Brisbane academic, consultant and blogger Jo Jacobs writes:
The Root of All Evil
On the plane on the way home from Adelaide, I finally caught up with Richard Dawkins’s doco against religion of any kind, and I was struck by his outrageous and emotive language - his own thesis as fundamentally atheist as those religions he aims to critique.
The issue I have with his fundamentalist pro-science approach is that his antipathy to paranormal and possibilities - something he calls “constructive doubt” - is precisely the sort of attitude that can prevent conceptual analysis and philosophy, and could result in prejudice and separatism. I have no problem with his advocacy of evidential scientific instruction. I have a problem with his superior attitude, and his assumption of ignorance and belittling of those who do pursue a religious life.
He invokes Darwin as a source of modern “truth”. Yet Darwin’s own theories of natural selection are challenged by the findings even of pro-science anthropologist, Jared Diamond. Indeed, what Diamond argues in his work in Guns, Germs and Steel, is that Darwin’s theories are sensationally flawed, and that a series of opportunistic and convenience oriented aspects contribute to the development of human cultures.
But I am convinced that it is insufficient to argue that science and natural selection can entirely explain the collapse of societies and economies. It is indeed the case that cultural economics - often based on religion - have defined the strongest communities. There’s a reason why religion hasn’t died out. It is these communities that survive. If anything, it is religion that has provided the strength for some communities to survive. Explain it as divine intervention or anthropological community development, this has provided the basis for human survival.
I find the arrogance of some scientists absolutely disgusting, and Richard Dawkins is the most arrogant of them all. This series is worth watching to understand that atheism is as dangerous as religious fundamentalism. Moderation in all things is clearly the most peaceful and diplomatic course for a humanistic and tolerant future.
Perhaps you meant to say that athesitic Darwinism is as dangerous as religious fundamentalism. Atheism is simply the absence of belief in deities. Not all atheists are Darwinists. Just as not all theists are fundamentalists.
I think that’s right, skribe - I think what Jo is getting at is what one might describe as “fundamentalist atheism”.
I don’t understand how Diamond’s thesis makes Darwin’s theories flawed: certainly that is not Diamond’s own argument. The “opportunistic and convenience oriented aspects” merely form part of the variations in environment which act as the filter for natural selection, so they would seem rather to support Darwin’s theories than challenge them.
I haven’t read Diamond, tigtog, but I think this is right:
That would be Diamond’s Collapse, rather than his Guns, Germs and Steel, which is the particular work Joanne claimed revealed “sensational” Darwinian flaws.
I agree that natural selection on its own is unlikely to be the whole explanation for the waxing and waning of various societies, but as Darwin never claimed it would be (given that humans artificially modify their own environment in ways that other species do not), that observation does not constitute a sensational flaw in his theories.
Darwin’s conclusions were limited by the tools of his time, but the fundamentals of natural and sexual selection in the variation that leads to evolution are extremely well supported and far from flawed.
Sorry to have to shatter your belief system, Skribe, but contra “atheism is the absence of belief in deities’ atheism is the belief in the absence of deities
I think again perhaps some terminological imprecision is the problem, tigtog. I’m sure Joanne isn’t denying the point you make in your last paragraph, but denying that adaptations of the theory provide sufficient explanation for cultural change. The other point I think she’s making is that transposing what Darwin wrote to human society as if it were holy writ is an error more religious in nature and akin to fundamentalism than a scientific perspective.
Thanks Mark. I enjoyed this post.
It seems that Dawkins conveniently forgets the basics of scientific investigation himself by controlling his own agenda, and always calls the shots in his documentary, lining up the arguments to suit his cause, ultimately preaching his own ‘religion’, which is the ‘wonder’ of evolutionary science. I don’t mind the argument about science vs religion, but I can’t see the point of the bitterness and venom Dawkins spews out. It can’t be good for the soul!
I agree about Dawkins - I remember seeing him on what was an excellent doco on sbs a while back on ID and I thought he displayed as much self-certainty and narrow mindedness as ID advocates. It was a big own goal for science. I also tend to think that he goes wrong by setting up science as in effect an alternative religion. Scientific cosmology is not in competition with faith (well, faith that sees itself as not opposed to human discovery) and to erect it as a sort of source of meaning risks falling into the same mindset as scientists and others who believe in reason should be criticising.
I’m with Tigtog. Though I’ll first say that “opportunistic and convenience oriented aspects” means precisely nothing, which makes me quite leery of the rest of the passage. If Ms Jacobs means that there are a lot of different factors that are not purely environmental that have determined which groups have been successful in achieving rapid economic development, then Diamond does mention that (esp re China). The vast bulk of the book though is (almost too?) determinedly about environmental determinism. What’s more Darwinian - I use the term loosely, very loosely - than that? Then we have “it is insufficient to argue that science and natural selection can entirely explain the collapse of societies and economies” - but Darwin, who is clearly the object of Ms Jacob’s criticism, mentioned nothing about economies, while it was the focus of Diamond’s book, which she mentions approvingly. And didn’t Darwin actually suggest that religion might be a helpful thing for society, which is the most coherent thing Ms Jacobs says she’s trying to say?
