OK, so that’s not really happening. But my book, Harry Potter & Imagination: The Way Between Two Worlds, opens with a chapter on the importance of mythological and fairy-tale thinking as opposed to what G.K. Chesterton called “scientific fatalism.” Richard Dawkins has decided to write the opposite book, positing the possibility that fairy tales are potentially dangerous, because they teach children anti-scientific, magical thinking.
The prominent atheist is stepping down from his post at Oxford University to write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in “anti-scientific” fairytales.
Prof Hawkins said: “The book I write next year will be a children’s book on how to think about the world, science thinking contrasted with mythical thinking.
“I haven’t read Harry Potter, I have read Pullman who is the other leading children’s author that one might mention and I love his books. I don’t know what to think about magic and fairy tales.”
Prof Dawkins said he wanted to look at the effects of “bringing children up to believe in spells and wizards”.
“I think it is anti-scientific – whether that has a pernicious effect, I don’t know,” he told More4 News.
“I think looking back to my own childhood, the fact that so many of the stories I read allowed the possibility of frogs turning into princes, whether that has a sort of insidious affect on rationality, I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s something for research.”
Thoughts? I happen to think that stories about frogs turning into princes are good for children (and adults!), so if someone wants to arrange the debate, I’d be glad to oblige. Since that’s highly unlikely to happen, stay tuned for a couple months focusing on fairy tales and mythical thinking, what J.K. Rowling calls, learning to “imagine better,” and pay close attention to this site and Zossima.com for news on the release of Harry Potter & Imagination.
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Wow. Mr. Dawkins apparently has the exact same problem as extreme forms of religious people: he can’t see fairytales (or stories at all?) for what they truly are and do for us as human beings. I grew up on fairy tales, and even as a very small child I knew that they represented other things.
You’re not the first to see in Dawkins a parallel to religious fundamentalists.
Travis and Revgeorge’s comments at http://www.hpprogs.com are really good too, if anyone wants to read them.
I still can’t get over the fact that he is railing against the HP books haven’t even picking one up. I think it’s kind of funny when you come across stuff on the internet etc. telling you that all of the world’s problems would go away if we were all atheists, but it’s almost like Dawkins wants to start the same fight that some branches of the fundamentalist Christians fight. I guess as long as people have different ideas it’s bound to happen.
To be fair, he does seem to be saying he “doesn’t know” and it needs some research. He’s not sounding the same kind of alarm of impending peril and doom as, say, Laura Mallory.
What is the book going to be called, The Harry Potter Delusion? I do agree that Dawkins and the religious opponents of the Harry Potter series would make strange bedfellows indeed.
… And what an incredibly boring world we would live in if Dawkins had his way. I hope he doesn’t have any kids himself. It would be like growing up in a Skinner box.
His comments about religious instruction being worse than physical child abuse shows just how irrational he is. Not good form for a materialist.
I remember reading a Neil Gaiman interview where he was talking about a negative review of Kelly Link’s book. He said, “And what they said was that the book was really horrible because it was filled with things that were made up, zombies and things and a handbag with a world in it, and how could this possible relate to anybody’s life? It was basically a review written by someone who could cope with neither similes nor metaphors.”
Rather than pitying them, as I used to do, I am fast losing all patience with people who, as Gaiman puts it, can “cope with neither similes nor metaphors.” To go back to a previous post, one of the reasons I think horror fiction is so potent – and important – is that it gives us similes and metaphors for approaching our all-too-real fears (whether it is as specific as the Red Scare and McCarthyism in Invasion of the Body Snatchers or as broad as mortality and responsibility in Frankenstein). The same might be said of fairy tales: they allow us to discuss Important Things on a higher, more meaningful level (as well as give us those gifts of Fantasy, Escape, Recovery, and Consolation that we need).
It’s a shame Dawkins has forgotten that it was a scientist – and a pretty good one at that, named Einstein – who said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Without fairy tales, what kind of imagination would our future scientists develop? Without the capacity for thinking in similes and metaphors, what kinds of rational faculties will they have?
It’s a good thing Dawkins’ audience tends to be primarily himself. He used to be an interesting philosopher, even if you didn’t agree with him. He’s now fashioning himself as something of a shock-jock with an academic pedigree.
