Talk:Thomas Henry Huxley and agnosticism

Untitled
Of course, as this article is ancient, it has a pro-christian slant to it as well...

Redundancy
This arcticle seems completely redundant to me, since Wikipedia has an arcticle for Huxley and another for Agnosticism. Each of this two should have some history about Huxley and the invention of the term Agnosticism, but an arcticle for this sole purpose seems useless and very unusual for Wikipedian standards.

Since Agnosticism is seperable from Huxley and other thikners have been identified with it, a separate article is entirely warranted. ~ Spiker_22--Spiker 22 (talk) 06:19, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Arguability
While there is hypothetical merit in calling this redundant, it is not in my experience so unusual. There are in my estimation equally valid arguments for the folding of most of this into either Huxley's entry or Agnosticism's, creating a problem of which. Most of what is useful here are specific quotations from Huxley (that could use external links to a source such as Project Gutenberg where they can be found, if not in Wikisource.)

"...which has turned the controversies between religion and science into other channels and removed the temptation to flaunt a disagreement."

However is a gross simplification, and frankly a miss statement. The differences between evolutionists and creationists in large remain very hot, and often ill tempered. The idea expressed here is from a subgrouping of christians who have partially embraced evolution to any varied degree. This muddying serves to a degree the attitude of some scientists also who detest the debate and view it unworthy, and some of them propose the acceptibility of an 'irelivent' (to the origin of life) God, since it saves hastle. Yet that is mearly my opinion.

Still the quotations here are of great use in understanding both Huxley the man, and agnosticism the idea.

Suggestion
I would suggest moving the text of this article to the T.Huxley article, Huxley on agnosticism does not imho merit a seperate article. --Isolani 09:52, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

No references & biased language
This article currently has no listed verifiable references or sources. Moreover, it has numerous bits of "information" that reflect the author's opinion without having any seperate source backing it up. For example, it talks about "misconceptions" regarding agnosticism, but doesn't list a verifiable reference to back up its claim.

Just my opinion, but this particular article appears to be primarilly original research into Thomas Henry Huxley's views on agnosticism, as opposed to an article constructed from outside reliable sources. My two suggestions are:

1) List actual references for verifiable information contained in the article

2) As suggested above, consider merging the verifiable sections of the article with articles on Thomas Henry Huxley and agnosticism as appropriate. Having this topic on a seperate page appears to be redundant.

Specific claims from this article that would require a reference and/or appear to be the author's opinion include:

"...the expressions "agnostic" and "agnosticism" were applied by T. H. Huxley to sum up his deductions from (on that time) contemporary developments of metaphysics about the "unconditioned" (Hamilton) and the "unknowable" (Herbert Spencer)." - Needs references for sources

"It is important, therefore, to discover Huxley's own views on the matter." - Important to who? Appears to be the author's opinion.

"Though Huxley began to use the term "agnostic" in 1869,..." - reference?

..."This account is confirmed by R. H. Hutton, who in 1881 wrote that the word 'was suggested by Huxley at a meeting held previous to the formation of the now defunct Metaphysical Society at Mr Knowles's house on Clapham Common in 1869, in my hearing. He took it from St Paul's mention of the altar to the Unknown God.'..." - needs reference

"Hutton himself frequently misrepresented the doctrine by describing it as "belief in an unknown and unknowable God"" - The word "misrepresented" appears to be the author's opinion (ie the author believes Hutton "misrepresented" the doctrine, but it's possible the author is incorrect and other readers might believe Hutton's representation was more accurate). If there are authors that state that Hutton did, in fact, "misrepresent" the doctrine, they should be quoted as such with appropriate reference. Otherwise, the article should simply read something like "Hutton himself frequently described the doctrine as ...etc...."

...Agnosticism really rests on the doctrine of the Unknowable, the assertion that belief about certain objects—among them the Deity— can never have any "scientific" ground. This way of solving, or passing over, the ultimate problems of thought has had many followers. It has been popular in cultured and scientific circles that were tired of dogmatic creeds of contemporary orthodoxy. The support of agnosticism by eminent physicists like Huxley greatly influenced modern metaphysical speculations and even the form that subsequent Christian apologetics adopted. - this entire paragraph appears to be the author's opinion on the subject.

The final two paragraphs likewise appear to be the author's opinion or original research on the subject as opposed to statements taken directly from a verifiable source.