Not that I’m against the point that any time you think you know everything about some subject then your eyes are closed to evidence that you’re wrong - though how this makes even radical atheists dangerous, as opposed to annoying or offensive, I’m not sure. And I don’t think atheists need necessarily be anti-religion. But good grief if this is the level of argument on the pro-religion anti-atheism side, I’m going to switch from neutral on religion to anti-religion.
And on the notion that it’s religious communities that survive - anyone want to take a bet that the number of atheists or agnostics today is considerably larger than it was 200 years ago? I know there are arguments that more religious types are likely to breed more and will therefore ‘win’ in ‘the end’, but from my admittedly rudimentary knowledge of the history of religion and culture, doesn’t look obvious to me (an increasingly lapsed Catholic).
Kim: terminological imprecision may well be the problem, so I will rein in the attack iguanas.
Such imprecision problems do lead to a plethora of straw-Darwins though, and the constant knocking over and flying chaff all over the place does tend to make the iguanas somewhat nervy.
Christine, you might find this old post by Mark on religion and science interesting:
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And this really old one he wrote on dogmatic atheism:
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Having read Diamond’s book on Guns, Germs and Steel, I’m pretty sure Jacobs has misinterpreted whatever it is she thought Diamond said. Diamond’s book is primarily about human culture and social organisation and how this was shaped in part by geography. I’m not sure how Darwin can be ’sensationally flawed’ as a result of Diamond’s findings. It’s like saying Einstein was ’sensationally flawed’ in organic chemistry.
Yes, fair enough, tigtog. I also don’t think Joanne’s argument is “pro-religion” in Christine’s terms - I think she’s pointing to social and historical facts about the greater part of the recorded history of humans.
“I find the arrogance of some scientists absolutely disgusting, and Richard Dawkins is the most arrogant of them all. This series is worth watching to understand that atheism is as dangerous as religious fundamentalism”
Now this statement is very questionable to say the least. Or rather, it is hyperbole. If Jacobs is putting up Dawkins as in effect the worst of the worst on the so-called ‘fundamentalist atheist’ side then what’s the record?
Dawkins and his fans have not flown planes into tall buildings.
Dawkins and his fans have not blown up nightclubs.
Dawkins and his fans have not blown up clinics.
Dawkins and his fans have not stoned anyone to death for dress violations.
I could go on.
Dawkins has done a lot of good with his genuinely interesting books. He is a contemporary TH Huxley. If he puts off some fundies, that’s not going to make much of a difference because they’re not reading his (or even Stepehen Jay Gould’s) books, no matter what.
Jason, I think you’re engaging in a bit of hyperbole yourself. I could describe Rafe’s mate Bill Hutt’s ideas as dangerous (and I think they are - if they ever got wide acceptance) without any implication that Rafe and any other Hutt fans that might be out there would go around committing atrocities. I think Jo’s last point is the key:
Thanks for the links to my previous posts, Kim. They reinforce what I take to be the thrust of Jo’s argument.
Kim, thanks for the pointers: the posts are nice, but I don’t think so relevant to this particular one, in that unlike this one they are actually well thought out and relatively precisely argued.
My pro-religion comment was based on a bit of reading between the lines, the general sense in the post that Dawkins has insulted the writer personally in some way, combined with “it is religion that has provided the strength for some communities to survive”. (Again, I’d like evidence for this. It’s certainly NOT in GGS or Collapse, and anyway I’m reluctant to grant Jared Diamond omniscience since I certainly don’t believe he’s a god. And I don’t think the argument that during most of history people believed in a god is a particularly good one, since it’s quite natural to want an explanation of what causes lightning/floods/rainbows/whatever and the argument that god did it is as good as any before science helped us figure out exactly what does cause it.)
But honestly whether pro-religion or anti-religion or whatever, I’m much more worried about the absolute lack of a decent argument here - I think Jason Soon pointed that out very nicely in relation to Darwin/Diamond, but the rest of the post seems equally without substance. The only bit that seems reasonable is that arrogant people who think they know everything are really bloody annoying - surely something we can all agree on.
Mark: the can’t we all just get along point is fine. But this post actually does the opposite - it specifically says atheism is as dangerous as religious fundamentalism. Not that fundamentalist atheism (undefined, mind you) is as dangerous as religious fundamentalism. Absolutely no evidence is given for this, other than that the author has hurt feelings. I don’t think Jason’s engaging in hyperbole. I think he’s being as kind to the post as possible. I can find enough atrocities committed not just by religious fundamentalists but in the name of religious fundamentalism. Can anyone provide any example of an atrocity committed not by atheists but by atheists in the name of their atheism? If not, then seriously this post doesn’t contribute to us all getting along, it does the exact opposite.
