Some things are necessary to life, and some things are at least so life-enhancing or life-enabling that we tamper with them at our peril, and we need to figure out these roles and needs. Ever since the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, many quite well-informed and brilliant people have confidently thought that religion would soon vanish, the object of a human taste that could be satisfied by other means. Many are still waiting, somewhat less confidently. Whatever religion provides for us, it is something that many think they cannot live without. Letâs take them seriously this time, for they might be right. But there is only one way to take them seriously: we need to study them scientifically.
4 Would neglect be more benign?
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things:â
We murder to dissect.
âWilliam Wordsworth, âThe Tables Turnedâ
Why then must science and scientists continue to be governed by fearâfear of public opinion, fear of social consequence, fear of religious intolerance, fear of political pressure, and, above all, fear of bigotry and prejudiceâas much within as without the professional world?
âWilliam Masters and Virginia Johnson, Human Sexual Response
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
âJesus of Nazareth, in John 8:32
It is time to confront the worry that such an investigation might actually kill all the specimens, destroying something precious in the name of discovering its inner nature. Wouldnât it be more prudent to leave well enough alone? As I have already noted, the case for curbing our curiosity here has two parts: it must show both (1) that religion provides net benefits to humankind, and (2) that these benefits would be unlikely to survive such an investigation. The tactical problem that confronts us is that there is really no way of showing the first point without actually engaging in the investigation. Religion seems to many people to be the source of many wonderful things, but others doubt this, for compelling reasons, and we shouldnât just concede the point out of a misplaced respect for tradition. Perhaps this very respect is like the protective outer shell that often conceals deadly viruses from our immune system, a sort of camouflage that disengages much-needed criticism. So the most we can say is that point 1 is not yet proven. We can, however, proceed tentatively, and consider how likely point 2 would be if we were to assume for the sake of argument that religion is indeed a thing of great value. We can assume it innocent until proven guiltyâin other words, just the way our legal system operates.
Now, what about point 2? How much damage do we suppose an investigation might do, in the worst case? Might it not break the spell and disenchant us forever? This concern has been a favorite ground for resisting scientific curiosity for centuries, but although it is undeniable that taking apart particular instances of wonderful thingsâplants, animals, musical instrumentsâmay sometimes destroy them beyond reconstruction, other wonderful thingsâpoems, symphonies, theories, legal systemsâthrive on analysis, however painstaking, and one can hardly deny the benefit to other plants, animals, and musical instruments derived from dissecting a few specimens. In spite of all the warnings over the centuries, I have been unable to come up with a case of some valuable phenomenon that has actually been destroyed, or even seriously damaged, by scientific scrutiny.
Field biologists often confront a terrible quandary when studying an endangered species: does their well-meant attempt at a census, involving live capture and release, actually hasten the extinction of the species? When anthropologists descend on a heretofore isolated and pristine people, their inquiries, however discreet and diplomatic, swiftly change the culture they are so eager to know. With regard to the former cases, thou shalt not study is a policy that may indeed be wisely invoked on occasion, but with regard to the latter, prolonging the isolation of people by putting them, in effect, in a cultural zoo, though it is sometimes advocated, does not bear scrutiny. These are people, and we have no right to keep them ignorant of the larger world they share with us. (Whether they have the right to keep themselves ignorant is one of the vexing questions to be considered later in this book.)
It is worth recalling that it took brave pioneers many years to overcome the powerful taboo against the dissection of human cadavers during the early years of modern medicine. And we should note that, notwithstanding the outrage and revulsion with which the idea of dissection was then received, overcoming that tradition has not led to the feared collapse of morality and decency. We live in an era in which human corpses are still treated with due respectâindeed, with rather more respect and decorum than they were treated with at the time dissection was still disreputable. And which of us would choose to forgo the benefits of medicine made possible by the invasive, meddling science Wordsworth deplores?
More recently, another taboo was broken, with even greater outcry. Alfred C. Kinsey, in the 1940s and 1950s, began the scientific investigation of human sexual practices in America that led to the notorious Kinsey Reports, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953). There were substantial flaws in Kinseyâs studies, but the weight of the evidence he amassed led to surprising conclusions that have needed only minor adjustments in the wake of the better-controlled investigations that followed. For the first time, boys and men could learn that over 90 percent of American males masturbate, and that around 10 percent are homosexual; girls and women could learn that orgasms were normal and achievable for them as well, both in coitus and in masturbation, andânot surprisingly, in retrospectâthat lesbians were better at inducing orgasms in women than men were.
