get better as time goes by. I won't let the flaws of the New Atheist movement prevent me from standing with them, anymore than the flaws of the Christian movement stops you from being part of it.

or just claim evolution renders them all moot.

I think it renders a lot of arguments from the way the natural world is arranged moot. It certainly renders moot all attempts to argue from there being a diversity of life, of all sorts of natures, each seemingly well fitted to a particular role in the world. At least those arguments have to be done significantly differently from the way they would be done in the seventeenth century.

You're right that it doesn't kill all arguments, and admit that a lot of atheists once they get out of arguing against creationists quickly are in over their heads.

After all, who has time to waste on that darn study. Just make sure those darn theists study evolution before they say anything.

Yes I really wish a lot of Christians would study evolution seriously. At least cure themselves of nonsense like the various forms of Creationism. That would go a long way to restore intellectual respectability. We would no longer having the problem of multi million dollar lobby organizations working hard to push that pseudo-scientific crap into the public schools. And American universities would no longer have to completely re-teach those poor students from private schools who show up bold and full of energy to the biology courses, fully unprepared for what's coming for them. Or let me put it like this, how many millions of dollars are being poured into this creationism stuff? Would they be spent teaching kids standard apologetics?

Do you know how many apologetics sites I've come across, that make the same old worn out arguments against evolution, demonstrating not as much as a superficial awareness of the responses?

One of the most popular exercises is the invisible unicorn challenge. The children are told there are two invisible unicorns who live at Camp Quest but that they cannot be seen, heard, felt or smelt, and do not leave a trace. A book about them has been handed down through the ages but it is too precious for anyone to see.

For the first part, color me skeptical. For the second part, how does this do it? Perhaps it would help if children were instead taught the laws of logic and were taught how to spot and recognize logical fallacies. Perhaps it would help if they were taught how to use a library and proper research skills. Perhaps they should be told there are other web sites out there for study besides Wikipedia.

For the first part, good attitude Phoenix, you win a cookie. But assuming that your inner reflections of these things correspond to reality is not sound. And where is the evidence that they aren't taught the laws of logics and logical fallacies? I remember one podcast from The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, where they had one speaker on from one of the camps. It seemed they were taught plenty of reason skills through fun and games. I'll see if I can find it for you.

I also think you're mistaking the point of the unicorn challenge.

Here's an example from real life. There's a person who says she's a psychic. She can read the minds of people around her, and also has the ability to project and see things hidden underneath cloth. A test is decided upon to test this. She agrees that the test is fair. In the room, several playing cards have been randomly selected and put underneath a cloth on the table. The judges who are presiding aren't aware which cards are under the cloths. The psychic comes in and tries her best to divine the many cards. After the test, it is found that she predicted no more than what is expected by pure chance guessing. When this is pointed out to her she objects that a certain skeptic was present in the audience, and his 'aura' prevented her from seeing. Okay, the test is done again without the skeptic, a new protocol and a set of people as judges whom she choose. Same result, nothing better than chance. Well then its because there might be money at stake, and her psychic powers wouldn't work if she received a price. Etc... etc... the stars aren't aligned... this isn't usually how I do it... excuse, excuse, excuse. Have all these tests proven that she isn't a psychic? Can you prove by these tests that she isn't a psychic? Could all the ad hoc excuses be true? Is it reasonable to conclude that she is a psychic? The answers are no, no, yes and emphatically no!

There are many examples like it. Cryptozoologists who believe in creatures like Big Foot have been tromping through the forests for years now. By every reasonable extrapolation from how animals (or sentient tribes) behave, how big a population there would have to be, the likelihood of all these hunters somehow missing Big Foot is astronomically low. What's the excuses? He can turn invisible, he can teleport, he's not a physical being but from a parallel dimension, he's an alien and has access to technology we can't imagine, he's psychic and erases memories from people's head. If you think I'm making up this I'm really not. Can I prove that Big Foot aren't all of these things? No, though I think I can give some arguments that these excuses are highly ad hoc and unmotivated, and only introduced to save the proposition "Big Foot exists".

It even extends to things like alternative medicine, with treatments like homeopathy. Several large randomized trials have been done, and there are so many of them that systematic reviews can be done across the studies. It all indicates that the efficacy of homeopathy is consistent with it having no effect. Excuses? Homeopathy can't be tested with science. I'm kidding you when I say that this is their excuse. There's a huuuge lobby movement trying to create a double standard within medicine. One for the medicine doctors use, which they denigrate with the word evidence-based medicine, whereas they would have only personal testimony ("I feel it works for me" stuff) as evidence to show that it works. Thereby bypassing the requirements of showing efficacy in drugs in order to market it as something that can cure a disease.

