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Swimmer963 comments on The problem with too many rational memes - Less Wrong
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I think so, too. I don't disagree with any of the facts Dawkins presents, not enough for it to annoy me anyway. I disagree with the execution, because I think he could have presented the same facts (and even the same opinions) more effectively without all the venom against religious people and sense of superiority.
I don't actually understand this bit. I've heard the argument being made many times, yet no one seems to be able to pinpoint what they mean by it.
Here's a recent example I can think of. Richard Dawkins said a little while ago that early bible writers were ignorant of certain facts we now take for granted. People reacted to the "ignorant" bit, to which Dawkins asked "Do you know what the word ignorant means?" This is a fair question; do you know what the word mean, or are you reacting because your knowledge is lacking? I often find that people are fuming more over clear writing than over fuzzy language, even if there is no real venom or sarcasm or superiority within. (I could go into a tirade about people getting offended at mere words, and whether people generally fully, truly understand what it means to be offended, again with pointers to the identity comments at the top of this post!)
I can discuss with people - say the change of musical styles from the renaissance to the baroque in early Italian music (and the early influence on German music through Schuts) - and rightfully and without any venom say that most people are ignorant of the issue. It's not an insult, it's a word describing a lack of knowledge on something (knowledge I'm not proud of, btw, as my geekery is a negative liability in society ... more on this one later). I am myself terribly ignorant on a number of issues and subjects, and have no problem admitting so; I use the word for what it means. Yet people think it means a negative when it really is neutral. (Same problem with liability, btw. Something can be a liability to you, but there's positive and negative liability, and we often just say "liability" and draw a negative over anything we say by being less precise)
I think Dawkins attempt to be precise is often misinterpreted as having some negative connotation they read into it. (Hitchens is another chapter all-together, of course) I think, in general, that people should strive to be less wrong in their own reaction to the world. Things would quickly be a far gentler place.
"Ignorant" is often used as a perjorative, the connotation being "wilfully ignorant, and a bad person because of it". I'm hardly surprised that people get upset for being called that. Also, words in general don't really mean anything, though you and Dawkins might discuss things in a context where "ignorant" has no connotation, while it has such connotation among the general public. In that case it would be accurate to say that you are literally speaking a different language.
I am not a native speaker, so I looked up, what google says about ignorant:
adjective: ignorant 1. lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated. 2. (informal) discourteous or rude.
The connotation is negative. The neutral word would probably be "uninformed".
This is about the one-place predicate "ignorant", not about the two-place predicate "ignorant of". My impression as a non-native speaker is that a negative connotation attaches to the first, but not the second. There might also be a two-place version of "ignorant" with a negative connotation: "ignorant about".
I don't have any particular negative reaction to the word 'ignorant', AFAICT, so I doubt that was the source of me finding 'The God Delusion' a turn-off. (I read it a long time ago, so I'm not sure I can pinpoint exactly why I disliked it, especially since my opinions and attitudes have changed appreciably in the meantime.) It might even not have been vocabulary so much as just the general attitude that came across...basically, that you'd be stupid to believe in God, and furthermore, you'd be stupid to want to believe in God. I don't know if he used the word 'stupid' but that's what I remember as coming across, and there's a big difference between calling someone ignorant and implying that they're stupid.
I doubt very much he used the word 'stupid' to label religious people. He has said, though; "It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is either ignorant, stupid, or insane.”
And of course, people will take from that what they want. "I'm religious, I'm not insane nor am I ignorant, so he must be calling me stupid!"
Another one is his opening to the God Delusion where he lists a long list of characteristics of the christian god. People have of course taken issues with that list, however you can find bible references for every single one of those characteristics, words you'll even hear in church, so again it's mostly being taken negatively by people who want it to be negative.
But if you have something concrete, do tell. It's a puzzle I've long wanted to solve.
I don't know about safe to say... it is certainly true.
EDIT: This neglects the "Could be a liar" loophole.
It could be a knowledgeable, intelligent and sane liar.
Oh, true. I didn't even notice the lack of the liar category!
Well, hypothetically, they could just be electable.
Didn't Eliezer write something about how assuming that your ideological rivals must be defective or aberrant is a bad assumption to make? He phrased it in terms of "evil", but I think the same principle applies to "stupid/insane".