Kinseyâs research tools were interviews and questionnaires, but soon William H. Masters and Virginia Johnson got up the nerve to subject human sexual arousal to scientific investigation in the laboratory, recording the physiological responses of volunteers engaged in sexual acts, using all the tools of science, including color cinematography (this was before the ready availability of videotape). Their pioneering work, Human Sexual Response (1966), was met with a wild mixture of hostility and outrage, amusement and prurient fascinationâand cautious applause from the medical and scientific community. By shining the bright light of science on what had heretofore been conducted in the dark (with a huge measure of secrecy and shame), they dispelled a host of myths, revised the medical understanding of some kinds of sexual dysfunction, liberated untold numbers of anxious people whose tastes and practices had been under a cloud of socially inculcated disapproval, andâwonder of wondersâimproved the sex lives of millions. It turns out that in this case, at least, you can break the spell and yet not break the spell at the same time. You can violate the taboo against dispassionate study of a phenomenonâthereâs one spell brokenâand not destroy it in the processâthereâs a spell one can still blissfully fall under.
But at what cost? I deliberately draw attention to Masters and Johnsonâs still-controversial work, since it illustrates so clearly the difficult issues with which this book will be concerned. Many will agree with me when I say that, thanks to the pioneering work of Kinsey, and Masters and Johnson, the knowledge we have acquired has not only not destroyed sex, it has made sex better. But there are also many who will pounce on the comparison and declare that this is exactly why they oppose any scientific exploration of religion: there is a chance it might do for religion what Kinsey et al. did for sexâteach us more than is good for us. Let me put words in their mouths:
If masturbating without shame, tolerance for homosexuality, and greater knowledge of how to achieve female orgasm are examples of the benefits science can bring us, then so much the worse for science. By treating sex as something natural (in the sense of nothing to be ashamed about), it has contributed to an explosion of pornography and degradation, defiling the sacred act of procreative union between husband and wife. We were bette
r off not knowing all these facts, and we should take whatever steps we can to shelter our children from this contaminating information!
This is a very serious objection. There is no denying that the matter-of-fact candor about sex that was fostered by this research has had some terrible side effects, opening up new and fertile fields for exploitation by those who are always looking for ways to prey upon their fellow citizens. The sexual revolution of the sixties was not the glorious and all-benign liberation that it is often portrayed as being. The explorations of âfree loveâ and âopen marriageâ broke many hearts, and robbed many young people of a deep sense of the moral importance of sexual relations by encouraging a shallow vision of sex as mere entertainment of the senses. Although it is widely believed that the sexual revolution contributed to the negligence and casual promiscuity that have heightened the scourge of sexually transmitted diseases, this may not be the case. Most evidence suggests that when information about sex is widespread, sexual behavior becomes more responsible (Posner, 1992), but anyone raising a child today has to worry about the surfeit of information about sex that now engulfs us.
Knowledge really is power, for good and for ill. Knowledge can have the power to disrupt ancient patterns of belief and action, the power to subvert authority, the power to change minds. It can interfere with trends that may or may not be desirable. In a notorious memorandum to President Richard Nixon, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote:
The time may have come when the issue of race could benefit from a period of âbenign neglect.â The subject has been too much talked about. The forum has been too much taken over by hysterics, paranoids, and boodlers on all sides. We may need a period in which Negro progress continues and racial rhetoric fades. The administration can help bring this about by paying close attention to such progressâas we are doingâwhile seeking to avoid situations in which extremists of either race are given opportunities for martyrdom, heroics, histrionics or whatever.[Moynihan, 1970]
We will probably never know if Moynihan was right, but he may have been. Those who suspect that he was right may hope that we follow his advice this time, postponing vigorous attention to religion as long as possible, deflecting inquiry, and hoping for the best. But it is hard to see how this policy could be achieved in any case. Since the Enlightenment, we have already had more than two hundred years of deferential, muted curiosity, and it doesnât seem to have led to the fading of religious rhetoric, does it? Recent history strongly suggests that religion is going to garner more and more attention, not less, in the immediate future. If it is going to receive attention, it had better be high-quality attention, not the sort that hysterics, paranoids, and boodlers on all sides engage in.
The problem is that it is just too hard nowadays to keep secrets. Whereas in earlier centuries ignorance was the default condition of most of the human race, and it took a considerable exercise of inquiry to learn about the wide world, today we are all swimming in a sea of information and misinformation, on every topic, from masturbation to how to build a nuclear weapon to Al Qaeda. As we deplore the attempt by some religious leaders in the Muslim world to keep their girls and women uneducated and uninformed about the world, we can hardly approve of similar embargoes on knowledge in our own sphere.
