# Edward O. Wilson on Salon: not too sharp **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 21, 2006, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251 "2006-03-21T05:16:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/1 "2006-03-21T05:16:36Z")
I’m sure the guy has made his contributions and whatnot, but he really comes across as not arguing much better that your typical GDer. In fact, a lot of what he says is embarrassingly childish. For those with Salon Premium here is the link (if you’re without, you can watch an ad and read it): [http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/03/21/wilson/](http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/03/21/wilson/) First, there’s the typical Darwin worship. Yes, he was a great thinker and scientist. But evolution was in the air at the time, he had many predecessors, he had Wallace as a contemporary, and we regularly impute to him completed, modern views that he reached himself but gradually or not at all (i.e., he never used the term “evolution” in _Origin_ except in one instance, etc. etc.). BTW, I’m sick of the false religion-vs.-evolution dichotomy. If you were raised Catholic, as I was, you were taught evolution as fact from day one and there was never any contorversy in the matter. OK, here’s our first not-so-bright point: > [@EOW](#): > > Well, you have to choose between the scientific materialist view of the origin of the mind on the one side, and the traditional religious view that the spirit and the mind are independent of the process of evolution and eventually non-corporeal, capable of leaving the body and going elsewhere. No, you don’t. Aristotle saw the soul as the “form of the body.” I have a similar view: the soul is the pattern of a human, the “theory” of a person that exists outside of the strict time of what we perceive as the material universe. The soul is produced by natural means and is a natural entity. (In a similar fashion, _The Great Gatsby_ can be written in sand, ink, or pixels but is always the same pattern of words and/or meanings. It was created by natural means–Fitzgerald wrote it–but can nevertheless continue to exist without him.) False dichotomy. > [@EOW](#): > > Religious belief itself is an adaptation that has evolved because we’re hard-wired to form tribalistic religions. Religion is intensely tribalistic. A devout Christian or Muslim doesn’t say one religion is as good as another. It gives them faith in the particular group to which they belong and that set of beliefs and moral views. Bad history. Pagan religions generally recognized each other’s gods. The interesting question is how hard-core evangelical monotheistic religion arose when it had never existed previously. EOW is correct that our species has a sad tendency to play insider-outsider games, but religion in the modern era seems to be a leveler of the tribe more than a supporter (Christianity and Islam, at least in theory and often in practice, seek to create one tribe of believers, that is, all of humanity). > [@EOW](#): > > Awe is hard to put into words. Actually, there’s a perfect word for it: “Awe.” > [@EOW](#): > > Possibly the greatest philosophical question of the 21st century is the resolution of religious faith with the growing realization of the very different nature of the material world. You could say that we evolved to accept one truth – the religious instinct – but then discovered another. Actually, I think he’s missing the big picture: the problem isn’t a “religious” instinct but a serious flaw of the species’ mental makeup: the desire to create a falsely complete story of the world and stick to it. Religions do it, political parties do it, factions and tribes and nations do it. In Maoist China, atheism was correct, Marx and Lenin were the greatest heros of the past, and everything Mao said was true. It was a simplified, mythical, and superficially secular worldview. EOW goes on to call himself a “provisional deist.” His brain wattage on this point as well is pretty meagre. > [@EOW](#): > > You know, being a good scientist, and having been drawn up short so many times on my own theories and speculations – as all honest scientists are – I don’t want to exclude the possibility of a creative force or deity. I think that would be a mistake to say there is no God or supernatural force. As the theologian Hans Kung once said, how are we to explain there is something and not nothing? Well, that’s a question I’m happy to leave to the astrophysicist – where the laws of the universe came from and what is the meaning of the origin of existence. But I do feel confident that there is no intervention of a deity in the origin of life and humanity. Oh, where to start. First, he is not confident that there is no deity, but he’s confident that this deity doesn’t intervene.That is like saying that I don’t know if Pegasus exists, but I am confident that, if it does, and even if it has wings, it can’t fly. As you will see from the context, EOW admits there might be an “intelligence”; if it’s intelligent and intervened once, then presumably it could intervene again. Second, the type of research that an astrophysicist does is incapable of elucidating why there is something and not nothing, inasmuch as everything such a scientist studies is (insofar as we may perceive) contingent, whereas an attempt to understand the origin of the universe must comprise an