NOMA - Is this the answer?

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Originally posted by acmhttu001_2006:
I have recently begun to read a book that is entitled Rock of Ages by Stephan Gould. It advocates NOMA - or Non-Overlapping Magesteria. Has anyone read this book or know anything about this? Does anyone agree or disagree with the proposal he set forth in this book? And can this not be the answer or a good way to now base our debates on, NON-OVERLAPPING MAGESTERIA?

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I am interested in what you guys have to say about what you think.

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Hi Anne,I finally got a chance to come back to this post (sorry it took so long). To distill SJ Gould's idea down a bit, NOMA (for anyone who doesn't know what it is) is essentially a philosophical position that postulates there are questions which science cannot address, and which rightly belong in the purview of religion. This notably includes such areas as "meaning" and "purpose", "love" and "ethics", etc. Gould's idea was that limiting each magisterium would permit a reconciliation between science and religion, creating a sort of modus vivendi between the two worldviews. (Please correct me if I've mistated the case.) Gould saw himself as a great conciliator.I don't completely disagree with him. However, I don't completely agree with him, either.On the one hand, I fully concur that totally subjective statements such as "I love my wife." are not amenable to scientific analysis. Simply put, there is no way for an independent observer to accurately replicate or document what the declarer means - the essence of science. No personal, subjectively defined emotion, testamony, or individual experience can be scientifically evaluated. On the other hand, the specific neuro-physiological responses associated with the emotion CAN be evaluated. With a large enough sample, a verifiable, replicatable statistical average of the responses can be gained - meaning that science has indeed analyzed the complex emotion "love". Note, this does NOT change the entirely subjective connotation each individual imputes to "love", but it does eliminate it from the exclusive province of any religion.Moreover, attributes such as "purpose" and "meaning of life" are cultural affects. There is no universally accepted "meaning of life" - each culture or society defines this differently depending on the subjective values they place on life, etc. Whereas I can certainly agree that biology may not be in a position to analyze it, I disagree with Gould that the subject should be abandoned to religion. It is certainly within the purview of so-called "soft sciences" such as sociology, cultural anthropology, etc. The relatively new field of sociobiology may also have something to say on the issue - at least in the sense of being able to objectively analyze the evolutionary underpinnings of a particular society's view on "Why are we here". Worse still, no two religions or sects agree on the question - meaning that religion itself is unable to actually address the issue.Religion HAS no exclusive province, even on the deepest philosophical level. To assume otherwise allows religion to ascribe to itself powers and abilities it doesn't justifiably have. It allows it to define such things as "morals" and "right and wrong" which are totally subjective cultural values. And before the fundies burn any crosses on my computer, I am NOT a moral relativist - I do not hold to the post-modernist belief that all definitions of morality (for example) are equally valid. However, this is not from some metaphysical philosophy, but rather from a sociobiological standpoint some moral positions are non-adaptive.Interested in hearing your reply.

Actually I never said "man had no purpose". I merely said that such purpose depended exclusively on the value placed on it by the particular culture. It's a quantifiable affect, and hence amenable to scientific scrutiny. Not the sole purview of any religion.I also obviously disagree with the following:

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"These blows to man's solar plexus are held to explain modern man's self-contempt and justify his giving up will and responsibility. We are told that "scientifically speaking" man is altogether a conditioned and helpless being.

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The scientific creed is that man must make himself a edisembodied eye before the universe...This may all be very well for certain scientific workers, but, to most men, the abdication of purpose seems to equate with a denial of life within."

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I don't believe that simply by adopting the assumption as a working hypothesis that the universe is inherently knowable and accessible to the human intellect means we are doomed to "self contempt", etc. On the contrary, I can't think of any endeavor that is more intrinsically uplifting (if you'll pardon the metaphysical/philosophical reference).

I'd be interested to hear what you have to say about the Vatican's position on NOMA - sounds more or less to me that they buy Gould's argument. Don't know, 'cause I'm not Catholic.

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I have not heard of socibiology. The hard sciences do not as of yet accept religion yet.

