Massimo Pigliucci has decided to weigh in on the debate over accommodationism that has been happening in the atheist blogosphere for forever now, coming down on the side of the accomodationists. Unlike Mooney and Nisbet, Pigliucci is clear that he’s interested in matters of philosophical principle, not tactics. (Mooney and Nisbet, in contrast, may well agree with Dawkins et al. about all matters of principle–they just think it’s bad tactics to talk about matters of principle.)
Pigliucci’s position actually isn’t all that different from that of his targets, though: he thinks that there are good, scientifically informed reasons to be an atheist, it’s just that science doesn’t absolutely determine the God question. But even then, he’s trying to make a pretty dubious distinction. There’s a weird, disparaging comment about the idea that particular religious claims, at least, can be disproven, which is “funny,” because Karl Popper’s falsificationism is no longer widely accepted in philosophy of science. That’s a weird argument: the idea that science can sometimes show an idea is wrong doesn’t depend on any particular theory of how science works.
Then Pigliucci gives a more substantial argument that particular religious claims are never disproved by science: there’s always the possibility that God rigged the world to look one way, even though it really is some other way. The trouble with this response is it can be used to undermine any scientific claim, not just alleged refutations of religious doctrine. If Pigliucci’s argument shows that science doesn’t determine the answer to any religious questions, it also shows that it doesn’t determine the answer to any scientific questions.
That sounds wrong, but on the other hand there’s a sense in which we should embrace the conclusion: scientific ideas are always vulnerable to goofy objections that can’t be answered just by quoting an experimental result, objections that require you to think in broader ways about what makes an idea good or bad. So in a sense, science doesn’t determine the answer to scientific questions. But if that’s true, the fact that it doesn’t determine the answer to religious questions doesn’t make religion especially safe from science–even if it’s not as vulnerable as one might think, it’s still as vulnerable as any scientific claim.
I had the same reaction you did–the way Massimo Pigliucci has formulated his position, the metaphysical trump card is available to anyone and can always be played, it’s not unique to religion. But I think his suggested trump card regarding intercessory prayer is just as much a straw man as deism (and I do know a few deists, BTW)–that’s simply not the common move. Rather, those who believe in intercessory prayer often believe that it can, in fact, be proven, and cite studies to that effect, just as young-earth creationists think there is empirical evidence to support their positions, rather than falling back on “Last Tuesdayism.” Further, there are philosophical and theological constraints on the kinds of trump cards available to the religious believer–for instance, most of them do not believe in a malicious or deceptive God.
I also don’t think he gets to the root of many people’s objections to accomodationism. For example, I object to NOMA because I think it’s clear that religion and science *do* overlap in the scope of their respective claims. And I also think it’s a mistake to claim that *any* religious view can be made compatible with science–if a religious view requires significant revision from its traditional conception in order to be made compatible, e.g., by withdrawing empirical claims, then you end up with a different religious view rather than making the traditional view compatible with science.
Another way of putting the point in your last paragraph–accomodationism privileges religion, but Pigliucci’s point seems to be that the metaphysical trump card is available to anything. Accomodationists say “science has nothing to say about religion,” but they don’t say “science has nothing to say about homeopathy” or “science has nothing to say about UFOs.” Pigliucci’s argument doesn’t explain that asymmetry.
He also thinks that Coyne’s argument for how a divine being that wanted to be known could make himself known is not a good argument, but I’m not sure I heard an actual counter-argument. It seems to me that divine hiddenness is a genuine problem that demands an explanation, just as evil demands a theodicy. Both are cases where empirical evidence bears upon the plausibility of religious claims.