Unfortunately, I think this might end up as a project trying to reduce moral exigencies in fiction into quantifiable data. Talk about missing the point…
He sounds like a very sad and very boring man, to me. With no idea of how crucial an imagination is for children and adults.
And he thinks it has to be studied? I think that’s been done already, hasn’t it? I remember reading a long time ago, pre-Harry Potter, that fairy tales/fantasy were important for a child’s developement. It gives them the chance to explore all kinds of situations and think them through, before they have to confront real life. In dealing with issues in a fantasy setting, a child gains that sense of having control over his own real world problems – if a fairy tale hero can solve the problem, and that hero is seemingly ordinary, then the child feels that she can solve her own problems, whether it’s not being afraid of the dark or having the courage to stand up for herself and others.
Did Dawkins not have a good childhood? Well, I guess not. I’m surprised that he even likes Pullman – aren’t there fantasy elements in those books as well?
Pat
I’m not going to pick on Dawkins as a person. He’s perfectly entitled to his opinions — and he is clearly much smarter than I will ever be on many different subjects.
But, in my reading for one of my ODU classes this morning, I ran into this pertinent quote:
No amount of scientific rationalism would ever allow us to understand Snape as an engaging and complex person — flawed, yes; but also fractured and flailing for hope in a darkening world. Only stories (faerie or otherwise) can do that. Science doesn’t seek to create empathy the way literature can. That’s not science’s job. Science’s great wonder is the ability to see pieces of the material world we never knew existed, and find ways to describe those pieces that can extremely useful. And much of that is certainly wondrous and fantastical in its own right. What little I’ve ever understood about astrophysics or quantum mechanics boggles the mind.
Of course, if fairy tales are bad for kids because they can corrupt the mind, then what are we to make of science? After all, for all the internal combustion engines, theories of relativity, men on the moon, communications satellites, advances in medicine, and better homes and gardens, science also has its dark side. Both Einstein and Oppenheimer lamented their contributions to The Manhattan Project. Einstein became a leading figure advocating the ban on the very nuclear weapons his theories helped create. Many of today’s conveniences are the consumer byproducts of scientifically engineering more efficient ways of killing each other.
No human endeavor can strip itself of both good and bad moral tastes.
Question: Is there any such thing as a scientific fairy tale?
It sounds to me as though Dursley – whoops, Dawkins – is struggling to attack the “Christian myth,” which he views as being anti-scientific. He can’t attack it for being an anti-scientific myth unless all anti-scientific myths are bad. But it doesn’t sound as though he’s managed to convince even himself of this.
“I don’t know what to think about magic and fairy tales.” Clearly.
I think the ideas in Karen Armstrong’s book *Battle For God* are incredibly relevant here. She distinguishes between mythical thinking (muthos) and rational thinking (logos), explaining that historically human beings have felt the need for both ways of thinking. But Western culture has fallen prey to logos in a very bad way. Religion, which traditionally has emphasized mythical thinking, has (at least in America today) for the most part approached religion through logos instead of through muthos. (We may be turning back to mythos; I think some people see that turn in postmodernism.)
Science is obviously more rational than religion and fantasy and mythology, but I think humans need both ways of thinking. I hope Dawkins can overcome modern humanity’s “chronological snobbery” (the idea that we are better because are later) and ask himself why mythical thinking has historically been such an important part of the human experience. This just might be a huge breakthrough for him.
So, does anyone here think that fairy tales and tales of magic and fantasy could have a negative effect on children by teaching them anti-scientific thinking? What is anti-scientific thinking, anyways? What does it sound like?
Is is possible that there is any truth to what Dawkins is saying?
Is there room for debate here?
@Red Rocker, I do think you bring up two good points.
1. It’s not a foregone conclusion that fantasy only has positive effects on children; there’s definitely room for debate.
2. I imagine Dawkins’ definition of “anti-scientific” thinking would include the notion of believing in something without adequate evidence. He would probably contrast scientific thinking with mythical thinking, setting them up as opposites. He would probably say it sound something like this, “Oh wouldn’t it be great if there were a good God? I guess I’ll believe that,” or, “My pastor told me that this old book says the earth is six thousand years old, so I guess it must be so.”
