CFI and organization — Kurtz maybe DID need to go

I didn’t carefully and thoroughly follow every step of the Council for Inquiry’s organizational issues up to the time Paul Kurtz was pushed out as executive director.

Since that time, I started paying more attention, for a number of reasons.

First is related to the reasons Kurtz was allegedly pushed out — the difference between “confrontationalists” (especially among “New Atheists”) and “accommodationalists” as far as how to deal with the nonatheist world in general and especially its more hostile elements. I lean toward the accommodationalist side but, per Ecclesiastes, know there is a time for everything.

Second is related to the organizational issues themselves, specifically, the loss of a $2 million a year donor, because of losing Kurtz. And, there are two subissues here.

No. 1? Orac (sorry, didn’t bookmark a link) is right: You do NOT use the money of one donor in your general fund when that donor’s contributions make up a full one-quarter of your total income. You put that in a trust and use the interest, after a couple of years. OR, as many environmental groups do, you try to set up a matching fund drive between small donors and this guy. You could then use that portion of his $2M a year donation in your general fund but bank the rest.

That one hangs totally on Kurtz’s shoulders. My impression is that he ran CFI too much like a ma-and-pa shop long after it had expanded beyond that point. He obviously needed a full-time director of development who would know this, know how to do this, and tell Kurtz that.

If Kurtz resisted any of this, then he needed to go.

No. 2? The donor dropoff has led to a number of other issues, one related to a CFI job for which I applied, the position of director of communications.

Now, this spring, Nathan Bupp was still listed as vice president of communications. I assume his position was cut in the financial turmoil, and now, the director of communications opening is a partial replacement, at lower salary.

That said, it’s been going on eight weeks now since the application deadline for that job. I have no idea of where Barry Karr of CFI is at in the process. My guess is that, based on the number of resumes he got early on, a CFI disorganizational disorder has overwhelmed him. I’m assuming that he, and any assistant(s) he has in the hiring process, did NOT start a “preliminary cull” of resumes after getting more than 120 in the first 36-48 hours after announcing the opening. Assuming they didn’t, that’s another organizational black mark.

If CFI doesn't have the money to hire more staffers to help organization, then it needs to focus solely on development issues (along with narrower PR issues in the sense of perception) before anything else.

If staff levels are semi-adequate, then Bruce Lindsey needs to do a better job as new CEO, or hire an assistant, with appropriate title, who knows more about management and organizational issues.

Anyway, I have no idea of I will get the CFI position. I know I’m well-qualified for it.

But, in any case, CFI has issues it needs to address.

Beyond the organizational ones, it still needs to address the confrontationalist vs. accommodationalist issue. It also needs to address just what skepticism is and who a skeptic is. It also needs to address legitimate claims for the explanatory power of science vs. “scientism,” as my recent blog on a John Shook post shows.

And, that kind of reflects on why CFI needs a director of communications. Bloggers and online columnists there are kind of scattershot, and the thought quality isn't always that high. If you want to continue to be, and to be seen as, America's top secular humanist organization, well, you have at least some of your work cut out for you.

Critical thinking goes missing again at CFI

I am starting to think with Mr. Leo Lincourt, and surely others, that it's perhaps time to be more skeptical about alleged skepticism.

Besides the obvious offenders like Michael Shermer, there are others.

The latest? John Shook at Center for Inquiry.

His latest blog post? "How Does Science Defeat Religion." It's targeted NOT at fundamentalists, but the religiously liberal, those who might well be quite comfortable with Steve Gould's "non-overlapping magisteria" on certain items.

My short, on-site reply:

NOT a good post. First, science is not designed to "defeat" anything, John.

If you had rewritten the whole "defeat" idea about philosophy and how the liberally religious try to deal with the problem of evil, you'd be cooking with gas. Instead, you don't even have a campfire.

Longer thoughts here.

If this is what the "Vice President and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Inquiry Transnational" thinks is the nature of science, oy. Really.

I agree with where I think Shook is coming from philosophically — rejecting the idea held by both Gould and liberally religious on dual magisteria. But, that's a philosophical issue as much as a scientific one, at least. Certainly, once you get past naturalistic issues, with the liberally religious accepting evolution, etc.,. it is. Science works with methodological naturalism. Therefore, if a liberally religious person claims that an incorporeal deity intruded into the natural world it's ultimately a philosophical issue.

If you go beyond methodological naturalism to philosophical naturalism, well, obviously, by definition, you're now in philosophy.

Second, as Mr. Lincourt has noted in response to me, he misdefines science:

Aside from the fact that he never defines religion, rather just assumes the reader agrees with whatever nebulous definition he's using, I found this 'graph to be particularly troublesome:

"After science was invented, all things were no longer equal. Science supplements ordinary knowledge with vastly improved knowledge, and common consent gets overruled by scientific knowledge. There is a parallel superiority of ethical judgment over the "common consent" of humanity on moral matters -- after past experiments with slavery caused horrible consequences for all to see, no society could justify slavery anymore."

Umm... science was invented? I rather thought science was a constellation of philosophies, methodologies, practices and social norms that evolved out of our capacity to reason, not some monolithic creation that was conjured whole cloth out of the void one fine day by some old, bearded, toga-wearing dude and has remained relatively static ever since then.

So, moving on, science supplants ordinary knowledge? Really? I can think of half a dozen types of knowledge where science neither supplants or even has anything to say. Literature and music, just to pick two.

Leo doesn't use the word "scientism," but it seems that's exactly what Shook is practicing.

Third, Leo passed on Massimo Pigliucci's latest blog post, called "Why Plumbing is not Science."

The title of this entry is a reference to Jerry Coyne’s occasional remark that there is no substantial difference between plumbing and science because plumbers test hypotheses based on empirical evidence.

Except, of course, that plumbing is not science, and here is why. ... I don’t actually believe that anyone takes seriously the proposition that all reason-based knowledge is “scientific.” If that were the case, then pretty much everything we do every day should count as science — from picking a movie based on a review by a critic we usually like (induction!) to deciding to cross the street when the pedestrian light is green (hypothesis testing!). If the concept of science is that expansive, than it is also pretty close to meaningless.

Bingo, and it reflects at least in part another Shook mistake and why he needs to listen to some philosophers, as David Buller knows most scientists do. (Jerry Coyne and P.Z. Myers, who probably applaud thoughts like Shook's, definitely need to.)