The prize can't be won and that seems intentional. You can't by empirical observations demonstrate that something like the above is false, as long as enough ad hoc observations introduced that make something unobservable.

There are some atheists who really do actually engage with the other side and learn their arguments. These are ones who are worthy of respect.

Well I hope that could be said of me one day, but in this post I don't think you did a fair job to Camp Quest.

Good tiddings, Phoenix. Stay sharp.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

You object... to a camp where kids are being taught philosophy and critical thinking? Even in ancient greece I didn't see Socrates or Aristotle turning away interested people saying "Learn this stuff for yourself". Maybe I'm reading you wrong.

Not at all. I have an objection to what they call philosophy and critical thinking. Philosophy is about more than proving God's existence or non-existence. It is first about just finding truth. Someone like Dawkins does not inspire philosophical brilliance.

You're right, thinking critically ideally would be thinking critically of every opinion even the ones you love. This seems to be the spirit of the camps.

Feel free to demonstrate whee Camp Quest encourages children to think critically of the claims of Dawkins.

That certainly depends on the situation. Its really, really, really hard to imagine a consistent way to do science on something which is not natural. In fact it might be completely impossible if there's no tangible way that this 'non-natural' substance interacts (if it ever does) with the world. I suspect that you might be using the word 'science' here in the way the scholastics did it, but then you're just making a mistake of language. I'm well aware that the scholastics called theology a science, and I know they made some point of calling it 'the highest science'. So what? What we call science properly began in the eighteenth century. In the institute of science as it exists now, could you make statements about spirits? I think you've defended that it can't, that modern science deals only with empirical knowledge about the natural world.

Science can get one to the point where they realize science can't explain everything. That is the issue here. If one has an approach of scientism then that means anything that allows anything else will be seen as pseudo-science. It is saying that because one believes the universe could have had a beginning by an agent that is not scientific, that one's claims are not at all scientific. They are scientific insofar as they deal with matter. Science alone cannot prove theism or atheism.

[QUOTE] If someone then dresses their belief in sciency sounding words, is it then fair to call it pseudo-science? Something that looks like science in order to gain the respect science has, without actually doing any real science of its own? [QUOTE]

No. If one has scientific data for a position, let them present it, but if the position is on theism or atheism, science will not be and cannot be the final arbiter.

They've been a significant part of the effort to trash creationism in all its forms, whether old earth or young, and even the brances of that movement like "ID", "Teach the controversy" and "Strengths and weaknesses". Though most of that honor belongs with NCSE. Personally I think both Christian intellectuals and atheists should stand together on this issue at least.

I agree that Dawkins and Myers attempts to wade into theological arguments have been cringe-worthily bad.

However one thing they were highly influential in doing, for which I take my hat off, was to create a solidarity between atheists. Before them atheists were just these cranky guys on their own. They held their opinion and just felt that the world was religious and since there were obviously many more religious people than them, it was better to just take the world as it is and go along with it. Dawkins showed a lot of atheists that there's plenty we're all angry about, which is one thing we have in common. There's also plenty of issues atheists want implemented, stuff that we feel should be different. Through these commonalities they managed to create solidarity. Atheist's went from saying 'I', to being able to say 'We'. They made a movement. Its a flawed movement sure, and there's tons to improve upon and hopefully we will get better as time goes by. I won't let the flaws of the New Atheist movement prevent me from standing with them, anymore than the flaws of the Christian movement stops you from being part of it.

THe problem is the only thing I recognize about the new atheists are flaws. I get the impression that every fundy atheist flaw has been put together in their thinking. Now are they right in condemning several aspects of religion? Of course. However, those are the aspects Christians also condemn. For the new atheists, there can be no good to anything religious.

I think it renders a lot of arguments from the way the natural world is arranged moot. It certainly renders moot all attempts to argue from there being a diversity of life, of all sorts of natures, each seemingly well fitted to a particular role in the world. At least those arguments have to be done significantly differently from the way they would be done in the seventeenth century.

You're right that it doesn't kill all arguments, and admit that a lot of atheists once they get out of arguing against creationists quickly are in over their heads.

And to that I would ask is that really essential to Christianity or is it a cultural view? Material I've been reading on Genesis some is much more promising than past interpretations I've seen. I think of Blocher and Walton the most.

Yes I really wish a lot of Christians would study evolution seriously. At least cure themselves of nonsense like the various forms of Creationism. That would go a long way to restore intellectual respectability. We would no longer having the problem of multi million dollar lobby organizations working hard to push that pseudo-scientific crap into the public schools. And American universities would no longer have to completely re-teach those poor students from private schools who show up bold and full of energy to the biology courses, fully unprepared for what's coming for them. Or let me put it like this, how many millions of dollars are being poured into this creationism stuff? Would they be spent teaching kids standard apologetics?