Dare I say preaching to the converted?
Dawkins has been well known for years as the spewer of hate-filled vitriole (and Dawkins is a true hater). His popular books are just full of petulant drama queen spits. A standard joke amongst some Christians - and great fodder for theatre sports when high drama queen is required.
And yeah Jason, Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, Hitler were all God-fearing Christians too, just to name the better known ones amongst them.
(Y’all just reminded me I bought Diamond’s Gun Germs years ago and never got around to reading it. So for those of us who haven’t read it: do those who have read it think it is still worth reading ?)
Well, I’ll let Jo speak for herself, Christine.
I’ll defend Dawkins and atheism on the grounds that atheism is the very worst ideology…apart from all the others. Trad Dawinian evolution has been suplemented by Mendelian genetics and through works like ‘ Mutual Aid’ by Peter Kropotkin. It’s not ‘ Darwinian’ anymore.
See the consenus on evolution is about a third competition, a third altruism and a third random chance and Dawkins makes a bloody good case for it. Not perfect but perfectly good and much preferrable to religious babble-on imho.
Long live Richard Dawkins because if there was a god it would surely be necessary to destroy it. ( in an undogmatic way of course )
I note that you give no examples - aren’t you supposed to avoid bearing false witness? Christians snigger at Dawkins because they have no answer to his charges of hypocrisy. Dawkins is upset by the lies and fraud of the creationists, and the influence of fanatics in the world.
It doesn’t matter that Stalin, Mao et al were atheists - believers claim to be more moral that unbelievers - but if the best argument they can come up with is “well they did it too” then they have nothing.
Dawkins admits to having an extremely passionate perspective on evolution,etc, in his “The Blind Watchmaker”. There’s a little bit near the beginning (don’t have my copy with me) where he’s talking about an inability to take the opposing view (as in debating societies) on a subject he feels so strongly about.
For myself, atheism is dependent on faith. That is why I’m agnostic. Or as I like to tell people - I would be an atheist, but I don’t have the strength of my lack of convictions.
No, atheism is when you answer the question “Do you believe in god/gods/goddess?” with “no”.
It requires no faith, it is not an ideology, simply an honest appraisal of your own state of mind.
I don’t think you could call Dawkins fundamentalist. Dawkins is not so set in his ideas that if someone could prove to him that what he believes is false or not sensible, he would still cling to it. I believe he mentions this in regard to one of his early professors in the doco. While he may be seen as arrogant, belittling and fundamentalist, I think he is just sure of himself. It is easy to be sure of yourself when most of what you believe can be demonstrated experimentally.
This shouldn’t result in prejudice because people with an equally open mind should be happy to be shown the same things and should then (if they were rational) believe the same things. It is only when others do not want to believe easily demonstrated things, because they cannot have their current preconceptions challenged, that there is friction.
I don’t think Dawkins would mind so much if people still had religion, but did not use it as an excuse to disbelieve other things, eg Evolution*, Geology (case in point, the age of the earth) and Astronomy. I’m not saying science prevents stupidity, but that the more we understand the less we fear - which may lead to more stupidity, but it’s stupidity we can learn from and correct. Which is one of the best things about science: it does not have a set of beliefs that must be adhered to. I’m sure even the scientific method itself, if there could be shown a better way to rigourously discover knowledge, could be superceded.
Finally, I think Jared Diamond is misrepresented as a “pro-science anthropologist”. A quick search will tell you he’s actually a been a professor of Physiology, is now a Professor in Geology and has written papers in the field of Evolutionary Biology. I would guess that his and Dawkin’s scientific beliefs are 99.9% similar, and that the Evolutionary Sociology that you seem to be describing is, like the Evolutionary Psychology of Steven Pinker, on the forefront of scientific research today and should not be used to drive a wedge between two distinguished scientists.
*Why do people insist on calling this Darwinism? I thought only creationists did so they could argue against a 150 year old science instead of the many fields of Genetics, Biochemistry, Evolutionary Biology, Bioinformatics and even Evolutionary Computing.
A few things:
From Jason,
True but Gould was a never as strident a Dawkin’s. Almost the opposite. At times Dawkins rhetorically does not sound any different from your average christian fundamentalist. At other times he is remarkably clear and I do have to agree with him.
Like others I am not impressed that Jo though she could attack Dawkins via a straw-Darwin argument. If only the critics of Dawkins has spent time understanding modern evolutionary ideas. Which is touched upon by Professor Rat though I think Kropoktin is remembered, if at all, as more being a good example of how scientific thinking can be shaped by political and social ideals. A bit like how Spencerian notions of ’survival of the fittest’ and Victorian ideals of progress have had a lingering influence on evolutionary thought (one reason why altruism seems a puzzle to some).
