Eric Weinstein’s words have been chosen because they capture the positions of what he himself calls “religious scientists”. He also articulates what these scientists say about their (supposedly) “atheistic” critics. Weinstein also sees these religious scientists as today’s “heretics”. Indeed, he sees himself as a heretic too.
[Eric Weinstein’s words are taken from an interview with Dr Brian Keating on YouTube. I’ve edited various spoken words in order to make them a little easier to read and understand. The video interview is called ‘Richard Dawkins is SUSPICIOUS’.]
Eric Weinstein is an American hedge fund director and podcast host. He has a PhD in mathematical physics from Harvard.
One problem for me personally is that Weinstein focuses on both biology (or evolution) and intelligent design in the interview, whereas the religious scientists I’ve previously written about have focused on physics and physical cosmology. Indeed, Paul Davies (who I’ve also written a few essays about) is strongly against intelligent design (at least as it’s taken in biology). [See note 1.]
What’s more, when Weinstein discusses bait fish, mussels, sexual reproduction, etc. it’s hard to tie all that to religious science. It’s even hard to tie it to intelligent design as it’s ordinarily understood. [See note 2.] And that’s one reason why I won’t be commenting on these specific words from the interview. [Extracts from these biology-based sections of this interview can be found at the end of this essay.]
So, instead, I shall focus on Weinstein’s claims that religious scientists are today’s “heretics”.
Eric Weinstein as Heretic
As just stated, Eric Weinstein’s main theme is that today’s religious scientists are what he calls “heretics”.
Weinstein sees himself as a heretic too . If a heretic in physics, rather than in the biology and/or evolutionary theory he focusses upon in this interview with Dr Brian Keating.
In terms of a specific example, we have Weinstein’s very own theory of everything, which he calls ‘Geometric Unity’. [See here too.] Many physicists (at least those who’ve taken note of it) have been sceptical about — and critical of — this theory. [See ‘Weinstein’s theory of everything is probably nothing’, and ‘How to test Weinstein’s provocative theory of everything’.]
Weinstein also coined the term “intellectual dark web”, which was also a place for self-styled heretics.
As it is, I’m not really qualified to offer any wisdom (or any time) on Weinstein’s theory of ‘Geometric unity’.
It’s now worth saying that this isn’t an essay against scientific heresy. (I’m all in favour of scientific heretics.) So it entirely depends on the particular heretic and his particular theories. In addition, later on in this essay it’s argued that those scientists Weinstein deems to be heretics (although he doesn’t name names) aren’t really heretics at all.
[Physicist and mathematician Roger Penrose has been classed as a “heretic” by various commentators, and I much admire him. See note 3.]
But first things first.
A distinction needs to be made between the following:
(1) Those scientists who just happen to be religious.
(2) Those scientists who incorporate their religious views into their actual science.
Two other less-important distinctions can be added here:
(3) Those scientists whose religious views impact on their science with their being aware of it.
(4) Those scientists who deny that their religious views impact on their science even though, arguably, they clearly do.
Weinstein on Religious Scientists as Today’s Heretics
Eric Weinstein himself specifically refers to — and defends — the scientists described in (2) above.
Firstly, he asks us these questions:
“If their religion informs their science, [then] what are we to make of that? Should religious scientists live under a cloud of suspicion? Is [their science] contaminated?”
Yet Weinstein also says that
“it’s very important to recognize that there are multiple ways of being a scientist who happens to be religious”.
Here the relevant words are “a scientist who happens to be religious”.
However, it’s clear that Weinstein really has (2) in mind because he immediately goes on to say that he’s
“coming into contact with higher-quality scientists motivated by religion”.
Here the relevant words are “scientists motivated by religion” (i.e., they don’t just happen to be religious).
So let’s firstly take the case of Rupert Sheldrake, who’s an English author and parapsychology researcher with a strong scientific background. (Sheldrake is known for his theory of morphic resonance.) He too sees himself as being a scientific “heretic”.
That word was originally used (very critically) about Sheldrake by someone else. Yet it’s very safe to say that Sheldrake has now happily and clearly adopted this designation for himself. [See here.]
The word “heretic” was used by the theoretical chemist, physicist and science writer John Royden Maddox in response to Sheldrake’s book A New Science of Life, which was published in 1981. (Maddox’s 1981 editorial — in Nature - is called ‘A book for burning?’.)
Since then, the word “heretic” has become very popular with many religious scientists and their defenders. Indeed, seeing religious scientists as heretics strikes many as being supremely ironic. [See my ‘Rupert Sheldrake’s Heretical Caricatures of Scientists and Science’.]
As for Eric Weinstein.
Weinstein goes into rhetorical mode with the following words:
“Galileo’s heresy [] [Religious scientists] are in some sense the heretics of today. And their reputations are burned at the stake.”
