Intellectual arrogance

[Duppers]

I'm always torn between just posting the link or the article. Here, I chose the article, but it's easier to read on his blog site, I think. And I add a video link at the end. -d

http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2008/09/intellectual-arrogance.html


Intellectual arrogance by Massimo Pigliucci

About Me: I'm a biologist and philosopher at SUNY-Stony Brook in New York. I write regular columns for Skeptical Inquirer and Philosophy Now. My books include: Tales of the Rational and Denying Evolution.

Since my recent post on VP nominee Sarah Palin I have been struck by a number of intemperate comments posted on this blog, on “Uncommon Descent” (the Discovery Institute blog, which reprinted a few lines of my original post), and even via private emails. Now, you might say, what do you expect? You decided to enter the blogosphere, so vitriolic attacks on what you write are to be expected as part and parcel of the “job” (for which, of course, I’m not paid).

Right, but my issue is not with the personal attacks on me. My skin is think enough, I assure you, or I wouldn’t have been able to survive for a quarter century in academia. (Before you laugh, think of how much rejection is built into the job: most of your job applications will be turned down, most of your papers will be harshly criticized by at least some anonymous reviewer, and most of your grant proposals will be returned unfunded, again anonymously and often rather harshly. If you don’t have an ego big enough to sustain the bruises year after year, you better get out of the game.)

No, my problem is with the all too common accusation of intellectual arrogance being hurled at myself and most of my colleagues who defend science from pseudoscience, be that creationism, intelligent design, UFO claims, psychic powers, astrology or “alternative” medicine. The reasoning, such as it is, goes like this: how dare you, Dr. X (put here any name of any scientist who dares to write for the public), claim that so many people are wrong and you and a small number of other egg-headed intellectuals are right? Who are you to declare the truth of evolution and the falsity of intelligent design? What makes you the arbiter in deciding what is science and what is bunk?

The answer is simple: I am an expert. You shouldn’t trust me on car mechanics, or on civil engineering, or on market analysis. But what I have to say about science counts more than what most people have to say about it because I am a scientist and they are not. The reason I don’t feel any qualms declaring evolution a sound scientific theory and intelligent design as not even junk science is because I am a professional organismal biologist, and pretty much everyone who accepts ID is not. By comparison, imagine how foolish you would feel if a thousand car mechanics tell you that you need to change the carburetor in your car and you keep insisting that they don’t know what they are talking about, elitist auto-experts that they are, because carburetors obviously don’t exist!

Intellectual arrogance, in the utmost degree, is being displayed by those who dismiss out of hand the considerate opinion of someone who has studied a field for 25 years only because they cherish a particular religious worldview that has no independent foundation in reality. Arrogance, according to my dictionary, is “having an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities,” and it seems to me to fit perfectly someone who has no technical background in a given field and yet pontificates endlessly about what is True and what is not.

The idea that someone who has not bothered to study a highly technical area of knowledge turns around and accuses experts in those areas of being arrogant is both ridiculous and a common strategy in certain political quarters. Consider the Obama-McCain contrast of this electoral cycle, or the Kerry-Bush of the last cycle. I don’t know whether Obama or Kerry are “elitist” in any meaningful sense of the word, although as Jon Stewart aptly put it, I want the guy who is running for the most powerful job on the planet to be better than me! But the idea that McCain -- who is so rich that he doesn’t know how many houses he owns, or Bush -- with a degree from ivy league Yale and a career propelled by his father’s money and connections, are “common folks” who really feel the pain of the people is astoundingly ludicrous. And yet millions of people buy straight into it without a second thought (thought, or lack thereof, being the key word here).

Our national discourse has gotten so bad that demagogues can get away with throwing any amount of mud at their opponents while claiming to have their hands as clean as snow, just like people who have no knowledge or understanding of the matters at hand can gingerly accuse serious professionals of being intellectually arrogant -- and feel very much self-righteous about it too. Al Gore, in his most recent book, put it in terms of an assault on reason. To reason, again going by the dictionary, is the ability to “think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic.” The right wing-fundamentalist axis that has gained so much prominence and political power in the United States over the past several years has truly thrown reason out the window. Now they would like to finish the job by accusing intellectuals of being un-reasonable, obtuse, and conceited.

