More Gadfly Than Blowfly

Syndrome of the Embarrassing Advocate

Every so often we are treated to one of our resident Unbelievers pontificating away as if his life depended upon it.  Sir Bob Jones is a wealthy man--irreverent, atheistic, and entertaining--who likes to throw together an occasional opinion piece in the NZ Herald with all the panache and thoughtfulness of someone deep in his cups.  In other words, Bob is not to be taken seriously.  Mercifully he does not take himself seriously.  More gadfly than blowfly.

Nevertheless, Bob is a self-professed empiricist.  It's all science for him.  Not religion.  All hard data, not superstitious rubbish.  He bombastically writes:

I'll stick with science rather than fairy tales.  All the primitive praying never saved us from the Creation's syphilis and rabies as antibiotics have, this just one of the thousands of examples of our debt to science.

Except that old Bob doesn't stick with science.  If he were to do so, he would be entirely more believable.  On the contrary, he appears not to understand much about science nor fairy tales for that matter.  As things stand, Bob has convictions about everything as do all opinionated folk.  Yet, for some bewildering reason, Bob has apparently never considered the limitations of his beloved empiricism.


Naturalistic science tells us precisely nothing about what ought to be.  Yet, despite this, Bob has plenty of opinions and convictions about the way things ought to be.  He hates humbug.  He detests hypocrisy.  He cannot stand idle laziness.  He is sure he knows a crime when he sees one.  Theft is a no no.  He can tell a good Pinot from the sub-standard quaffer.  Since this is Bob's version of "sticking with science" every time, the only appropriate response is gales of guffaws.  

Now Bob has read the classics.  But apparently when they did Logic 101, back in the day, Bob must have  ducked out to play with his chemistry set.  What is known as the naturalistic fallacy politely points out that naturalistic science may well describe what is the case, but fails utterly when it comes to determining what ought to be the case.  Empirical science is descriptive; it is unable to be prescriptive.  Our five senses can tell us what is, but fail when it comes to determining what ought to be.

Yet ironically Bob, the empiricist, has gone on record to say that he opposes abortion because he does not approve of murder.  This is Bob's version of  sticking "with science rather than fairy tales".  This is an example of Bob's inconsistency, even irrationality.  As we said, more gadfly than blowfly. 

We are glad that Bob opposes abortion.  One hopes, however, that he is not foolish enough to think that his opinion is scientific or based upon science.  Science has nothing to say about whether murder is morally good or bad. So passes those who "stick to science" every time and ridicule God as a fairy tale. 

But, then, when the deadline threatens and the Pinot beckons we can't expect too much--at least not in the way of  careful, judicious reasoning.