Why wasn't Gould's NOMA accepted?

[Person19960]

Hey IIDB. Twenty-plus years or so ago, here on this forum, ("here" haha), nearly everyone rejected NOMA, or the "non-overlapping magisteria" concept of religion and science not being in opposition at all, just separate subjects.

Stephen Jay Gould was known as an advocate of the NOMA argument, but in most of the Secular movement world, both Gould and NOMA were rejected.

Non-overlapping magisteria - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

An AI tells me some popes also liked the concept.

It seemed fine to me then and still does. How about all of you?

Links would be appreciated, top, thank you.

I always and still do find NOMA highly dishonest in it's ignoring of the assumptions of fact that are essential to religious beliefs, and the emotional and therefore moral/"spiritual" consequences of facts that are inherent byproducts of science.

Forget the Plus.

You lost me at "the fact(s) that are essential to religious beliefs."

I'm from the hood, @stanley , what type of facts are those?

Elucidate me. List them, please.

 

[steve_bank]

Hey IIDB. Twenty-plus years or so ago, here on this forum, ("here" haha), nearly everyone rejected NOMA, or the "non-overlapping magisteria" concept of religion and science not being in opposition at all, just separate subjects.

Stephen Jay Gould was known as an advocate of the NOMA argument, but in most of the Secular movement world, both Gould and NOMA were rejected.

Non-overlapping magisteria - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

An AI tells me some popes also liked the concept.

It seemed fine to me then and still does. How about all of you?

Links would be appreciated, top, thank you.

I always and still do find NOMA highly dishonest in it's ignoring of the assumptions of fact that are essential to religious beliefs, and the emotional and therefore moral/"spiritual" consequences of facts that are inherent byproducts of science.

Forget the Plus.

You lost me at "the fact(s) that are essential to religious beliefs."

I'm from the hood, @stanley , what type of facts are those?

Elucidate me. List them, please.

Wow you are from the hood?

I am from the 50s 60s projects. What does that have to do with anything?

BTW, Gould rejected?

His books were very popular. When I saw him in Seattle Benaroyal Hall was sold out, tickets were hard to get.

 

[Person19960]

Some songs are popular.

 

[stanley]

Hey IIDB. Twenty-plus years or so ago, here on this forum, ("here" haha), nearly everyone rejected NOMA, or the "non-overlapping magisteria" concept of religion and science not being in opposition at all, just separate subjects.

Stephen Jay Gould was known as an advocate of the NOMA argument, but in most of the Secular movement world, both Gould and NOMA were rejected.

Non-overlapping magisteria - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

An AI tells me some popes also liked the concept.

It seemed fine to me then and still does. How about all of you?

Links would be appreciated, top, thank you.

I always and still do find NOMA highly dishonest in it's ignoring of the assumptions of fact that are essential to religious beliefs, and the emotional and therefore moral/"spiritual" consequences of facts that are inherent byproducts of science.

Forget the Plus.

You lost me at "the fact(s) that are essential to religious beliefs."

I'm from the hood, @stanley , what type of facts are those?

Elucidate me. List them, please.

Fist, you misquoted me. I said, "the assumptions of fact that are inherent to religious beliefs". This does not mean there are valid facts that religion is based on (there generally are not). It refers to things implicitly assumed as facts by religious belief, and therefore things that are within the domain of scientific thinking. These include:


Sentience mind/thought/emotions/etc. that do not emerge and depend upon the particular arrangement of matter (e.g., a brain). This is assumed within the belief in god, and by the belief in an afterlife.

In addition, almost all believers have numerous beliefs that various events in their religious doctrines were real and actually happened, such as the life of Jesus. The strength of belief in the core ideas of religion is bolstered by believe in various facts that make it more real and impactful to the observable world. This is why the most devout believers with highest certainty in god, etc. and who rely on their faith most in daily life tend to be the most fundamentalist and literalist when it comes to interpreting religious doctrines.

 

[stanley]

Hey IIDB. Twenty-plus years or so ago, here on this forum, ("here" haha), nearly everyone rejected NOMA, or the "non-overlapping magisteria" concept of religion and science not being in opposition at all, just separate subjects.

Stephen Jay Gould was known as an advocate of the NOMA argument, but in most of the Secular movement world, both Gould and NOMA were rejected.

Non-overlapping magisteria - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

An AI tells me some popes also liked the concept.

It seemed fine to me then and still does. How about all of you?

Links would be appreciated, top, thank you.

I always and still do find NOMA highly dishonest in it's ignoring of the assumptions of fact that are essential to religious beliefs, and the emotional and therefore moral/"spiritual" consequences of facts that are inherent byproducts of science.