attempt to understand the nature of contingency. He really ought to be embarrassed by now, but he goes on to say other things that are just plain stupid. To wit, > [@EOW](#): > > Well, because there’s a possibility that a god or gods – I don’t think it would resemble anything of the Judeo-Christian variety – or a super-intelligent force came along and started the universe with a big bang and moved on to the next universe. I can’t discount that. And maybe Jesus Christ is Lord–can you discount _that_? Oh, but _of course_ what he can’t discount would definitely not be anything like, you know, what Jews and Christians believe. Just because scientists like him, you know, _know_. > [@EOW](#): > > If you define progress as an increase in complexity – say, going from a simple bacterium-like organism up to an advanced animal or human society – there’s no question that evolution has progressed. But if you see it as some kind of teleological force that is moving evolution along, that there will be progress in the universe from A to Z, you cannot see that in evolution. Progress is basically a human concept. And the conclusion that progress is “basically a human concept” or “just a human concept” is… just a human concept! I like how these guys think they can step outside of our poor human minds _just for a second_ to perceive in _perfect objectivity_ how subjective, and therefore invalid, some particular meme or whatnot is. Yeah, human beings and Bach and malt whisky are “progress” over the paramecium, and WWI and George W. Bush are negative progress, as it were. Subjectively objectively speaking. EOW goes on to say why heaven would be hell in a pretty dense fashion. The whole article makes him look pretty boneheaded. He says nothing really original or clever, he fails to anticipate what clever opponents could say and is presumably ignorant of what they are in fact saying, and in general he just doesn’t demonstrate those little epicycles of mind (“Wait a second, I can take my own point and criticize it and take it to the next level”) that I associate with true genius. Disappointing. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/2 "2006-03-21T10:31:52Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > First, there’s the typical Darwin worship. Is strong admiration OK? _On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life_ is a magnificent work, and no great scientist I know of had **no** contemporaries. > [@](#): > > No, you don’t [have to choose between materialism and noncorporealism]. I’d point to the key word there: the **origin** of mind. A soul which can wander off elsewhere is IMO not compatible with the thesis that the mind and cogitation **evolved** like, say, _respiration_ or _vision_, unless one posits souls waiting to be born into a piece of hardware which has only just become complex enough to hold it. Suffice it to say, I consider this ludicrous, but I’d be interested in exploring the options if you’re offering any. > [@](#): > > the soul is the pattern of a human What is it a pattern **of**? The Great Gatsby is a pattern of ink, pixels or neural memory. When you die on the surgeoun’s table, the pattern **of** your physical, neural connections becomes a pattern **of** … what, where? If it’s floating near the ceiling, what happens **to** the photons of light reflecting from the corpse such that ‘you’ can ‘see’ it? > [@](#): > > The soul is produced by natural means and is a natural entity. It’s _produced_ naturally? That makes me a little nervous, since it sounds like you wish to equate the word ‘mind’ or ‘consciousness’ (which I agree we all have) with ‘soul’ (which I don’t agree _anyone_ has). Is there any repeatable test you can suggest which distinguishes them, or could I say “When the anaesthetist administered the desflurane, I entered a state of unsoulfulness.” > [@](#): > > Bad history … Actually, there’s a perfect word for it: “Awe.” Plain pedantry, IMO. > [@](#): > > EOW goes on to call himself a “provisional deist.” His brain wattage on this point as well is pretty meagre. Why do you say this? There have been a lot of brilliant people who consider themselves “deists-of-the-gaps”, unwilling to throw out God _in toto_ until scientific explanations have improved (unlike reckless cavaliers like myself who try to leap those gaps with sometimes only the flimsiest of guideropes for support). > [@](#): > > Oh, where to start. Again, I suggest _origin_ is the key word there, and that he is suggesting that the scientific explanation for humanity looks good enough to him that a supernatural (or whatever word we might possibly agree on) intervention is **unnecessary** , which he can’t quite say yet for cosmology. > [@](#): > > Second, the type of research that an astrophysicist does is incapable of elucidating why there is something and not nothing I disagree, actually, since those notions are themselves heavily dependent on the nature of _time_. If the universe has always existed, that IMO elucidates a great deal since there was never a state of nothingness whose transition to somethingness needs to be explained. > [@](#): > > And maybe Jesus Christ is Lord–can you discount _that_? I think you’re rather strawmanising him there – after all, he did say he merely _didn’t think_ Christianity would be wholly true. That, to me, still implies a small possibility (yes, maybe much smaller than that small possibility he