As for ignorant, well, isn't almost tautologically true that we all believe people who hold beliefs that are incompatible with our own to be ignorant or mistaken?
Yes, but sometimes that isn't an assumption but a conclusion. I can think of a large number of ideological and non-ideological issues where I wouldn't make that conclusion. Evolution is one where the conclusion seems easier (with the caveat that in the relevant quote "insane" is considered broad enough to mean "highly irrational and subject to cognitive biases in way almost all humans are about at least a few things").
There are degrees of how ignorant or mistaken someone can be. For example, Sniffnoy and I are coauthoring a pair of papers on integer complexity. There are certain conjectures we can't prove that we have different opinions about whether they are true or false. I'm pretty sure that he and I are probably at this point in a set of 5 or 6 people on the planet who understand the relevant problems the most. So our disagreement doesn't seem to be due to ignorance.
Probabilistic opinions?
Can you take a set of "unrelated" (the inapplicability of this term to math might make my suggestion worth very little) theorems known to be true or false and give your opinions about the chances they are true?
Also relevant are the costs of type I and type II errors in your paper...and your lives, as these may may have significantly conditioned your reactions to uncertainty.
I don't know about "certainly." For example, I consider you none of those things, but I suspect I could induce you to claim not to believe in evolution for a sufficient sum. (This is not an offer.)
It's an interesting characteristic of human language that the word 'ignorant', which I find pretty innocuous if used on its own, comes across as a lot harsher when put in the company of 'stupid' and 'insane.' Some kind of context-building I guess, the brain automatically assuming that the author's point is simple and uni-faceted.
Obviously, that doesn't mean that's the right way to read that sentence, or that it's constructive to get offended by it. I'm not offended by it now. It's perfectly possible for one of my friends to be one of those three things and still be a kind, generous, awesome person to hang out with. Maybe I made that distinction less when I was in high school, which is when I read "The God Delusion."
Come to think of it, I read 'The God Delusion' before I'd even heard of Less Wrong, or cognitive biases, or ways in which words could be misinterpreted... I might find it illuminating to read it again.
I think what happens when I read the word in this context is that my brain automatically inserts the word "willfully" before "ignorant." I mean, it's trivial to say that, for instance, members of uncontacted tribes are ignorant of evolution, but that's usually not what people are talking about when they use the word like this.
Yes, interesting point of view. I do remember in my earlier days of reading stuff that at the time was emotional in some way, but now, having re-read it many years later and with (hopefully) more science-based knowledge on-board, seems benign. What was all that fuzz about, really? And really, I think the fuzz was the sound of preconceived and poorly thought-out ideas in my head shredded.
I think the outrage and negativity attached to criticism can be measure in how much you treasure those beliefs. Now that I don't hold many beliefs at all (I think I can boil them down to some scientific workflow platform), there's less for me to get upset about. We humans put a strange personal identity on mere ideas, and a critique of ideas are far too often thought of as a critique of the person who holds those beliefs, probably linked to our sense of self.
I think Dawkins and Hitchins (and people like them) have a short way of dealing with stuff that has had a tradition of being dealt with in longer terms. This abrupt and concise way of dealing with issues can have a shocking effect. Sometimes the shock is awakening, other times it can be painful, hurtful and offensive. It comes down to how well we deal with shocks of revelation about our own mind, and many, many people don't like to face the ugly truth about themselves (which is also why we love herd thinking and the removal of the personal responsibility of our thinking and actions, even when we claim not to do 'like everybody else.'. Oh yes, you do. :) )
I wonder how much scoping the 'ignorant' to 'ignorant of evolution' would help.
Have you read any of his atheism books more recently? Is it possible that you disliked them (at least in part) for attacking a group you associated yourself with?
That's really quite an accusation. Citations, please.
I have only my subjective feeling, when I finished reading 'The God Delusion' of "that could have been a really interesting book, but his attitude ruined it." Whether that response was based more on the book itself or on my own attitude, I can't say. (But I loved Dawkins' other books, i.e. 'The Selfish Gene' and others related to biology...they are still among my favourites.)
You may wish to try rereading it and seeing if it's actually the book you remember.