Posted on 12/18/2006 8:12:55 AM PST by SJackson
Reviewers have not been kind to The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, professor of something called "the public understanding of science" at Oxford. Critics have found it to be the atheist's mirror image of Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism - long on in-your-face rhetoric and offensively dismissive of all those holding an opposing view.
Princeton University philosopher Thomas Nagel found Dawkins's "attempts at philosophy, along with a later chapter on religion and ethics, particularly weak." Prof. Terry Eagleton began his London Review of Books critique: "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the British Book of Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology."
Dawkins's "central argument" is that because every complex system must be created by an even more complex system, an intelligent designer would have had to be created by an even greater super-intellect.
New York Times reviewer Jim Holt described this argument as the equivalent of the child's question, "Mommy, who created God?"
Nagel provides the grounds for rejecting this supposed proof. People do not mean by God "a complex physical inhabitant of the natural world" but rather a Being outside the physical world - the "purpose or intention of a mind without a body, capable nevertheless of creating and forming the entire physical world."
He points out further that the same kind of problem Dawkins poses to the theory of design plagues evolutionary theory, of which Dawkins is the preeminent contemporary popularizer. Evolution depends on the existence of pre-existing genetic material - DNA - of incredible complexity, the existence of which cannot be explained by evolutionary theory.
So who created DNA? Dawkins's response to this problem, writes Nagel, is "pure hand-waving" - speculation about billions of alternative universes and the like.
As a charter member of the Church of Darwin, Dawkins not only subscribes to evolutionary theory as the explanation for the morphology of living creatures, but to the sociobiologists' claim that evolution explains all human behavior. For sociobiologists, human development, like that of all other species, is the result of a ruthless struggle for existence. Genes seek to reproduce themselves and compete with one another in this regard. In the words of the best-known sociobiologist, Harvard's E.O. Wilson, "An organism is only DNA's way of making more DNA."
THAT PICTURE of human existence, argues the late Australian philosopher of science David Stove in Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity and Other Fables of Evolution, constitutes a massive slander against the human race, as well as a distortion of reality.
The Darwinian account, for instance, flounders on widespread altruistic impulses that have always characterized humans in all places and times. Nor can it explain why some men act as heroes even though by doing so they risk their own lives and therefore their capacity to reproduce, or why societies should idealize altruism and heroism. How, from an evolutionary perspective, could such traits have developed or survived?
The traditional Darwinian answer is that altruism is but an illusion, or a veneer of civilization imposed upon our real natures. That answer fails to explain how that veneer could have come about in the first place. How could the first appeal to higher moral values have ever found an author or an audience? David Stove offers perhaps the most compelling reason for rejecting the views of those who deny the very existence of human altruism: "I am not a lunatic."
IN 1964, biologist W.D. Hamilton first expounded a theory explaining how much of what appears to us as altruism is merely genes' clever way of assuring the propagation of their type via relatives sharing that gene pool. The preeminent defender of Darwin - Dawkins - popularized this theory in The Selfish Gene.
Among the predictions Hamilton made is: "We expect to find that no one is prepared to sacrifice his life for any single person, but that everyone will sacrifice it for more than two brothers [or offspring], or four half-brothers, or eight first cousins," because those choices result in a greater dissemination of a particular gene pool.
To which Stove responds: "Was an expectation more obviously false than this one ever held (let alone published) by any human being?" Throughout history, men have sacrificed themselves for those bearing no relationship to them, just as others have refused to do so for more than two brothers. Here is a supposedly scientific theory bearing no relationship to any empirical reality ever observed. Stove offers further commonsense objections: Parents act more altruistically toward their offspring than siblings toward one another, even though in each pair there is an overlap of half the genetic material. If Hamilton's theory were true, we should expect to find incest widespread. In fact, it is taboo. Finally, the theory is predicated on the dubious proposition that animals, or their genes, can tell a sibling from a cousin, and a cousin from other members of the same species.
SOCIOBIOLOGY, Stove demonstrates, is a religion and genes are its gods. In traditional religion, humans exist for the greater glory of God; in sociobiology, humans and all other living things exist for the benefit of their genes. "We are... robot-vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes," writes Dawkins. Like God, Dawkins's genes are purposeful agents, far smarter than man.
He describes how a certain cuckoo parasitically lays its eggs in the nest of the reed warbler, where the cuckoo young get more food by virtue of their wider mouths and brighter crests, as a process in which the cuckoo genes have tricked the reed warbler. Thus, for Dawkins, genes are capable of conceiving a strategy no man could have thought of and of putting into motion the complicated engineering necessary to execute that strategy.
Writing in 1979, Prof. R.D. Alexander made the bald assertion: "We are programmed to use all our effort, and in fact to use our lives, in production." And yet it is obvious that most of what we do has nothing to do with reproduction, and never more so than at the present, when large parts of the civilized world are becoming rapidly depopulated. Confronted with these obvious facts about human nature and behavior, sociobiologists respond by ascribing them to "errors of heredity."
As Stove tartly observes: "Because their theory of man is badly wrong, they say that man is badly wrong; that he incorporates many and grievous biological errors." But the one thing a scientific theory may never do, Stove observes, is "reprehend the facts."
It may observe them, or predict new facts to be discovered, but not criticize those before it. The only question that remains is: How could so many intelligent men say so many patently silly things? For Dawkins, the answer would no doubt be one of those evolutionary "misfires," such as that to which he attributes religious belief.