Forget the Plus.

You lost me at "the fact(s) that are essential to religious beliefs."

I'm from the hood, @stanley , what type of facts are those?

Elucidate me. List them, please.

Wow you are from the hood?

I am from the 50s 60s projects. What does that have to do with anything?

BTW, Gould rejected?

His books were very popular. When I saw him in Seattle Benaroyal Hall was sold out, tickets were hard to get.

Gould was popular among the general public. In fact, he made sure of that by saying stupid things that would please a broad audience, such as his NOMA nonsense. There is a warm and fuzzy "let's all get along" aspect to it. But I doubt it is taken seriously among many philosophers of science or theologians. Only religion that has no tangible connection to the material world is outside the realm of science, and such religion has no appeal, because the point of religion is to ease existential anxiety by making sense of the material world. And science absolutely impacts spiritual feelings, such as the facts that humans are rather insignificant part of the history of life on the planet and that Earth is very insignificant and fleeting part of the cosmos. Plus, many scientific facts impact ethics and morality, from abortion end of life care to how homosexuality is viewed, and how we view the mentally ill, or violent people made so by neurological disorders, brain tumors, etc.. Plus, the science of natural empathy provides a foundation of morality and answers the question of why people would ever be ethical without the threat/promise of god, much like evolution answered how organisms are so functional without a designer.

 

[Politesse]

Gould was not unaware of the conflict, he just thought it was best avoided. If theologians commented on theology, scientists on science, but generally speaking relied on the latter group to be the expert on their respective magisteria, there would be no need for those flash points of conflict. Much the same way that, say, biologists tend to relate to questions of economics, or economists to those of art history. Indeed, I am certain his long academic career led to his optimism about the efficacy of this approach. IF someone thinks it is impossible to follow this approach, it usually says more about them than the approach. Few "militant Christians" are willing to stay out of science, nor "militant atheists" out of religion, but that is because they are looking for a fight, not because it is actually impossible to go looking for one. Most people don't, in practice. How many people do you actually know who enjoy bickering about Creationism?

 

[Person19960]

I need to catch up, but, to @stanley , oh dear, my bad, you're correct that I misquoted you! I definitely misread! So, my whole reply is a reply to my dumb misreading, ohh jeez.

I can't see much on my cellphone, I'll have to re-read and catch up a little later.

This is the first and only conversation I've had regarding my question (the thread title), so, please bear with me. It's an ancient question that I was gonna ask 20 years ago. I've barely revisited NOMA, as my science concerns became more modern (GMOs), urgent (climate change), and engagement-oriented (social media science page collaboration , March For Science). That was all after my actions and activism on ID in PA.

I have not studied this topic, nor have I thought of it much after my initial question was answered, upthread. I wasn't ready for more replies, much less replies that require scrutiny.

I'll be back, eventually. I think I'll need to do some homework first, links help me. Books are beyond me.

Anyway my bad! Apologies for my mistake and misquote. I'll give it a go again later.

 

[stanley]

Gould was not unaware of the conflict, he just thought it was best avoided. If theologians commented on theology, scientists on science, but generally speaking relied on the latter group to be the expert on their respective magisteria, there would be no need for those flash points of conflict. Much the same way that, say, biologists tend to relate to questions of economics, or economists to those of art history. Indeed, I am certain his long academic career led to his optimism about the efficacy of this approach. IF someone thinks it is impossible to follow this approach, it usually says more about them than the approach. Few "militant Christians" are willing to stay out of science, nor "militant atheists" out of religion, but that is because they are looking for a fight, not because it is actually impossible to go looking for one. Most people don't, in practice. How many people do you actually know who enjoy bickering about Creationism?

The analogy to "economist" vs "art history" is invalid b/c both are experts in their fields, rooted in analyzing facts with reasoned thought. Theologians don't do that and are no more real experts in questions of morality or "spirituality" than scientists are. Theologians start with core unquestionable assumptions like God and his benevolence, and that their ancient doctrines contain god-inspired truths. Scientist and non-theistic lay person are actually better equipped to think deeply and honestly about morality and things like "purpose" or "meaning" because they are not bound to those heavily constraining assumptions.

Most people are intellectually dishonest with themselves and avoid ever thinking about how their scientific views relate to their religious faith, and walk around with internal contradictions. Their religious assumptions almost always do have logical conflicts with a rational science perspective on some counts, but they ignore it.. There is a reason that theistic beliefs in Western society have retreated so drastically over the same recent 200 years that science has progressed exponentially and more than in all human history combined. It is because almost all theism and religion is a god of the gaps sort of thing, and those gaps are the purview of science and as they are filled with knowledge, faith must either retreat and weaken or deny that knowledge.

