an article you may both hate. or like.

hope all is well.
Lawrence

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/all-scientists-should-be-militant-atheists

Thanks for sending. A wide area of agreement, but not total.

On confronting dogma, I of course agree — though in my opinion the secular religions — nationalist fanaticism, etc. —
are much more dangerous. And if some find rational discussion offensive — as, for example, mainstream academics
find dismantling myths of “American exceptionalism” or “Israeli self-defense” or Obama’s mass murder campaign,
etc., offensive — so be it.

But I don’t see why that should extend to ridicule. That includes astrologists. Astronomers can refute astrology, while
recognizing that perfectly honest and deluded people may believe it and should be treated with respect, while their
beliefs are confronted with evidence. I also don’t see why we should ridicule religious dogma, just as I don’t think we
should ridicule the much more pernicious secular dogmas. Rather, we should respond to irrational belief with
argument and evidence, while recognizing that their advocates (like most of the intellectual world in the case of
secular dogma) are people who we should be responding to but without ridiculing them. It may be hard

sometimes. For example, when the icon and founding father of sober non-sentimental Realism in International Affairs
informs us that the US, unlike other countries, has a “transcendental purpose,” and the fact that it constantly acts in
contradiction to its purpose doesn’t matter because the facts are just “abuse of history” while real history is “the
evidence of history as our minds reflect it,” then it’s hard to avoid ridicule. But we should. There’s no point ridiculing
virtually the entire IR profession and the major journals, even though such extraordinary irrationality leads to major
human disasters.

On Davis, I frankly think that’s a non-issue. If she decides she cannot do her job as the conditions of employment
require (including following the law), then she can quit and look for another job. As in any other such case.

Noam