Zarquon:
Well, I suppose that is literally true. However, it begs the next question, which would be along the lines of attempting to justify the position. If theists must ultimately resort to faith (”the miracle of faith” as some call it) to hold their view, then to me, atheists also sup from that cup.
Either way, people are holding as true a position that (at least so far) is not testable or doesn’t lend itself to being proven/disproven.
I just ‘fess up to having no idea, and thinking that no-one really can.
Good point will and one of my pet peeves. ‘Darwinism’ carries with it the notions that nothing has changed sinced the 1850s and Darwin is the only authority on evolution. Modern evolutionary ideas are far more advanced and exciting that the popular caricture of evolution expressed by ‘Darwinism.’
I’m fairly close to your position, spog, but tending towards the atheistic end of the spectrum. I will believe in a god when it becomes necessary to the explanation of the universe to posit one. So far, I have seen no compelling evidence of that need, so I take the default position.
However, I am not anti-religion. Other, better, minds than mine have taken different positions. Religious belief has underpinned great achievements in art, literature, music, architecture and philosophy. An understanding of the relevant belief systems enhances an appreciation of those works. However, for myself, it does not go further than this - religious belief is not necessary to morality or a sense of humility as to one’s place in the world. As Darwin said, “There is a certain grandeur in this view of life …” He’s right, and what science can tell us is big enough so that we can do without spirits and goblins.
I do. I think its a great book even if it probably does fall a little too heavily on the side of environmental determism. His more recent book Collapse is ok, but not nearly so good.
I’ll second all those who objected to the fact that Diamond thinks darwinism is sensationally flawed. Rather its heavily embedded in his own ideas.
Well, I suppose that is literally true. However, it begs the next question, which would be along the lines of attempting to justify the position. If theists must ultimately resort to faith (�the miracle of faith� as some call it) to hold their view, then to me, atheists also sup from that cup.
Either way, people are holding as true a position that (at least so far) is not testable or doesn’t lend itself to being proven/disproven.
I just ‘fess up to having no idea, and thinking that no-one really can.
There was a debate along similar lines at mine a few weeks ago. I think you’re conflating “atheism” with “strong atheism”: weak atheists, OTOH, hold that since there is no evidence that God exists, there is no reason to believe in God’s existence–and this is the kind of “atheism” that Skribe is referring to. (And I suspect, among atheists, it is the majority position.) Dawkins would, I think, fit into the category of the strong atheist.
It doesn’t matter that Stalin, Mao et al were atheists - believers claim to be more moral that unbelievers - but if the best argument they can come up with is “well they did it too� then they have nothing.
The “Hitler was an atheist too” routine (did you know he was a vegetarian, too? And he was German!!) is a genetic fallacy regularly flung at us atheists by certain of our betters. I wouldn’t take it to heart
Hitler as a vegetarian has long been the subject of debate, not that it really matters. Whether he was or not, it had nothing to do with what he did.
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While I’m here, I’ll add that I think Jo Jacobs’ post is “sensationally flawed”:
1) What’s wrong with an antipathy to the paranormal? There are big bucks on offer if you can even do better than chance consistently. Or do you hold with the school of thought that grants the same credence to homeopathy (aka expensive water) and crystals as to scientific medicine?
2) As others here have suggested, post a cite for Jared Diamond’s despription of Darwin’s theories as “sensationally flawed”. I doubt you can. Darwin himself points to opportunism and convenience (and indeed what often looks like sheer caprice) as aspects of the modification of populations by natural selection. The extrapolation of natural selection principles to human cultures was not part of Darwin’s thesis, which concerned inherited characteristics.
3) “Religion has provided the strength for some communities to survive.” This whole paragraph is tendentious. Religion (as argued in Diamond’s Collapse) has also provided the catalyst for societies to disintegrate and vanish. Where is your evidence? Actually, where is your argument?
Jo Jacobs obviously hasn’t hung around enough scientists if she thinks Dawkins is the most arrogant “of them all…”.
If I may get arrogant myself for a moment, why should I treat her with anything other than patronising courtesy if she fails to grasp that “Darwinism”, as she calls it, was a theory about biology. Its adaptation into the social sciences has nothing to do with the overwhelming evidence for its basic correctness in the field of explaining how animals and plants evolve to cope with changing conditions.
I suspect that at the root of comments like Ms. Jacobs’ lies the belief, common among many theists, that without a deity or deities to cater to the whims of, life loses all purpose and meaning. I would disagree. Rather than having a purpose to our lives imposed on us, as an atheist I face the fascinating challenge of deciding for myself what purpose and meaning I choose to place on my existence.
