DCHindley

Today I read this interesting newspaper article by Michael Gerson of the Washington Post that was entitled "The scientific war on science" (at least in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where I read it).

With regard to the recently hacked e-mail exchanges, he concludes that "[s]ome prominent climate scientists involved in these e-mail exchanges have clearly abandoned a profession for a cause." He isn't calling into question the evidence for global warming, but the partisan manner by which some scientists "appear to exaggerate their public certainty on disputed issues, shade the presentation of information for political effect, tamper with the peer-review process, resist reasonable requests for supporting data ... ."

While he acknowledges that some scientists involved in the e-mail exchanges resist the abuses indicated above, he feels the "[d]ominant voices are ideological. The attitude seems to be: Insiders can question, if they don't go too far. Outsiders who threaten the movement are 'idiots'."

This, he believes, is a breach of self-enforced professional "objectivity" such as you find when news reporters bury their biases to report the news, or judges suspend their own views to enforce the law. The problem is this: "If we view these professionals as politically motivated, we no longer trust the information or judgements they provide. ... When the experts become advocates, no one believes the experts or listens to the advocates."

Substitute "theologically" (both for and against it) for "politically." If this is not a close analogy to what is happening in biblical scholarship, especially from the extreme poles of the belief spectrum, I don't know what is. And it is not just the fundamentalists who are doing it, it is the radical atheists as well. There does not appear to be much of a middle ground left any more, everyone is so polarized.

Paraphrasing Marx:

A spectre is haunting biblical scholarship -- the spectre of Advocacy Scholarship.

DCH

aa5874

Galileo must be turning in his grave. What is the middle ground between "flat" and "round", stationary and orbital?

The more information is unearthed about any matter, the more the middle ground will be no more.

Toto

I think these are different situations. With climate change, there are real issues involved that have implications for public policy, corporate profits, and our everyday life. There is a valid consensus, based on data and models. But the scientists are faced with an extremely well financed propaganda campaign based on both profit motives and ideology, that pretends to question that consensus.

With the historical Jesus, there is no issue that would make any difference in most people's lives. There is no real consensus as scientists would understand it - there is merely an agreement on a few alleged facts, with no real agreement on a model of history or theology.

There are no well financed challenges. There are some ideologically challenges, and there are ideologically based attempts to portray the consensus as broader than it is, and as data driven.

So I'm not sure where this comparison leads. How much scholarship on Jesus or early Christianity is not driven by some sort of religious, political, or social point of view? If you didn't have strong views, wouldn't you find some other way to spend your time?

DCHindley

With all due respect, Toto, the OP was about advocacy scholarship, not the relative merits of the topics advocated.

IMO, advocacy scholarship sets out to find what they know should be the case, and gall dang if they don't usually find exactly that. To them, the conclusion is obvious as hell and anyone who can't see it plain as day like they do has to be stupid or brainwashed or conspiring against the truth!

Now that doesn't mean an advocacy scholar doesn't turn up a good deal of fertile soil. John P. Meier comes to mind, but he is an advocate for moderation, which is simply not going to hurt anyone. When it matters is when the advocacy is for something that is too restrictive (e.g., "We can suffer no opinions contrary to truth as we know it should be!") or world changing (e.g, "We must destroy the status quo and allow the truth as we see it to shine through like the sun dissolves a cloudy day!").

I haven't come up with a good term for advocacy scholarship groupies or advocacy amateurs. Look at any Christian apologetic website or even sites like (... :constern01: ...) this one.

DCH

Toto

You can do advocacy scholarship with integrity, or you can act like the lawyers for the cigarette companies.

I think the problem with a lot of advocacy scholarship is that it is not very good as scholarship.

DCHindley

There is a difference, I think, between advocacy scholarship (scholars skillfully and some unskillfully using the tools of their trades to essentially confirm what they already believed to be the case) and paid advocates in general. An advocate is pushing an agenda when they interpret evidence, but a great difference exists between doing it because you really want it to be so and because you are selling out. I sincerely doubt that very many professional biblical critics are pushing an agenda for money, but I would not be surprised if a number do so because they sincerely want it to be so.

When a scientist advocates something s/he is paid to promote, but purposely rigs tests or interpretations so that the product they are paid to promote fares the best, that is not advocacy scholarship, but more like acting or choreography.

We may have that to some extent in the climate debate, especially when research money is at stake. This applies both to those who say it is real and needs to be acted on right now, as well as those who say that we don't know enough and could waste resources like China's "Great Leap Forward" under Mao if we act too hastily. Right now the big money is on the side of entrenched interests who would certainly be adversely affected by severe restrictions, and politicians who are concerned about short term economic impact and the quality of life of the voters who might vote for them or their party when they come up for re-election in a few years. We can only hope that some world leaders will not be afraid to invest in the future.

Now preachers and clerics are another matter. It is their JOB to promote an agenda. They may have taken graduate courses in pursuit of their ordinations, and some may hold advanced degrees, but once they graduated and accept ordination, they become advocates for what they believe.

It is late, time for bed.

DCH

lpetrich

DCHindley, can you point to any particularly glaring examples of what you are talking about?

Otherwise it will be hard for us to know what you are talking about.

Sea

I don't trust the motivations of either side of the climate change debate and I haven't invested enough personal study to come to my own conclusion. I don't feel intellectually culpable for the same reasons I feel my religious agnosticism is a justifiable position given the information I have.

andrewcriddle

As an issue of professional "objectivity", (as distinct from an issue of public policy), the most worrying thing about the leaked climate science emails is the way in which the peer review process appears to have been distorted or compromised.

This is probably a much wider problem than the particular case of environmental/climate science but I am not aware that it is a major issue in biblical scholarship.

If anyone is aware of distortion of the peer review process in this field, then please could they give examples.


Andrew Criddle

Toto

Perhaps you could describe the peer review process in Biblical studies.