I read a book on doubt, and wrote about it, on climate change and atheism

I recently read a very little book by Leigh Sales (co-host of Lateline), it was a very interesting read, and I absolutely recommend you read it. It is entitled On Doubt and surprisingly enough it’s all about doubt. She says many intelligent thoughtful things on what she sees as the lack of doubt on anyone’s behalf in the media, politics and culture of today. Now, although I agree with her on almost all of what she has to say, I’m afraid I’m about to launch into just what’s wrong with her book. I hope you’ll forgive me, but there’s not really much to say when you agree with someone.

I have a problem with just two things actually, firstly how she thinks we should listen to climate change deniers in the national debate on the issue of climate change, and secondly on how she believes atheism requires a “leap of faith”

I’ll start with a relevant passage from the book on climate:

“Those who choose to question the science or policies surrounding global warming are routinely derided as ‘deniers’ or ‘heretics’. Instead their views should be welcomed. Doubters have a very important role to play as the minority voice on an issue in which there is almost universal consensus. It is disappointing that the debate about climate change seems to have largely split on ideological lines, because that may inhibit productive discussion But we do need people to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy ... the best way to approach this issue, both in scientific and policy terms, is to apply the scientific method: try to disprove the proposition and see if it still holds up.”

I can see exactly where she’s coming from. It really is quite frustrating to see such a fundamentally scientific issue as explaining and predicting the Earth’s climate portrayed by the media in a manner where it’s taken away from the science and put into the realm of ideological debate, with environmentalists pitted against deniers.

However, what Sales is implying is that this ideological debate has somehow replaced the scientific discussion, and that we need to get back to the science. What I think Sales is missing is that while shallow ideological debate rages above, beneath it the scientific method pushes steadily along. Every new piece of data that comes along is taken seriously by the scientists, and so far all the evidence is still very consistent with the theory that the climate is changing rapidly and dangerously.

I think Sales is victim to the very phenomenon she’s writing about and lamenting, where the media avoid genuine doubt and level-headedness in preference for the stories that sell more newspapers, stories that put two groups at loggerheads. The important issue, the science, is forgotten, replaced by the hype of “sceptics vs. greenies”.

This ideological debate that we see is unfortunate, because it does obscure the underlying science. Where I disagree with her is that I think we shouldn’t listen to the climate change deniers, not because a healthy injection of doubt isn’t needed for the science, it is indeed essential, but because all the deniers we see are operating on the ideological debate. And we shouldn’t listen to either side’s ideological bleating.

All we should listen to is the underlying science, where all genuine doubt is still taken into account, where all genuine doubt is constructive, not antagonistic, and where all genuine doubt still ensures the health of the scientific method in producing accurate scientific results. The scientific method has not ceased and been replaced by an ideological debate, just it has been unfortunately overshadowed by the ideological debate, where alas unscientific deniers get as much media as the scientists.

Yes there is a role for genuine doubters in the scientific debate, however the deniers she suggests we listen to aren’t truly doubtful, they are ideologically prone to attack the science. And there isn’t a role for ideological deniers in this debate.

To move on to the second point that got me a little worked up:

“Atheism struck me as being just as unattractive as Christianity. It too required a leap of faith to a position of certainty, albeit in the opposite direction.”

It just makes me want to scream “NO! WRONG! AARRGHHHH! Why don’t people get it?!” and then try and throttle something, but I will try to come at this issue calmly.

Atheism doesn’t require any leap of faith. As the word “a-theism” (not-theism) suggests, it is just the lack of any religious belief. To be an atheist you don’t need to assert anything as truth on any religious topic; all you need is to lack religious belief. Even Mr. Atheism himself, a man by the name of Richard Dawkins, only goes as far as saying “there is almost certainly no God” [my italics]. People have this conception that atheists are as certain as religious people in their denial of God, when in reality I doubt you could find anyone among all us atheists, who claims to know with certainty that there is no God.

I personally find it quite difficult to even go as far as assigning probabilities (such as “almost certainly”) to such a question, I find it almost absurd to speak of such specific likelihoods when we have absolutely no evidence to go on. But given there is no evidence, and the world seems to me to be consistent with a worldview without a god, I lack belief completely, and am thus as atheist as you can get, you can’t have less religious belief than I. It can be quite frustrating to have people presume that because you’re an atheist, you claim knowledge that god doesn’t exist. We claim nothing of the sort.

Anyway, these are just a few of my thoughts on a couple of very small parts of a very small book. Again, remember I actually liked the book, it’s just that I couldn’t let these things stay unsaid. The rest of the book is great, read it!