“Brights” and . . . Dims?

Last updated on: September 9, 2017 at 3:46 pm by Dan Peterson

“Brights” and . . . Dims? 2017-09-09T15:46:13-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

She led a tragically short life, made even worse by being overlooked for the Nobel Prize that she certainly deserved. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Some atheists — including Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins — have adopted the term Brights to describe themselves. Although a few deny it, the unspoken implication seems to be that theists are dims.

Well . . .

Addressing Professor Dawkins, John Cornwell writes,

You start by quoting Bertrand Russell again: ” . . . intellectually eminent men disbelieve in Christian religion,” you quote him as saying, “but they conceal the fact in public, because they are afraid of losing their incomes..”

Quite apart from the provincialism of this (what of eminent Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh men), I wondered about bringing in Russell from the outset, as if he were a self-evident expert on the matter. Russell was surely an important figure in philosophy or mathematics, but didn’t he also say some pernicious things outside his area of expertise, especially on the subject of intelligence? For example: “Women are on the average stupider than men.” Just because Bertrand Russell says something doesn’t mean to say that it’s true.

Cornwell acknowledges the possibility that, on the whole, intellectually gifted people may have intellectualized themselves out of faith more than less gifted people may have done. But he’s not as impressed with that possibility as Dr. Dawkins might have expected.

Then you claim that religious believers are in short supply among Britain’s top scientists — the Fellows of the Royal Society — and among members of the Mensa society, the British-founded club for people with high IQ scores. But are not scientists, and self-selecting groups such as Mensa members, apt to display particular kinds of intelligence quite distinct from, say, philosophers, artists, musicians, writers, bankers, actuaries, medical practitioners, novelists, poets, concert pianists, historians, theologians, and anthropologists? I don’t want to dismiss your argument out of hand, but why should anybody take scientists, or the Mensa society, as representing the cream of intellect and imagination, any more than bond-traders, chess-players, pawnbrokers, or cardinals in the Vatican? Each of these callings in life quite obviously represents a specific range of aptitudes. Hence the argument is reduced instantly by applying it in a parallel category: the Jesuits, for example. Jesuits are widely deemed smart and well-educated, quite independently of the Catholic Church. But very few Jesuits, if any, turn out to be scientists; fewer still are atheists, and there are no Jesuit women. Should we therefore take it that atheists, scientists, and women are unlikely to be intellectually eminent?

Besides, Cornwell wonders, isn’t it possible that scientists are themselves a self-selected group that isn’t exactly representative of humankind, or even of gifted humankind, generally?

One should not be surprised that individuals who spend their lives in laboratories pursuing highly focused research programmes in the natural sciences would have little time, appetite, or scope for religiosity.

Finally, a concluding note:

And let’s look more widely at the inferences we could draw. By the year 1920 more than 50 per cent of all Nobel Prize-winners in the natural sciences were Germans. Does this mean that the Germans through this period were cleverer than all other nationalities? By the same token, women have consistently been overlooked by the Nobel panel: again, does this mean that women are less capable of genius in science? Well, we happen to know all too many scandalous cases of women being deprived of their just deserts by the Nobel panel. They include the German-Jewish physicist Lisa Meitner, who should have shared the prize with Otto Hahn for the discovery of fission, and Rosalind Franklin, who should have shared the Watson-Crick prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA.

See John Cornwell, Darwin’s Angel: An Angelic Riposte to The God Delusion (London: Profile Books, 2008), 117-118, 121-123.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

September 9, 2017

For Freedom

Next Post

September 9, 2017 On the supposed obligation to "validate" the experiences of critics

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which brother's descendants would be kings according to Jacob's blessing?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Reuben Judah Dan Levi