A coupla things
1) It struck me when reading Jacob’s piece that she wasn’t really trying to provoke a fistfight between religion and science, or even a 3 cornered bout between religion. science and the ‘new age.’ So what was she doing? To me it read more like a postmodern attack on the ueber-assuredness and zeal of some scientists; a warning of what could occur if strong atheists (thanks Arthur) were able to achieve a monopoly on truth and wisdom; a partial explanation of why unscientific truths continue to exist and cause mayhem??
2) It strikes me that Evolutionary Biology, or even Darwinism was not, by a long shot, the strongest card for her to play in this game (even if Dawkins appears to be a half-reasonable target - this basaed only on collective LP wisdom.) I too would be fascinated to see this sensational flaw in Darwin’s logic.
Woah. Mark did warn me that this post was likely to elicit a robust debate but I didn’t think I’d be responding to 35 messages before lunch! However, I’m very pleased to be able to respond to your comments and thank you all for participating in this ongoing discussion - truly a wonderful example of the power of blogging.
I thought I’d respond by addressing some of the key points raised rather than addressing each post in turn - this seems to be a more efficient approach. And as I read it, there are about three main issues that have been raised in comments: the notion of atheism as a fundamentalist perspective, my use of Diamond’s work in Guns, Germs and Steel as a source to support my questioning of Dawkins’ extreme position, and the notion of opportunism as being an influencing factor in human community sustainability. I will therefore focus my response on these key issues.
Firstly, some commentators questioned my description of Dawkins as taking a fundamentalist atheist approach. I stand by that claim. The definition of an atheist is quite clear: it is not merely scepticism, but a conviction that there are no higher forces operating on, nor influencing human societies. Dawkins’s pettiness and derision of religious groups and their leaders displays an arrogance that is hardly admirable, but it also demonstrates a kind of fundamentalism: an approach that is as separatist and divisive as any form of religious fundamentalism. Dawkins is a militant scientific philosopher. He sets out to expose religious groups and their followers as ignorant and misguided. But in doing so, he oversimplifies the supremacy of science as a guiding philosophy, and he goes dangerously close to indicating that anyone who questions the predominance of current scientific theory as being the indomitable quest for truth is a heathen who needs conversion. For Dawkins (somewhat ironically), religion of any kind is heresy. That’s fundamentalism. It doesn’t require a belief in deities; it merely requires an extreme position.
Then some comments that questioned my use of Jared Diamond’s wok in Guns, Germs and Steel I take entirely on board some people believing I was referring to Diamond’s later work, Collapse (and in truth I probably was referring to Diamond’s full body of work, including Collapse in my original post), but it was in Guns, Germs and Steel that he poses a direct challenge to pure Darwinism as a primary factor in the survival and adaptation of human cultures. He argues that the introduction of specific instruments and geographical peculiarities (including prevalence of disease carrying wildlife) bear a much more significant influence on human culture development and sustainability than has previously been acknowledged. It is this thesis - that something other than pure natural selection - that I refer to as a pro-science source to argue that there are factors other than pure biology that can influence the sustainability of human cultures. The opportunism I refer to in my original post is taken directly from Diamond’s work: it is opportunism, he argues, that resulted in the dominance of some human cultures over others. Not natural selection, nor intellectual supremacy, opportunism is simply the capacity to exploit the environment for their natural advantage. Religion itself could be considered a form of opportunism. When a community needs an objective for collective effort, religion can focus that effort.
I suppose I’m suggesting that religion could well be regarded as a sustaining aspect of some societies as well as a destructive one. Indeed it is an over-simplification to say as Dawkins does, that religious fervour is mere theatre. Among religious communities there are proponents who would argue that their spiritualism is not merely a consciousness of connection to their people and their God(s), but a rationale for happiness and productivity within their community. But I use Diamond’s work, because I find it a much more exploratory and rational approach in understanding the role of evolution and natural selection than the rhetoric promoted by Dawkins.
I also refer to the arrogance of Dawkins in assuming that science alone can explain our place in the universe. Dawkins lauds science as being a “X of doubt” and cites an episode of one scientist congratulating another for proving him wrong, as being evidential of the supremacy and rationality of scientific thought. But this simply isn’t relaistic. The reality of the scientific community is that there is much robust debate about the supposed “truth” of many scientific laws, and rather than congratulating one another over new theories that challenge previously accepted positions, there is often a strong political response against new theory and there have been celebrated examples of scientists attempting to undermine each other for controversial propositions and claimed “evidence”. Dawkins is petty in his critique of religious groups and over-simplifying in his representation of the scientific community as occupying a moral high ground when compared with religious groups.
I suppose I should also declare my interests here: I am agnostic, and have no interest in promoting religious activism. And I have a family of scientists: my father was a bio-chemist, one uncle is an atmospheric physicist, and another is a medical doctor. My aunt is a research scientist in human fertility and my cousins are all working in science-related fields. I’m also advocating the BrisScience Public Lecture Series. So I am not speaking from a pro-religion, nor anti-science perspective. However I do regard Dawkins as a dangerously simplistic and fundamentalist commentator on the fallibility of religion and the supremacy of science. I think he falls victim to the very fundamentalism he seeks to suppress.
