Sunday, December 24, 2006 | Reason : In the News | print version

The Courtier's Reply

by PZ Myers

Reposted from:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/12/the_courtiers_reply.php

There's a common refrain in the criticisms of Dawkins' The God Delusion that I've taken to categorizing with my own private title—it's so common, to the point of near-unanimous universality, that I've decided to share it with you all, along with a little backstory that will help you to understand the name.

I call it the Courtier's Reply. It refers to the aftermath of a fable.

I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion; Dawkins cavalierly dismisses them all. He even laughs at the highly popular and most persuasive arguments of his fellow countryman, Lord D. T. Mawkscribbler, who famously pointed out that the Emperor would not wear common cotton, nor uncomfortable polyester, but must, I say must, wear undergarments of the finest silk.

Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity.

Personally, I suspect that perhaps the Emperor might not be fully clothed — how else to explain the apparent sloth of the staff at the palace laundry — but, well, everyone else does seem to go on about his clothes, and this Dawkins fellow is such a rude upstart who lacks the wit of my elegant circumlocutions, that, while unable to deal with the substance of his accusations, I should at least chide him for his very bad form.

Until Dawkins has trained in the shops of Paris and Milan, until he has learned to tell the difference between a ruffled flounce and a puffy pantaloon, we should all pretend he has not spoken out against the Emperor's taste. His training in biology may give him the ability to recognize dangling genitalia when he sees it, but it has not taught him the proper appreciation of Imaginary Fabrics.

I'm afraid that when I read H. Allen Orr's criticism of The God Delusion in the NY Review of Books, all that popped into my head was a two-word rebuttal: Courtier's Reply. You would be amazed at how many of the anti-Dawkins arguments can be filed away under that category.

That's all you'll get from me on Orr's complaint—it's another Courtier's Reply. If you want a more detailed dissection, Jason Rosenhouse provides it.

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1. Comment #14710 by Richard Dawkins on December 24, 2006 at 4:53 pm

2. Comment #14717 by Jared on December 24, 2006 at 5:20 pm

I read this over at Pharyngula earlier today and found it utterly fantastic. P.Z. Myers is a brilliant man!

I'm reminded, in a way, of Bob Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues,' when he says (albeit in a different context):

'You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows'

Other Comments by Jared

3. Comment #14725 by Robert O'Brien on December 24, 2006 at 7:14 pm

Congratulations to P Z Myers on this brilliant piece of satire. It applies not just to Allen Orr's review in NYRB, but to all those many reviews of TGD that complain of my lack of reading in theology. My own stock reply ("How many learned books of fairyology and hobgoblinology have you read?") is far less witty.

Slanter: A linguistic device used to affect views or attitudes without argumentation.

Horse laugh: A form of pseudo-argumentation in which ridicule or mockery is substituted for evidence in an argument.

Mr. Dawkins:

Will your next book be a manual on how to engage in pseudo-argumentation?

Other Comments by Robert O'Brien

4. Comment #14731 by Jared on December 24, 2006 at 7:49 pm

Hmm, Robert O'Brien, that avatar looks familiar to me. Perhaps that's because it's my own userpic and is a portion of a photograph I took. Funny that you'd use it.

As I may have inadvertantly made the image public domain by using it here, I probably can't ask you to cease using it.

It's a pity, though, that so wise a bird as a raven gets adopted by such a thoughtless troll.

Other Comments by Jared

5. Comment #14732 by Robert O'Brien on December 24, 2006 at 7:52 pm

Jared:

I do not want your avatar; it only appeared with my post due to a problem with the website.

Other Comments by Robert O'Brien

6. Comment #14733 by Jared on December 24, 2006 at 7:59 pm

Robert O'Brien:

Fair enough. For that portion of my post, you have my apologies.

That in no way means, however, that you haven't been a troll :-P No worries, I'll not feed you any more!

[Sorry about that Jared and Robert O'Brien. I have fixed the piece of code that was causing this error. -Josh]

Other Comments by Jared

7. Comment #14740 by Aussie on December 24, 2006 at 9:18 pm

Comment #14725 by Robert O'Brien

"Mr. Dawkins:

Will your next book be a manual on how to engage in pseudo-argumentation?"

It is good that you are getting your requests in early. We believe in meeting needs.

Other Comments by Aussie

8. Comment #14769 by stevencarrwork on December 25, 2006 at 1:25 am

Of course theology is a non-subject, that you don't have to have spent 20 years studying before you can criticise.

In the Daily Telegraph on 23/12/2006, John Humphrys reported his shock when an Anglican vicar repeated the views of Sir John Polkinghorne,a Templeton Prizewinner and an expert witness for theology on "The Trouble with Atheism."

The vicar said :- "Terrible though it is to us, God grants the same freedom to cancer cells that he grants even to the most noble and virtuous of us."