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True, although I would argue that sociobiology IS a hard science — it combines elements of biology, genetics, population biology, evolutionary biology, ecology, and animal behavior etc with some aspects of sociology, cultural anthropology and other disciplines in an effort to explore the underpinnings of sociality and culture. If you get a chance, I suggest reading E.O. Wilson’s seminal Sociobiology. It’s a bit dated (first published in 1975, IIRC), and can get opaque at times, especially when he deals with the equations for population genetics, etc, (and some of Wilson’s ideas are not strongly supported — eg group selection) , but is an outstanding primer on this exciting field. Be careful: there is significant controversy over some of the more out there claims of evolutionary psychology (which a lot of people lump in with sociobiology — including some sociobiologists!). They aren’t the same. Sociobiology seeks to understand the basis of behavior — including human. Sociobiology does research to answer specific questions: How does behavior develop or change over time? What are the environmental determinants of behavior and how does the environment test behavior (think of a particular behavior pattern as analogous to a phenotypical trait — how does that specific trait/suite effect an organism’s or population’s survival?)? How is a particular behavior transmitted (inherited or passed laterally) through time — and how do environmental factors change the behavior over time? What are the physiological bases for a given behavior (i.e., what combination of internal and external stimuli cause a particular behavior? What elements within an organism or its environment elicit a particular behavioral pattern?)?The evo-psych folks drag in another bit — What are the mental processes that lead to specific behaviors? This is the bit I think is out there, since it may not be amenable to scientific analysis since they are looking at purely subjective behaviors. This is also the area that garners, obviously enough, the most criticism.
Sorry about the digression — I find sociobiology a fascinating subject.

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When you say two sects do not agree with each other in a religious setting. I agree. But I believe that all relgions - any belief system that deals with the supernatural or why we are here, should be put in the Magesterium of Religion. Science cannot and will no even have the "Deity" in mind while it is pursuing truth. That is just not the way that science is set up.

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And therein lies the rub, as it were. This highlights the key element of my disagreement with NOMA. IMO, there IS no distinct magisterium. Allow me to explainReligions have, throughout history, abrogated unto themselves the power to define what constitutes ethics, morality, progress, purpose, etc. They have traditionally dictated the moral laws and established the social constraints necessary for complex societies, although primarily with the goal of insuring their own survival and propagation. Don’t get me wrong: religions and their symbols have played a powerful role in cultural evolution, providing cohesiveness, group identity, and a comforting wall against the impersonality of nature. In addition, religions have in the past provided a fairly solid foundation upon which to base the socio-cultural interactions needed in any society that grows beyond the family/group level. As such, the advent of religion was a highly successful adaptive response to increasing social complexity in pre-scientific societies.
However, religions and their adherents rather quickly seized upon the idea that they — and they alone — possessed Truth , whether about morality or the nature of the universe. Anyone who was not an adherent could not, by definition — including competing religions. While this may have been an acceptable and even necessary postulate to a pre-scientific society, especially to foster group identity, a religious meme based on a rigidly enforced dogma and reward-punishment is only effective in the absence of alternatives.With the rise of a rationalist or naturalist epistemology, especially since the Enlightenment (although the Greeks, and even theologians like Aquinas saw the utility of rationalism within their own context), the religious meme complex or worldview has faced it’s greatest survival challenge. Forced to retreat from its claim to being able to answer all of the questions of the universe, religion is now in a position of being forced to justify its own existence for the first time in human history.This is where NOMA and similar arguments come in. I often hear claims that there are things that science simply can’t address. Not very long ago, it was claimed that astronomy couldn’t explain the universe. Along come the Hubble telescope and the modern cosmologists and astrophysicists who have extended human knowledge of the universe beyond even the conception of early astronomers like Galileo. Religion, in spite of some early successes at suppression, has been forced to abandon their claim to primacy. Today, there are those that claim science is forever unable to address other aspects of human behavior or experience — including religion, ethics and morality.
This is obviously false. Religion or religious belief, being a behavior, is amenable to analysis. Comparative religion studies have been conducted (anthropology). The roles of religion in society have been analyzed (sociology). Religious experiences (such as talking in tongues, etc) have been analyzed in the context of mental affect (psychology) and physiology (neuro-psychology). The genetic and evolutionary basis of capacity to believe itself has been analyzed (sociobiology/behavior, evolutionary biology). The founding documents and key historical context of many religions have been scrutinized (archeology, linguistics). Religion is no longer an untouchable, unassailable magisterium. It is investigatable like everything else in human experience.The obvious counterargument I hear from theists is: but what about faith? What about the transcendent, non-behavioral aspects of the religious experience? What about the warm, fuzzy feeling it provides? The sense of purpose it grants? On what basis can one judge right and wrong without religion? How can you have morality without God?There are several issues here. The first is how religion and religious experience makes one feel. As I noted above, entirely subjective, individual feelings — or the connotations one places on one’s internal state — are probably NOT really amenable to scientific investigation beyond the gross physical effects. Heck, my youngest daughter claims she can’t fall asleep without at least five fuzzy stuffed animals in bed with her — they make her feel secure. Can we analyze her behavior? Unequivocally yes. However, we will probably never be able to determine how she arrived at the correlation five fuzzy animals = security = sleep. Even if we could, somehow, the information would be fairly useless because she represents a sample population of n=1 out of a species population n=6*10^9. In other words, the individual datum is meaningless with no predictive or retrodictive utility. The same goes for religion: every single item of faith or religious experience is intensely subjective and internalized individually in the same fashion. However, since there is no consistence between individuals, they are truly not addressable by science. Not, I hasten to add, because the experiences have some extrinsic reality, but because they are based on the structure of our individual brains and the way we each individually process input and perception.The second issue in the counterargument is the issue of morality — which I’ll address below.