already admitted to, but a possibility nevertheless) of Christ=Lord’s truth in his opinion. After all, he did say ‘god _or gods_’, as though he is even entertaining a small possibility of even something as ludicrous as a whole host of Greek deities. > [@](#): > > And the conclusion that progress is “basically a human concept” or “just a human concept” is… just a human concept! Pedantry again on your part, IMO. He is quite rightly trying to address the pretty widespread fallacy that evolution has a _direction, purpose_ or _goal_. I don’t think the context could be much clearer, really, and I’m glad he’s saying it so clearly since it _is_ so common a misconception, IMO. > [@](#): > > EOW goes on to say why heaven would be hell in a pretty dense fashion. I can’t seem to access the article, but I don’t fancy heaven much either – it would be at least as frustrating as spending time and effort solving an enormous Rubik’s cube (_ie._ scientifically explaining the universe and everything in it) and then finding out that, actually, you were only supposed to take the stickers off and replace them in the correct places (_ie._ accept some supernatural intervention). What is so dense, exactly? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/3 "2006-03-21T16:53:36Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I’m sure the guy has made his contributions and whatnot… You win the award for the understatement of the year. 🙂 This guy is probably the worlds most preeminent entomologists (Mr. Ants) and has won 2 Pulitzer prizes, among many other awards. He almost single handedly invented the field of evolutionary psychology (which he called Sociobiology), for which he was vilified by the radical left for years, btw. I’ll give the article a look over later today and see if you’ve done it justice. I’ve read lots of stuff by Wilson, and if you think he’s not too sharp my guess is you’re misunderstanding him. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/4 "2006-03-21T18:08:32Z")
Always good to debate you, my friend. Actually, to no surprise, I find your arguments in this thread far more expertly stated than Wilson’s, who seemed both overconfident and befuddled. > [@SentientMeat](#): > > Is strong admiration OK? _On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life_ is a magnificent work, and no great scientist I know of had **no** contemporaries. Oh, I’m an admirer, absolutely. It’s the oversimplification and lack of context I don’t like. For example, the article talks about how Darwin went from a Bible thumper to a more rational mind, but fails to note the fact the Darwin lost his religion slowly and perhaps never completely. > [@](#): > > I’d point to the key word there: the **origin** of mind. A soul which can wander off elsewhere is IMO not compatible with the thesis that the mind and cogitation **evolved** like, say, _respiration_ or _vision_, unless one posits souls waiting to be born into a piece of hardware which has only just become complex enough to hold it. I agree that the idea of soul as just some blob of supernaturality that God injects into a body arbitrarily is ludicrous. But I think that the idea of the Afterlife is perfectly compatible with what we know of evolution. Life after death is as natural a thing as anything else. > [@](#): > > What is it a pattern **of**? The Great Gatsby is a pattern of ink, pixels or neural memory. When you die on the surgeoun’s table, the pattern **of** your physical, neural connections becomes a pattern **of** … what, where? If it’s floating near the ceiling, what happens **to** the photons of light reflecting from the corpse such that ‘you’ can ‘see’ it? In my view, what we call matter is just a set of rules, a pattern, an essentially mathematical entity. Seen this way, the mind-body problem disappears, since all is just pattern. As for your question about photons, the theory is that the spirit/soul/choose your term at that point is at a level of vibration such that it can still be affected by the vibrations of the “material world,” in this case, light. > [@](#): > > It’s _produced_ naturally? That makes me a little nervous, since it sounds like you wish to equate the word ‘mind’ or ‘consciousness’ (which I agree we all have) with ‘soul’ (which I don’t agree _anyone_ has). No, I don’t wish to equate them. The soul is the pattern of the whole organism. NDErs report that in the Afterlife they have bodies just as they do here. Presumably their hands would seem no more a part of their “minds” at that point than when they were on Earth. “Mind” refers to thinking, subjective experience, etc. > [@](#): > > Is there any repeatable test you can suggest which distinguishes them, or could I say “When the anaesthetist administered the desflurane, I entered a state of unsoulfulness.” .Plain pedantry, IMO. [/quote] I was joking, and he set himself up for it. > [@](#): > > Why do you say this? There have been a lot of brilliant people who consider themselves “deists-of-the-gaps”, unwilling to throw out God _in toto_ until scientific explanations have improved (unlike reckless cavaliers like myself who try to leap those gaps with sometimes only the flimsiest of guideropes for support). There have been lots of brilliant Christians, too. His philosophy was poor, and he doesn’t even get that the issue is not one of empirical science. > [@](#): > > Again, I suggest _origin_ is the key word there, and