Beginner-level college philosophy has kind of ruined the subject for me.
    
I unconditionally loved philosophy as a kid. Who isn’t inspired by a bunch of guys who effortlessly defined the nature of reality — presumably from comfortable chairs? By speculating on the abstract, and then presenting it in a linear way, they were able to give form to the amorphous mystery of human culture and existence itself. And those smug suckers made it look easy.
    
I get why philosophy is still and continues to be relevant and effective. Philosophy, and the disciplined language of logic that governs it, has legitimate authority over determining the abstract.
    
But are ethics and morality any more definable than metaphysics, that most ambiguous yet most distilled essence of philosophy? Metaphysics, which can’t decide on whether what’s around the corner can be objectively or subjectively known or unknown — much less the nature of existence as we perceive or don’t perceive it?
    
I know I’m not being fair — being able to comprehend and verbalize what is or what might be around the corner is why we are top animals, and applied philosophy (hopefully not an oxymoron) is the flexing of this brain muscle to its fullest potential. Individuals enter the philosophical arena, and the winner must be the one who makes the fewest assumptions and most logically defends the few that are asserted.
    
Now, I’ve not yet introduced anything remotely novel or original, but this rudimentary thought process leads back to why I have such concern for the state of philosophy as an academic discipline in general. It isn’t because of philosophy’s superficial inability to absolutely and objectively determine anything — being able to work out and communicate untestable, abstract concepts is a critical skill— but that philosophy roundly castrates itself by not embracing relevant scientific precedent.
    
A lot of beginner-level philosophy is riddled with basic dysfunction, like a de-emphasis on vigilance regarding personal assumption and learning the principles of logic from the beginning. This always seems to result in class discussions that unravel into an uncomfortable contrast between the unenthusiasm of obligatory participation dotted with the unacademic complacency of emotionally held belief.
    
Again, I’m emphatically not criticizing philosophy — it’s a discipline we depend on to objectively communicate and make sense of the overwhelming social and cultural conflicts. What I’m proposing is: Well-supported empirical conclusions and theories are the tiebreakers for most cultural and moral conflicts. Unless you roundly reject the study of neuroscience and its conclusions about the brain and human behavior, you’d be hard-pressed to dismiss the social application of studies directly linking the sensations of social rejection and physical pain to practices like solitary confinement in American prisons.
    
Strictly speaking, science’s basic principles rightly limit its power over making generalizations about anything untestable, and culture is no exception. In 2006, Richard Dawkins, one of the first and most effective popularizers of evolutionary biology and genetics, severely crossed this line when he wrote “The God Delusion,” a book asserting that the principles of the scientific method in general somehow negate the sanity of anyone affiliating with a religion — an influential cultural institution. Dawkins reduces the scientific method to an emotional ideology, replacing the very tenets of objectivity he apparently respects with very poor epistemic models and arguments. The lack of criticism from the scientific community against his awful book is very depressing.
    
Why? Specific studies have actual implications for self-inflicted gridlock between science and religion. One would think that Dawkins of all people might have had the faith to actually use the irresistible power of his own field to, I don’t know, “reduce” the universal sensation of feeling external presences associated with ghosts, god, the supernatural and just being in the dark to a biological explanation. Maybe something describing a biological adaptation that helped increase our survivability at the dawn of consciousness by helping us feel ... not so alone? Perhaps identify the part of the brain that undeniably lumps all of these sensations irreverently together? As far as I’m concerned, direct examples from science that can neither confirm nor deny the existence of anything untestable are far more persuasive than the vanity of outright denial. Yet I will never deny the primal satisfaction of a having a one-sided emotional argument. Dawkins is only human.
    
Science leads by example, not by being adamantly argumentative. The existence of culture and religion is not arbitrary, and influential scientists should refrain from being outright pejorative about it, especially when they have the tools to deconstruct it to its very core.

— Wiley is a junior in ecology and evolutionary biology. He can be reached at rrobin23@utk.edu.