In February of this year, Sam Harris spoke at the TED conference regarding his view that science can answer moral questions. I was excited to hear what he might have to say on the subject, as he is a noted atheist with a degree in philosophy from Stanford and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA. I came away with two impressions: 1) Harris seems to be eager to start a new world order based on his views and 2) Nothing he said seemed to go beyond what I consider to be common sense.

He spent much of his time making analogies and pointing out things that had less to do with science and more to do with opinion, and never showed a chart or referenced a scientific study. He opened with a huge statement – that most people believe that science will never answer the big questions about human life, such as “what is worth living for, what is worth dying for. What constitutes a good life?” Harris poses this important question, but never answers it. In fact, he never even addresses it again. In attempting to make the argument that morality is nothing more than an agreed upon set of standards, he fails to acknowledge the Achilles heel of scientific fact – that it is never constant. Facts change based on new data and analysis of that data. Today we agree that racism is wrong. Any poll taken would indicate this. However, go back a few hundred years and take a poll and you would find a very different result – one based on the accepted knowledge of the day. If science, in the form of common agreement (which is not really science at all), is going to be used to form a morality system, then I feel we have a long way to go until we will become the peaceful, harmonious creatures we all wish to be.

Harris argues that “values are a certain kind of fact. They are facts about the well-being of conscious creatures.” Again, history shows us that there is nothing factual about values or value systems – they are dependent on far too many variables, including the individual’s momentary emotional state, to ever be scientifically assessed on a large scale. Certainly science may one day be able to tell us that our brains are naturally wired towards peace and harmony, a fact already agreed upon by most people, but that natural tendency depends almost completely upon the situation. Even Buddhist monks are taught that in severe cases you have a right to defend yourself, even if that means harming another human being. They believe that the intention is what’s important – and their intention would be to protect themselves or others, not to harm another person.

Throughout the speech and in his Project Reason foundation, is it clear that Harris’ focus is on the Western religions – Christianity, Judaism and Islam. From the Project Reason mission statement:

“While the foundation is devoted to fostering critical thinking generally, we believe that religious ideas require a special focus. Both science and the arts are built upon cultures of vigorous self-criticism; religious discourse is not. As a result, religious dogmatism still reigns unchallenged in almost every society on earth—dividing humanity from itself, inflaming conflict, preventing wise public policy, and diverting scarce resources. One of the primary goals of Project Reason is to change this increasingly unhealthy status quo.”

While I certainly agree that religious dogma serves no great purpose and can in many cases be harmful to individuals and societies in general, to say that religions aren’t based in self-criticism is simply not true. All of the major Eastern religions have a long history of being critical of their teachings. This is especially evident in Buddhism where one of the first things a student learns is that it’s not only acceptable to question the teachings, but encouraged. I’m quite sure there were some heated debates amongst the Christians at the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325. To generalize about religions and their followers is not a good way to prove science superior to faith.

Harris also states, “The distinction between a healthy person and a dead one is about as clear and consequential as any we make in science.” This is laughably false. Not only are there many different methods actively used to determine if a human has died, but there is even a difference between whether a person is “clinically dead” or “legally dead”. Even if you focus on clinical death, when a person’s circulation and breathing ceases, brain activity can still continue and since Harris himself believes that your personality is the product of your brain, then technically even when we are clinically dead we are still conscious for a time and therefore still a living being. All of this is further complicated by the fact that we can now be kept alive by machines after these systems have failed. I won’t even go into how each doctor has a different interpretation of what is “healthy”.

I agree with Harris that universal morality doesn’t mean there can not be exceptions to agreed upon morality and values. If we all agree that lying is wrong, it doesn’t mean that in certain scenarios a lie might not be the best possible solution. We live in a culture that fully embraces things only when they are black and white. If you call yourself a Christian, then you are obliged to believe in everything the Bible dictates whether it applies to modern life or not. Those who take a more reasoned approach to their faith, choosing to believe certain things and not others, are seen by many as being inferior in some way – like a person who can’t choose between white bread or wheat when in line at a sub shop. Someone who was sure of their convictions should be able to tell you what they believe without hesitation. Of course, this can also be seen as blind faith – though that phrase is absurd since all faith is blind. As with all things in life, there are and should always be shades of grey.

The most disturbing and dangerous statement Harris makes in his TED speech is as follows:

“Whenever we are talking about facts, certain opinions must be excluded. That is what it IS to have a domain of expertise. That is what it IS for knowledge to count.”

He goes on to say that we have convinced ourselves that in the moral sphere at least, we must count every opinion. While I agree that it’s illogical to give serious weight to the opinions of those who would harm others or cause pain, what Harris proposes is simply a new religious order – one based in science but no less dangerous than those based in faith and dogma. Here he indicates that certain people should be given “moral authority” while others should not, but who is to determine which people should be given this right and privilege? Surely any scientist would agree that the most reliable data comes from the largest number of subjects. For example, if you asked 10 people what color the sky was and eight said blue and two said white, you could say with some confidence that the sky was blue. However, if you asked a few million and got the same percentage of blue versus white then you could be much more certain of your answer. Harris says that the world needs “…people like ourselves to admit that there are right and wrong answers to questions of human flourishing, and morality relates to that domain of facts.” People like ourselves. I suppose he was referring to the mostly white, mostly affluent people in the room he was addressing. Perhaps Harris believes that affluent whites are the superior humans intellectually and should therefore be given the duty of morality police for our entire global society. More likely, he’s speaking to the scientific community as a whole, but that still doesn’t sit well with me. What gives him or any group of self-appointed scientists the right or the wisdom to choose how others should be judged? Surely he would object to being held accountable for his actions in a hostile foreign court, and I can see how people of faith would be equally infuriated by him telling them that they don’t have a valid opinion on the subject of human values.

While it’s true that science at it’s highest levels doesn’t ask you to believe in anything or significant importance, at the level in which most people understand it we are asked to take almost all of its principles for granted. I don’t understand the complexities of photosynthesis, but I know that giving a plant light and water will help it grow. In the same way, scientists like Harris ask laypeople to have faith in that which they do not fully understand in order to see things the way they do. The difference, they would tell you, is that what they are asking you to believe is based in proven fact rather than fictional dogma.

Science and spirituality can and should co-exist peacefully. There is no logical reason to exclude one for the other. When something cannot be explained by science, one can simply seek a spiritual answer. This doesn’t mean that ancient rituals and dogma should be followed, quite the contrary. The kind of spirituality I’m speaking of is internal. Today the only way to find true inner peace is through spiritual methods. There is no compassion pill or love injection. You have to nurture these things yourself, and arguably these are the most important facets of being human. Most of us will never be remembered for inventing or discovering anything, but we can all be remembered for being kind and loving.

In recent decades atheists and scientists have been arguing with great intensity against religion, and they have made some interesting and obvious points. The world could do with a lot less dogma and a lot more kindness and compassion, and a great deal more common sense. However, what Harris and his friends at Project Reality propose has nothing to do with these things. They replace God with science, compassion with statistics and common sense with theory, but they don’t change anything by doing so. They simply don’t present an option that’s more appealing than what most people currently choose to live with.