Also, Gould was raised as a secular Jew, in which "religion" is largely just superficial routinized set of customs lacking any real meaning in terms of what people think is true. It is a kind of neutered religion that limps on merely due to habit and being tethered to a shared history of political oppression. Gould's own experience of religion seemed to make him blind to the psychology of real devout religious belief. His NOMA is viable for they type of religion in name only common among secular Jews, but not for true devout believers for whom religion is as real as anything they see, there is more conflict, which is why sincere convinced believers do often reject the facts and science that undermines core aspects of their faith. Gould had no ideological need to think that humans are special or important to god, so accepting that humans are very recent minor byproduct of random contingencies is no problem. But most devout monotheists need to believe that about humans. So, there are some who outright reject evolution and most others who only accept some form of unscientific intelligent design, including a large % of the people who say they accept evolution on polls, but more detailed questions reveal they really do not. Religion fueled a lot of anti science attitudes related to COVID. Faith essentially is believing what you want to be be true regardless of having no reason to think it actually is. If a worldview promotes ideas only tenable via faith, then that will promote faith itself as a virtue, leading to faith based beliefs about very real world scientific issues. Religiosity was a major negative predictor of COVID vaccination rates, both between countries around the world, and between different regions of the USA, and this holds even after controlling for things like age, wealth, general familiarity with vaccination programs, etc.. It would be very surprising if this was not the case. After all, Abrahamic monotheism promotes the idea that a benevolent being is watching over and protecting us, and the more faith you have the more reward and protection he provides. That pits being a good faithful follower against taking rational medical precautions, because if you looking to human scientists (who are known to be less faithful) for protection, then it implies a lack of confidence that god will protect you.

 

[stanley]

I need to catch up, but, to @stanley , oh dear, my bad, you're correct that I misquoted you! I definitely misread! So, my whole reply is a reply to my dumb misreading, ohh jeez.

I can't see much on my cellphone, I'll have to re-read and catch up a little later.

This is the first and only conversation I've had regarding my question (the thread title), so, please bear with me. It's an ancient question that I was gonna ask 20 years ago. I've barely revisited NOMA, as my science concerns became more modern (GMOs), urgent (climate change), and engagement-oriented (social media science page collaboration , March For Science). That was all after my actions and activism on ID in PA.

I have not studied this topic, nor have I thought of it much after my initial question was answered, upthread. I wasn't ready for more replies, much less replies that require scrutiny.

I'll be back, eventually. I think I'll need to do some homework first, links help me. Books are beyond me.

Anyway my bad! Apologies for my mistake and misquote. I'll give it a go again later.

No worries. I had assumed you just misread my quote and didn't think religion was based on facts. I figured it was still useful to explain which assumed facts of religion are in conflict with science, b/c it is relevant to showing how NOMA is just not an honest assessment of the psychological nature of religion or the emotional/moral implications of science.

 

[steve_bank]

Philosophy can be a secular theology for lack of a better term. Issues hotly dented which can never be conclusively shown to be one way or another.

As this is science vs religion.

The translation of the Koran I read was from the early 1900s by what today we would call a moderate Muslim. In his commentary he said rligion and science are not at odds, they deal with two different things. Man's spiritual life and physical reality.

If I remember the source right. Maimonides a Rabbi-philosopher circa 12th century in his book Guide For The Perplexed said when scripture and science conflict interpretation of scripture must change.

The issue is an old one. Using a technical termlke NOMA adds nothng to te debate. It is high souding.

If you turgidly adhere to a logical binary true or false reasoning then I'd say it would be hard to exist in or modem word.

An obcession withj rfeducng all thngs to formal logc.

As to Gould he did a lot to popuarze evolution. Getting a PHD, getting established, and wring books takes a lot of work. I have to respect that.

 

[Politesse]

Theologians don't do that and are no more real experts in questions of morality or "spirituality" than scientists are. Theologians start with core unquestionable assumptions like God and his benevolence, and that their ancient doctrines contain god-inspired truths.

If you want to favor personal prejudices against others over communication and cohabitation in civil society, no one can stop you. But, it does seem odd to me to highly value "analyzing facts with reasoned thought" while at the same time being so unaware of your own biases as to be unaware of the boundary between fact and opinion. Of course, this is not how any theologian would define theology, even those of a more conservative mindset. This post of yours is mostly polemic, not analysis whether thoughtful or otherwise, and that would be quite obvious to anyone without a dog in the metaphorical fight.