There’s no such thing as fundamentalist atheism because there is no atheistic ideology. It is simply an absence of belief. The advocates of darwinistic, humanistic, naturalistic and materialistic ideologies may be atheists but that isn’t a requirement.
Guns, Germs and Steel, if I remember it correctly, isn’t very concerned at all with Darwin or natural selection. It does deal tangentially with evolution, particularly in chapters that deal with viruses adapting to exploit herd mammals and plants becoming domesticated. The thrust of the story, though, is about how environment shaped the development of human cultures. Humans that had already evolved. We more-or-less stopped evolving well before Diamond’s narrative started (something to do with a lack of natural predators), so Darwin really doesn’t come into it.
Jo, how do you define ‘darwinism’? Another point is that even if survival and adaption of human cultures can be explained by other factors than ‘pure natural selection’ (and I agree with you here) it has no significance on the validity of Darwin. I’d say we are seeing a misapplication of Darwin’s ideas more than anything.
Jo Jacobs
Whenever I hear and/or read scientists going hammer and tongs trying to “prove” that there is no god, religion is bunk, etc. I just shake my head at their bone-headed naivety. What they do not seem to “get” is that religion serves a very powerful human need for transcendence. We want to transcend the here and now, the tangible, and the effable. We want to be transported from the hum-drum reality that is the limit of what science has to offer the human experience.
Further to what Shaun said: disease bearing wildlife and the adoption of tools and geographical issues are all part of natural selection, aren’t they? They all put pressures on populations which shape what happens to those populations. Just because tool use is something humans ‘take up’ themselves doesn’t mean that it isn’t to do with ’selection’.
Perhaps we disagree on what fundamentalism is. I thought it was the belief of infallibility and literal interpretation of sacred texts (eg Fundamentalist Christianity and Islam) and the belief in absolute authority.
I don’t think you can accuse scientists of that. They hold nothing infallible. They don’t dogmatically believe anything. They don’t believe that authority makes things right, correct or true.
What you seem to be saying is that to be a fundamentalist, “merely requires an extreme position”. I don’t think this is a good definition, because it doesn’t encompass the assuredness of their belief that other fundamentalists have. I think the key part to being fundamentalist is the belief in some things in spite of any conceiveable evidence to the contrary. I don’t think this is a fair thing to accuse Richard Dawkins of (Did you know that both Jared Diamond and Dawkins are on the editorial board of Skeptic Magazine?).
I’m sure if you could show him of them how a religious society (based on a religion that didn’t require him to suspend his critical mind) would be better than a secular one, he would be all the happier.
What Diamond was attacking in Guns, Germs & Steel was an argument mounted by racist historians and anthropologists that the success of Europeans in the last 500 years was due to some innate advantages and was therefore an example of natural selection. Darwin never said this. Diamond (correctly, I think) said that geographic, climatic and ecological (ie abundance of species amenable to agriculture) conditions favoured Europeans and that their success was due to exploitation of those advantages rather than any inherent superiority. He debunked social Darwinism which is a different kettle of fish altogether to scientific Darwinism (by which varieties of organisms become differentiated into species).
But will, is it fair to say that some scientist believe in the authority of sciense; that one scientific observation can only shown fallible by another scientific observation?
So read a book, have some chocolate, listen to some sublime music, swim, go to an art gallery, play sport, meditate, dance, walk among tall cypresses with a dog, sing, philosophise or watch a play.
Religion doesn’t have a monopoly on transcendence!
The appalling spelling and forgotten words in my last pot have convinced me that it’s time to go out and seek some extra-computer transcendence of my own.
will
Don’t tell me, tell the religionists. But why do YOU care?
We want to be transported from the hum-drum reality that is the limit of what science has to offer the human experience.
It’s sad people think this.
Look at these
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or
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just to pick to that happened to cross my path this morning. Real transcendance and wonder and awe, in my view, not just stories made up for the purpose of social control.
If you don’t get this, you ou are missing out in a big way on transcendance.
A friend has pointed me to a relevant Guardian article on this subject, that may more clearly articulate my concerns about Dawkins:
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Thought it might be of further interest in this debate!
Amanda
What a truly bizarre thing to think. You are sad because of the way people seek transcendence? In fact, religious belief is one of the KEY traits of the happiest people. Why do you think people like Margo Kingston and Phillip Adams are so bitter?
That Dylan Evans article was annoying a year ago and it still is.
PZ Myers has it down:
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As Dawkins has said, religion plays with knuckle dusters but expects to be treated with kid gloves in return.
I agree with Amanda. And the Guardian article meshes closely with my views above.
I agree with Amanda.