Can you really compare Weinstein’s religious scientists to Galileo and what happened to him?
What’s more, are they really heretics?
After all, there’s a big difference between being threatened with being burned alive, and not being threatened with being burned alive. Admittedly, Weinstein does concede this when he says that religious scientists are “not [Giordano] Bruno [ ] burned in 1600 in the square”.
No, contemporary religious scientists certainly are not Giordano Bruno.
Indeed, some of these religious scientists have large audiences and they’ve written best-selling books.
Sure, having huge audiences and writing best-selling books is still not the same as being accepted by Weinstein’s “the union of scientists”. However, it’s not the same what being threatened with being burned alive either.
In any case, simply having a view that other people don’t share doesn’t make you a heretic. Indeed, a scientist having a view that most other scientists don’t share doesn’t make that scientist a heretic either.
If this is the kind of thing that defines what a heretic is, then the world is populated by millions of heretics. Perhaps there’s even more heretics than non-heretics!
Weinstein also tells us that
“going toe to toe with some of these religious scientists is an eye opening experience because they are highly motivated”.
Weinstein does argue against what may be called crude religious scientists, not against sophisticated ones.
He portrays (some) crude religious scientists in the following way:
“[] I’m honestly sympathetic with the Dawkins perspective. I cannot stand what I’ve called ‘Jesus smuggling’, where you’re in some very careful argument, and you know you’ve set everything up, and then somebody sort of says, ‘Well, I just believe that God’s love pervades everything.’ You’re like, Oh, brother, I don’t really have to listen to us.”
Yet there’s no doubt that these sophisticated religious scientists are… well, still religious. More relevantly, they’re still (to use Weinstein’s own words) “motivated by religion”.
In more detail.
Weinstein tells us that religious scientists are “going to use the idea of purpose and a personal relationship with God” in their science. Indeed, that personal relationship with God
“give[s] them courage to question things that are essentially unquestionable within the union of scientists [and] that will get you thrown out of the union of scientists very quickly”.
What’s more:
“So what we’re talking about is relatively self-destructive scientists [who are] focused on science [and] who get their courage from religion, and some of their bearings and their focus [from religion].”
Weinstein adds:
“The religious scientists [] are willing to destroy themselves and their careers.”
Not only does God and religion inform the science of these religious scientists, it also informs how they deal with what Weinstein calls “atheistic scientists”.
So are such religious scientists really “self-destructive”?
After all, there are many religious scientists who keep their jobs as scientists, get their books published, become well-known, give seminars, etc. Sure, their ideas and theories are criticised by other scientists. And perhaps their more-explicitly religious science isn’t published in “mainstream” scientific journals. However, does all this really amount to these religious scientists being self-destructive?
Weinstein also tells us that the sophisticated religious scientists constitute “a population of people who agree to the rules of science”. He adds: “They’re not going to cheat on the rules of science because of Jesus [].”
Really?
Do all religious scientists “agree to the rules of science”? Most of them? Many of them? Or only some of them?
So doesn’t it all depend on not only the religious scientist discussed, but also on the actual content of his theories and ideas? Put that way, Weinstein will surely agree with this.
This means that Weinstein does seem to be generalising somewhat (if in a positive way) about religious scientists. Indeed, he generalises just as much as he claims “atheistic scientists” (or those who belong to “the union of scientists”) do when they talk about religious scientists.
As for those atheistic scientists.
Weinstein on Atheistic Scientists
Weinstein not only classes all the critics of the ideas and theories of religious scientists as “atheistic scientists”, he also paints them all as dogmatic, narrowminded and members of the same (rule-bound) “union”.
That position can be seen in the following passage:
“It’s the atheists, according to [religious scientists], who are led into error because they were trying to close the books desperately so as not to leave any gap large enough for a God to be smuggled into the canon of science.”
Weinstein seems to assume that it’s only what he calls “the atheists” who have a problem with the ideas and theories of religious scientists. In other words, Weinstein seems to believe that it’s true by definition that if a scientist has problems with what a religious scientist says (or with his theory), then that scientist must do so simply because he’s an atheist.
Perhaps such scientists have problems with the religious scientist’s ideas and theories without them needing to think too deeply about their own atheism — that’s if they’re atheists in the first place!
Weinstein again focuses on atheists when he says that
“what we have to say is that many of these [religious scientists] are making points that atheists wish would go away”.
Again, are the arguments and scientific details used against the theories and ideas of religious scientist really all down to the atheism of those scientists who offer those arguments against them?
Weinstein makes a similar point when he tells us that
“what do you get from the atheistic science community is - we will have no such discussion”.
He also tells us that
“many of those [religious scientists] are responsible for prying the books open when [Richard] Dawkins and company wished to close them prematurely”.
