And by the way, unlike the Koran, the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, is quite emphatic that the Bible is the word of God, and that it is another work by the same author and editor, brought forward to reaffirm the reality of God and Christ and miracles “in an age of railways” as Charles Dickens put it. It is explicit about the efficacy of special revelation as a source of knowledge not available to those lacking faith in Christ. The almost complete ignorance of the actual content of the Book of Mormon is a marker of all sorts of intellectual tribes who are smug in their certainty of the comprehensiveness of their own conception of truth, to the point that they don’t read books that they think will challenge their worldview. After all, why waste the time when you already know everything there.is to know, i.e. you are omniscient. Lack of intellectual humility, of admitting ignorance, is a disease.among many tribes.

The reasonableness of scientific rationalism must stand or fall on the precise definition given by the person defending it. A likely source of self-defeat in the doctrine is that it only recognises as true things which have been determined by scientific means. Even given a loose definition of what counts as science (e.g. including apparently non-empirical subjects like mathematics and logic), it’s not clear that the doctrine meets its own requirements for being recognised as true. You may care to analyse whether Dawkins’ prescriptions for “good reasons for believing” qualify as “good” themselves under their own terms of judgement. This is not a problem specific to scientific rationalism, however: it’s a problem common to all strong epistemological declarations.

This is all beside the point, however. My point remains that even highly qualified intellectuals are prone to epistemically dubious practices. Clearly you have some relative admiration for the “intellectual elite” tribe versus the “conservative evangelical” tribe — a fact demonstrated by your tone towards the latter, including the use of “tribe” to describe the latter but not the former. The question remains whether your admiration is justified on the basis of superior epistemic practices, or whether the perception of superiority is the result of confirmation bias resulting from the admiration — or perhaps a bit of both.

The irony in this case is that “confirmation bias” is one of those things that you’d definitely want to eliminate (or at least minimise) in order to actually have superior epistemic practices. Human nature, being what it is, however, tends towards hubris rather than humility. Consequently, it’s all too easy to think, “I am a highly educated and qualified intellectual, therefore I have better epistemic practices than those who are less educated and qualified than I, and therefore I am less prone to confirmation bias than they are” — and not notice that this is the very root of confirmation bias.

Based on this observation, I would say that confirmation bias is best counteracted by practising “epistemic humility”, and this is really what Tom’s original article is about, although he doesn’t use that term. Epistemic humility is characterised by several things, one of which is having a sober judgement as to the extent of one’s own knowledge, as Tom suggests. Another characteristic is a greater concern for the rigour of one’s own arguments than the lack of it in others. It is the case that the arguments of one’s opponents will often lack rigour, but the humble approach is to assume in the first instance that you have simply failed to grasp the argument, and to ask clarifying questions, rather than to launch into attack mode and accuse the opponent of sloppy thinking (which seems to be the preferred course of action in most cases).

The addition of some epistemic humility and basic civility would improve the quality of arguments everywhere, online and off.

That’s probably a fair comment. “Scientific rationalism” seems to be a term that is going out of vogue, but the attitude itself is not. “Scientism” is probably the better term, but it has more pejorative overtones. If you know of a better label, I’ll be happy to hear it.

Let’s just say that it is the prescription for the right way to go about knowing things given by people such as Richard Dawkins (e.g. in “A Devil’s Chaplain”, particularly Ch.7.1, “Good and Bad Reasons for Believing”, but also Ch.1.2, “What is True?”). The short version is that science is the only proper way to know what is true. That’s an oversimplification, but a workable one if not interpreted too rigidly. As a corollary, it is the repudiation of all non-scientific ways of knowing, such as intuition or special revelation.

If you want to identify the tribe, think of Dawkins as a tribal elder, and you’ll get roughly the right picture.

Could there possibly be someone more enamored of “top research universities” than our B.lily. After just a few posts I think it’s fair to point out that B.lily might just be the ultimate poster child for confirmational bias. That he/she seems so blissfully unaware of their own fawning allegiance to these institutions only attests to this.

A good research university does indeed look different from a cult. No disputing that. But it’s not by any means free of “tribal vices.”

Being one who holds several degrees of various types, I certainly hope so. The problem is not with increased understanding, but in overestimating the importance of one’s knowledge. When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, so those who assert that every question can be answered scientifically tend to be those with a concentration of expertise in science.

“That understanding often has a secondary effect of increasing one’s understanding of what expertise looks like generally, and what it is to do decent research.”

Yes, except when it doesn’t. A concentration of expertise in a field which performs research in a certain way may lead one to think that all valid research must be performed in that manner, and thus to erroneous judgements about the validity of research in other fields. It makes no sense to hold a mathematician to the research standards of biology, obviously enough. Nevertheless, scientific rationalists assert their superiority by belittling fields which do not have an empirical research programme.

“To the trained eye, our top research universities and our most respected peer reviewed journals look very different from the typical cult.”

I’m sure that they look very different even to an untrained eye at a casual glance. What makes the comparison interesting is the similarities that persist despite the differences. Religions and rationalists alike preach at us about what we should believe, and why we should believe it. They rest their authority on different foundations, but the strength of their convictions is equal and unshakable.

That similarity was my original point.

If you think that all the epistemic vices are primarily committed by other tribes, then you’ve probably fallen victim to confirmation bias.

In my anecdotal experience, new-atheists and scientific rationalists tend to exhibit rather questionable beliefs about “expertise in the subject area,” what it means to “reason,” and what it is that they “know”. In this regard, I fear that they have an inflated view of the importance of their own field of qualification, and of their own intellectual capacity.

Also, I am often struck by the kind of tribal epistemology among scientific rationalists. They tend to exhibit extreme disdain and contempt towards those outside their own narrow circle. Those within their circle, however, are trusted far beyond what any of their actual expertise can reasonably support. It is as if they view their own as guided into the truth by the scientific method, and everyone else as guided into deceptive error by superstition. That would somewhat explain the pattern I seem to see.

Of course, if you happen to be a member of the scientific rationalist tribe, you’ll think I’m being unreasonable by drawing this parallel, because the scientific method IS the path to all truth (and if I think otherwise, I should go without computers and modern medicine).

Also, I am often struck by the kind of tribal epistemology among conservative evangelicals. They tend to exhibit extreme distrust and suspicion towards those outside their own narrow circle. Those within their circle, however, are trusted far beyond what any of their actual expertise can reasonably support. It is as if they view their own as guided into the truth by God, and everyone else as guided into deceptive error by Satan. That would somewhat explain the pattern I seem to see.