Radical Behaviorism and How We Believe by Michael Shermer

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Radical Behaviorism and How We Believe by Michael
Shermer

• Season Almason
• Western Michigan University

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Overview

• The purpose of this presentation is to present
  some of the issues discussed in the book How We
  Believe Science, Skepticism, and the Search for
  God by Michael Shermer and relate them to the
  philosophy of radical behaviorism and the science
  of behavior analysis

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Why is it important to understand why we believe?

• The philosophy of science is concerned with
  epistemology
• How we come to believe and justify our beliefs is
  the main concern of epistemology
• The philosophy of science is also concerned with
  truth criteria
• How we come to tact our beliefs as true is,
  therefore, also a concern of the philosophy of
  science

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Why is it important to understand why we believe?
(cont.)

• Scientific behavior involves believing
• In order to understand scientific behavior it is
  important to understand why we believe

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Science Religion

• Claims that religious tenets can be proved
  through science require a response from the
  scientific community. Making evidentiary claims
  puts religion on sciences turf, so if it wants
  to stay there it will have to live up to the
  standards of scientific proof (p. xxvi).

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Question

• If religious scientists are operating in a
  different paradigm or under a different world
  theory than other scientists, are those other
  scientists justified in judging the questions the
  religious scientists ask or the methods and truth
  criteria they use?

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Answer

• According to Kuhn (1962) and Pepper (1942)
  scientists from one paradigm or world theory are
  not justified in judging the work of scientists
  from another paradigm or world theory based on
  the criteria of their own paradigm or world
  theory
• However O, ye of little faith. Why do you need
  science to prove God? You do not. These
  scientific proofs of God are not only an insult
  to science to those who are deeply religious
  they are an insult to God (p. 123).
• Are we not supposed to believe by faith, not by
  sight?

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Scientific Proof for God

• ID intelligent design theorists also attack
  scientists underlying bias of methodological
  naturalism. That is, they feel it is not fair to
  forbid supernaturalism from the equation as it
  pushes them out of the scientific arena on the
  basis of nothing more than a rule of the game.
  But if we change the rules of the game to allow
  them to play, what would that look like? How
  would that work? What would we do with
  supernaturalism? (p. xxxi).
• If science is the art of the soluble, religion
  is the art of the insoluble. Gods existence is
  beyond our competence as a problem to solve (p.
  7).

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Question

• Have we really rid science of the supernatural?

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Answer

• It was the goal of the logical positivists to
  move philosophy and science away from the study
  of the metaphysical (Smith, 1986)
• Their solution operationism
• Skinner (1945) points out, however, that
  operationism has not resulted in the removal of
  the supernatural from science

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Another Question

• If scientists are still going to fill gaps in the
  causal chain with hypothetical processes, why
  should an appeal to God be rejected?

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Answer

• If a mechanistic world theory is to be used there
  is no reason that God cannot be used to fill gaps
  in the causal chain if other hypothetical
  constructs are acceptable
• This is not an issue in radical behaviorism
  because mechanism and all appeals to supernatural
  entities are rejected (Chiesa, 1994)

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How do we believe?

• Selectionism
• Shermers hypothesis of how religion and belief
  in God evolved is consistent with a selectionist
  account
• Shermer proposes that pattern-seeking evolved
  into storytelling, storytelling evolved into
  mythmaking, mythmaking evolved into morality,
  morality evolved into religion, and religion
  evolved into a belief in God
• Basically, religion evolved out of a communitys
  need for individual behavior to be controlled
  even when no one is watching