Weinstein makes it seem (or he hints) that as soon as a scientist finds out that another scientist is religious, then at that immediate point he rejects everything the religious scientist says without any argument, discussion or debate. More importantly, such scientists don’t scientifically analyse the religious scientist’s claims or theories.
Yet that’s simply not true.
There may be some non-religious scientists like that.
However, other scientists have gone into great detail as to why they have problems with the ideas and theories of religious scientists.
It can even be conceded that there are scientists who take their atheism very seriously. However, Weinstein seems to believe that having a problem with the ideas and theories of religious scientists makes a scientist an automatic member of the “atheistic science community” (or an automatic member of “the union of scientists”).
Yet what if atheism is more or less irrelevant to most of the critics of the ideas and theories of religious scientists?
Yes, there are plenty of scientific and philosophical reasons to have problems with intelligent design, “cosmic purpose”, etc. which don’t need to be specifically atheistic in nature — or even atheistic at all. Unless, again, this is true by Weinstein’s own definition. That is, does Weinstein believe that a scientific critic of the ideas and theories of religious scientists simply must belong to the atheistic science community?
In any case, there’s no real (or actual) “atheistic science community” in the first place. Sure, there are scientists who just happen to be atheists. Yet, as seen, there are also scientists who just happen to be religious.
Notes
(1) In a subchapter called ‘Intelligent design in biology is magic, not science’ (in the book The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life?), Paul Davies writes:
“One of the confusions surrounding the Intelligent Design movement’s propaganda is a failure to distinguish between the *fact* of evolution and the *mechanisms* of evolution. Design proponents often cite squabbles among biologists as signs that ‘Darwinism is in trouble’. [] The point, however, is that the theory has clearly defined and testable consequences, which qualifies it as being a scientific theory; the same cannot be said for Intelligent Design.”
A little later on, Davies states the following:
“Further confusion in the intelligent design discussion often arises from a failure to distinguish between the *evolution* of life and the *emergence* of life — how life got started in the first place. Darwin himself pointedly omitted any reference to life’s origins.”
Interestingly enough, Davies tells us about a classic Intelligent Design example which is very similar to Eric Weinstein’s own (see quotes below). Davies writes:
“A current favourite with the so-called Intelligent Design movement in the United States is the bacterial flagellum, an ingenious-looking device that propels the cell by a rotary action using a little motor. This system is claimed to have irreducible complexity.”
It’s ironic, then, that some scientists have accused Paul Davies of having ID beliefs or proclivities himself. (See ‘Hey, Paul Davies — Your ID Is Showing’.) And on that subject, see my own essays on Davies: ‘A Religious Physics and Cosmology for the 21st Century?’, ‘Physicist Paul Davies’s Deep — or Specious! — Questions About Life, the Universe and Everything’, and ‘Physicist Paul Davies’s Faith in His Idea That Science is Founded on Faith’.
(2) Eric Weinstein does rely (at least in this interview) on two main arguments from intelligent design: irreducible complexity and specified complexity.
Intelligent design is usually tied to the existence of God, but Weinstein appears to reject this. In addition, one can have problems with certain aspects of Darwinian evolution or the “neo-Darwinian synthesis” (as noted by Paul Davies above) and still keep well clear of intelligent design.
(3) Many “mainstream” scientists — including Roger Penrose — are classed as “heretics”. [See here.] This hints that the term has become a cliché.
Eric Weinstein on Darwin and Evolution
These quotes are from the same interview with Brian Keating:
“[] Many of these [religious scientists] do not believe that there’s a persuasive case for random mutation as being the major engine of selection. They believe that it is simply improbable [].
“[] There is no way you can tell me that that isn’t an intelligently designed system, and it’s the bass that is the intelligence. And the bass is specifically designing its own fooling [and] its own self-deception because the dumber bass have fell for this trick before and smarter bass didn’t fall for it. And that pushes the selective pressures in order to produce this.
“[] both of these are systems in which that which is dumber is fooling that which is smarter using the intelligence, the bounded intelligence of the thing being fooled to intelligently design a trap. [] If I make that point and I say, actually intelligent design is all through the animal kingdom, it’s just not what you think.
“[] So endogenous intelligent design is essential to Darwinian theory within [the] context of perception mediated selection.
“[] It is very clear that when you have various breeds of dog, they are intelligently designed. When you produce a mule from a donkey and a horse, that is not a natural animal. You are producing an intelligently designed animal when you create orchid varieties.
“In some cases, perception-mediated selection is a form of endogenous design, which is intelligent because it is mediated through perception. It’s a good place to study it because the words intelligent design have been made radioactive. And so what we’re arguing about is — should the books have been closed with the neo-Darwinian synthesis, or should they have been left open?”