It is time to reverse the tide and take a stand. If you reject the theory of evolution, or think that there is such a thing as alternative (as opposed to evidence-based) medicine, or claim without evidence that aliens are visiting the planet, or think that the stars influence human destiny, and so on, you are anti-science and live in a dream world with no connection to reality. More damning, you are engaging in the ultimate act of arrogance: to declare something true or untrue not because you have reason or evidence, but only because it makes you feel better. May I suggest that you need a good dose of humility, and that one way to get it is to admit that the universe is not about you, and that some people out there really know more than you do, as unpleasant a thought as this may be?

.........

In the comment section he states:

Massimo Pigliucci said...
Just for the record, since mufi brought it up: I do have formal training (a PhD) in philosophy, as well as in science.

Needless to say (or is it?), that doesn't mean that anything I say about either science or philosophy is the Truth. It just means that you need really good reasons and/or training before dismissing out of hand what I might have to say in those areas.

http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2008/09/intellectual-arrogance.html


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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6406552820189328696

Rough excerpts from the last 12 mins. of the Atheist Experience #571:

Science isn't a thing. It’s self-correcting. It encourages inquiry. It has strict guidelines for what qualifies. You don't just get to walk into scientific study group and make claims.

Sam Harris wrote a great article that focuses on objections launched at Obama for being elitist. We want elite politicians, soldiers, physicians, etc. in any areas. Where we really give a damn, we want really qualified people.

Being qualified is not arrogance. Expertise is something that should be lauded, not mocked. You need to have brain surgery; you want an elite brain surgeon or someone you can have a beer with? We should want the best people in each area to do the work.

We must necessary rely on experts in fields where we don't have the time nor the expertise or ability to investigate ourselves. What we need to do is try to make sure we rely on good sources, on experts who publish in the peer reviewed journals, those that represent the best knowledge in the fields.

When people come along and say that science gets it wrong some times, or “I just don't trust them,” or “I just don't believe them,” what about this religious idea or that one and reject qualified opinion, then that is arrogance. Folding your arms and saying that it doesn't matter that they’re experts is arrogance.

Rejecting evidence for none other reason that it doesn't conform to your preconceive ideas or that you can not understand that something is the height of intelligent arrogance.

What's arrogant is when you take someone who has devoted 20 yrs studying a subject in a field and working with it, then saying that that guy knows no more than I do. Yes, that's real arrogance -- height of intellectual arrogance.

[hotforteacher]

1. The "intellectual arrogance" argument

is what I often get from my fundie xtian mother/father, without any consideration for the hypocrisy embedded in those attacks against my academics and "supposed atheism". This is perfect fodder for discourse this weekend when I go a-visiting.

Now I need to find that Harris article.

Thanks for the post, Duppers! :toast:

[Duppers]

3. you're welcome

And welcome to DU!

Good luck on your visit. ;)

[Warpy]

2. I crank on things outside my field all the time

but I'm the first to admit those things are outside my field and that my reading has probably left huge holes in the pattern of knowledge.

I always know I'm on the right track when people who are in that field start to nitpick my posts for not telling the whole story (it's a post, not a book and I made it very clear I was giving one example) or not using proper jargon (it's a layman's post for laymen). I know I'm on the right track when the points are never refuted, only nitpicked. There's the intellectual arrogance of the expert, too, something that I also see quite a bit, that no one outside the field can possibly understand anything about it.

However, nothing is quite as infuriating as being lectured on your own field by somebody who has no clue beyond the Sunday newspaper article level, especially when it's crystal clear they haven't read your whole post in the first place.

I often refer myself back to reread http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CE7D6173FF935A35751C0A9669C8B63 It's a constant reminder of why the phenomenon occurs and that I am not immune from it, myself.

[and-justice-for-all]

4. Intellectual arrogance & Religious ignorance..nt