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Okay, so I get a lot of internet atheists being like "how can you say atheism has a white supremacy problem? it's just science!" so, thread.
A related argument is "how can you say atheism has an ANYTHING problem? It's not a thing, it's just a lack of belief in a deity or deities!" and that is both dictionary-true and absolutely NOT true in terms of internet atheism.
And to be fair to most atheists, the most popular--or rather, most VISIBLE--brand of atheism on the internet isn't simple atheism--it's active and aggressive antitheism.
I suspect that New Atheism ISN'T actually the most popular brand of atheism on the internet, but unless someone is a New Atheist-style antitheist, their belief or lack thereof doesn't come up.
But if it were true that Internet Atheism were simply a lack of belief in God or gods or even the supernatural in general, Internet Atheists wouldn't bother harassing atheist Jews, for example.
The entire insistence on a taxonomy of belief in itself betrays Internet Atheism's evangelical Christian leanings, as that taxonomy is a Christian-centered concern:
By Christian standards, I am agnostic.
By Jewish standards I'm Reconstructionist with some Reform trappings.
By Christian standards, I am agnostic.
By Jewish standards I'm Reconstructionist with some Reform trappings.
And that Jewish taxonomy has nothing to do with what I do or don't believe and everything to do with *practice*, approach to Jewish traditions, and which voices in the chorus of Jewish thinkers I think should get their volume boosted.
But it's interesting that internet atheists try to suggest that "atheist" and "scientist" are or should be synonymous, given that which scientists have advanced scientific knowledge doesn't show a lot of correlation between belief or lack thereof and scientific acumen.
Moreover, what Internet Atheists are most at odds over with almost everyone they choose to argue with online largely centers around *human psychology and behavior,* which is a soft science.
Now, I find the distinction between "hard" and "soft" sciences somewhat arbitrary (and full of sexism).
BUT.
The idea that science is just about facts, and can't be racist or sexist or any of the other "-ists" about which Internet Atheists don't want to self-examine...
BUT.
The idea that science is just about facts, and can't be racist or sexist or any of the other "-ists" about which Internet Atheists don't want to self-examine...
...isn't borne out by history. The branches of science that study human beings (whether focusing on behavior or biology) are replete with racism. And it's not just history. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/disturbing-resilience-scientific-racism-180972243/
And white Western Christian ways of knowing *aren't* necessarily more "true" than other ways of knowing (and, in fact, often reveal weaknesses in white Western Christian approaches that can be validated by "scientific" methods). https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/other-way-knowing
But the thing I really want to talk about here is the entire basis of what we consider "scientific" and "objective" in terms of studying human behavior and psychology.
And I'm indebted to @yourewrongabout's episode on the Stanford Prison Experiment for making me think about that framing.
So a major driver in the Stanford Prison Experiment and many experiments at that time was attempts to understand the Holocaust.
And you should absolutely listen to the podcast, because every aspect of this study's methodology was absolute bullshit.
But even if it weren't, let's review what's going on here.
But even if it weren't, let's review what's going on here.
An American psychologist decided that the best way to understand the Holocaust, prisons, and universal truths about human beings was to do an experiment with white (and one Asian-American) male Stanford college students who were paid to participate.
The Stanford Prison Experiment is low-hanging fruit here, because it was so, so, SO bad, but I think that previous tweet does reveal a fundamental flaw in the standard scientific approach to understanding human behavior.
(Indeed, possibly ANY behavior. The entire "alpha male" concept comes from studying wolves in captivity, who don't behave like wolves in the wild.)
The idea of science-as-observation isn't new, of course. Humans have been learning by observing for as long as we've been able to communicate.
But a major component of how we've been Doing Science in the US is all about controlling variables.
It's easy to understand why that's a focus. And it makes perfect sense for a lot of science that isn't about studying human beings.
It's easy to understand why that's a focus. And it makes perfect sense for a lot of science that isn't about studying human beings.
After all, to use the simplest possible example, if you want to understand what happens when you combine two chemicals, you want to make sure they're pure, otherwise you're actually studying substances beyond those two.
But this approach, when it comes to studying *people*, frequently ends up creating highly artificial circumstances in which we don't really learn anything beyond what people do in those precise, artificial circumstances.
It ends up being a paradox: in order to understand universal truths about human behavior, thought, etc. you have to somehow control for all the variables that make human beings unique, and so you end up with experimental groups that are highly specific.
Zimbardo actually bragged about how he was going to find some sort of objective "truth" about behavior in prisons by erasing factors like race.
But *race is a major factor in prison hierarchies.*
But *race is a major factor in prison hierarchies.*
He thought he was going to find some objective truth about why Nazi guards behaved the way they did--in a concentration camp system that was *fundamentally about Nazi conceptions of race and German politics*--by studying white American men in California.
Controlling for variables in studying human behavior, belief, thought, etc. has, for most of the history of American inquiry into it, involved studying highly *specific* groups--white men--and pretending that they're generic or universal.
And if you claim you don't see how treating white American men as the standard for human behavior makes your science white supremacist, I have to assume you're being disingenuous.
The vision of a rational, scientific, enlightened, post-religious society that most Internet Atheists espouse is one in which all those terms are defined by the norms of white Christian men.
Or, put another way, it's one in which the behavior and worldview and cultural norms of white Christian men has been defined as "objective" and "universal" and "rational" over-and-above "primitive" non-white/Western/Christian cultures.
And the idea that that definition of white male Western Christian norms has been "scientifically" defined as rational or objective is, well...
I don't know how to explain to you that the history of Western "scientific" study of human beings has been racist.
I don't know how to explain to you that the history of Western "scientific" study of human beings has been racist.
Because, again, you can't actually *know* what someone else believes. The only way to have any access to someone else's belief is through their behavior (including what they say).
And so the vision of evangelical atheism has never actually been about what people *believe.* It's been about "correcting" their behavior and speech to a "rational" norm.
But that vision of "rationality" and "objectivity"
isn't
actually
rational
or
objective.
isn't
actually
rational
or
objective.
(And it's notable that a LOT of the pushback to the Stanford Prison Experiment came from Holocaust scholars who were like, "oh, do you want to understand the Holocaust?
Well, as it turns out, there's an entire <gestures> HOLOCAUST TO STUDY, in addition to other genocides."
Well, as it turns out, there's an entire <gestures> HOLOCAUST TO STUDY, in addition to other genocides."
"Instead of, you know, a bunch of white Stanford dudes acting weird in a basement for a few days."
And Zimbardo was like oh but there were so many complicating factors in the Holocaust, like specific German politics and Jewishness and all that.
Which, like, my dude, those aren't complicating factors, they were sort of the POINT.
Which, like, my dude, those aren't complicating factors, they were sort of the POINT.
But I think the absolute kicker for me is that, if Internet Atheists were as concerned with rationality and science and objective inquiry as they claimed, their response to hearing women talk about atheism's misogyny and POC talk about its racism would be to GO OBSERVE.
Instead, the reaction of almost every Internet Atheist I've ever seen react to people talking about white male bias in their spaces has been to deny it's a problem.
Basically, their model for dealing with problems appears to be <checks notes> churches.
Basically, their model for dealing with problems appears to be <checks notes> churches.