Here is where Polkinghorne justifies such a view.

http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/CIS/polkinghorne/lecture6.html

John Polkinghorne :-
Nevertheless, science does offer theology some modest help here. Theologically we understand an evolving universe as a creation that is allowed by its Creator "to make itself", to explore and realize its God-given potentiality in its own way. Such a creation seems a greater good than a ready-made world.

It is a most fitting creation of the God of love, whose creation could never be just a divine puppet theatre.

Yet such a creation has a cost. The same cellular processes that have driven the fruitful history of evolution through genetic mutation, must necessarily allow other cells to mutate and become malignant.

The anguishing fact that there is cancer in creation is not gratuitous, something that a more compassionate or competent Creator could easily have remedied. It is the necessary cost of a creation allowed to make itself. I think this is mildly helpful in relations to the problem of evil and suffering.

CARR
But theology is a non-subject. What appeals to one person's taste is dismissed by another as bad taste.

See the blog http://exilefromgroggs.blogspot.com/2006/12/what-humphrys-found-out-about-god.html where a Templeton Prizewinner's theology is described as "...pretty silly thing for the vicar to say - it was poor science, and poor theology."

There are no facts to decide what is good theology and what is bad theology.

Good theology is what you can sell to the believers.

Bad theology is what does not sell.

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9. Comment #14775 by Zaphod on December 25, 2006 at 1:54 am

Haha brilliant Myers :-D. Well Done to you sir.

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10. Comment #14785 by Sancus on December 25, 2006 at 4:34 am

Brilliant!

After all, a naked tyrant is still a tyrant.

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11. Comment #14865 by One Eyed Jack on December 26, 2006 at 6:17 am

What an inspired reply, PZ!

It almost makes me regret giving Phil all my votes. I just couldn't face a world filled with mutant squid-kittens.

Once again, well done.

OEJ

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12. Comment #14867 by Graham on December 26, 2006 at 6:31 am

Anyone remember the old Danny Kaye film they used to show on the telly at Christmas? Come on everyone...sing along :o)

http://www.angelfire.com/film/dannykaye/KingsClothes.htm

"Look at the King! Look at the the King! Look at the King, the King, the King!
The King is in the all together
But all together the all together
He's all together as naked as the day that he was born.
The King is in the all together
But all together the all together
It's all together the very least the King has ever worn."

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13. Comment #14874 by Lionel A on December 26, 2006 at 8:02 am

Superb piece PZ, should be printed out, framed and presented to every town centre preacher.

How many books on 'fairyology and hobgoblinology' is a sore point. Judging by the shelves in the local Waterstones there are many more of this ilk than those covering rational thinking (perhaps local groups, as they form, could put on special displays in or near such premises). How many books by astrologers do we need?

A visit to Waterstones website is equally disappointing.

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14. Comment #14877 by quork on December 26, 2006 at 8:45 am

Since Robert O'Brien has put in appearance here, you may be interested to know that Ed Brayton awards a "Robert O'Brien Trophy" (formerly the "Idiot of the Month" award) at his excellent blog, "Dispatches From the Culture Wars: Thoughts From the Interface of Science, Religion, Law and Culture":

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/

Most recent award to Dennis Prager:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/11/robert_obrien_trophy_winner_de_1.php

"Dispatches" provides good coverage of U.S. separation of church and state issues.

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15. Comment #14881 by Robert O'Brien on December 26, 2006 at 9:36 am

My good quork, in your haste to play the chamcha you neglected some salient information:

1. Ed Brayton is a college drop out (social science [sic]) and a failed comedian.

2. Ed Brayton considers Myers and Dawkins to be a problem for evolution advocacy.

3. Ed Brayton blogged about a possible quotemine of Jefferson in the God Delusion [sic].

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16. Comment #14884 by Jared on December 26, 2006 at 10:30 am

My good Robert O'Brien, in your haste to be a smart-alec troll, you neglected some salient information:

1. Ed Brayton's educational status or putative failure as a comedian do nothing to either credit or discredit his logic. This argument is called an ad hominem attack.

2. Ed Brayton's opinion of Myers or Dawkins have nothing to do with quork's point that you have an award named after you for your trolling.

3. Ed Brayton's information about TGD, which may very well be accurate, still has little to do with you.

When you try to counter someone's claims, stick to attacking those claims rather than bringing in irrelevant information. Otherwise I fail to see how anything you say is better than the 'pseudoargumentation' of which you accuse Dawkins.

Other Comments by Jared

17. Comment #14912 by charmed_quark on December 26, 2006 at 4:49 pm

In addition to the Courtier's Reply, which I wholeheartedly endorse, is the irrelevance of academic theology to lay congregations.

I'd be surprised if more than .1% of the population care about the nuances between St Augustine's Platonic augmentation to Christianity versus Aquinas' Aristotelian convolutions.

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18. Comment #14944 by kareldepauw on December 27, 2006 at 3:17 am

Brings to mind the words of the immortal HL Mencken on such occasions :
'One horse-laugh is worth ten-thousand syllogisms.' (with thanks to James 'the Amazing' Randi!)

