New Atheism is a little more organised and confident than previous Atheisms in its assertion that if there were a black cat in the room someone would have stood or sat on it, heard it and most likely have been scratched by it by now.
If you really must expand on the metaphor, one should also point out that nothing has ever been scratched, or peed on, or knocked from a high place, or stolen. No cat poop has ever been found, or even smelled. No cat hair has ever been seen.
Oh, and to really make the point a LITTLE bit clearer, the people proclaiming that they've found a cat in this dark room not only keep "trying" to bring the cat out only to have it escape before anyone but them can sense it, but they also keep trying to redefine "no cat" as "a cat" as more and more of their bronze-age "there was a cat here once" myth gets demonstrated to not describe anything factual.
At which point, of course, concluding "behave as if no cat because no reason to assume a cat" is simple non-dumbshittery.
But all of that misses the point of the original image, which is all about "we're pretty sure the cat is in this room, let's go find it". The theologians are just wrong.
I don't know about the others, but science is like groping about blindly in the dark, getting hold of something, theorizing that it might be a black cat, and testing that theory.
Foraging is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat using a flashlight. That's because organisms simplify foraging by forming a "search image". Items that may be perfectly edible or otherwise useful but which don't match the search image get ignored and can seem functionally invisible. California kingsnakes use this to avoid predation -- they come in a wide range of color patterns. Predators find a Cal king in one pattern, decide that it is edible, and search for just that one pattern, ignoring others. That search image is like your flashlight in the dark, it only illuminates the black cats, ignoring all other cats, rats, bats, gnats...
Science that is limited to finding only what it expects to find, is, well, not going to advance at all quickly.
I'm not so sure... Through reiteration in each statement that a black cat is the thing to find in the room, the final statement indicates that science has decided that the black cat is there and it (science) has a black-cat detector (the flashlight). This might work well for particle physics, with colliders acting as the flashlight, but in other fields, where stuff happens that you have to make sense of after the fact, you're just groping around in the dark.
Take the classic study of the relationship between wolves and moose on Isle Royale. Initially the researchers were using a flashlight: they thought they had an example of wolves keeping a moose population in check. It's a farming falacy: wolves are farming the moose. Further research demonstrated that the primary producers (plants) and the weather was controling the moose, and that the moose were controlling the wolves, not the other way round. Same thing with lynx and snowshoe hares: plants control hares, hares control lynx. More scientists with flashlights: S.J. Gould had quite a few amusing essays on preconceptions causing scientists to jump to conclusions on brain size relative to expected intelligence and gender back in the 19th century. They found their black cats all right, or so they believed. 8^D
So, flashlights: bad science. Except possibly theoretical physics.
So, another approach: Science is like lighting more and more candles in a dark room, and every so often, finding a black cat.
Good science never assumes the cat is black, that it is a cat or that it is even there. That is why pure science and philosophy have a lot in common. The ultimate quests of philosophy are the beginning postulations of most religions.
Philosophy is more like being in a dark room and trying to define what makes something a cat. Philosophers like dark rooms. It's easier to think without distraction.
Don't quite agree with the metaphysics one. Metaphysics is being in a dark room and theorising about a black cat that is not in the room or even that the room itself is a black cat.
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-05 06:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-05 06:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-07 02:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-08 04:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-08 10:01 pm (UTC)Oh, and to really make the point a LITTLE bit clearer, the people proclaiming that they've found a cat in this dark room not only keep "trying" to bring the cat out only to have it escape before anyone but them can sense it, but they also keep trying to redefine "no cat" as "a cat" as more and more of their bronze-age "there was a cat here once" myth gets demonstrated to not describe anything factual.
At which point, of course, concluding "behave as if no cat because no reason to assume a cat" is simple non-dumbshittery.
But all of that misses the point of the original image, which is all about "we're pretty sure the cat is in this room, let's go find it". The theologians are just wrong.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-08 10:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-05 11:45 pm (UTC)Foraging is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat using a flashlight. That's because organisms simplify foraging by forming a "search image". Items that may be perfectly edible or otherwise useful but which don't match the search image get ignored and can seem functionally invisible. California kingsnakes use this to avoid predation -- they come in a wide range of color patterns. Predators find a Cal king in one pattern, decide that it is edible, and search for just that one pattern, ignoring others. That search image is like your flashlight in the dark, it only illuminates the black cats, ignoring all other cats, rats, bats, gnats...
Science that is limited to finding only what it expects to find, is, well, not going to advance at all quickly.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-06 12:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-06 01:11 am (UTC)Take the classic study of the relationship between wolves and moose on Isle Royale. Initially the researchers were using a flashlight: they thought they had an example of wolves keeping a moose population in check. It's a farming falacy: wolves are farming the moose. Further research demonstrated that the primary producers (plants) and the weather was controling the moose, and that the moose were controlling the wolves, not the other way round. Same thing with lynx and snowshoe hares: plants control hares, hares control lynx. More scientists with flashlights: S.J. Gould had quite a few amusing essays on preconceptions causing scientists to jump to conclusions on brain size relative to expected intelligence and gender back in the 19th century. They found their black cats all right, or so they believed. 8^D
So, flashlights: bad science. Except possibly theoretical physics.
So, another approach: Science is like lighting more and more candles in a dark room, and every so often, finding a black cat.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-06 01:15 am (UTC)So, another approach: Science is like lighting more and more candles in a dark room, and every so often, finding a black cat.
Possible. Doesn't match this analogy, but possible.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-06 01:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-06 12:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-06 10:37 pm (UTC)And the cat is clear.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-07 05:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-07 09:58 am (UTC)Ow! Damned cat bit me....
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-07 02:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-08 11:17 am (UTC)Theology is like metaphysics minus the tiny connection to reality.
/all the good courses in my degree were ethics or epistemology courses