There was a pretty good turnout for PZ’s talk last night at the Pacific Science Center, and a significant proportion of the attendees (including yours truly) continued the discussion over beer at McMenamins.
I hadn’t realized this until a UW grad student pointed it out to me, but PZ’s talk was sponsored in part by the Forum on Science Ethics and Policy, which hosted the session by Nisbet and Mooney last October. The similarity and difference was striking. Both PZ and Nisbet/Mooney argue that scientists need to change the way they behave in public in order to communicate more effectively. The difference was that Nisbet/Mooney want scientists to deliberately frame the issues to achieve a particular effect, while PZ simply wants them to drop the mask of cool, cautious, measured objectivity and be themselves: let the excited, passionate, human side of science come through. Drop the weasel words. Be advocates. Be positive. And focus on the beauty of science, of the sheer delight in solving elegant puzzles and discovering the extraordinary. Forget about importance. (I’m reading Carl Zimmer’s “Microcosm” right now, and the highest accolade that he bestows on experimental work is “beautiful”.)
During Q&A, I asked PZ what he thought had changed over the last 15 years, from the days when discussions of atheism and creationism were largely confined to alt.atheism and talk.origins on the Usenet. He gave the “endogenous” answer – a bunch of atheists got uppity, and eventually broke through into the cultural mainstream. Obviously that’s a part of it, but I strongly believe that we were reacting to a bunch of “exogenous” changes: a significant rise in fundamental religionist activity which provoked our responses. Everything from creationists in schools, to ten commandments in courthouses, to pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions, to religious takeovers of military institutions, to Terry Schiavo. Yes, of course some of it had been going on for years – battles over prayers and “moments of silence” at school events, abortion rights, and so forth – and some of the increase might simply be explained by greater media attention (what happens in Kansas doesn’t stay there any more). But I’m convinced that there was a shift. Some of it was a consequence of the cynical exploitation of religious groups by the Gingrich and Rove Republicans. 9/11 undoubtedly had an effect.
The bottom line is, I think, that there was a great deal of stuff for atheists to get angry about. I’ve written about this before, in my review of Hitchens’ “God Is Not Great”. I wrote then:
But suppose that an old friend came to me and asked, “Why are you so fired up about atheism and religion these days? I remember you 15 years ago, and back then you were posting on alt.atheism, and having fun roasting creationists on talk.origins, and reading books on the philosophy of religion. But you didn’t talk – and write – about it all the time, and you certainly didn’t publically define yourself by your disbelief. So what happened?”
Instead of trying to explain all of my reasons, I think I’d simply give them Hitchens’ new book and say, “Read this. He puts it better than I ever could. I merely experience the occasional (but increasingly frequent) feelings of frustration, impatience, outrage, and even anger. Hitchens is an unequalled exponent of the art of the rant: he says what I feel, with passion, intensity and wit.”
Indeed.
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Yes, I entirely agree — there have been changes in the culture at large that drove many of us to be more outspoken. Those usenet groups were more like cloistered training grounds that gave many of us practice and confidence in speaking out, but it was an awakening to the disaster of religion in the public sphere that promoted a wider dialog.
Although it’s also true that many of the worst elements of public religion have been in place in this country since the cold war. I suspect that the reaction to the way the US responded in the aftermath of 9/11 was a kind of tipping point.
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2007/10/atheists-and-an.html
The only words I can add are: Here, read this.
Hey, I recognize you!
Well, you’ve got me on years Mr Arnold! I suppose I can’t keep a monopoly on the name…
It’s too bad I didn’t run into you at McMenamins, as I’m sure we could have had some interesting conversation.
“During Q&A, I asked PZ what he thought had changed over the last 15 years, from the days when discussions of atheism and creationism were largely confined to alt.atheism and talk.origins on the Usenet. ”
Another little thing happened during the last 15 years that might be a tiny bit signifcant.
The world wide web exploded.
Suddenly, little Johnny, just home from church on a Sunday morning, his head full of questions about this crazy-sounding stuff he’s heard at church has a different option than to just mull it over by himself and wonder what’s wrong with him that he finds it all a bit questionable while everyone else seems to eat it up, a different option than to ask Mom, and have Mom tell him normal, good people just believe, etc.
He has the option of typing a few choice words into Google, or Yahoo, altavista, or in the old days, Dogpile. (remember dogpile? It still exists, I just checked.)
And what does he find? He finds he’s not the only one, he’s not the crazy one, he’s not the one there’s something wrong with, there are loads of people out there making a whole lot more sense than the people in church. And during those 15 years he gets through high school, gets through college, becomes an adult… and you get what we have here — a bunch of uppity atheists ready to buy a load of books and read and comment on a bunch of blogs by a bunch of other uppity atheists.