that he is suggesting that the scientific explanation for humanity looks good enough to him that a supernatural (or whatever word we might possibly agree on) intervention is **unnecessary** , which he can’t quite say yet for cosmology. Ah, I agree that it is indeed unnecessary, but once you posit that there _might_ be an intelligent force capable of wielding influence on evolution, then it makes no logical sense to conclude that it _has not_ wielded such influence, even if it doesn’t appear to us to have done so. Such a force could presumably alter a chromosome here or there and nobody would be the wiser. > [@](#): > > I disagree, actually, since those notions are themselves heavily dependent on the nature of _time_. If the universe has always existed, that IMO elucidates a great deal since there was never a state of nothingness whose transition to somethingness needs to be explained. I disagree. The “Why is there something and nothing?” question, as appealing as its formulation might be, is a subset of the bigger question, “What is the origin of contingency?” And no astrophysicist, sans delving into philosophy, can answer that question, because empirical science _assumes_ the noncontingent, or absolute (which is to say math, logic, the rules of pattern) and measures the contingent. Even if there was never a state of nothingness, there was always a Universes that appears to us to be arbitrary in structure. And that arbitrariness requires as much explanation as a transitiion from nothingness to somethingness. > [@](#): > > I think you’re rather strawmanising him there – after all, he did say he merely _didn’t think_ Christianity would be wholly true. That, to me, still implies a small possibility (yes, maybe much smaller than that small possibility he already admitted to, but a possibility nevertheless) of Christ=Lord’s truth in his opinion. After all, he did say ‘god _or gods_’, as though he is even entertaining a small possibility of even something as ludicrous as a whole host of Greek deities. I think your reading is a bit generous. He clearly is saying–I don’t think he’s hiding his disdain at all–that if there _is_ a deity of some sort, it’s none of that Judeo-Christian piffle. We can definitely rule that crap out! > [@](#): > > He is quite rightly trying to address the pretty widespread fallacy that evolution has a _direction, purpose_ or _goal_. I don’t think the context could be much clearer, really, and I’m glad he’s saying it so clearly since it _is_ so common a misconception, IMO. I don’t agree. Perhaps there is a direction, a purpose. Not as intended by a God outside the system but intended by the system itself. In the same way that a flower intends to face the sun and has a purpose in doing so without being conscious of it. > [@](#): > > I can’t seem to access the article, but I don’t fancy heaven much either – it would be at least as frustrating as spending time and effort solving an enormous Rubik’s cube (_ie._ scientifically explaining the universe and everything in it) and then finding out that, actually, you were only supposed to take the stickers off and replace them in the correct places (_ie._ accept some supernatural intervention). Correct, I find the notion of a God-sponsored “heaven” abhorrent as well, but the Afterlife is as “natural” as the world we know right now. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/5 "2006-03-21T18:11:30Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > This guy is probably the worlds most preeminent entomologists (Mr. Ants) and has won 2 Pulitzer prizes, among many other awards. He almost single handedly invented the field of evolutionary psychology (which he called Sociobiology), for which he was vilified by the radical left for years, btw. Smart guy, no doubt, but many smart people start to look stupid when the go outside their area of expertise. He just doesn’t seem to get philosophy and its relationship to empirical science. > [@](#): > > I’ll give the article a look over later today and see if you’ve done it justice. I’ve read lots of stuff by Wilson, and if you think he’s not too sharp my guess is you’re misunderstanding him. For the records, I said his performance on [Salon.com](http://Salon.com) wasn’t too sharp; I never said that the guy generally seems stupid. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/6 "2006-03-21T18:29:00Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > You win the award for the understatement of the year. 🙂 > > This guy is probably the worlds most preeminent entomologists (Mr. Ants) and has won 2 Pulitzer prizes, among many other awards. He almost single handedly invented the field of evolutionary psychology (which he called Sociobiology), for which he was vilified by the radical left for years, btw. > > I’ll give the article a look over later today and see if you’ve done it justice. I’ve read lots of stuff by Wilson, and if you think he’s not too sharp my guess is you’re misunderstanding him. Wilson was a main contributor to our understanding of why it is advantageous for social insects to produce **sterile** members of their colonies. Until the work of Wilson and others it was a mystery as to how evolution could result in non-reproducing forms. They answered the question by pointing out that evolution works on genes and and it is a benefit to the colony for the queen, who is the only reproducer, to have genes that produce sterile workers. In one sense, it is the colony of social insects, and not any member of it, that is the “individual.” ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/7 "2006-03-21T19:48:38Z")