I would respond to him that scientific thinking and mythical thinking are concerned with fundamentally different things. I’ve been involved on both sides of the debate, and I have concluded that science cannot — not just that it can not but that it can not — answer the questions that matter most to me. (Science can, for example, try to figure out how to make us live longer; but science could never figure out if it’s good or bad for us to do so.)
Personally, I’ve come down on one side of the debate so strongly that I can’t imagine I might ever change sides. But it’s a complicated question and there’s definitely room for debate. Though I doubt you’ll find too much of a debate on a web site like this, where only people that tend towards the side that says mythic thinking is valuable tend to hang out.
That should have been, “I have concluded that science cannot — not just that it has not but that it can not — answer the questions that matter most to me.”
Randy,
Probably we could all think of cases or situations where reading fantasy stories had some negative effects on children, although in those cases I’d question whether it was fantasy-reading per se or if there were other, more powerful factors at work.
I think that the term anti-scientific could have many connotations. There is the one you bring up: believing in something without evidence. It could also mean an attitude or belief that scientific methods are intrinsically inferior, flawed or not to be trusted, as compared to non-scientific ones. A close cousin of this kind of belief is distrust of technology (as shown, for example, in Tolkien’s depiction of Saruman’s orc factories).
The sense in which I first understood the term as Dawkins used it was that by reading fantasy children could come to believe in magic as effective technology, that it is possible to use spells and incantations and wands and potions and telekinesis and whatnot to affect the material world. This is exactly the kind of world and reality JKR depicts, of course. And she has imagined such a vivid version of “magic as technology” that if there were real danger that children could come to believe this, then Harry Potter would be the biggest threat.
Is it possible that by reading HP children will start believing they can affect physical outcomes in their world? Surely, one would think, after a few (or a few thousand) unsuccessful attempts to use lumos even the most dedicated believer would turn to the light switch instead. In other words, reality would not long sustain such a belief.
Are there ways that belief in magic as technology could be harmful to our children?
Red Rocker, I don’t believe children could suffer damages from reading books containing ‘mythical thinking’ or dealing with magic like the HP books. Most children know very well what is good for them and what is not. The worst case I can imagine is a very lonely child lacking in self-confidence and being so fascinated by the power of magic that it would be attracted to occult practices. If the same child does not read these books, it will perhaps get hooked on violent films or video games, start to beat other children or harm itself. The book, the film, the video is not the basic cause for a possible damage, I think. Any child that is not loved and taken care of is in danger of going insane.
The funny thing is that even inside the HP universe we find the polarity of ‘scientific thinking’ and ‘mythical thinking’. There are sciences like alchemy, herbology or potions, most of which are taught at Hogwarts. Magic is subject to laws and principles. Hermione is the perfect example of someone who does not believe without evidence. Luna is her counterpart. Both are loveable characters. The only difference is that they are living in a magical wizarding world ruled by different natural laws than ours.
‘Mr. Lovegood,’ Hermione began again. ‘We all know that there are such things as Invisibility Cloaks. They are rare, but they exist. But -’
I wonder which character – Luna or Hermione – would make Mr Dawkins cringe more, if he should ever make up his mind and read the books
Rena, it is ironic that within books which accept magic as everyday reality, there are two schools of thought: those who require proof to believe, and those who believe with little or even no proof.
I wasn’t referring to the type of example you cited when I questioned whether magic could harm children. I agree that a lonely, bullied child without much self-confidence could develop an unhealthy dependence on fantasy, which could be harmful. That is very unusual, however. And I don’t think that is what Dawkins is talking about either.
I think he’s talking about those who do reject science – actually the empirical method which underlies science – as the most valid way of exploring and understanding reality. Not morality – I seriously doubt that he believes we can use empirical methods to understand morality. There is actually a school of thought which concerns itself with that, exploring how human morality evolved by looking at social behaviour amongst animals – ethology. It’s fascinating stuff, and if anyone is interested I can link you to the story about monkeys and cucumber slices and kiwi fruit which is an eye-opener. But no, I don’t think morality, or spiritual issues, are Dawkins’ focus. I think he’s talking about the risk that people will begin to accept the fantastic as reality, and start behaving as if it were true. I’m reminded of those who believe Elvis Presley is still alive, that alien abductions are real, that Apollo 11 was staged on a slag heap up in Sudbury. Believing in Elvis is not harmful in itself (I guess?) but accepting as facts statements which don’t have empirical support can be quite risky.
