Top Highlights

• Some who believe these things may do so because they sincerely believe that the scientific evidence supports their position. But for most people, scientific evidence has little to do with it. Take the case of evolution. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, only 14 percent of those who said they did not believe in evolution cited lack of evidence as the...
• the issues they really care about. When asked what they would do if scientists were to “disprove” a particular religious belief, nearly two-thirds of the people asked said they would continue to hold that religious belief anyway.4
• Deliberation becomes a game played for the joy of manipulation and the increase of power. Skepticism about reason undermines our commitment to civil society, and that is why it is important to understand its causes and answer its arguments.
• More recent political philosophers like John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas have seen this ideal as a key component of a functioning liberal democracy. In this view, democracies aren’t simply organizing a struggle for power between competing interests; democratic politics isn’t war by other means. Democracies are, or should be, spaces of reasons. In the...
• As the political philosopher Jean Hampton once put it: “No matter what our religion, moral beliefs, or metaphysical commitments, if we are to work together in one system of cooperation, we have to have a ‘common currency’ for debating and settling disputes or our society will be in ruins.”12