Wilson really should stick with entomology. I thought Aeschines did a good job tearing apart the philosophical musings. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/8 "2006-03-21T19:59:07Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Wilson really should stick with entomology. I thought Aeschines did a good job tearing apart the philosophical musings. Thank you, sir. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/9 "2006-03-21T20:20:58Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > But I think that the idea of the Afterlife is perfectly compatible with what we know of evolution. Life after death is as natural a thing as anything else. What we know of evolution is that individuals die and other individuals then take their place. If that’s “life after death”, consider me sportingly laughing/grimacing along with a rather corny joke. > [@](#): > > In my view, what we call matter is just a set of rules, a pattern, an essentially mathematical entity. Seen this way, the mind-body problem disappears, since all is just pattern. **Of what?** Nothing? > [@](#): > > As for your question about photons, the theory is that the spirit/soul/choose your term at that point is at a level of vibration Vibration **of what**? Vibrations are _detectable_: light is a vibration of the electromagnetic field. > [@](#): > > such that it can still be affected by the vibrations of the “material world,” in this case, light. Great, so we just detect where the photons transfer their energy, yes? And if absolutely no energy transfer is apparent (_ie._ the total electromagnetic energy throughout the volume is constant), then nothing is vibrating there, yes? > [@](#): > > No, I don’t wish to equate them. The soul is the pattern of the whole organism. The pattern **of** the atoms, yes? If not, is it the 33 year old pattern, the neonate pattern, the zygote pattern? The brain-damaged or amputee pattern? The dead pattern, what? > [@](#): > > “Mind” refers to thinking, subjective experience, etc. What **more** is the ‘soul’, and how could we tell the difference between it and the ‘mind’? > [@](#): > > His philosophy was poor, and he doesn’t even get that the issue is not one of empirical science. I think he understands perfectly well that one’s deism-or-not is the working conclusion one forms after seeing what science _has_ explained empirically. Certainly, he doesn;t seem to be saying that he can _prove_ his provisional deism. > [@](#): > > once you posit that there might be an intelligent force capable of wielding influence on evolution, then it makes no logical sense to conclude that it has not wielded such influence, even if it doesn’t appear to us to have done so. Of course: Ockham’s Razor merely tells us to do away with what we don’t absolutely need. And one can ignore the premise of OR willy nilly if it makes one happy, without coming a logical cropper. > [@](#): > > The “Why is there something and nothing?” question, as appealing as its formulation might be, is a subset of the bigger question, “What is the origin of contingency?” Both being category errors, IMO. One might as well ask whether colourless green ideas really do sleep furiously. > [@](#): > > Even if there was never a state of nothingness, there was always a Universes that appears to us to be arbitrary in structure. I don;t understand this sentence. How is the structure of the universe “arbitrary”? (Of course, we arbitrarily choose linguistic labels for its features, but those features do not change so randomly that no sense can be made of the universe whatsoever.) > [@](#): > > He clearly is saying–I don’t think he’s hiding his disdain at all–that if there is a deity of some sort, it’s none of that Judeo-Christian piffle. We can definitely rule that crap out! I quote: “I don’t think it [God] would resemble anything of the Judeo-Christian variety”. That is not the same as “We can definitely rule the Judeo-Christian God crap out”. I have gently warned you before about attributing unjustifiably extreme language to your opponents. > [@](#): > > I don’t agree. Perhaps there is a direction, a purpose. Not as intended by a God outside the system but intended by the system itself. In the same way that a flower intends to face the sun and has a purpose in doing so without being conscious of it. Well, IMO that perverts the word “purpose” so much that I can’t say I recognise it any more, so I would politely ask that you asterisk it or something if you use it like that in future. > [@](#): > > the Afterlife is as “natural” as the world we know right now. Then what _isn’t_ “natural”? Faeries? Zeus? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/10 "2006-03-21T20:23:36Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Wilson really should stick with entomology. I thought Aeschines did a good job tearing apart the philosophical musings. I’m not a Salon premium member, so I didn’t read the original article, but **Aeschines** ’ musing sounded more like a bunch of New Age mumb-jumbo to me. I think **SentientMeat** did a good job tearing those musing apart. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/11 "2006-03-21T21:04:10Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > I’m not a Salon premium member, so I didn’t read the original article, but **Aeschines** ’ musing sounded more like a bunch of New Age mumb-jumbo to me. I think **SentientMeat** did a good job tearing those musing apart. Can you point out specifically what words or phrases you are characterizing as “mumb-jumbo” in Aeschines’ OP? Incidentally, part of the “mumb-jumbo” might have been when Aeschines pointed out that you don’t have to be a Salon premium member to read the article. ---