Believe what you want, LQ, just don’t use the word ‘we’
Seconding Amanda: I’m always kinda miffed that people think disbelief in the supernatural implies a ‘boring’, ‘humdrum’ vision of existance.
Have such people actually read some of the current Big bang theories?
What’s ‘humdrum’ about the Singularity?
Positrons? Black holes?
All the matter and the energy in the universe, yea, even time compressed into a single particle and then unleashed?
String theory?
Quantum mechanics?
You aren’t going to find anything as cool as that in the Bible. Just a load of ‘begats’.
But will, is it fair to say that some scientist believe in the authority of sciense; that one scientific observation can only shown fallible by another scientific observation?
I don’t follow. Are there other ways to falsify scientific claims?
Jason, chill man, I mean like the royal pronoun: ‘We’ y’know?
Well I guess it depends what the scientific claim is, Arthur. You can posit that there are forces or aspects pertaining to a particular situation (say, the historical collapse of a particular society) which cannot (at least for now) be scientifically proven yet which may in fact significantly alter the result. Im coming from a ’social science’ background when I say this, but it could be extended to other areas.
My gripe is not really with what science proves, but what it assumes is disproven or invalid and the conclusions drawn thereupon. That’s what makes some scientists effectively fundamentalist. There really is only one ‘text’, but it’s not a book so much as a set of (very well developed and defensible) rules.
The dude knows.
The dude knows.
No. The dude abides.
Who has ever argued for
Not Dawkins, and not Darwin. That’s a complete straw man.
Kate, tool use and other cultural changes in humans do form part of the environment within which our genes replicate, so they do exert selection pressure on humans — e.g. perhaps manual dexterity becomes selected for more strongly. But because culture is transmitted across the generations by example/teaching cultures change much faster than, and independently of our genes. So tool development is not caused by natural selection, while (say) brain size is.
Dawkins understands this, which is why he’s interested in the (speculative) idea of memes.
Guns, Germs and Steel was a fascinating book, but in no way anti-Darwinian.
You can posit that there are forces or aspects pertaining to a particular situation (say, the historical collapse of a particular society) which cannot (at least for now) be scientifically proven yet which may in fact significantly alter the result.
Could you be more specific?
My gripe is not really with what science proves, but what it assumes is disproven or invalid and the conclusions drawn thereupon. That’s what makes some scientists effectively fundamentalist. There really is only one ‘text’, but it’s not a book so much as a set of (very well developed and defensible) rules.
Hate to be pedantic here, but science isn’t about proving anything. Its truth-claims are based on the available evidence, and may be overturned by the discovery of new evidence.
This article seems apposite here.
Close, Leinad, ‘All the matter and the energy in the universe, yea, even time compressed into a single particle and then unleashed?’, Hebrews 11:3: ‘By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.’ No begats there, just a created universe, whihc closely fits ‘big bang’ theory,and not even from a scientific document.
The problem with faith is that it doesn’t require physical evidence. Once a thing is evidenced scientiifically it no longer requires faith, since it is experienced and concrete. If Dawkins wants to challenge anything he needs to challenge the fact of faith itself, rather than the ‘evidence’ of a God or gods, based on the writings of those who represent God or gods. If an entity truly is God why would that God even be bothered with the unbelief of a finite, limited being such as Dawkins? Surely God would allow his own people, some of whom are able to operate at least at the equivalent intellectual level, deal with such an impudent, faithless person. God is only interested in faith, therefore Dawkins has to disprove or disqualify faith itself, rather than religion, or even the God or gods of that religion, but you can’t do this scientifically. The evidence is that faith does exist, and is prevelant amongst many cultures, and has indeed aided cultures in their conception, development, and in some cases destruction.
I get the impression Dawkins presented his doco rather like John Laws runs ‘talk-back’, where he allows people to comment, but has his hand firmly on the volume control, and always has the loudest microphone, so that, if the debate goes against his own arguement he can easily eliminate the ‘opposition’ by fading them out, and add a derogatory comment as they vanish into the background.
FaceLift, If religions stuck to holding personal beliefs, that might be OK, but they don’t. They make truth claims such as “humans didn’t evolve from apes”. They also use their faith to impose their ideas on mankind “You will go to Hell if you use a condom”, “It’s OK to kill heretics”, “Some races are born to be hewers of wood and drawers of water”, “God says we can have this land” and so on.
Faith is by definition unreason, and using unreason in claims about reality is asking for trouble.
Once they stop doing that I’ll stop objecting to religion.
If we don’t use an observation, what are we meant to use? We can’t disprove something based on a guess, or what we would like it to be! We can have competing mathematical models, that show different results, like String theory as opposed to the Standard model, but one does not prove or disprove the other. Scientists, especially mathematicians know that there are rules, authorities if you will, to what we can do with our models, such as Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems and Turing’s Halting Problem, but these are rules that emerge out of models that they use. If the model was different, then these would not necessarily apply.
