NOMA no more

[Ray Moscow]

I suppose this topic could be in the religion or philosophy forums just as well as this one, but let's start it here.

Russell Blackford's blog has a great comment on NOMA, the hypothesis that science and religion apply to competely different and nonoverlapping spheres of human concern.

NOMA No More -- the great accomodation debate (http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2009/06/noma-no-more-great-accommodationism.html)

By now, the reasonable assumption is that such things as ancestor spirits, gods, angels, and demons really do not exist. It is not that they exist in a separate sphere that can be known through religious experience - but is beyond the methods of science. More likely, they don't exist at all.

There is more to be said about this, but I'd like to spend more time on another claim, the idea, popularised by Stephen Jay Gould, that science deals with the empirical world, where it has authority, while religion deals with questions of how we ought to live, essentially the realm of morality, where it has authority. Thus, science and religion have separate spheres of authority and that do not overlap. According to this view, we are entitled to tell religious leaders to keep out of such matters as the age of the Earth and whether Homo sapiens evolved from earlier forms of life. However, so the idea goes, scientists should not challenge the authority of religion in the moral realm.

In my view, this is comprehensively wrong.

He brings up some very, very good points in the essay, which help me understand more fully why NOMA always seemed like such a crappy idea all along.

[David B]

Yes, very good piece.

NOMA always seemed to me a cop-out, with the aim of avoiding conflict between religion and science, by giving religion far too much respect.

David

[Ray Moscow]

Yes, very good piece.

NOMA always seemed to me a cop-out, with the aim of avoiding conflict between religion and science, by giving religion far too much respect.

David

My main complaint about the concept is that religion has never refrained from speaking in, or even trying to control, any and every sphere of human concern until it was made obvious to everyone that the religious view was just wrong.

NOMA is only plausible when a religion has been so badly beaten up that it has retreated to areas where science and other reality-based disciplines have not yet made major inroads. But even then, it won't stay there -- it's always looking another area of human ignorance or credulity in which to spread itself.

[Monad]

Yes, very good piece.

NOMA always seemed to me a cop-out, with the aim of avoiding conflict between religion and science, by giving religion far too much respect.

David

My main complaint about the concept is that religion has never refrained from speaking in, or even trying to control, any and every sphere of human concern until it was made obvious to everyone that the religious view was just wrong.

NOMA is only plausible when a religion has been so badly beaten up that it has retreated to areas where science and other reality-based disciplines have not yet made major inroads. But even then, it won't stay there -- it's always looking another area of human ignorance or credulity in which to spread itself.

True but religion is often at its most despicable and pernicious when interfering in people's lives under the guise of "expertise" in morality. It has no more moral authority than it has scientific or any other.

[Worldtraveller]

Yes, very good piece.

NOMA always seemed to me a cop-out, with the aim of avoiding conflict between religion and science, by giving religion far too much respect.

David

My main complaint about the concept is that religion has never refrained from speaking in, or even trying to control, any and every sphere of human concern until it was made obvious to everyone that the religious view was just wrong.

NOMA is only plausible when a religion has been so badly beaten up that it has retreated to areas where science and other reality-based disciplines have not yet made major inroads. But even then, it won't stay there -- it's always looking another area of human ignorance or credulity in which to spread itself.
Well, to be as fair as possible to what I agree is a pretty stupid idea....

NOMA was introduced to allay the religious moderates who more or less support good science education and weren't the ones trying to interject thier beliefs into science and other fields.

You know the ones who aren't True Xians (TM). ;)

[Preno]

Eh, it's just another in a long line of attempts to make a retarded idea respectable by giving it an unusual name - magisteria, qualia, p-zombies, etc. In order to work, it would require religions to make no empirical claims whatsoever, which, however, they clearly do. Unless you're some kinda deist, you can't use this cop-out, anyway.

[DMB]

While the bishops and imams are keen to rush in and tell us what is moral behaviour, they have a terrible record of persecuting people in the name of their particular religions. It hardly inspires confidence.

Furthermore a lot of the stuff enjoined by holy scripture is seriously weird. Why so much bother about foreskins? Why have the concept of clean and unclean foods? Can the creator of the universe really care about such stuff?

[His Noodly Appendage]

60og9gwKh1o

[lpetrich]

I had a thought on that question. If the existence and nature and activities of the traditional sort of God could be readily verified, then it would be reasonable to have a "science of God", and likewise with angels and demons and ghosts and sorcery and so forth.

Think of what it must be like to live in a sword-and-sorcery universe. One could imagine a science of sorcery in such a universe, as opposed to it being a pseudotechnology as it is in our Universe. I coined the term "pseudotechnology" in analogy with "pseudoscience".

[Ray Moscow]

I think it was Fraiser (of The Golden Bough fame) who proposed that theistic religion gradually replaced magic because of one major improvement: if the religion "magic" (such as prayer) didn't work, one could always claim that God (or the gods) had other, hidden intentions that were beyond our knowledge.