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The soft sciences are not considered to be real "science" even though they may take some things from the established science. Would you agree with this? Professor told me this. He considers the hard sciences to be real science and the others cheap imitations of them. I do not know much about the soft sciences, so I defer judgement until I find out more about them.

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I’ve heard this before — a lot. Some of the criticism is justified. A lot of sociologists, psychologists (including the evolutionary ones) and anthropologists are often guilty of hopping on the most recent pop bandwagon. However, I submit that so-called soft sciences CAN be as empirically rigorous as any hard science. The practitioners just need to clean up their collective act a bit. Depending on what your relationship is with your professor, you might want to point out that s/he is essentially espousing the exact same dichotomy as NOMA — that there is some non-overlapping magisteria between the different approaches. Interpretation of data is intrinsic to both. Then ask him/her if s/he’s read E. O Wilson’s Consilience, which brings social and biological sciences together in a rather neat synthesis.

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Anne: You said that religioin has no exclusive province. Christains today claim that it is the one true way, based off of Jesus saying "I am the Way.....," This sounds pretty exclusive to me. Either believe or go to hell. Not much of a choice here.

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Q: "To assume otherwise allows religion to ascribe to itself powers and abilities it doesn't justifiably have. It allows it to define such things as "morals" and "right and wrong" which are totally subjective cultural values. "

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Anne: Do not all religions define morals and values anyway. No matter how conservative or liberal they may be. Even Wicca which is an accept all, has its morals and values. NO religion does not define morals or values. The religions say you have to do something in order to communicate with the supernatural - "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling[not sure of the last part of the quote] - Christainity, Buddhist work for enlightment, Wiccan works to become one with divine. Any religion states how you should act or be in order to reach the "heaven", "enlightment", or "becoming one with the divine."

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Precisely my point. The adherents of various religions insist that their way and only their way is correct. That you either accept their moral precepts, dicta, proscriptions, etc, or you will be liable to some form of punishment — whether it’s eternity in a lake of fire or the inability to achieve Nirvana. They have presumed the right to define morality for a very long time. This doesn’t mean that it is necessarily the way things should be. Nor does it necessarily mean they are correct, and should be allowed to continue to do so. The simple fact that no two religions have a single definition or understanding of morality indicates that they are, indeed, dealing with culturally dependent values and affects. It is questionable, to me at least, whether religion should be granted the authority or exclusive mandate to define morality (or purpose, or meaning of life, or ethics) or anything else. NOMA fails because it is ascribing a normative or dominant role to religion which in reality it does not merit in these subject areas.Here’s an experiment for you. While you read Rock of Ages, see if you can pick up an idea of how Gould defines religion — or at least the kind of religion he proposes should be the ideal or archetype of the religious magisterium. See if you think it corresponds to any extant religion.

