Science is Broken

[sean]

Earlier I posted a link to a discussion of the Rind et. al. controversy. This paper is a much better read in the context of this thread:

When Worlds Collide: Social Science, Politics, and the Rind et al. (1998) Child Sexual Abuse Meta-Analysis
Lilienfeld, Scott O., American Psychologist, Volume 57(3) March 2002 p176–188

One reason why I responded to Cloud's question on paedophilia is that issues that affect me deeply are routinely presented as fact free appeals to emotion and prejudice, even at the highest levels of discourse. I took the opportunity to relate some of my own perspectives and experience in the hope of balancing some perceptions here. As with the authors of these papers, I do not interpret the findings of Rind et. al. as legitimizing or condoning adult/child sex.

I found this comment by Lilienfeld interesting, not least in relation to another thread on this board.

Rind et al. distinguished between utilitarian (consequentialist) ethics, viz., ethics based exclusively on the consequences of an action, and deontological (intuitionist) ethics, viz., ethics based on deep-seated beliefs concerning an action's wrongfulness irrespective of its consequences (see Hacking, 1995). Rind et al. explicitly endorsed a deontological view of CSA by maintaining that CSA is morally incorrect even if it does not invariably (or even typically) produce long-term harm. Indeed, in the final sentence of their article, they pointed out that “the current findings are relevant to moral and legal positions only to the extent that these positions are based on the presumption of psychological harm” (Rind et al., 1998, p. 47).

I think Dawkins' determination to locate his critique of religion in scientific terms of reference is closely allied to a defence of consequentialist as opposed to deontological ethics, because he explicitly rejects the role of personal and social belief in reasoning about the world. For example, Kant's metaphysics may not be explicitly religious but it is a transcendental idealism of a kind incompatible with Dawkins realism. Interestingly, Dawkins has also expressed his impatience with exaggerated claims concerning the intrinsic harmfulness of paedophilia.

My own view is that personal and social beliefs and subjective realities exist and are part of the world, and therefore can't be discounted on realist grounds. That is also the basis on which I accept taboos around sexual activity with children. This is a relativist position, contingent on the accident of my social environment. Therefore if I were living in a society that strongly favoured child sacrifice, I expect I would have to defer to that as well...

...or would I?