The joys of life without God

Skeptics Society founder Michael Shermer explains why Darwin matters, how believing in God is the same as believing in astrology, and why it doesn't take divine faith to experience something bigger than ourselves.

Editor's note: This is the latest entry in a Salon series of interviews about religion and science with today's leading thinkers.

By Kevin Berger


Aug. 23, 2006 | Michael Shermer has done a fine job in his new book of letting the air out of intelligent design's tires. As you recall, the so-called scientific movement, which says that nifty things in the universe, like human eyes, are so perfect they couldn't possibly have been created by the crude steps of evolution, was rolling along quite nicely through school districts last year, kicking up a chorus of hallelujahs from creationists. Some of Shermer's ivory towerish science pals, like Richard Dawkins and the late Stephen Jay Gould, told him not to bother with the I.D. boosters, that acknowledging them meant going along for their political ride, where the integrity of science was being run into the ground.

But true to his genial nature, Shermer ignored his friends' advice and penned "Why Darwin Matters." With admirable patience and humility, he spells out each of the fancy I.D. tenets, like "design inference," in which only a higher intelligence could have come up with something as cool and ingenious as DNA. Shermer shows how imperfect evolution, and not intelligent design, has been, for generations, the only quantifiable driver behind nature's wonders.

In one way, he didn't have to write the book. You could get the rundown on I.D. by reading Judge John E. Jones' decision in the [link|http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/12/21/teachers/|infamous trial in Dover], Penn., last year, which pitted the local school board, who supported teaching I.D., against evolution experts. The Republican judge spanked the I.D. proponents hard, calling their bedrock assumptions "utterly false," and concluded with a swipe at the "breathtaking inanity" of the Dover School Board. Yet there's no doubt that Shermer's book is a nice ally for science teachers in the perpetual battle against the creationists.

When I met him, I didn't want to get bogged down in the details of his defense. Shermer, 51, is executive director of the Skeptics Society, bold debunkers of all things supernatural; a columnist for Scientific American; and author of a bunch of readable books about why people flock to God or astrology. So while we delved into the real agenda of intelligent design advocates (like techno-guru George Gilder) we also talked about psychics, atheism, why one famous molecular biologist believes in God, and Shermer's halcyon days as a Jesus freak.

The Skeptics Society is situated in a warm little house in Altadena, a tree-shaded town, north of Los Angeles, in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains, home to Mt. Wilson Observatory, one of the world's pioneering astronomy centers. We chatted around the dining room table, stacked with issues of the latest Skeptic magazine, all about religion.

Why does Darwin matter?

Because we live in the age of science. And the Darwinian worldview is the preeminent and best supported theory for the explanation of the natural and biological world. Marx is gone. Freud is gone. History and data have not supported their theories. But Darwin was right. You have to know evolution to understand the natural world. And that cannot be a threat to people of faith. There's a serious problem if you are forced by your faith to reject the most well supported theory in all of science.

Why do you say evolution shouldn't be a threat?

If you believe God created the world, it's reasonable to ask, How did he do it? What were the forces and mechanisms he used? Why not look to science and see that he started with the big bang, the force of gravity, inflationary cosmology, quarks and natural selection. Those were his tools. To that extent, science is not a threat, it's your best friend. It's the best tool you have for illuminating the grandeur of creation. A Hubble Space Telescope photograph of the universe evokes far more awe for creation than light streaming through a stained glass window in a cathedral. I mean, come on, that photo is an actual representation of the reality that God created, if that's what you believe. So why not embrace science rather than fear it?

Why do people fear it?

They've been sold a bill of goods by people who like the warfare model of science and religion, particularly fundamentalists and militant atheists. Both sides want to force a choice and debunk the other side. But it need not be so. It's an incorrect interpretation promoted by extremists. The tendency is for liberals to embrace science and conservatives to mistrust it. Conservatives like technology but tend to be leery about science because it threatens their religions. They fear the Darwinian worldview is the liberal worldview, which says that if there is no God, there is no absolute right and wrong. And without an Archimedean point outside of ourselves that says this is right or wrong, then anything goes, there's no basis for morality. Therefore America will go to hell in a moral handbasket.

What do you say to them?

I say you don't need religion, or political ideology, to understand human nature. Science reveals that human nature is greedy and selfish, altruistic and helpful. Conservatives can find family values in nature. We are pair-bonded. We practice serial monogamy. Human infants are helpless for such a long time that it's better to have two parents rather than one to raise them. That's what Darwin gives us. He showed us how we evolved to be cooperative and altruistic within our groups, and competitive and avaricious between them. Within groups, amity; between groups, enmity. That explains a lot about the good and evil in our nature. I'm saying to conservatives, you're right. If you want to use the metaphors of God and Satan, fine, but let's ground them in science.

Why do we reach so hard for a divine force to explain life?

The natural inclination in all humans is to posit a force, a spirit, outside of us. That tendency toward superstitious magical thinking is just built into our nature. What's more, it doesn't cost anything to have a false positive, to assume there's a force behind the lightning or a spirit in the rock. In the ancestral environment, when we evolved, we might think spinning around three times is going to bring rain. Well, once in a while it works and makes everybody happy. And it doesn't cost much to keep doing it. It doesn't take you out of the gene pool.

You sound so benign. Yet your day job is debunking pseudo sciences like rain dances and astrology. There's no harm, then, in me thinking that because I'm a Libra I just might get what I wish for today?

[Laughs] No, for most people astrology is just light entertainment. But the problem with taking it seriously is it can lead to other irrational beliefs. And presumably in an educated democracy we want to have a certain level of education, as Jefferson says, so we can have a serious national discussion about problems. I mean, people who believe in astrology tend to believe all kinds of goofy things. All the pseudo sciences -- astrology, Tarot cards, psychics, mystic healing -- use the exact same principle. They work because we have a selective memory and a confirmation bias. We look forward to finding evidence for what we already believe and forget the rest. In an hour reading, a psychic will make 200 or 300 statements. If a person walks away with half a dozen things the psychic got right, he's ecstatic. It's like Skinner with the rats. You don't have to reinforce them every time. In fact, they'll press the bar even faster if you give them intermittent reinforcement. It's the same with slot machines. You just have to pay off every once in a while and it will keep us pulling the levers.

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