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Q: "some moral positions are non-adaptive."

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Anne: So can you come up with some examples for me?

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Hmm, not as easy as it sounds. My statement was intended to convey that, in the context of a modern secular society (say, US/UK for example), application of many of the religious moral precepts (for instance) are not appropriate — or better said are no longer appropriate — responses to the complexity of interactions in the society. Hence these moral positions are non-adaptive in context. Examples would include the concrete ethical recommendations or proscriptions made by the religion in areas such as sexual morality, roles of women, extra-group marriage (or even friendship), etc, even how the group sees ethical relations with other groups. You should pick a religion with which you are familiar and see how its particular moral and ethical positions fit with the rest of the society and culture of which it is a part. I think you’ll find the exercise interesting.

Hey gene:

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I see no justification for strong atheism. The only logical conclusion you can reach is that you just "don't know" if God exists. Any further than that and you are deceiving yourself.

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I'm not sure that's necessarily the case. I'd say more likely it depends on how each individual assesses the "confidence level" of their epistemology or worldview.Consider: from my standpoint religions have had literally thousands of years and literally millions of adherents searching for or at least interested in uncovering factual evidence of the existence of God or gods. In spite of all that effort, to date no such evidence has been unearthed. It is therefore quite reasonable to assume no evidence exists - and therefore god(s) doesn't/don't exist. Is it an assumption? Yes, of course. Is it unwarranted? No.This is quite different from a belief that abiogenesis has occurred, for instance. While there hasn't been any objective "proof" uncovered yet that it did, there are multiply converging lines of evidence that give clues that it could have occurred. It certainly doesn't appear to violate any known natural laws or processes and can be reasonably postulated from known phenomena. Unlike, for example, an invisible, undetectable, unknowable super-entity.So whereas the statement "there are no gods" may be unsupported at the most fundamental logical level, it isn't unreasonable considering the vast amount of time and resources that have been unsuccessfully sunk into trying to find evidence for their existence. Could there be gods? I suppose anything is possible - just like quantum physics leaves open the possibility that my car might translate overnight from the garage to the street. However, the probability of this occurring is so vanishingly small that it is effectively zero. I'm not gonna hold my breath...

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Originally posted by gene90:
Consider though that every religion claims to have had interaction with god(s) in the past. We don't actually *know* that no religion has uncovered evidence, we just choose to disbelieve most or all of it (one God seperates me from weak atheism so I must include myself in that group).

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That's sort of in agreement with my point. I would venture that any religion that had irrefutable evidence (or at least evidence too concrete to ignore) of the existence of their particular deity would rapidly become dominant. Hell, even I could be convinced, I suppose. As to the other - lol - that's really the only thing that separates us: I merely believe in one less god than you do.

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That's true. But abiogenesis is a subject covered by organic chemistry, which is an empirical science that we have over a century of experience with. We can model abiogenesis because we know how molecules react under different conditions and we can make educated guesses about the conditions present on early Earth. In short abiogenesis, even though we can't go back in time, is something that is accessible to us. Theology isn't a science, it is not acceptable to us. It's a very foggy area and probably of no practical use, other than perhaps helping somebody decide if they 'believe'.

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I agree completely.

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That's entirely respectable for a personal belief but it is my opinion that it doesn't justify strong atheism, which I consider, actively opposing religion. Note though that I'm not classifying you as such.

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My chief problem is when somebody "knows" there is no God, and that's usually the colloquial meaning of atheism.

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Well, if I had to classify myself (often a rather silly, self-referential sort of endeavor), I probably WOULD classify myself as "strong atheist". I don't say I "know" there is no god. OTOH, I do say that the complete absence of confirming evidence and lack of any compelling logic (i.e., no phenomena examined to date have given any reason to drag in extra complications like deities), gives me fairly high confidence to state: "There is no god".

No disagreement with you Moose. It's probably a continuum, anyway.