This article (and others in this series) is not intended to be a complete review of the above book, as that would take a book of its own. I aim to take some of the basic concepts of the book, which is based on a branch of psychology, and view them in the light of Scripture and Christianity. Consequently, it is not necessary for you to read the book itself to understand the basic concepts (although you are more than welcome to do so), as they are common in much of psychology.
Understanding something of psychology is increasingly important for Christians, as it has worked its way into mainstream media, and even into many churches. Pastors often refer people to Christian psychologists, as they believe that psychologists are better trained or equipped to help people with personal problems than they are. I therefore believe that it is important for Christians to gain some understanding of what psychology is, which is one of the reasons why I read this book and am writing this series of articles. Here, I will look at whether or not psychology can be called a scientific discipline, and then show how the atheistic worldview of most psychologists (including Jonathan Haidt) influences their conclusions.
Psychology claims to be a scientific discipline that is specifically concerned with how the human mind works. To be classed as scientific, one needs to follow the scientific method of observing natural phenomena, making hypotheses based on observations, testing those ideas using empirical research, and then finally rejecting or accepting your initial hypothesis. Your work must also go through the scientific peer-review process, whereby your methods and interpretations are checked and critiqued. This system has been designed to maximize the transparency of how individual scientists reach their conclusions, and reduce the influence of personal bias as much as possible. Consequently, the scientific method is a system designed by people to try and overcome our individual weaknesses (e.g. bias) and thus collectively come to understand our world as accurately as possible.
Following the scientific method is thus the main criterion for calling any human endeavour ‘scientific’. However, not all of the various branches of science are the same, and the degree of certainty and need for interpretation of results differs from one scientific discipline to another. As this is a ‘rough guide’, I have categorised the branches of science very broadly and made some generalisations to create a conceptual ‘ladder’ of science. In this ladder, mathematics sits at the top, and the humanities (which includes psychology) are at the bottom.
Mathematics is often considered to be ‘pure’ science, as its predictions and ideas (expressed as formulae) can be accepted or rejected based on whether or not the results work (i.e. the formula is resolvable). Mathematics is thus only limited by our ability to follow logic, which appears to be the fundamental basis for how the universe operates. The basic principles of mathematics must hold true at all times, which is a great argument for the existence of an Ultimate Mathematician, but we’ll get into that another time, perhaps.
On the next step of the ladder, we have the ‘hard sciences’ of physics and chemistry. These are a natural progression from pure mathematics – where we apply mathematical principles to the world around us. One of the wonderful things about non-living physical objects or chemicals is that they behave extremely predictably, if we know the laws that they obey (e.g. gravity) and can account for all of the external forces acting upon them (e.g. resistance). With this knowledge, physicists and chemists can make extremely accurate predictions about physical movements and chemical reactions. Thus, scientists operating in the realm of ‘pure’ or ‘hard’ science operate on the rock-solid basis of logic and the unchanging natural laws.
The next level of science is natural science – the study of living entities, which can be broadly divided into studies of plants and animals (for simplicity’s sake, I will leave out bacteria and fungi). Just like physics and chemistry are grounded in mathematics, the natural sciences are grounded in physics and chemistry. However, the level of complexity present in a living entity is far greater than that found in non-living physical objects or chemicals in test tubes. Consequently, the predictions made by natural (or life) scientists are not as straightforward as those made by scientists studying non-living things.
The chemical reactions taking place in a plant, for example, are influenced by many other simultaneous chemical and physical processes, thus making chemical reactions in plants less predictable than the same reactions in test tubes in a chemical laboratory. Animals make things even more complicated, as they add conscious behaviour to chemical and physical processes. Their conscious decisions sometimes completely confound predictions made by biologists. Unlike our ‘hard’ scientific colleagues, natural scientists operate on the basis of general principles, like natural selection (the innate drive of all plants and animals to survive and reproduce) as a basis of our scientific investigations. These principles help to guide us, but our test subjects do not obey them in as clear-cut a manner as non-living entities obey the universal natural laws.
Finally, we get to the study of human beings (known as the humanities), which even the most hard-core materialists would admit operate on a different level of complexity to other animals. If we were not more complicated than other animals, psychology and the social sciences would not exist as separate fields of investigation – they would fall under the category of animal behaviour. One of the things that fascinates me about atheistic scientists is how they insist that humans are just animals in one breath, and then explain how or why humans are so obviously different to animals in the next! Psychologists constantly battle this paradox, as they base their theories about humans on animal science, only later to vastly modify or twist these theories to try and fit actual human behaviour. Just as we need natural principles in addition to natural laws to explain plants and animals, we need to add extra principles or concepts to try and explain humans. In short, we are the least predictable test subjects for science in the universe!