History is written by the winners
Chapter 10 of _Einstein's Luck_ by John Waller (published in the UK under the title, _Fabulous Science_) seems to include an alternate view to the notion that "Huxley's agnosticism was ... a natural consequence of ... clerical intolerance".

The following view might be gleaned from Waller's book: Coining the term "agnostic" was a political move. Many of the scientists who were Huxley's contemporaries were in a privileged class: gentlemen-scientists, many of whom were also clergymen. Declaring himself to be an agnostic was part of a strategy to dislodge the gentlemen-scientists and obtain funding for people like Huxley, who did not have the resources needed to pursue science on an equal footing with those whom he considered to be dilettantes.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/reason/agnosticism/agnostic.html "[Huxley] is labouring to preach to us all the gospel of suspense of judgment on all questions, intellectual and moral, on which we have not adequate data for a positive opinion."

His intention may have been to create heat, not light. Such an environment may be receptive to grantsmanship: "more study is required."

The beginning of chapter 8 in Waller's book describes a prototypical hero. This formula may be exploited in sympathetic biographies. The notion that Huxley's agnosticism was a response to clerical intolerance -- rather a tool in his militant efforts to gain a larger slice of an economic pie -- may not fit the facts as well as it does a hero template: obscure pioneer is long-suffering in his struggle to overcome the inertia of "those who will not see" and is, at long last, rewarded with deserved fame.

The science vs. religion schism has become firmly entrenched these days. Having won the battle (by attrition), the victors declare that Huxley's agnosticism was the outcome of being oppressed by clerical intolerance. It may be closer to the truth that Huxley created the term "agnostic" to serve as a wedge in his aggressive purpose of dividing science and religion into mutually-exclusive pursuits. Ac44ck


 * This may all be so, but it hasn't been the reigning idea of agnosticism that science and religion are mutually exclusive. That's more an atheist standpoint. When it comes at least to the big three Abrhamic religions (Judaism, Catholicism (Christianity), Islam) they all of expoused that science and religion compliment each other. Philo would be a good Jewish example; Pope Pius X, Pope John Paul II, and the funding of Galileo by the church would be Catholic/Christian examples; and there is a famous Muslim mathematician (I believe Abū Kāmil Shujā ibn Aslam) who stated this as well. By the way, I say Catholicism over other Christian denominations because it is the only one throughout history (that I know of) that hasn't had a problem with science so long as it doesn't overstep into religion and try to affect doctrine. And I mean official church stances, not necessarily those by lay people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PedanticSophist (talk • contribs) 04:27, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Agnosticism and philosophies of science
Since Huxley's way of thinking applied above all to science, it seems to me that it won't do to stop with his theology, or his careerism. We should recognise his extremely demanding criteria of proof (for example, about natural selection) as a sign that he was, philosophically, a skeptic. Skepticism is an ancient and revered style of philosophy, but as A.J. Ayer said in Language, Truth and Logic, the ultimate skeptic runs the risk of not believing in anything! To summarise: the tenor of 'Huxley as skeptic' is that he kept an unusually large mental pending tray of things not decided; not only was he agnostic about deity, he was markedly less likely to believe in any given thing than his peers.

Also, we can see signs of an empiricist/inductionist philosophy of science: the quote of his "sit down before the fact like a little child... [and] follow humbly wherever... nature leads" is classic inductionism [and no, I haven't got the ref, I'll chase it up!]. And note: Huxley wrote a book on the 18th century Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume; and he too is often seen as a skeptic. Although mostly self-taught Huxley made himself one of the best-informed men in England. His thinking and working methods were informed and influenced by the British empiricist tradition.

His metier in biology was as a comparative anatomist: E.B. Poulton said of him, in Darwin and the Origin, "the great comparative anatomist, Huxley, Darwin's great general in the battles that had to fought, but not a naturalist, far less a student of living nature." Huxley liked to see facts right in front of his eyes, and was always much less comfortable with hypotheses, inferences and intangibles. His voyage of discovery gave him marine life to dissect and draw, but not a living, interacting ecological system as Darwin and Wallace had separately experienced.

From the point of view of the philosophy of science the great contrast is with Darwin, who was basically a modern hypothetico-deductive thinker. Darwin said (several times) that his method was to have ideas and try them out to see if the ideas stood up to observations or tests. Much of his later botanical experimental work was quite modern in its methodology.

For what it's worth, I think we should thank the main author of the article, though it does need to connect with the rest of Huxley's brain! Also it's possible to get far too hung up on references.

Macdonald-ross 10:42, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:30, 10 November 2007 (UTC)