{"id":32215,"date":"2015-11-03T07:04:21","date_gmt":"2015-11-03T12:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=32215"},"modified":"2015-11-03T07:04:21","modified_gmt":"2015-11-03T12:04:21","slug":"further-history-denialism-from-jerry-coyne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/11\/further-history-denialism-from-jerry-coyne.html","title":{"rendered":"Further History-Denialism from Jerry Coyne"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

It boggles my mind and frustrates me when\u00a0anyone<\/em>\u00a0engages in denialism, whether in science, history, or any other area. But when someone who has worked hard to combat denialism does it, it can seem downright baffling.<\/p>\n

But Jerry Coyne<\/a> has done precisely that in the past, and continues to do so. In a recent blog post on statistics which the\u00a0BBC shared about popular opinions in the UK concerning Jesus<\/a>, Coyne wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more galling is that the BBC is taking what \u201cmany scholars believe\u201d as the gospel truth\u2014pardon the pun\u2014despite the fact that close scrutiny gives virtually no extra-Biblical evidence for a historical Jesus. I\u2019m still convinced that the judgement of scholars that \u201cJesus was a real man\u201d comes not from evidence, but from their conviction that the Bible simply\u00a0couldn\u2019t<\/em>\u00a0be untruthful about that issue. But of course we know of cases where myths grew up that weren\u2019t at bottom derived from a historical individual.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How can someone who sees the problem with this kind of conspiracy view about experts in science when articulated by creationists, not see it when articulated by himself about experts in history? Perhaps\u00a0the answer may be found\u00a0in his dogmatic adherence to a false dichotomy<\/a> between religion and science. Coyne has shown himself in the past<\/a> to have\u00a0a greater allegiance to his atheism than to critical thinking, dangerously coupled with the assumption that to be an atheist means one is by definition a critical thinker, and if one is religious one automatically is not. If a text\u00a0ended up in the \u201cBible\u201d then it is by definition dubious, never mind that when it was written it had no such status. If something is the view of religious believers, it is suspect, no matter if it is also the conclusion of secular historians.<\/p>\n

Biologists face a tougher time from denialists than historians typically do. And so that ought to make them sympathetic to those who argue against denialism in other fields, rather than leading them to join their ranks.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reminded of this SMBC cartoon<\/a> on that last point\u2026<\/p>\n

\"SMBC<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It boggles my mind and frustrates me when\u00a0anyone\u00a0engages in denialism, whether in science, history, or any other area. But when someone who has worked hard to combat denialism does it, it can seem downright baffling. But Jerry Coyne has done precisely that in the past, and continues to do so. 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