Adam Gopnick's errors on the nature of skepticism, rationalism, and humanism

By Mathew Goldstein

The Barefoot Bum blog recently published a short article The nature of skepticism and humanism that accurately criticizes Adam Gopnick's "otherwise excellent piece, Bigger than Phil: When did faith start to fade?, on the failings of many 'Sophisticated Theologians'" for its mistaken definition of rationalism and for its "insulting" depiction of humanism that is "without foundation." Larry's explanation for how we all rely on intuition, but skeptical rationalists are more consistent in giving higher precedence to reason, and his characterization of humanists as people who dispense with transcendentalism, is very good.

Jerry Coyne similarly criticizes Adam Gopnick for being "so eager to take the middle ground that he conflates the human emotions of atheists with the delusions of religious believers—and so sees a convergence of the twain" on his Why Evolution is True blog with his more lengthy article Adam Gopnik on atheism in the New Yorker. This strained "middle ground" journalism is common, particular when the topic is atheism versus theism. One common strategy is to argue that atheists are similar to religious fundamentalists and both are wrong for the same reasons. Adam Gopnick takes a more subtle approach to arguing that atheism is deficient, but his argument is no less rooted in false stereotype and conceptual confusion.