There has been a lot of discussion lately in the blogosphere about the public understanding of science and how scientists can better communicate scientific ideas to laypeople (see here, for example). That's why I'm kind of amazed at some of the reactions to the whole Ruse-Dennett debacle. The question is whether Ruse's style or the Dawkins/Dennett style of promoting evolution is the best way to go.

Ruse wrote,

"Fifth, I think that you and Richard [Dawkins] are absolute disasters in the fight against intelligent design "“ we are losing this battle, not the least of which is the two new supreme court justices who are certainly going to vote to let it into classrooms "“ what we need is not knee-jerk atheism but serious grappling with the issues "“ neither of you are willing to study Christianity seriously and to engage with the ideas "“ it is just plain silly and grotesquely immoral to claim that Christianity is simply a force for evil, as Richard claims "“ more than this, we are in a fight, and we need to make allies in the fight, not simply alienate everyone of good will."

In response, Jason Rosenhouse wrote,

"Now, I happen to share Dennett's and Dawkins' contemptuos attitude towards Christianity, but that's not the part I want to comment on. Rather, I want to challenge this idea that the atheism of Dawkins and Dennett hurts the cause of promoting quality science education.

This assertion is frequently made but it is never backed up with anything. Is it really true that the strident atheism of people like Dennett and Dawkins negatively influences the way people look at evolution? If that's true, it certainly paints a bleak picture of many religious people. If I argued that I would be symapthetic to evolution, except that I see people like Ken Miller, John Haught and Simon Conway Morris drawing theistic conclusions from it, I don't think Ruse would show me much respect. After all, evolution should sink or swim on the basis of the relevant evidence. If that evidence is strong, it should not matter what Dawkins or Dennett (or Haught or Miller or Conway Morris) thinks.

Arguing that strident atheism hurts the cause is remarkably condescending towards religious people. It's saying that they are too emotional to understand and think seriously about the evidence. It's saying that those people can't be expected to provide an honest assessment of the evidence because mean old Richard Dawkins made a snide remark about their religious views.

When I encounter people like Ken Miller or Simon Conway Morris I say simply that they are right about the science but wrong about the metaphysical stuff. Why can't religious people be expected to have the same reaction towards Dawkins and Dennett?"

Whether this is good or not, when somebody says something that Joe Schmo thinks is crazy (e.g., saying raising children in a religion is child abuse or saying religious belief can be explained just like cancer), then Joe is not going to find that person credible. See here, for example.

I'm going to call this the Dilbert Principle. A few months ago, Scott Adams, the creator of the popular comic strip Dilbert, wrote a few posts on evolution and intelligent design. His main point through all the posts was that he didn't know who to listen to - he couldn't find any credible sources of information. He didn't know whose information to trust. P.Z. Myers responded in this post which only served to reinforce Adams' ideas that there aren't an credible sources. The lesson? When you fail to understand people's points of view, when you insult them, and when treat them like they are stupid, the average person isn't going to listen to what you have to say.

Ruse, in the quote above, is basically saying that when speaking out against ID and creationism, they should remember the Dilbert Principle. If you are going to talk about Christianity, don't use bad caricatures as both Dawkins and Dennett are prone to do. Rather, they need to take "Christianity seriously and to engage with the ideas." Ruse isn't saying that only theistic evolutionists should speak to the public about evolution (Ruse himself doesn't believe in god afterall). Rather, he's saying that when atheists do talk about evolution that they be smart about it. Ruse isn't insulting the intelligence of believers or people in general by saying that they can't follow evidence. Rather, he's saying that if you don't remember the Dilbert Principle, people won't listen to evidence presented by you.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 23rd, 2006 at 3:35 pm and is filed under Evolution, Intelligent Design, The Debate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. The trackback link is: http://telicthoughts.com/the-dilbert-principle/trackback/