**Author:** ![The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/12 "2006-03-21T21:43:15Z")
Friend **Aeschines** seems, not knowing the difference between an academic debate and a magazine interview, to be rigorously disputing the latter. Even with this advantage, s/he manages to be singularly unpersuasive. > [@Aeschines](#): > > I’m sure the guy has made his contributions and whatnot … No points for not knowing what Wilson’s credentials and contributions are. > [@Aeschines](#): > > First, there’s the typical Darwin worship. Yes, he was a great thinker and scientist. Great. You and Wilson agree. > [@Aeschines](#): > > BTW, I’m sick of the false religion-vs.-evolution dichotomy. If you were raised Catholic, as I was, you were taught evolution as fact from day one and there was never any contorversy in the matter. That proves only that you were educated well after Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical and by teachers that glossed over John Paul II’s heavily qualified endorsement. Cite? Okay: [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/vaticanview.html](http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/vaticanview.html) > [@Aeschines](#): > > OK, here’s our first not-so-bright point… Actually, the Southern Baptist Wilson is pretty accurately reporting JPII’s views here. > [@Aeschines](#): > > Aristotle saw the soul as the “form of the body.” I have a similar view: the soul is the pattern of a human, the “theory” of a person that exists outside of the strict time of what we perceive as the material universe. The soul is produced by natural means and is a natural entity. I’m not Catholic, but isn’t the idea that the soul/mind is produced independently of God pretty much heresy? > [@Aeschines](#): > > Pagan religions generally recognized each other’s gods. Wow. Really? Was this in a “Okay, but we call Him _this_” way, or a “Our Rain God ain’t producing anymore, can we trade him for a Harvest God and a couple of Fertility Gods to be named later?” way, or was it more of a “ **Aeschines** just made this up and we have no interest whatever in those heathens’ religion” way? I’m anxious to read more about this. > [@Aeschines](#): > > The interesting question is how hard-core evangelical monotheistic religion arose when it had never existed previously. > > EOW is correct that our species has a sad tendency to play insider-outsider games … Okay! Asked and answered. , > [@Aeschines](#): > > …he’s confident that this deity doesn’t intervene.That is like saying that I don’t know if Pegasus exists, but I am confident that, if it does, and even if it has wings, it can’t fly. In fact, he’s saying that while science can’t disprove the idea of a God that _doesn’t_ interact with the physical universe (get it?), it _can_ judge the likelihood of a hypothetical entity that _is_ supposed to, even if only by recognizing the lack of evidence for that hypothesis. > [@Aeschines](#): > > He really ought to be embarrassed by now … Well, someone should be. > [@Aeschines](#): > > EOW goes on to say why heaven would be hell in a pretty dense fashion. Actually, Wilson is recapitulating Twain, who also thought the traditional concept of Heaven suffered from its lack of variety (and sex). > [@Aeschines](#): > > …he fails to anticipate what clever opponents could say and is presumably ignorant of what they are in fact saying… Wilson began with an idea - sociobiology - that was reviled by such clever opponents as Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould, and has withstood thirty years of serious academic criticism to become accepted in the curriculum of most respectable universities. I don’t think it’s exactly a flaw that Wilson may not have anticipated the OP’s intellectual perambulations on the subject. > [@Aeschines](#): > > …and in general he just doesn’t demonstrate those little epicycles of mind “Wait a second, I can take my own point and criticize it and take it to the next level”) that I associate with true genius. For God’s sake, don’t tell him. **Aeschines** has attacked an E-zine interview that was never intended to be a full and rigorous statement of Wilson’s views. Were his efforts better informed and reasoned, they would still leave the National Medal of Science winner unscathed. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/13 "2006-03-21T22:23:27Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Can you point out specifically what words or phrases you are characterizing as “mumb-jumbo” in Aeschines’ OP? Incidentally, part of the “mumb-jumbo” might have been when Aeschines pointed out that you don’t have to be a Salon premium member to read the article. Well, firstly, that was clever of you to repeat my typo, even though you knew, of course, that the correct term is “mumbo-jumbo”. But now that we have that little joke out of the way… Mumbo-jumbo (emphasis added): “the soul is the pattern of a human, the “theory” of a person that exists outside of the strict time of what we perceive as the material universe. The soul is produced by natural means and is a natural entity.” He then goes on to misinterpret what it means to be agnostic. As \*\*SM \*\*pointed out, God might very well exist, but nothing we know of in biology requires that He exists. There is no gap that needs to be filled in by a God, or (as EOW rightly points out) any intelligent entity. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/14 "2006-03-21T23:01:57Z")
