Pigeon Theology
Humour, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Reviews March 17th, 2009Just read this fantastic section that is both informative, provacative and tongue-in-cheek from the excellent book “God’s Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion” by Vatican Astronomer and Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno. I will eventually write a review of sorts. Suffice very briefly to explain that the book is not a missionary work, Consolmagno seeks not to gain any converts, rather it may be described as a sociological work outlining how and why (to quote the blurb) “scientists and those with technological leanings can hold profound, “unprovable” religious beliefs while working in highly empirical fields.”
Philosophical Preamble
A little boy prays to God for a red bicycle, when it doesn’t magically appear the following day he decides that God is a fake. However, more worryingly if the little brat does get a red bicycle the following morning (i.e. by generous parents) then he may conclude that it is his prayer that caused the red bike to appear. “A faith based on a lie is worse than no faith at all.”
This type of faith is a fallacy – mistaking chance for cause. Although it is a fundamentally basic concept in our thinking that the cause always comes before the effect – it is really misleading.
Because event A occurs before event B we are sometimes deluded into thinking that A causes B.
Logicians refer to this fallacy as post hoc, ergo propter hoc – “after that, therefore because of that.”
What event B following on from event A can tell us at a basic logical level is that B cannot be the cause of A. It is useful information but it does not equate with A therefore B.
Pigeon Superstition
“B. F. Skinner, the famous behavioural psychologist, performed a classic experiment describing “superstition in pigeons” in the late 1940′s. He had developed a method of training pigones by making them hungry (starving them to 75 percent of their normal weight) and then putting them in a box that would provide food whenever they did whatever he wanted them to do – stepping in a certain pattern, say, or pecking at a certain image. But as he describes in a paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 1948, he also put some hungry pigeons in boxes that would feed them at regular intervals with no reference at all to what they were doing. He reported that the pigeons would train themselves to do whatever it was they were doing the first few times they were fed, as if their behaviour – walking in circles, pecking at the left side of the food dish, or whatever – was the cause of their feeding. This, Skinner said, was an example of how superstitions arise among people. More aggressive skeptics have used this result as an explanation for why people are so foolish as to believe in religion itself.” p.84-85
The Moral
Consolmagno states here that the skeptics have a good point, a religion that is adopted solely for the percieved benefits of what it might grant (afterlife, winning the lotto etc.) is one that descends easily into superstition, even if the percieved benefits are forthcoming (by chance).
“Superstition is faith based on quicksand. And when it fails, as inevitably it will, it can at the very least destroy your capacity to believe in better things and at worst pull you down and destroy you, the way that trusting in a quack medicine can kill you if it prevents you from taking a real cure.” p.85
This type of faith is the fallacy of “after that, therefore because of that.”
The Paradox (and the fun)
Lets consider the Pigeons.
“Consider their theological system from their point of view. If a pigeon walks in a circle and then gets fed, causing it to think that there’s a connection between its walk and its food, what is it really believing in? It believes that there exists a Big Food Server (we’ll call him BFS for short) who lives outside of its cage – which is true. It believes that this BFS, who has the power to feed it, is actually watching it, to see what it is doing – which is also true. And it believes that the BFS is delighted every time that it does its meaningless little dance – which, I am sure, is true again, as I can imagineB. F. Skinner chortling and pointing out the behaviour of those silly pigeons to his friends and colleagues and planning how he would write up his paper expposing their superstitious behaviour. So in what way was this pigeon theology false?” p.85-86
March 18th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Scientists should consider superstition as a guess that may or may not be correct. Some herbal cures have had positive or mixed results in clinical trials. I am begining to preface may debates by saying “I don’t disagree with your conclusion but your argument is flawed because of…” for respect to the “argument from fallacy”.
This discussion of pigeons raises interesting epistemological issues. If we can meaningfully discuss the existence of foobar but can say nothing of causal relations to foobar, I would say existence of foobar is useless knowledge! But of course, the purpose of knowledge is not to be useful!
AC1
March 19th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Indeed… to paraphrase my usual Wittgensteinian/Cartesian Mantra “belief, knowledge and certainty are three very different cognitive categories.” There is of course a substantial overlap with all three (I like to mentally picture them as chain-links). Of course at the extreme fringes – which are the most interesting and discussed ones, the type of knowledge and certainty (truth?) that comes with belief, is vastly different from the kind of belief and certainty that comes with knowledge.
March 20th, 2009 at 2:37 am
Should just reiterate of course that Consolmagno includes this very tongue in cheek. It is an interesting thought experiment – but nothing more – he has already with reference to logic (which as a scientist he has great respect for) cast doubt upon this form of reasoning. He is not proposing that this is a valid proof of the existence of God…
In truth there are parts of his book where he makes it clear that proofs (in the scientific and mainstream logical philosophical sense) are not available in religion. (Or perhaps useful … await further mini-reviews).
One theme that seems to be recurring througout the book as I read it is that religion has two specific things going for it: 1) It may in some circumstances be useful (admittedly this may be no more than a placebo argument) and 2) It may be a reasonble response to a certain number of generic and broad existential questions (note he is clear that it is one of many responses to such questions – he also acknowledges that the questions may not seem to relevent to everyone).
The book is as he describes it an amateur ethnography about how (though mostly using american examples – which I consider dubious for its limited scale – but i’ll forgive him as he admits it is an amateur work) the scientifically and engineering minded (what he calls Techies) are able to reconcile metaphysical beliefs with an empirical worldview.
It is interesting, fun, informative, and I think a pretty worthy tome on the science/religion debate – mostly because it is not preachy (not bad coming from a priest). I have read some online reviews of the book from atheist-interest sites that have been (no condecension intended) mildly positive about the book.