As I have briefly described the different ‘levels’ of science, I hope that you have detected a trend. As the subject of investigation becomes more complex, the scientists’ ability to predict the outcomes of their experiments, or the underlying reasons for their observations, is reduced. We have moved from the consistently resolvable equations of mathematics through to the twisting and turning of natural principles required in psychology. One very easy way to see this trend of unpredictability is to note the role of statistics in each of these fields. As your test subjects become less predictable, you need to sample more of them to prove your point, thus doing your best to eliminate the influence of ‘weird’ individuals (called outliers) on your overall results. Scientists use statistics to show how (un)certain they are about whether or not their results actually support the original hypothesis.
For the mathematician, if an equation cannot be resolved using sound logic only once, then it must be discarded or changed. Equations must work 100% of the time – there is no room for uncertainty. The controlled experiments of chemistry and physics should also be highly repeatable, with very little uncertainty (and thus statistics) involved. By contrast, one of the greatest challenges for any natural or social scientist is to figure out statistics! It plays an essential role in natural and social science – reflecting our level of uncertainty in these fields. The way in which statistics is applied in these sciences can have an enormous impact on the final results, so it is right to be wary whenever you come across a study (or scientific field) that relies heavily on statistics.
Another trend that is important to consider is the need for interpretation of results by scientists in these different fields. The mathematician proves his new equation by resolving it on the chalkboard – no interpretation needed. The physicist and chemist need only successful experiments in controlled laboratory conditions, or careful observation in nature, to show that their theories work. They require minimal interpretation to convince their scientific audiences that their successful experiments and observations are proof of the veracity of their theories.
Natural and social scientists have a much harder time of it. Direct experimentation under controlled conditions is not always possible (or ethical), and even when it is, there are a myriad of possible explanations for the results. The natural scientist must therefore fight an uphill battle to show that their particular interpretation of the results is more valid than any of the other possibilities. Finally (you guessed it!) scientists in the humanities rely enormously on interpretations to explain their results and dismiss the many exceptions (i.e. ‘weird people’) to the principles they try to establish.
Here I must make a distinction between social sciences and psychology. Social science focuses on studying how populations or communities of people seem to work. The whole point of social science is to make useful generalisations about certain aspects of human communities (e.g. their attitudes towards a particular topic). It is concerned with the majority within each community, and whilst they may study minorities within a large population, they are concerned with how the majority of the people within that small community think or feel. Social scientists use this knowledge mainly to answer “How” questions. For example, “How would one go about changing the attitudes held by this community towards a specific thing?” or, “How have certain events in the past influenced the way this community views current ideas or people?” Psychology, by contrast, is more interested in explaining why particular people behave the way they do. For example: “Why do you feel depressed?” or, “Why do some people become serial killers?” or, “Why do some people have different moral values to other people?” The last question is of particular interest to moral psychologists, which brings me back to The Righteous Mind.
The Righteous Mind presents a scientific approach to the question of morality. Jonathan Haidt describes many experimental and observational studies on people – both how they were done, and what the results were. Whilst this is a book written for the layperson, Haidt goes out of his way to base all of his conclusions on results from scientific studies. Many of the studies he describes fall more into the category of social science than psychology, as they consider general trends within populations. However, his conclusions from those data are within the field of psychology, as he sets out to explain: “Why good people are divided by politics and religion”. The main purpose of my ‘tour through science’ above was to show you where this book fits on the broader scientific scale, which is a necessary starting point.
I do not think that all psychological studies should be summarily dismissed as non-scientific (as some Christians do). As long as psychologists follow the scientific method and process to produce their conclusions, then what they are doing can be classified as science. However, these days it seems that the term ‘science’ is used (actually, abused) to prevent laypeople from doubting theories and ideas that are classified as ‘scientific’. The moment one begins by saying “scientists have found”, or “scientists say” in an article or talk aimed at a non-scientific audience, it is as though they are saying, “this stuff is now too complicated or intellectual for you, so just accept it as fact”. People (often non-scientists) thus use science as a type of invisibility cloak, making it seem as though the scientific endeavour is somehow super-humanly unbiased and trustworthy.
Although I showed earlier that the scientific method is designed to reduce natural human biases, we must not forget that science is still done by fallible humans. This issue becomes more apparent the further down the ladder of science one goes (i.e. in the natural sciences and humanities). As unpredictability and subsequent uncertainty increase, interpretation of results becomes more important. We thus move away from straightforward results of formulae and experiments leading to concrete conclusions, towards more nuanced results based on statistical certainty leading to a number of more or less plausible interpretations. If scientists truly were completely unbiased and trustworthy super-humans, then this would not be a problem. I am not saying that one should reject the bottom end of my ladder of science altogether, but rather that one should proceed with caution.
