[Buddha-l] Prominent Neobuddhist proposes religion based blacklisting for government jobs

[Richard Hayes]

On Aug 1, 2009, at 7:27 PM, Curt Steinmetz wrote:

> First of all, only someone with substantial scientific training can
> judge the competency of a scientist.

It may be true that anly someone who has scientific training can  
assess the scientific significance of a scientist's scientific work.  
But no scientist is only a scientist. Scientists are scientists only  
in those moments in which they are thinking scientifically. When they  
leave the realm of science and enter the realm of dogmatic religion,  
they cease being scientists. One need not be a trained scientist to  
spot those moments when a scientist has stopped thinking  
scientifically and has entered the realm of speculation, dogma,  
poetry, rhetoric and so forth.

> Scientists judging the competency of other scientists is a standard  
> part
> of how science is done - it is called "peer review". Has Sam Harris  
> ever
> reviewed a journal article, or a grant application?

It doesn't matter at all. It was not a grant proposal on a scientific  
topic that was the subject matter of what Harris wrote. It was  
Collins's tendency to assert propositions that have no scientific  
value whatsoever, because they cannot be tested.

> And yet you, Richard, are proposing
> that Harris is competent to judge someone who will be several echelons
> up the ladder from the people who review grants that are submitted  
> to NIH.

I had no idea you were such an essentialist. Apparently your view is  
that once a person is a scientist, then he is a scientist in  
everything he says and does. I disagree with that view. I also have  
not in any way said or even suggested that Harris is competent ti  
judge Collins's scientific work. I have claimed that Harris is in a  
position to observe, accurately, that Collins is not a scientist in  
all that he says. In particular, observes Harris, Collins ceases to be  
a scientist when Collins espouses religious dogmas.

> Maybe Sam Harris should first write a proposal that is actually funded
> by the NIH

There is no need for him to do that when his interest is religious  
dogmatism and the effects in can have on public policy. There are ways  
to have insights about the potential and actual dangers of religious  
dogmatism in the realm of policy that do not require being funded.  
There is truth outside the narrow domain of funded research.

> Second of all, Collins has a track record both as a researcher and  
> as an
> administrator. Speculating about how his judgment might be impaired is
> malarkey. Where has he ever once shown any sign of poor judgment in
> either his scientific work or in his various leadership and
> administrative roles? In fact, if Collins had shown such signs of poor
> judgment then his RELIGION wouldn't matter, would it? How is that not
> obvious?

If you had said this sort of thing, rather than going off onto an  
irrelevant tangent about how much Collins has published and how few  
NIH grants Harris has, you would have been more credible. What you  
did, however, was to go into ranting mode, and in so doing you  
weakened your case.

> Sam Harris makes explicit reference to Collins' religious beliefs in
> every single paragraph - go back and read it.

I assume Harris made reference to Collins's religious beliefs because  
it was Collins's religious beliefs that interested him.

> This is purely about Collins' religion.

Exactly. And to discuss Collins's religious claims, one need not be a  
scientist. One is in a better position to assess those beliefs if one  
has a background more like, uh, those of Sam Harris.

> And we simply do not
> penalize people for their religious beliefs in this country

It might be interesting to ask a few hundred thousand indigenous  
Americans about that. It might even be interesting to ask the families  
of the Unitarian-Universalists who were gunned down in Tennessee last  
year by a convinced Christian who said that it is the duty of all true  
Christians to kill religious liberals (like you and me), or of the  
doctors who have been shot to death because they do not adhere to a  
narrow religious dogma on abortion. It might be interesting to ask a  
few same-sex couples who love each other but whose love-relationship  
is considered so illegitimate that they are denied conjugal rights. We  
live in a religiously fanatical society in which about twice as many  
people believe in angels and demons as believe in evolution through  
random mutation. That being the case, it is not a bad idea to take a  
close look at the ways in which public policy in the United States may  
be formed by religious dogmas when it might better be formed by  
scientific investigation. I submit this question is of interest to,  
and can be assessed by, people who are not prize-winning scientists.

Richard