Do Outspoken Atheists Hurt Evolution & Science?

It's not just enough that atheists and religious skeptics have to sit down and shut up in the field of politics rather than criticize the Christianity people are pushing in government; atheists also have to shut up in the field of science rather than criticize Christianity there because this prevents Christians from accepting the truth of evolution. Why don't we just gag all atheists permanently?

Jason at Evolutionblog writes about the recent comments from Michael Ruse about how awful atheists like Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins can be:

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 sympathetic 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?

Jason has written before about Michael Ruse’s complaints about atheists in the field of evolution:

On the one hand he says that evolutionists are making religious commitments. But then he immediately turns around and says that evolutionary theory isn’t necessarily religious. Really he is only saying that he objects to some of the things that certain popularizers write. He should simply say that, instead of chumming the waters by saying that creationists are right about anything.

PZ Myers comments:

Ruse is echoing a common tendency, the habit of trying to hide away the atheists on the side of evolution—it’s also represented by that common adjective, “strident”. You can’t be a plain-spoken advocate for common sense and the avoidance of absurd superstitions, no matter how hallowed by time and tradition, without getting called “strident”, “dogmatic”, and “fundamentalist” over and over again, as well as being told, in more or less these words, to sit down and shut up and quit scaring away the rubes…while every scientist who makes room in his head for a little credulity towards ancient myths is treated as a special gift to the cause of reason. It’s extraordinarily irritating. Can we get a little consistency, please?

As Myers says, the problem isn’t that atheists are speaking out, but that they aren’t speaking out enough. The presence of any atheists speaking out confidently and firmly in science, politics, or elsewhere is perceived as a problem by some religious believers because it’s a relatively new phenomenon — it wasn’t so long ago that a person risked their career for being an outspoken atheist, just like if they were openly gay.

Today atheists are still the objects of more bigotry and hatred than almost any group, but it’s also easier to be an outspoken atheist. We need more atheists to speak out with confidence because, as Myers says, that’s the only way we will get people used to the fact that we exist and that our views are no less justified than theirs. The gross intolerance that religious believers have for outspoken atheists is not a reason for atheists to sit down and shut up.

Ruse’s suggestion that atheists should be quiet is offensive not simply because it’s condescending to religious people, but because it is attempted complicity in the suppression of atheists — something that would encourage their having a second-class status in society. I can’t respect Ruse either as a philosopher or as a man for singling out atheists for such comments. He has every right to disagree with what some atheists say in connection to evolution (I do as well), but he has no business even suggesting that it’s wrong for atheists to be outspoken on the subject of evolution, Christianity, or the relationship between science and religion.

If outspoken atheists do make it difficult for Christians to reconcile with reality, that speaks ill of Christians and religion, not of atheists.

 

Quick Poll: Should atheists sit down and shut up about evolution and science so that Christians don't feel unconformable?

1. Absolutely - atheists are hurting the cause of teaching and accepting science in America.
2. Sometimes, maybe. It's a matter of not being egregiously offensive and unreasonable.
3. No - some atheists may draw inappropriate conclusions, but no more than Christians who aren't being told to shut up.

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Read More:

• Evolution vs. Creationism
• Science vs. Religion
• What is Science?

 

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• Religious Privilege
• Christian Privilege
• Christian Supremacy