 

[Elixir]

I’m

This post of yours is mostly polemic, not analysis whether thoughtful or otherwise, and that would be quite obvious to anyone without a dog in the metaphorical fight.

huh? Nobody but the religious has a dog in that fight. Everyone else is simply pointing out the fabricated nature of religious foundations.
That paragraph cannot mean what it says; I must be missing something. Or maybe any writing that describes religions is a “polemic” if it accurately identifies aspects of religion that religions themselves gloss over? Maybe it is, but if so it is deserved.

 

[Politesse]

Have you ever heard the term confirmation bias, Elixir?

In trying to determine whether a statement is true, sometimes it is helpful to ask:

1. Suppose everyone in the room was generally of my ideological/religious affiliation... would they be likely to all or mostly agree with this proposition?
2. Suppose everyone in the room was generally of an ideological/religious affiliation opposed to mine... would they be likely to all or mostly disagree with this proposition?

If both are true, odds are you're considering an argument that was concocted by people similar to yourself, entirely to critique those different from yourself, and more than likely that critique is in terms or reasoning familiar to your community but that may not hold as much meaning beyond your intellectual in-group. This can be emotionally satisfying, but if the argument itself can only convince those who are already of a similar worldview to yourself, it bears very little weight from a truly rational perspective. The strengths or weaknesses of a rational argument should be in its logic and evidence, not in whether or not it is being presented to a friendly audience.

"I believe everyone who disagrees with me lacks the capacity for rational thought!" is an emotionally satisyfing line of reasoning, but it is not a rational line of reasoning.

 

[stanley]

Philosophy can be a secular theology for lack of a better term. Issues hotly dented which can never be conclusively shown to be one way or another.

As this is science vs religion.

The translation of the Koran I read was from the early 1900s by what today we would call a moderate Muslim. In his commentary he said rligion and science are not at odds, they deal with two different things. Man's spiritual life and physical reality.

If I remember the source right. Maimonides a Rabbi-philosopher circa 12th century in his book Guide For The Perplexed said when scripture and science conflict interpretation of scripture must change.

The issue is an old one. Using a technical termlke NOMA adds nothng to te debate. It is high souding.

If you turgidly adhere to a logical binary true or false reasoning then I'd say it would be hard to exist in or modem word.

An obcession withj rfeducng all thngs to formal logc.

As to Gould he did a lot to popuarze evolution. Getting a PHD, getting established, and wring books takes a lot of work. I have to respect that.

Science is not formal logic or true and false dichotomy. Science is mostly inductive reasoning, evaluating the relative probability of competing claims. In fact, "true and false" dichotomy is far more a part of religion, where it's lack of reasoning or honest consideration of alternatives allows for certain declarations of true and false in a world where there is not enough knowns to rationally reach certainty.

I agree that NOMA is not new. The need to pretend the two are not in opposition has always been a method of trying to protect the unreasonable assumptions of religion that are contradicted by science and all forms of reasoning. Religion cannot appeal to reason, so it's survival depends on strategies like either violently and legally opposing science (a historical and currently common strategy), or dishonestly pretending they have nothing to with each other and no overlap in their psychological impacts. Prior folks tried mostly to sell this unreasonable and disingenuous notion to religious believers to keep them in the flock. Gould loved to promote himself by pretending he was saying something new. He did this with punctuated equilibrium and tried to make it seem like a radical departure from accepted Darwinian ideas (it was not). With NOMA he was trying to win over the PBS crowd with "let's play nice" sentiments, contrasting himself with Dawkins whose honesty about the inherent conflict of science and religion rubbed people the wrong way, and honestly labeled "militant".

As for popularizing evolution, I bet Dawkins did far more to help educate the public about it, and he helped to normalize non-theism, which is an enormous long term benefit to society, scientifically, politically, and morally. It is no coincidence that moral progress in equality for woman, among races, acceptance of homosexuality, tolerance for personal non-harmful deviance more generally, and democracy itself all improved more in the last 200 years than the prior many thousands of years, coinciding with secular society and the decline of theistic convictions. It is also no coincidence that the society's that remain the least progressed on those moral issues are those who remain ruled by theistic assumptions..

 

[stanley]

Theologians don't do that and are no more real experts in questions of morality or "spirituality" than scientists are. Theologians start with core unquestionable assumptions like God and his benevolence, and that their ancient doctrines contain god-inspired truths.

If you want to favor personal prejudices against others over communication and cohabitation in civil society, no one can stop you. But, it does seem odd to me to highly value "analyzing facts with reasoned thought" while at the same time being so unaware of your own biases as to be unaware of the boundary between fact and opinion. Of course, this is not how any theologian would define theology, even those of a more conservative mindset. This post of yours is mostly polemic, not analysis whether thoughtful or otherwise, and that would be quite obvious to anyone without a dog in the metaphorical fight.

