Journalists’ critical response to the new atheism is hardly surprising in this historical context. Wary of extremism in all its forms, unfavorable reviews of The God Delusion have branded Dawkins’ promotion of science as “fundamentalist” and “evangelical.” It gave pause when proponents of intelligent design began to argue like scientists, and it is equally so when the opposite happens, and scientists begin to argue like preachers. Conservation of momentum was the staple of Newton’s third law, and it applies to the collision of God and science as well as it does to physical objects. It is like watching the silver momentum balls that people used to keep on their desks — a ball strikes one end of the chain and another jumps up on the far side to repeat the trick in reverse. The motion is self-sustaining. Back and forth — click-clack, click-clack — it never stops.
Behind the News
01:33 PM - October 24, 2006
God Versus Science — Back in the News
A new book about religious belief has been burning up the pages of newspapers and magazines lately, and the outlook for a peaceful solution looks bleak.
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
This is the best moment to be in journalism (25)
The WSJ editorial page hits rock bottom (18)
The completist guide to Star Trek
Matt Yglesias watched every Star Trek movie and every episode of every TV show in the franchise
The uncomfortable questions not raised by Benghazi
The press and Congress are asking the wrong questions
Rob Ford in ‘crack cocaine’ video scandal
A video that appears to show Toronto’s mayor smoking crack is being shopped around by a group of Somali men involved in the drug trade
Why the underwear-bomber leak infuriated the Obama administration
The threat of even grander leaks
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
So, were you planning to link to the Wired article? Jeez, louise.
Here it is.
Posted by Kevin B. O'Reilly on Tue 24 Oct 2006 at 02:11 PM
One of CJR's "watchdogs" butchers Newtonian mechanics
"One specification of the third law is that when two objects collide, opposite forces are equal, but acceleration is not. Therefore, upon impact, an object with more mass will stand its ground while an object with less mass rebounds in the other direction. In practical terms, this is why a bounced ball comes back at your face rather than knocking the Earth from beneath your feet."
padikiller spills the scientific beans
In FACT, Newton's Third law does NOT relate mass and acceleration... This relationship is described instead by his Second Law which states (for an object of constant mass) that Force = Mass * Acceleration
Newton's Third Law in FACT states that any force applied by one object against another with be countered with an equal and opposite force.
Finally, when any two objects collide without sticking to each other, neither of them will "stand its ground".... Indeed, Newton's laws explicity forbid such behavior. In FACT, BOTH objects will experience acceleration and each of their respective velocities will change as a result of the collision...
In FACT, a bouncing ball does indeed "knock the Earth" under it, although the accleration imparted to the Earth by a bouncing ball is so small that it is imperceptible.
Posted by padikiller on Tue 24 Oct 2006 at 04:43 PM
Poor choice of metaphor at the end: as everyone who's used one knows, a Newton's cradle stops after a little while. The conservation of energy isn't perfect in this case due to complexities like air resistance.
Which is a convenient segue to the real problem here: not scientists talking like preachers (or the converse), it's journalists shoehorning complexity into facile, preconceived narratives. The CJR routinely zings political coverage for this sin, but this piece is almost as bad in forcing the current crop of atheist literature into a "God vs. science" trope. (All that's missing is a "Red vs. Blue" comparison.) It's easy and comforting (because it saves us from thinking about hard questions) to say the pendulum is swinging from one extreme to another, as it always has been and always will. But it's just false to do so.
Case in point: this article's attempt at historical background. Points for trying, but this is little more than historical cherry-picking. Lucretius, e.g., was writing in an era every bit as religious as the middle ages. It just wasn't all under one theological umbrella. What's striking about the "pendulum swings" since the Enlightenment is not their "equal and opposite" nature, but the extent to which atheism has gained traction. Before modernity, atheists were social and intellectual pariahs, even among highly educated classes. There simply weren't any openly atheist intellectuals before the Renaissance. (Lucretius dedicates his poem to the goddess Venus, and does not do so ironically.) But with the triumph of science from the 17th century onward, atheism has gradually become (mostly) socially acceptable. And likewise, religion has slowly receded. This trend is easy to overlook in the U.S., where religious extremism has deep historical roots and creates a lot of political smoke, but the evaporation of traditional religion is obvious in Europe and Japan.
In fact, the hot button stories in religion today make a lot more sense in the context of the growth of atheism: intelligent design is religion essaying a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" strategy to co-opt the onrushing tide of discoveries in biology and genetics. And practically half the stories in the Middle East are at some level about Islam's struggle to reconcile itself with modernity (i.e., the world where secularism has, tacitly at least, broken religion's monopoly on the public sphere).
Sure, Dawkins's book has gotten negative reviews. Now, that might be because his book isn't very good. It might be because people don't like extremist views. Or it might be for much the same reasons that many intellectuals said Copernicus's theories, while predictively superior to the Church's, weren't really true: a sentimental attachment to religion prevents them from owning up to truths they've already admitted in the practice of their lives. Saying this is all part of an endless pendulum swing is missing the story.
Posted by MRooney on Wed 25 Oct 2006 at 03:53 AM
Hello all,
Here's my two bits on this ongoiang discussion and a path to a solution. Hope you can appreciate my efforts to deliver a true solution.
Analyzing the Creator Debate
Did you ever consider that atheism arose because certain people saw that religious characterizations about the nature of an omnipotent "God" were seriously flawed and then concluded that religion and the Creator were the same things? This is the exact same conclusion at the base of religious beliefs; namely that the Creator and religion are inseparable. Consequently, both atheists and religious followers are arguing over a flawed assumption without considering that other possibilities negate the common core conclusion of both groups. These arguments are actually over religion and whether it represents a reliable model of reality. The answer to this question is of course not. Religion is not only flawed, it is purposely deceptive! Though atheists are certainly sincere in their conclusions, the fact remains that they and religious followers are locked in a debate that cannot be won by either side because both base their positions upon whether the same flawed premise is the truth. In order for this debate to conclude with a truthful answer, a greater level of discernment is required.
One apt clarifying question is, if someone tells lies about you, does that negate you or make you a liar or a lie? Certainly, the image cast about you would be a false one, but that is their image, not the real you. Consequently, faulty religious assertions about the Creator of this universe do not negate the existence of a Creator. Considering the possibility that this universe is not by chance leaves the door open to how it arose, which leads us to seek what could have created and maintained it. Since neither religion nor science has yet adequately answered this question, it is safe to conclude that those who argue about the Creator based on either are most certainly wrong about one or more aspects. Therefore, another point of view and additional knowledge are required.
Read More...
Posted by Seven Star Hand on Sun 5 Nov 2006 at 06:33 PM
This article's tone is indicative of the fact that religious bigotry against atheism in the US is still strong enough that too many atheists are still afraid to self-identify as such. Really, it's not much more than that.
In much of Europe there is less hesitation by atheists in self-identifying precisely because there is less social stigma in doing so. The "something" that people don't like about Dawkins is the fact that they were brainwashed from birth that "atheists" were evil. Such subconscious ideas can survive logic, and apparently do for many people. I've talked to many people who are atheists, but squirm around when discussing that, and often cannot bring themselves to admit it. In a few decades more of hammering away, this sort of reticence will end.
Posted by seathanaich on Tue 21 Jul 2009 at 03:53 PM