Okay, so you found three examples of New Age “mumbo-jumbo”. One of them is an apt paraphrase of Aristotle’s famous ideal; the second is a reference to classical metaphysical eternity; and the third is an assertion of modal contingency with respect to the relation between the physical and the metaphysical. If by “New Age” you mean “thousands of years old”, and by “mumbo-jumbo” you mean “the writings of history’s greatest minds”, I can see how you found it in the OP. With respect to agnosticism, I still can find no reference to it in the OP. But for what it might be worth, formally it means lacking a belief in God that is either true, or justified. Belief that is both true and justified is called “knowledge”. That’s more New Age stuff, I guess. From Plato — Socrates speaking in the Theaetetus. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/15 "2006-03-21T23:06:05Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Okay, so you found three examples of New Age “mumbo-jumbo”. One of them is an apt paraphrase of Aristotle’s famous ideal; the second is a reference to classical metaphysical eternity; and the third is an assertion of modal contingency with respect to the relation between the physical and the metaphysical. If by “New Age” you mean “thousands of years old”, and by “mumbo-jumbo” you mean “the writings of history’s greatest minds”, I can see how you found it in the OP. Yep, that’s pretty much it. New Age doesn’t have to be “new”, and generally isn’t. It’s usually recycled old stuff thrown together to sound mystical. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/16 "2006-03-22T01:04:35Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > What we know of evolution is that individuals die and other individuals then take their place. If that’s “life after death”, consider me sportingly laughing/grimacing along with a rather corny joke. I’m critiquing the article. The idea that a belief in evolution in incompatible with a sophisticated view of soul/spirit/afterlife is incorrect. > [@](#): > > [Pattern] Of what? Nothing? O physicalist thou! It’s really no difficulty unless you make it one. Answer me this: What is a neutrino “made of”? It’s “matter” but so small and unmassive it can go through a light year’s worth of lead without hitting anything. I have your answer: A neutrino is just an equation-balancer, an element of the pattern. Hell, we looked at fusion in the sun and said that they must exist and by gob they did (salt mines, barrels of water, etc.)! A neutrio is not made of “stuff.” It’s an element of the pattern nothing more. > [@](#): > > Vibration **of what**? Vibrations are _detectable_: light is a vibration of the electromagnetic field. Ah, but the “electromagnetic field” is not so much a thing but a manner of speaking intelligently and “scientifically” about the pattern we recognize. Electromagnetic waves _are_ a pattern. > [@](#): > > Great, so we just detect where the photons transfer their energy, yes? And if absolutely no energy transfer is apparent (_ie._ the total electromagnetic energy throughout the volume is constant), then nothing is vibrating there, yes? That’s right. I’ve seen and heard a ghost with my own eyes. They influence energy and matter on our own plane. > [@](#): > > The pattern **of** the atoms, yes? If not, is it the 33 year old pattern, the neonate pattern, the zygote pattern? The brain-damaged or amputee pattern? The dead pattern, what? Interesting question. NDEers always say that their deceased relatives appear to them in youthful, healthy form. It would seem that in the Afterlife there is a continuation of the mental side but one may pick and choose, as it were, from one’s physical history. > [@](#): > > What **more** is the ‘soul’, and how could we tell the difference between it and the ‘mind’? I’m not really attached to either term (or “spirit” for that matter) and don’t pretend to have knowledge of the specifics. > [@](#): > > Of course: Ockham’s Razor merely tells us to do away with what we don’t absolutely need. Do tell EOW. I personally reject a monotheistic “God.” _You’re_ an atheist and ought to be slapping EOW for his namby-pamby prov-deism as much as I am. > [@](#): > > Both being category errors, IMO. One might as well ask whether colourless green ideas really do sleep furiously. Prove it. Providing _a priori_ contradictions and absurdities doesn’t aid your dismissal of age-old problems. > [@](#): > > I don;t understand this sentence. How is the structure of the universe “arbitrary”? (Of course, we arbitrarily choose linguistic labels for its features, but those features do not change so randomly that no sense can be made of the universe whatsoever.) E.g., the fact that the Earth’s gravity accelerates objects at 9.8 m/s[sup]2[/sup] seems arbitrary. It appears to us to be contingent (on something), and we can easily imagine it being