This does not mean that the general public should be the final judge of all scientific works. Some scientific questions are so complicated and advanced that even scientists who are not specialists in those fields would battle to provide sensible critiques. Furthermore, trying to judge whether or not a scientist is using the scientific method correctly is a question for their scientific peers to answer. Nonetheless, I believe that for topics in which we all have everyday experience (such as morality), we can judge whether or not the interpretations provided by scientists actually fit reality. I therefore approached The Righteous Mind with the caution I feel is necessary for all scientific work based on humans, and simply tested his ideas based on my experiences and observations. I believe that anyone can do this, although my scientific training certainly helped.
When dealing with sciences that rely heavily on the scientist’s interpretation of the results, one needs to know something critical: What is the scientist’s worldview, or (to put it another way), what philosophy underpins their science? The importance of philosophy in science cannot be overstated, to the extent that any scientific qualification is technically a qualification in the Philosophy of Science. Although philosophy underpins how we do science, it can be very difficult to detect its effect on a scientific field. One of the reasons for this is that many scientists in a particular field share the same worldview (for example, most natural scientists are atheists or agnostics), so interpretations that other scientists offer for their results that are based on that worldview make perfect sense to their scientific peers. Initial scientific questions are mainly driven by a scientist’s curiosity in the first place, and that, too, is heavily influenced by their philosophy or worldview. Consequently, the entire scientific method and process can be directed or influenced by a worldview that is held by the majority of the scientists in that field. The vulnerability of the scientific method to inherent bias based on a commonly held worldview is most especially pronounced in the fields of science on the lower end of my conceptual ladder of science.
The most critical part of a worldview or philosophy is the question of whether or not supernatural entities exist, ‘supernatural’ meaning that it is not bound by the same natural laws as everything else. Although this is certainly not the only aspect of a worldview, it is the capstone of your mental world – the principal belief from which everything else flows. Johnathan Haidt states clearly that he is an atheist. This term also gives us a clue to another aspect of his worldview – that of materialism (the belief that all there is in the universe is matter – there is nothing non-physical or supernatural that defies natural laws). Flowing from atheism and materialism is a firm belief in the power of evolution (as a purely natural force) to produce everything we see in the world today, from the very first single-celled organism through to rational thought and a human sense of morality. The scientific discipline of psychology is dominated by atheism and materialism, which is important for all Christians to understand when considering how we view psychology.
As I have written elsewhere, there are logical inconsistencies inherent in the atheist worldview. Trying to make atheism fit reality often requires trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. The very first thing that struck me in this book as totally illogical is a direct result of the author’s worldview influencing his thought processes. He claims that everything today is a result of the “process of evolutionary design”. He clarifies this in a footnote by stating that, “evolution is a design process, just not an intelligent one” – I laughed out loud when reading that, yet it seems he was totally serious!
Anyone who understands the process of evolution will know that it is, by definition, purposeless. As a purely natural process, it has no final goal or purpose in mind as it simply allows the fittest individuals to contribute to the next generation. The only valid criteria in evolution are an individual’s current ability to survive and reproduce. If some genetic mutation arises that could potentially provide a fitness advantage to some future generation, yet it is a current disadvantage to the individual with that mutation, the evolutionary process will eliminate (or reduce the prevalence of) that particular trait. Evolution has no thought for the future, and has no final purpose or plan for any of the organisms that it influences. By contrast, the meaning of the word “design” is strongly connected with the terms “purpose” or “plan”; it is also linked with thought processes – all implying an intelligent designer. The idea of “evolutionary design” is a laughable oxymoron, similar to claiming that something happened “accidentally on purpose”. Talk about forcing square pegs into round holes!
The next statement that reveals how Haidt’s worldview prevents him making real sense of his scientific observations is reminiscent of Dawkins: “We are downright lucky that we have evolved this complex moral psychology”. When all thought of a supernatural Intelligence has been banished based purely on belief, the atheist’s only recourse is to sheer luck. Ironically, Haidt and Dawkins both link religion to superstition, and cannot see how their own unshakeable belief in luck is just another form of superstition! How evolution can be a design process and a lottery at the same time is anyone’s guess. Most evolutionists consider evolution to be a lottery process that somehow creates “the appearance of design”, yet Jonathan Haidt wants to have his designed cake and eat it with purposeless evolution.
In this article I have laid the basic foundation for a critique of moral psychology, from the perspective of a Christian with scientific training. In this and other articles, I hope to demonstrate how a prior belief in the non-existence of God seriously influences the interpretation of studies on human behaviour. I will also provide an alternative theory for why we as humans are the only species on earth with moral values, based on my belief in the God of the Bible.
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