Or can we? Perhaps this point of disagreement is the continental divide in Opinion Space, between those who think our best hope is to try to nail the lid on Pandoraâs box and keep ourselves forever ignorant, and those who think that this is politically impossible and immoral in the first place. The former already pay a heavy price for their self-imposed factual poverty: they canât imagine in detail the consequences of their own chosen policy. Can they not see that nothing short of a police state, bristling with laws prohibiting inquiry and the dissemination of knowledge, or the sequestration of the population in a windowless world, could accomplish the feat? Is that really what they want? Do they think that they have methods undreamt of by the conservative mullahs for halting the inexorable flow of liberating information to their flock? Think ahead.
There is a trap here lying in wait of those without foresight. Perhaps no parents are immune to a twinge of regret when they see the first evidence of loss of innocence in their child, and the urge to shelter a child from the tawdry world is strong, but reflection should show anybody that it just wonât work. We need to let our children grow up to face the world armed with knowledge, with much more knowledge than we ourselves had at their age. It is scary, but the alternative is worse.
There are some peopleâmillions, apparentlyâwho proudly declare that they do not have to foresee the consequences: they know in their hearts that this is the right path, whatever the details. Since Judgment Day is just around the corner, there is no reason to plan for the future. If you are one of these, here is what I hope will be a sobering reflection: have you considered that you are perhaps being irresponsible? You would willingly risk not only the lives and future well-being of your loved ones, but also the lives and future well-being of all the rest of us, without hesitation, without due diligence, guided by one revelation or another, a conviction that you have no good way of checking for soundness. âEvery prudent man dealeth with knowledge: but a fool layeth open his follyâ (Proverbs 13:16). Yes, I know, the Bible has a contrary text as well: âFor it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudentâ (1 Corinthians 1:19). Anybody can quote the Bible to prove anything, which is why you ought to worry about being overconfident.
Do you ever ask yourself: What if Iâm wrong? Of course there is a large crowd of others around you who share your conviction, and this distributesâand, alas, dilutesâthe responsibility, so, if you ever get a chance to breathe a word of regret, you will have a handy excuse: you got swept up by a crowd of enthusiasts. But surely you have noticed a troubling fact. History gives us many examples of large crowds of deluded people egging one another on down the primrose path to perdition. How can you be so sure youâre not part of such a group? I for one am not in awe of your faith. I am appalled by your arrogance, by your unreasonable certainty that you have all the answers. I wonder if any believers in the End Times will have the intellectual honesty and courage to read this book through.
What we dimly imagine in dreaded anticipation often turns out to be much worse than reality. Before we lament our inability to hold back the rising tide of information, we should consider its likely consequences calmly. They may not be so bad. Imagine, if you can, that we had never had the Santa Claus myth at all, that Christmas was just another Christian feast, like Palm Sunday or Pentecost, celebrated but barely anticipated in the wide world. And imagine that the fans of J. K. Rowlingâs Harry Potter stories were to attempt to start a new tradition: every year, on the anniversary of the publication date of the first Harry Potter book, children shall receive gifts from Harry Potter, who flies in through the window on his magic broomstick, accompanied by his owl. Letâs make Harry Potter Day a worldwide day for children! Toy manufacturers (and Rowlingâs publishers) would all be in favor, presumably, but imagine the doomsayers who would oppose it:
What a terrible idea! Think of the traumatic effects on young children when they learn, as they eventually would, that their innocence and trust had been exploited by a gigantic public conspiracy of grown-ups. The psychic and social toll of such a massive deception would be cynicism, despair, paranoia, and grief that might cripple children for life. Could there be anything more evil than deliberately concocting a seductive set of lies to spread to our children? They will hate us bitterly, and we will deserve their fury.
Had this quite compelling concern been effectively raised in the early days of the evolving Santa Claus mythology, it might well have prevented the Great Santa Claus Catastrophe of 1985! But we know better. There was no such catastrophe and never will be. Some children do suffer relatively brief bouts of embarrassment and bitterness on learning that there is no Sa
nta Claus, but others take delicious pride in their Sherlock Holmes triumph of detection, and relish their new status among Those in the Know, eagerly contributing to the ruse next year, and soberly answering all the innocent questions put to them by their younger siblings.
Breaking the Spell Page 6