I am very aware of the difference between fact and opinion, and my post is rooted in reasoned analysis of fact. Importantly, I am aware of the relationship between fact and moral attitudes, something which Gould was ignorant or dishonest about. Morals deal with actions and consequences, fact/science tells us what those consequences actually are, they also inform us about the degree to which a person exercises "choice" (not necessarily free will) over those actions and/or could be expected to know the consequences. All of that means that fact (the realm of science) is critical to any internally coherent progressive morality that achieves the goals of reducing harm.

Predictably you offer no actual facts or reasoning to counter what I said, b/c you don't care if it's valid, you only care that you prefer not to believe it, so you don't (there very nature of faith which is the definitional antithesis of reason. There is no rational basis for theism. Every argument for it has been shot full of holes for centuries. So, unless theologians as a group do not assume god's existence, then it is logically necessary that all the notions of morality are confined to the small intellectual space allowed by that powerful constraining assumption that cannot be rationally supported.

 

[Politesse]

Predictably you offer no actual facts or reasoning to counter what I said, b/c you don't care if it's valid, you only care that you prefer not to believe it, so you don't (there very nature of faith which is the definitional antithesis of reason. There is no rational basis for theism. Every argument for it has been shot full of holes for centuries. So, unless theologians as a group do not assume god's existence, then it is logically necessary that all the notions of morality are confined to the small intellectual space allowed by that powerful constraining assumption that cannot be rationally supported.

Do you want me to do the old line-by-line on your post?

 

[GenesisNemesis]

It only works if someone takes their religion metaphorically.

 

[steve_bank]

Philosophy can be a secular theology for lack of a better term. Issues hotly dented which can never be conclusively shown to be one way or another.

As this is science vs religion.

The translation of the Koran I read was from the early 1900s by what today we would call a moderate Muslim. In his commentary he said rligion and science are not at odds, they deal with two different things. Man's spiritual life and physical reality.

If I remember the source right. Maimonides a Rabbi-philosopher circa 12th century in his book Guide For The Perplexed said when scripture and science conflict interpretation of scripture must change.

The issue is an old one. Using a technical termlke NOMA adds nothng to te debate. It is high souding.

If you turgidly adhere to a logical binary true or false reasoning then I'd say it would be hard to exist in or modem word.

An obcession withj rfeducng all thngs to formal logc.

As to Gould he did a lot to popuarze evolution. Getting a PHD, getting established, and wring books takes a lot of work. I have to respect that.

Science is not formal logic or true and false dichotomy. Science is mostly inductive reasoning, evaluating the relative probability of competing claims. In fact, "true and false" dichotomy is far more a part of religion, where it's lack of reasoning or honest consideration of alternatives allows for certain declarations of true and false in a world where there is not enough knowns to rationally reach certainty.

I agree that NOMA is not new. The need to pretend the two are not in opposition has always been a method of trying to protect the unreasonable assumptions of religion that are contradicted by science and all forms of reasoning. Religion cannot appeal to reason, so it's survival depends on strategies like either violently and legally opposing science (a historical and currently common strategy), or dishonestly pretending they have nothing to with each other and no overlap in their psychological impacts. Prior folks tried mostly to sell this unreasonable and disingenuous notion to religious believers to keep them in the flock. Gould loved to promote himself by pretending he was saying something new. He did this with punctuated equilibrium and tried to make it seem like a radical departure from accepted Darwinian ideas (it was not). With NOMA he was trying to win over the PBS crowd with "let's play nice" sentiments, contrasting himself with Dawkins whose honesty about the inherent conflict of science and religion rubbed people the wrong way, and honestly labeled "militant".

As for popularizing evolution, I bet Dawkins did far more to help educate the public about it, and he helped to normalize non-theism, which is an enormous long term benefit to society, scientifically, politically, and morally. It is no coincidence that moral progress in equality for woman, among races, acceptance of homosexuality, tolerance for personal non-harmful deviance more generally, and democracy itself all improved more in the last 200 years than the prior many thousands of years, coinciding with secular society and the decline of theistic convictions. It is also no coincidence that the society's that remain the least progressed on those moral issues are those who remain ruled by theistic assumptions..

In practice it is a combination of deductive and inductive reasoning, one goes back and forth zeroing in on an answer. The string point dpends on the problem.

I agree science is neither true nor false, although some see it as an absolute truth.

Science is a predictive model that can be experimentally tested. That a model predicts outcome of experiment does not man it represents physical reality. An example is Newtonian Mechanics.