I don’t understand what you are getting at. Science isn’t an authority, it has only the authority of our own observations. It is just a collection of guesses people make at explaining what they see. It does a good job of it and it is useful so we accept it.
Perhaps the problem you have is by calling these things scientific observation. There isn’t really any difference between the observation a scientist makes and the one you or I do. You don’t need a superpower, you don’t necessarily even need lab equipment. Back in the old days people timed things by singing songs. Science isn’t some unreachable thing that is out of bounds to most people.
So if we could just come up with a new idea that shows simply how evolution (for example) is wrong, and could do some experiments that show we don’t inherit traits from our parents, but rather solely from our environment (for arguments sake) and shows that the current method was all just a mistrake, then the scientific community would be pretty impressed. Sure, there would be a fair amount of kerfuffle (you don’t want to get rid of something that seemed to have worked for a while), but if it made sense, and people all over the world could do similar experiments, it would eventually be used. However, we use the results of evolution all the time in medicine and computing, and oodles of experiments have shown theory to be in accordance with observation.
Religion doesn’t provide us with that. Some tell us not to believe what we see, others accept what we see and also believe in things that contradict this. I suppose science has the problem that it morally believes is not right to think two opposite things at the same time. It doesn’t want to get rid of what it can see to be true, so it discards the other. Since what it sees is the same as everyone else can too, it doesn’t believe that other people should hold on to what is now shown to be false. Especially when they spread the falsehoods to others.
The evidence is that faith does exist,
Sorry . . . but what the hell does that mean??
No you can do it logically. The faiths of multiple religions are contradictory, they cannot all be true. They can, however, all be wrong.
So faith does nothing except grant people unwarranted certainty. After all, you don’t believe in sacrificing hecatombs to Zeus or Joseph Smith’s golden plates and angel Moroni, so why anyone should take faith as showing anything except that people will believe just about anything.
Well, Arthur, faith exists because people have faith. You can’t qualify that scientifically. They just believe, or want to believe in the existance of life beyond what they know aandd see and can scientifically demonstrate or prove. You may find tis strange, but that conclusion doesn’t nullify their need to believe in something beyond their understanding. You can call it what you will, superstition, faith, belief, and you can call it illogical, but you can’t dismiss it with mere reason or logic.
Zarquon,
Whether faiths are contradictory or not is irrelevant, since faith isn’t defined by what you believe in, but by the fact that you have the power or ability to believe in something. Dawkins attempts to dismiss faith by attempting to apply logic based on his own worldview and influences to discredit something he doesn’t believe in himself, and fails because another person’s worldview and influences aren’t based on what he believes. The attempts to project his own worldview and ‘faith’ (which is his belief systeem) on others in such a bumblingly heavyhanded way imitates the people he targets - the ones he claims to say, ‘if you don’t adopt my religion you’ll burn in hell’. He’ll be forever frustrated by this.
‘Unwarranted certainty’ is strong evidence of faith, and is quite a good descriptor. How do you account for the fact that it is very difficult to detach a person with faith from that faith, and often theyr’re willinmg to die for that faith?
Tom,
What makes you think that there is a rule about faith that says it has to be kept personal?
“God is only interested in faith …”
I think this makes God sound a little strange. Further, I wonder about a God who fills his scriptures with statements of fact and then leaves heaps of physical evidence to the contrary, only to damn you to hell when you start to believe the evidence. It’s like selling you a vacuum cleaner with a clause in the warranty that if you are dissatisfied and buy a competing brand, the manufacturer will send a hitman around to your house to torture you to death.
shame that isn’t true Bismark.
Perhaps you are stuck in the nineteenth century!
Yes, I did God a disservice, Bismark, in that I meant he’s not responsive to person’s unbelief, but is responsive to faith. Of course, he’s interested in all things.
Without wanting to start or have a desire to go into a debate about the merits of scripture, or contradictions you or others may find, I’ll just say that I’m mostly pinpointing the fact that there is part of the human makeup which yearns to believe in something/one beyond our comprehension. Some here can claim that they are detached from this phenomenon, but the majority of the world’s population does experience this desire for connection with the otherworldly. I believe science can exist alongside this. The attempt to ridicule people for being religious does scinece little credit, since people will still believe regardless.
I’ll go back to the point I made at the top of the thread. Faith may be “by definition unreason” but that doesn’t have to mean it’s a negation of reason. That’s why the Catholic Church and several Popes in the Twentieth Century have been happy to accept both a non-literal reading of the Bible and evolutionary theory. A lot of this debate misses the mark because it’s between two polarised positions, and I think that’s what Jo was getting at in the post.
For my part, I was only poking fun at those who believe that accepting evolution is a path to hell. I don’t think Facelift and BBEP hold those views. No offence fellas!