The reason we want more testable models with greater empirical content is so that we can prove them wrong. If our model is wrong, and we don’t yet know how to fix it, what do we gain from continuing to use and build upon it? the statement “You’re wrong because your model is too simple. But I’m not going to tell you what your model is missing, at least not in a clear enough way to help you improve your model” is completely valid and useful in that it points out a problem. A solution would be nice too, but thats not always an option and not a necessary component of the scientific method.

Do you think the reason-based choice bias effects our ability to accept a criticism of a model when a better solution isn’t included/available?

in the first half of the god delusion dawkins exhibits at least passing familiarity with the work of anthropologists such as pascal boyer and scott atran. but during the second half he pretty much ignores this and focuses specifically on abrahamic fundamentalism as the sine qua non of religion. my review of the book lays it out….

on the specific point re: religion, it is important to model religion because so many people care so much about it (and will use it as an *excuse* for war or killing themselves, etc.). and, you have another problem insofar as most religious people today explicitly adhere to the idea that their views are coherent and systematic. in fact, they believe that there are contradictions between their own systematic coherent views and those of others, and that these differences are important enough to coalesce around to further collective action. not only will people claim that they have a coherent and systematic worldview, but, they imbue these presumed worldviews with ontological importance and are emotionally attached to them. in short, religion names normal cognitive biases and processes, and supercharges them with very powerful emotional valences.

so, it is very easy i think for some atheists to confuse this ardor for something real which may be taken as an important variable in modeling human action. but, i think the cognitive psychology of religion suggests that these are shallow notional markers. e.g., most christians do not comprehend the athanasian creed to any substantive degree, despite disagreements predicated on its comprehension leading to violence and mass conflict.

yes. but, an important issue is whether you model a behavior as a continuous quantitative trait or a discrete meristic one with a few major morphs. religiosity and IQ are i think in the former category; many personality traits seem to be more in the latter. i state this because it looks like for personality we are finding quantitative trait loci of large effect (dopamine related), but for IQ we can not find these.

dawkins comes close to this in the god delusion. in fact, the first half the book is a relatively competent examination of various dimensions. the second half just pretends though that it is one dimension for the purposes of refutation.

Of course, as others have noted, reduction is absolutely necessary in most interesting cases, and is highly desirable when done properly. It’s very rare though that reducing to just one dimension yields a useful model that makes good general predictions. It might yield good predictions and have good explanatory power in a narrow domain though, so it’s not necessarily always a bad thing, but to assume that it is a good general model because it captures one important dimension is sheer idiocy.

On a related note, I wish that Harris’ and Dawkins’ had explicitly said (in their respective works), “this is my simplified model of religion which I recognize is very different from the model that most religious people have but which I believe (for reasons discussed below …) is a good model for the aspects of religion and its relation to society that I am going to treat.” I think they could make a good argument to that effect, which would obviate the many objections that they are ignorant of religion (which they are) and get those people who ignore them because they think their model is oversimplified to actually engage with the valid points they are making, many of which do just concern belief and the consequences of belief.

see my interlocutor “Reality Bites” on the linked post. this is not atypical. many non-religious people have a tendency of reducing religion to one dimension or parameter. e.g., “religion is about group identity.” “religious is about belief.” “religious is about fear of death.”