The more I think about it, the more I think that Randy hit the nail on the head, above, when he said that “anti-science” thinking was believing something without enough evidence. Especially today, when there is so much scientific evidence piling up, and often very contradictory evidence , on so many life-and-death issues (our food, our water, global warming, the effectiveness of teaching abstinence as birth control, the effectiveness of different drugs, to name the first ones to spring to mind) the need to understand empirical evidence, and to weigh the evidence from a scientifically informed perspective is more important than ever.
I did not read more about Dawkins’ thoughts than what the link provided. But if you are right, Red Rocker, it seems to boil down to something like ‘what is empiric, what is a proof, what is real?’ – only facts that have been observed or experienced by 10, 100, 1000, a billion, a gazillion people? All of those people are individuals with flaws and a subjective point of view. If your experience is contradictory to what 99% of mankind think is true, are you wrong? There is an objective factor of subjectivity, I believe. And often the genius and the insane can be met in one person. We need scientists and poets and freaks and lunatics to get a glimpse of what is going on in this world (and maybe others).
Elvis still alive? Why not. No soul ever gets lost.
I decided to check Dawkins’ own site, and there are a couple of posts there about this whole affair, including some with comments by Dawkins himself. His lengthiest statement appears to be this; evidently he’s not happy with the Telegraph article, and is on the fence as to whether or not fairy tales actually harm children’s rationality. Travis’ caveats in comment #4 above appear to be valid!
I found the responses to the article even more disturbing than Dawkins’ statements.
And just how does one go about this research to see whether fairy tales are harmful? Wouldn’t that involve experimenting on real children? That idea is what I find even more horrific than the idea that there are so many children out there who have parents that don’t allow them to pretend, as shown by most of the comments. I’m glad that I wasn’t their child – I had a lovely childhood, full of all sorts of imaginary games and books. I can’t see that it’s turned me into some sort of weird person.
The whole thing just sends a chill down my spine, thinking where this might lead.
Pat
Pat, yes, this story had the mark of clever editing all over it. I probably should have included my caveats in the post itself!
The thing about it is that most people who know Dawkins’ work from a critical perspective wouldn’t be surprised if he took a sort of silly view of fairy tales. Alister E. McGrath’s book, The Dawkins Delusion, is a good little volume, by the way.
But considering the point about magic/fairy tales, and anti-science thinking: I think Hermione might have a good point on this one – “Most wizards haven’t got an ounce of logic.” In a sense, the very world JKR gives us has descriptions of both types of people: So materialistic that they can’t see magic (Dursleys and other muggles) and so magical that they can’t see reason (the wizards Hermione’s referring to).
Pat, your comment brings in what could be a useful distinction: the difference between pretending and believing. Although JM Barrie would have children believing in fairies, most of them realize around ages 6 to 8 (?) that fairies, like the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Great Pumpkin and (alas!) Santa Claus, are pretend. That doesn’t mean they still can’t play pretend games, or enjoy pretend adventures. It’s when grownups start believing in things with no evidence – and reject the evidence for their opposite – that problems start.
I don’t think that the muggles/wizards distinction clearly reflects the materialistic/magical distinction. For one thing, wizards go out of their way – including the rather cavalier use of the obliviate spell – in order to keep the wizarding world secret from Muggles. I think that the more accurate analogy is Hermione vs Luna, as someone mentioned above. The divine Ms. H requires evidence before she’ll believe. The heavenly Ms. L will believe in anything without any evidence whatsoever. I think that Ms. L would be fun to hang out with, and good at soothing emotions, but if I wanted practical advice – including medical advice – I’d go to Ms. H.
Within the self-contained WW, sure, the Hermione/Luna parallel works. But Hermione is magical (part of the problem, in Dawkins’s view). My point in the muggles/wizards distinction is to note that on either extreme, there are problems. Your initial question was, “Could tales of magic have a negative effect? Is there room for debate here?” I was saying that just as the Dursleys represent the danger on the one side, so wizards who don’t care a thing about logic represent the extreme on the other. (In other words, sure, there is room for debate here.)
