Yes, even Nobel laureates can be irrational

In my last post I pointed out that Susan_vD's charge that belief in God is irrational (simpliciter) sweeps up many highly intelligent people in its irrationality net, including theistic Nobel laureates. Hence the incredulity of my title, "Irrational Nobel Laureates? Really?"

But actually there is nothing that shocking about Nobel laureates being irrational, and I was a bit surprised that nobody challenged this assumption. The problem is that people often think of "rational" and "irrational" as all-encompassing labels. Obviously it would be extraordinarily implausible to deem a Nobel laureate irrational in all matters. But does that mean that Nobel laureates always believe in a rational way? That doesn't follow at all. Like the rest of us they could be rational in certain areas of their lives and irrational in others.

Here's an example. A brilliant physicist could win the Nobel prize and yet suffer from aerophobia so severely that he opts to take a cruise ship to the presentation ceremony in Stockholm.

So we should not assume that exemplary epistemic discipline in one area of life necessarily carries through to other areas as well. And thus it is possible that Nobel laureates who believe in God are being irrational just like the aerophobic physicist.

The real problems with Susan_vD's statement begins with the fact that she offers no theory of rationality to justify her conclusions. As a result, her statement looks like an unjustified prejudice rather than a defensible claim.

There is another problem as well. There are not only many brilliant theistic philosophers (as I noted last time around), but there are many brilliant theistic epistemologists: dozens and dozens of them. Many are individuals whose shoes I am not fit to shine. They have elaborate, sophisticated theories of knowledge, rationality and justification which defend the epistemic status of belief in God. And these theories have been defended by peer-review at academic conferences and in journals and books.

Susan_vD's comments, like those of Richard Dawkins and many other atheists these days, give no evidence of any familiarity with these discussions. As such, they look as ridiculous as a novice in physics guffawing at professtional physicists for believing in the "ridiculous" notion of time dilation. 

So the problem lies not with the claim that highly educated people might evince some irrationality. Indeed they might. Rather, the problem lies with inconsistency. That is, people who would never tolerate those utterly ignorant of science rendering sweeping judgments of the field go ahead and do that very thing in matters of philosophy and religion.