I agree. Now if someone thinks the Earth is young and they want to study to try to prove that and argue for it, go for it! No stopping you! THe reason I don't argue evolution is that I'm just not a scientist. Now do I have an opinion? Of course I do, but my opinion in this field matters no more than Dawkins's does in theology. In turn, I wish more atheists would really study theology and various views Christians have of creation instead of assuming all of us believe the Earth is 6,000 years old and run in terror from evolution.

Do you know how many apologetics sites I've come across, that make the same old worn out arguments against evolution, demonstrating not as much as a superficial awareness of the responses?

And I agree with you. I would prefer those who are studied in a field be the authorities in that field. Perhaps you might like material more from Francis Collins or from Answers in Creation.

For the first part, good attitude Phoenix, you win a cookie. But assuming that your inner reflections of these things correspond to reality is not sound. And where is the evidence that they aren't taught the laws of logics and logical fallacies? I remember one podcast from The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, where they had one speaker on from one of the camps. It seemed they were taught plenty of reason skills through fun and games. I'll see if I can find it for you.

That would be great.

I also think you're mistaking the point of the unicorn challenge.

Here's an example from real life. There's a person who says she's a psychic. She can read the minds of people around her, and also has the ability to project and see things hidden underneath cloth. A test is decided upon to test this. She agrees that the test is fair. In the room, several playing cards have been randomly selected and put underneath a cloth on the table. The judges who are presiding aren't aware which cards are under the cloths. The psychic comes in and tries her best to divine the many cards. After the test, it is found that she predicted no more than what is expected by pure chance guessing. When this is pointed out to her she objects that a certain skeptic was present in the audience, and his 'aura' prevented her from seeing. Okay, the test is done again without the skeptic, a new protocol and a set of people as judges whom she choose. Same result, nothing better than chance. Well then its because there might be money at stake, and her psychic powers wouldn't work if she received a price. Etc... etc... the stars aren't aligned... this isn't usually how I do it... excuse, excuse, excuse. Have all these tests proven that she isn't a psychic? Can you prove by these tests that she isn't a psychic? Could all the ad hoc excuses be true? Is it reasonable to conclude that she is a psychic? The answers are no, no, yes and emphatically no!

There are many examples like it. Cryptozoologists who believe in creatures like Big Foot have been tromping through the forests for years now. By every reasonable extrapolation from how animals (or sentient tribes) behave, how big a population there would have to be, the likelihood of all these hunters somehow missing Big Foot is astronomically low. What's the excuses? He can turn invisible, he can teleport, he's not a physical being but from a parallel dimension, he's an alien and has access to technology we can't imagine, he's psychic and erases memories from people's head. If you think I'm making up this I'm really not. Can I prove that Big Foot aren't all of these things? No, though I think I can give some arguments that these excuses are highly ad hoc and unmotivated, and only introduced to save the proposition "Big Foot exists".

It even extends to things like alternative medicine, with treatments like homeopathy. Several large randomized trials have been done, and there are so many of them that systematic reviews can be done across the studies. It all indicates that the efficacy of homeopathy is consistent with it having no effect. Excuses? Homeopathy can't be tested with science. I'm kidding you when I say that this is their excuse. There's a huuuge lobby movement trying to create a double standard within medicine. One for the medicine doctors use, which they denigrate with the word evidence-based medicine, whereas they would have only personal testimony ("I feel it works for me" stuff) as evidence to show that it works. Thereby bypassing the requirements of showing efficacy in drugs in order to market it as something that can cure a disease.

The prize can't be won and that seems intentional. You can't by empirical observations demonstrate that something like the above is false, as long as enough ad hoc observations introduced that make something unobservable.

I agree, but as I said this assumes God is on the same epistemic basis as the others. I do agree a lot of Christians can make ad hoc answers, but a lot don't. An Aquinas or an Augustine does not have ad hoc answers. If the others were able to put forward arguments for why they believe X exists, that would be different and those would have to be examined. The problem is treating all the claims as equal.

Well I hope that could be said of me one day, but in this post I don't think you did a fair job to Camp Quest.

Good tiddings, Phoenix. Stay sharp.

I think you're more familiar with them than you realize and we can dialogue.

[Der Kanzler]

This place was actually covered in a Cracked article on nutty fundamentalist things for kids, be they religious (or lack thereof) or political. This being the internet, the comments consisted mainly of "But teaching skepticism is okay, even if we aren't giving the other side a chance to respond!" Funny how many atheists' responses to accusations of hypocrisy are "But it's okay because our side is right."

[Hamster]

We're not teaching kids atheism. We're simply teaching them to develop a worldview wherein science is the only way you can know anything