Scientific thinking at its best is open-minded. It is willing to explore alternative hypotheses, review the evidence, keep asking questions, work collaboratively with other disciplines so we can get nearer the truth.
Anti-scientific thinking shuts any debate down. It is an unwillingness to at least explore the alternatives. It is refusing to alter your position even when new evidence arises. From what I’ve seen, Dawkins’ version of atheism is anti-scientific.
Black Angus, I think that describing scientific thinking as open-minded needs to be qualified. Scientific thinking has to be open to all the facts, and be willing to explore alternate hypothesis, as you said. Above all, scientific thinking is evidence based. However, there are strong qualifications on what constitutes fact and evidence, how hypotheses are generated, and how hypotheses are tested. One of the more basic rules is that hypotheses have to be based on evidence. Another important rule is that evidence has to be objective, which means it has to be observable and measurable, and the observations/measurements have to be replicable.
Obviously the areas of morality and spirituality is not open to this kind of measurement, being intensely subjective domains. Science doesn’t attempt to go there; as Randy pointed out above, morality and spirituality – and religion – are not issues for science. On the other hand, physical reality – physics, chemistry, astronomy, biochemistry, etc. and their applications, engineering, technology, medicine, etc. – are the domains of science. Going back to Dawkins’ statement, I think that we would suffer if adults started rejecting the scientific – i.e. evidence based – method in the realm of physical reality. More specifically, society needs mathematicians, scientists and engineers and technologists and physicians in order to survive. Teaching children that there is something inherently wrong – or inferior – in evidence-based thinking may have several negative consequences. It may reduce overall interest in areas of scientific study. And it seems to me that the stage for this is already set in our culture, where those who achieve in mathematics and science and technology are classified as “geeks” and “nerds”. Beyond limiting participation, however, a societal bias against evidence -based thinking can have some strongly negative consequences. As I said before, as a society we need to make evidence-based decisions. In order to do this, we need to know how to judge what is good evidence, and how to weigh contradictory evidence. Saying that my own experience or observation is as good as the conclusions of a scientific study so I can disregard the results of the study, or saying that because the evidence is mixed (as for example the evidence on global warming) it’s impossible to know what’s really happening are not very good options in trying to understand reality.
Not having participated in this discussion but having followed it a bit, I think it important to remember that there is rarely ever anything such as ‘pure’ science, where everything is done according to the scientific method and no subjective biases are interjected. Scientists are fallible human beings with all the failings of other human beings and thus their research and conclusions are open to question, even by people who don’t have advanced degrees in physics or mathematics or whatever. I think it helpful to remember all the times throughout history when scientific theories or conclusions were quite wrong. Or when proper scientific theories were put forward and rejected because they didn’t fit into the scientific mainstream thinking. Or when a scientific theory was held to be immune from questioning, even scientific questioning, because it is a material principle of much of scientific thought. Think Darwinian Evolution here.
So, briefly put, scientists can be just as wacky as religious people, which is why everything has to be critically examined.
It’s also important to remember that modern scientific thought arose out of the Western Christian tradition, which, despite some hiccups, saw the world as God’s designed creation, subject to discernable laws and motions, and thus subject to study and definition. Science was thus a worthwhile pursuit although subordinate to theology because science couldn’t answer the deeper questions of existence; it could only deal with what could be seen, which was not thought of as the whole of existence.
Just some thoughts.
revgeorge, it’s spooky how you and I, coming at things from fairly different viewpoints, so often think alike. Agree completely that modern scientific thinking was developed by deeply religious people – although not exclusively Christian, if you think of Archimedes (phyiscs) and Al-Khawarismi (algebra). In fact, to make the point, I was going to quote Einstein earlier, but the quote didn’t quite fit. Here it is now. In defense of causal determinism, Einstein famously said: “God does not play dice with the universe.”