higher or lower. The fact that 2 + 2 = 4, on the other hand, seems absolute, necessary. We cannot imagine it otherwise. Now it may be that the gravitational constant (for reasons that elude our understanding) could not be otherwise, but that remains to be proved. > [@](#): > > I quote: “I don’t think it [God] would resemble anything of the Judeo-Christian variety”. That is not the same as “We can definitely rule the Judeo-Christian God crap out”. I have gently warned you before about attributing unjustifiably extreme language to your opponents. I reaffirm my slightly hyperbolic characterization based on the context. > [@](#): > > Well, IMO that perverts the word “purpose” so much that I can’t say I recognise it any more, so I would politely ask that you asterisk it or something if you use it like that in future. And likewise I should like to know what the word could possibly mean once you were through with it. > [@](#): > > Then what _isn’t_ “natural”? Faeries? Zeus? All that is, is natural. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/17 "2006-03-22T01:18:15Z")
> [@The King of Soup](#): > > Friend **Aeschines** seems, not knowing the difference between an academic debate and a magazine interview, to be rigorously disputing the latter. Nope, I said that it was a disappointing performance on EOW’s part. It wasn’t a debate; he was being interviewed. > [@](#): > > Great. You and Wilson agree. No. > [@](#): > > That proves only that you were educated well after Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical and by teachers that glossed over John Paul II’s heavily qualified endorsement. I don’t get your point. The vast majority of Catholics in the US believe in evolution. It’s that simple. > [@](#): > > I’m not Catholic, but isn’t the idea that the soul/mind is produced independently of God pretty much heresy? I ain’t a Catholic any more. > [@](#): > > Wow. Really? Was this in a “Okay, but we call Him _this_” way, or a “Our Rain God ain’t producing anymore, can we trade him for a Harvest God and a couple of Fertility Gods to be named later?” way, or was it more of a “ **Aeschines** just made this up and we have no interest whatever in those heathens’ religion” way? I’m anxious to read more about this. I don’t really get what you’re saying, but ancient peoples generally recognized that other peoples had other gods and that those gods were just as “real” in some sense or another. This is common knowledge and not really a debatable point. > [@](#): > > Okay! Asked and answered. No. > [@](#): > > In fact, he’s saying that while science can’t disprove the idea of a God that _doesn’t_ interact with the physical universe (get it?), it _can_ judge the likelihood of a hypothetical entity that _is_ supposed to, even if only by recognizing the lack of evidence for that hypothesis. A god without attributes or influence is _a priori_ not a god. Wilson’s philsophy is messed up. > [@](#): > > Actually, Wilson is recapitulating Twain, who also thought the traditional concept of Heaven suffered from its lack of variety (and sex). I’m saying I agree, good sir, but am also saying that there are concepts of an Afterlife that _are_ satisfying. Also, Wilson is pasting time as we know it onto the Afterlife, when, both in historical concept and modern evidence, time clearly does not behave there as it does here. > [@](#): > > Wilson began with an idea - sociobiology - that was reviled by such clever opponents as Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould, and has withstood thirty years of serious academic criticism to become accepted in the curriculum of most respectable universities. I don’t think it’s exactly a flaw that Wilson may not have anticipated the OP’s intellectual perambulations on the subject. The interview doesn’t even deal with sociobiology very much. EOW takes on other topics and clearly is out of his depth without being cognizant of the fact. That’s why I feel embarrassed for him. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/18 "2006-03-22T01:20:20Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Yep, that’s pretty much it. New Age doesn’t have to be “new”, and generally isn’t. It’s usually recycled old stuff thrown together to sound mystical. I’m proud to call myself a New Ager, but I’m definitely not a mystic. You don’t know what you’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/19 "2006-03-22T01:57:12Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I’m proud to call myself a New Ager, but I’m definitely not a mystic. You don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s your arguemnt: I don’t know what I’m talking about? Let’s ignore for a minute that I never called you a mystic. Perhaps you can explain your New Age beliefs and tell us why it would be wrong to characterize them as [mystical](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=mystical). > [@](#): > > 1. Of or having a spiritual reality or import not apparent to the intelligence or senses. Any discussion of the soul can be said to be mystical. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251/20 "2006-03-22T02:37:56Z")
Why bother to defend Prof. Wilson? I think the OP should type up his critique of the interview and send to to the Professor himself. He can be reached c/o Harvard University. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edward-o-wilson-on-salon-not-too-sharp/349251.md?page=2)