With magic, if it didn't work, the magician was at fault. But with religion, the priest or preacher could invoke "God's will" to explain the failure.

Otherwise, the two are much the same.

[Preno]

I think it was Fraiser (of The Golden Bough fame) who proposed that theistic religion gradually replaced magic because of one major improvement: if the religion "magic" (such as prayer) didn't work, one could always claim that God (or the gods) had other, hidden intentions that were beyond our knowledge.

With magic, if it didn't work, the magician was at fault. But with religion, the priest or preacher could invoke "God's will" to explain the failure.Depends on the kind of religion, I guess. Priests aren't generally held responsible, but in shamanistic religions, the shaman is responsible for the success of their rituals - if they don't work most of the time, he's just incompetent.

[Berthold]

Was it Richard Dawkins, who once wrote something along the line, "Why should I trust something like that to them, of all people?" ;)

[Barefoot Bree]

I had a thought on that question. If the existence and nature and activities of the traditional sort of God could be readily verified, then it would be reasonable to have a "science of God", and likewise with angels and demons and ghosts and sorcery and so forth.

Think of what it must be like to live in a sword-and-sorcery universe. One could imagine a science of sorcery in such a universe, as opposed to it being a pseudotechnology as it is in our Universe. I coined the term "pseudotechnology" in analogy with "pseudoscience".

Thus leading into a fascinating subset of science fiction/fantasy (not sure which). Randall Garrett wrote a few stores about - well, let Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Garrett)take over: Garrett is best known for the Lord Darcy books—the novel Too Many Magicians and two short story collections—set in an alternate world where a joint British-French empire still led by a Plantagenet dynasty has survived into the twentieth century and where magic works and has been scientifically codified. The Darcy books are rich in jokes, puns, and references (particularly to works of detective and spy fiction: Lord Darcy is himself partially modelled on Sherlock Holmes), elements that often appear in his shorter works. Michael Kurland would continue to write Lord Darcy stories.

I remember Lord Darcy. Those were great books.

[Josie]

I had a thought on that question. If the existence and nature and activities of the traditional sort of God could be readily verified, then it would be reasonable to have a "science of God", and likewise with angels and demons and ghosts and sorcery and so forth.

Think of what it must be like to live in a sword-and-sorcery universe. One could imagine a science of sorcery in such a universe, as opposed to it being a pseudotechnology as it is in our Universe. I coined the term "pseudotechnology" in analogy with "pseudoscience".

Thus leading into a fascinating subset of science fiction/fantasy (not sure which). Randall Garrett wrote a few stores about - well, let Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Garrett)take over: Garrett is best known for the Lord Darcy books—the novel Too Many Magicians and two short story collections—set in an alternate world where a joint British-French empire still led by a Plantagenet dynasty has survived into the twentieth century and where magic works and has been scientifically codified. The Darcy books are rich in jokes, puns, and references (particularly to works of detective and spy fiction: Lord Darcy is himself partially modelled on Sherlock Holmes), elements that often appear in his shorter works. Michael Kurland would continue to write Lord Darcy stories.

I remember Lord Darcy. Those were great books.

Cool! I'm running out of things to read, and that looks like it is just up my alley. :)

Now, to see if I can get it from the library.

I love our interlibrary loan program, found a 3-1 volume, should be here in a couple of days.

[pSimon]

Good books those.

Carnaki The Ghost Finder [William Hope Hodgson] has a few similar elements too, although of a more "experimental" nature, such as the "Electic Pentacle".

[wordy]

Yes, very good piece.

NOMA always seemed to me a cop-out, with the aim of avoiding conflict between religion and science, by giving religion far too much respect.

David

My main complaint about the concept is that religion has never refrained from speaking in, or even trying to control, any and every sphere of human concern until it was made obvious to everyone that the religious view was just wrong.

NOMA is only plausible when a religion has been so badly beaten up that it has retreated to areas where science and other reality-based disciplines have not yet made major inroads. But even then, it won't stay there -- it's always looking another area of human ignorance or credulity in which to spread itself.
Well, to be as fair as possible to what I agree is a pretty stupid idea....

NOMA was introduced to allay the religious moderates who more or less support good science education and weren't the ones trying to interject thier beliefs into science and other fields.

You know the ones who aren't True Xians (TM). ;)

that makes much sense.

Stephen Jay Gould being a politically aware scientist most likely did such a "compromise" cause he knew that if science has no support from moderate Christians then a lot of science would be heavily loosing funding and has to be run on Hobby budget from the scientists own pocket in their homes after they comes home from low paid Food Chain cleaning jobs late at night.

In US it is the Christians that have all the money.

I don't support NOMA at all. I fail to see how religion can be compatible with science. I am very much an anti-woo-woo person and religion is woo woo to me. Even Buddhism to me is 99% woo woo.

The 1% that is not could be placebo that is no woo woo. Placebo really exists.