Agree too that scientists can be irrational, although saying they can be just as wacky as religious people seems a little unkind to religious people. Agree too that scientists can be very subjective when it comes to the evidence: I am always reminded of the fact that for years a lot of scientists counted 22 pairs of chromosomes under the microscope when looking at the nucleus of a human cell until one person said, one can only imagine with how much hesitation: “But I see 23 pairs!” And 23 pairs it was, from that day on. But that’s an egregious example. More commonly, scientists look more closely at evidence which supports their favored theory than they do evidence which goes against. All too human. But although I’ll cheerfully admit that scientists can often be mistaken, I would still argue that the evidence-based method of inquiry is the best one for understanding physical reality. The deeper questions of existence I’ll leave to your calling.
But there is one point on which I agree with you so strongly that everything else pales. The conclusions of scientific research are indeed open to question by those who do not have university degrees in advanced physics and what not. I would argue that not only do we have the right, but we have the responsibility to understand and question those studies and those conclusions, and what they mean for us. Understanding them enough to question them is not easy – science has its own terminology which can be off-putting for the unitiated. But there are enough articles written for those of us without the advanced degrees that we can educate ourselves to understand and ask informed questions. There are magazines like Science and Discovery Popular newsmagazines have sections of scientific research. Newspapers publish articles on scientific topics which are likely to be of interest. There is also the internet. Reading these takes time and effort – and motivation. To bring the argument full circle, an “anti-science” attitude will not prompt people to read those articles, and to better educate themselves about matters which are of vital importance to their future.
I am tempted to give an example of what I’m talking about. Take an example from climatology. A study says that the polar ice pack was larger this year than it was last. Those who dispute global warming say that this proves the world is not getting warmer. Another study says that the ice pack last year was the smallest in history. Those who agree that the world is getting warmer say: “See, there’s the evidence for global warming.” Another study says that it’s not just the extent of the ice pack but the thickness of the ice which tells us about the water temperature but we don’t have reliable measures of the depth of the ice. Another study says 200 million years ago there was no polar ice pack so that means that overall global temperatures are falling
How are we to understand these facts? By saying that the studies are all wrong? That the evidence is contradictory? That one theory (global temperatures are not rising) is as good as the other (global temperatures are rising)? That my opinion is as valid as any scientist’s?
Not really. We owe it to ourselves, our children, and the earth we live on to try to understand, to the best of our ability, what science is telling us.
Red Rocker, yes, it is spooky how we’ve been in agreement on so much lately. I think Gambon has helped that.
By ‘wacky,’ I was trying to convey that scientists or those who claim that they are completely rational and non-biased are just as subjective as anybody else & prone to let their preconceived notions run their thinking & bias their conclusions. That is to say, a so called rational ’scientist’ can be just as dogmatic and unthinking as even the wildest fundamentalist.
The problem in our world is not in questioning scientific thinking but in not thinking at all, as you point out. Mark Noll wrote a book almost a decade or more ago now entitled The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, in which he opened by saying, “The scandal of the Evangelical mind is that there isn’t much of one anymore.” It’s been awhile since I read the book, but his point was, if I remember, is that there’s a bad tendency among some Christians to become anti-intellectual and to reject anything that doesn’t come straight from the Bible, not realizing that by doing so they are rejecting God’s created world and setting up a dualistic view of existence where the spirit is good and the material is bad, so have nothing to do with the material world as much as possible.
The opposite error, of course, is in seeing the material world as all there is & thus rejecting out of hand anything that doesn’t fit into a materialistic perspective. A great many scientists go from saying, “Science doesn’t deal with that because it’s not subject to the scientific method” to saying “Because we can’t subject it to the scientific method, that means it doesn’t exist or isn’t real.”
Red Rocker,
Thanks for your clarification.
You also said Obviously the areas of morality and spirituality is not open to this kind of measurement, being intensely subjective domains. Science doesn’t attempt to go there.
That’s my beef with Dawkins: does attempt to go there. Or, rather, he pontificates on it, defining God out of existence. He isn’t content to have science in one corner and religion in the other. He wants it all.
And, as it’s been suggested, science and religion are not opposed to each other. There are very good scientists out there who are Christians. And I’m becoming more and more convinced that good science is increasingly agreeing with the Bible’s testimony about beginnings. By ‘good’ science I mean a method that’s willing to look at the evidence without an a priori commitment to evolution – a theory that has run out of steam in explaining the complexity we see around (and within) us.