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By Root 715 0

the future, history is bunk. So much for the persistent question of what the pattern or meaning of human history might be. There is no place history is heading, except toward the maximum-entropy heat death of the universe. We are not here for any reason, nor have we passed through any historical test for a reason. History is, to paraphrase Shakespeare, a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury and signifying nothing. Just like Shakespeare’s Histories, history, as stories, is mighty entertaining and sometimes even stirring. But when it comes to helping us understand our future or even the present, arms races make it bunk.

The only part of the past that can tell us much about the future is the very recent past, and the only thing it can tell us about is the very near future. At most the social sciences can uncover temporary truces that will be inevitably overthrown by an arms race. Since these truces are getting shorter all the time, the amount they can tell us is getting smaller all the time. Scientism must acknowledge that if history is blind, social science is myopic.

Chapter 12

LIVING WITH SCIENTISM: ETHICS, POLITICS,

THE HUMANITIES,

AND PROZAC

AS NEEDED

WHEN ADVERTISEMENTS LIKE THE ONE IN Figure 9 appeared on London buses in the fall of 2008, there were protests, of course. Just not the ones you might expect (especially in the United States). Many British atheists were unhappy about the qualification “probably” and said so. Scientism agrees. There is no reason to doubt atheism. What we know about physical and biological science makes the existence of God less probable than the existence of Santa Claus. And the parts of physics that rule out God are not themselves open to much doubt. There is no chance that they will be revised by anything yet to be discovered.

FIGURE 9. Advertisement on a London bus

To be sure, there will be revolutionary developments in science. Superstring theory may give way to quantum-loop gravity; exceptions to the genetic code may be discovered; some unique function of consciousness may be identified. But there are some things that won’t happen. Purposes and designs will never have a role in physics or biology. Perpetual motion machines and other violations of the laws of thermodynamics won’t arise, not even if there turns out to be such a thing as cold fusion. And no clump of matter will just by itself be about another clump of matter. The parts of science that rule out theism are firmly fixed. Finally, it’s not just probable that God doesn’t exist. For scientism, it’s as close to a sure thing as science can get.

Besides giving rock-solid reasons to deny the existence of the theist’s God, science also provides equally compelling answers to the persistent questions that lead people to religion and mystery mongering. The answers that science provides are not as reassuring to most people as are the answers of religion and its substitutes. Should this fact worry those of us who reject theism because it conflicts with science? The short answer is no. There is no reason for us to be anxious about these answers. This last chapter explains why. It also draws out the implications of science for some of the moral and political issues that roil contemporary life. Finally, it helps put in their right place the unforgettable stories that seduce us away from science. They turn out to be fun and games masquerading as knowledge and wisdom.

WHO NEEDS SECULAR HUMANISM, ANYWAY?

Some atheists worry that science’s answers to the persistent questions will be psychologically disquieting, emotionally inadequate, or completely unbearable for most people. They worry that science’s answers to the persistent questions are just not enough to satisfy most people—that we need more to live by than what science alone provides. If we can’t have religion, we need a substitute that is as much like it as science can provide. Enter secular humanism, a doctrine, dare I say, “designed” to do this job. It hasn’t worked.

Secular humanists embrace science—its methods and its results—and seek to build