Other Comments by kareldepauw

19. Comment #14954 by quork on December 27, 2006 at 8:25 am

3. Ed Brayton blogged about a possible quotemine of Jefferson in the God Delusion [sic].

Sort of. The possibility that Jefferson was an atheist rather than a Deist, as is usually claimed, was repeated in TGD based mostly on a single source, a recent biography of Jefferson by Christopher Hitchens. Brayton disputes the conclusion of Hitchens, and does a reasonable job of backing it up:

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/11/hitchens_jefferson_and_atheism.php

I would suspect Dawkins has already heard from friends and critics on this point, and I would encourage him to investigate the topic deeper, using more sources. Whether Jefferson was an outright atheist or not does not detract from his commitment to the separation of church and state in the USA, a topic which has been muddied in recent years by the bogus revisionism of the "America is a Christian Nation" movement.

Other Comments by quork

20. Comment #14981 by Russell Blackford on December 27, 2006 at 6:43 pm

If I had time, I'd love to study a course in hobgoblinology!

I expect that there's a vast field of hobgoblinlore to master, and much conjecture about the original versions and the cultural evolution of later variants. Hoblgoblinlore may throw much light on human psychology for all I know, and this body of lore may even contain nuggets of useful moral thinking (although it's unlikely that there would be a lot that is terribly useful to contemporary debates over bioethical issues, for example, since the creators of hobgoblinlore were not aware of stem cells, pre-natal genetic diagnosis, etc.).

All in all, I can imagine that a course in hobgoblinology would be interesting and possibly even of some practical application at the margins. If there are people who dearly love this field of study, far be it from me to denounce them for their frivolity.

The one thing that hobgoblinology could not do, of course, is establish that sightings of hobgoblins are veridical. We have very powerful reasons for thinking they are not.

Furthermore, if a cult professing belief in the veridical nature of hobgoblin sightings ever obtained a huge membership and wielded great social and political power - largely towards ends that merited severe condemnation - then I think it would be worthwhile standing up and stating in a clear voice that ... um ... hobgoblins aren't actually, y'know, REAL.

It wouldn't change anything if this was said by someone who was ignorant of some of the finer points, or of some of the more morally impressive teachings, enunciated by learned hobgoblinologists. It would have to be said, and it would not take a hobgoblinologistophile to say it.

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21. Comment #14985 by Elentar on December 27, 2006 at 8:41 pm

Excellent! Now, I hope that some of the people in the forums will notice this and stop complaining that I don't understand their theology. I do understand their theology; I just don't care. I've run into more versions of the Courtier's Reply on the forums here than you can imagine--and they just can't seem to grasp what's wrong with their argument.

Other Comments by Elentar

22. Comment #14989 by goddogit on December 27, 2006 at 9:17 pm

For those not familiar with him, Robert O'Brian is a remarkable dull troll who attempts to derail threads through the sheer power of thickheaded meanness.
He is beneath the dignity of perhaps everyone who has ever typed a message into this forum, John Davidson included.

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23. Comment #15011 by Jack Rawlinson on December 28, 2006 at 5:37 am

Spot on, Mr. Myers. I've been referring to the Emperor's New Clothes in reference to the "Obscure Theology" defence for ages myself. It is precisely what lies behind that particularly shameless tactic.

Mr. O'Brien: do you wish to make a point, or an argument? If so, would you kindly do so rather than trying to troll with irrelevant and wilful contrarianism? Thanks.

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24. Comment #15185 by Steven Mading on December 29, 2006 at 11:39 am

I've often felt that The Emperor's New Clothes was the perfect fable to demonstrate the utter frustration we atheists feel in dealing with the arguments of believers, and the hypocracy of their accusations of arrogance. Mr. Myer's parody puts this point forward quite well.

The "you can't criticize religion until you spend years studying previous theologians" argument is utterly frustrating because it will automatically cut off anyone who can tell what a sham the whole subject really is. People who see the sham for what it is aren't going to continue spending their lives researching it. Once you've seen enough to see to see the sham for what it is, studying further nuances beyond that is a waste of time.

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25. Comment #15280 by FKereki on December 30, 2006 at 6:20 am

Myers' answer is brilliant!

This reminds me of a saying: "It doesn't take a hen to recognize a rotten egg."

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26. Comment #46447 by flankspeed on May 31, 2007 at 9:11 am

As someone who works for Waterstones, I do weep at the huge range of books we seem to stock that involve the consultation of fairies / goblins/ angels/ unicorns/ dolphins/ whatever.

And one title in particular which I just have to share:

"Who Built The Moon?"

Fer Chrissakes...

Other Comments by flankspeed

27. Comment #47114 by Enlightenme.. on June 3, 2007 at 3:32 am

^ A big thank you to Waterstones though, for putting paperback TGD at half price last week, I happened past the Bristol store on wednesday (last day of special offer), the sales asst told me I was lucky, as there wasn't many left!

Other Comments by Enlightenme..