Both have a foundation in faith, not reason. That's something the Darwinists never admitted to.
Here's the gist in layman's terms; scientists have fruit fly A, a female.
They breed fruit flies B and C from that single female.
They seperate fruit flies B and C. Let's say that Fruit FLy B has a slight mutation.
The generations from fruit flies B and C eventually evolved to the point that they were unable to interbreed.
In other words, the ancestors of fruit fly B and C couldn't make babies even though they both came from fruit fly A. The generations birthed from Fruit Fly A branched off into two seperate species.
That is evolution plain and simple.
As historian Paul Johnson has written, the history of the 20th Century (dominated by the rise and fall of facism and communism) was a record of what happens when man and society reject the notion of God.
Isn't that close to multiculturalism?
No...
Can't we say for instance that being a practicing Presbyterian is better than being a Pol Pot follower? A devout Buddhist better than being a Nazi. A productive agnostic better than being a serial killer? A stumble down drunk better than a terrorist suicide bomber?
I'm not saying all belief systems are equal. I'm saying that I believe mine is at least as moral and valid as any out there. I have my belief system and morals that I have reasons for believing in. I'm willing to discuss and even change my beliefs, but not when I'm being condescended to by someone who is convinced they have the monopoly on truth.
Ultimately this is a claim of all religions. Follow these rule to be better and more moral. If you didn't believe that why would you be a believer and follower?
Sure. But I don't believe that religion is necessary to have morals. I believe I am leading a moral life without any religion. Some religions believe that it is possible to be moral and not doomed to damnation even if you aren't a member of their religion. Others don't. I have a problem with any religious that would consider me less moral purely because of my religous beliefs or lack thereof.
or when anyone gives me the "I'm right, you're wrong" line.
Are you objecting to them saying it or believing it?
Good question. I'm objecting to those who assert it dogmatically. Of course everyone believes they are right, and I expect people to be able to defend their positions. I have a problem with people who will say words to the effect of, "You don't believe what I believe, therefore, ipso facto, you are wrong and I am right."
Hi RA! I realize that there are people who claim to be atheists who are very fine moral upstanding folk.
On the other hand, I submit as evidence the folks who bring us MTV, VH1 and the politically correct favorites, the homosexual activists. I shouldn't have been so surprised but I found that they had a sex club set up in my kids brand new high school from the day it opened 3 years ago.
The agenda is the usual "sexual experimentation for the kids" and "don't condemn homosexuality until you've tried it."
I also submit for evidence "post-Christian" Western Europe. While they celebrate their "liberation" from backward religion, they've embraced sex with animals, sex with kids, nudity in public entertainment and advertising, (best Yul Brynner voice) etc., etc., etc.
At the same time they've neglected to remember to reproduce. Maybe the Eastern Europeans will colonize their countries, but the Muslims could win control through their ruthlessness.
I never encounter anyone like this in my daily business. There must be something wrong with me.
Two different species of fruitflies. But one never sees the emergence of, say, a bird or a mammal from the offspring of either Fruitfly B or C.
"I am amazed how much atheism is growing around the world.. "
Be of good cheer.
At least you should be cheered up a bit if you get a copy of this book.
(By the way, the author's Oxford office is pretty close to Richard Dawkin's)
The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World
by Alister Mcgrath
http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Atheism-Disbelief-Modern-World/dp/0385500610/sr=1-2/qid=1166468979/ref=pd_bbs_2/105-0208284-0061234?ie=UTF8&s=books
Both have a foundation in faith, not reason. That's something the Darwinists never admitted to.
My original comment was a dumb thing to say, and not true. The science types I've known are very open to reason, it's just that creationists don't offer any. I was trying to get creationists to see themselves in the mirror, and I failed. That would be an impossible task.
What creationists refuse to recognize is that it takes zero faith to accept evolution. The evidence is overwelming. Instead they get hung up on the original creation of life, which by definition was *not* evolution, and about which science doesn't know much about.
That's the biggest difference between science and faith. Science will admit what it does not know, while the faithful know everything.
I've gone on too long already. I'm sure your mind closed up at the top somewhere.
I encounter them everyday here at FR...
One has never seen an atom split, but Hiroshima was laid waist.
But the emergence of a new species IS EXACTLY what evolution is. So if you admit that two new species of fruit flies evolved from one another you are acknowledging evolution.
Of course it would take millions of years for a new GENUS to emerge. But these experiments along with the massive amount of fossil and genetic data makes the case for the theory of evolution.
I ask, what is your explanation for the vast variety of living organisms on earth? Let me hear your "theory".
Nonsense. If the evidence was overwhelming, the debate would have been over long ago.
No one disputes micro-evolution -- variations within species. The dispute is over macro-evolution, where a fruit fly becomes, through small changes over time, a human being, or at least something entirely different than a fruit fly.. Sounds ridiculous, but that IS EXACTLY what evolution teaches.
Dawkins has his beliefs, I have mine.
God spoke, and it was. If you're looking for the scientific, naturalist explanation for the mechanism, it doesn't exist. Such are the limits of science. Darwinism is the best explanation for the diversity of life, having taken God out of the equation. But many of us are not convinced that it is necessary to take God out of the equation, and that certainly the Darwinists haven't given a compelling reason to take God out. I respect science, but I accept the more humble perspective that science hasn't explained everything, and may never explain everything.
The debate is essentially over, as far as the scientific community is concerned.
The presence of fringe elements persists long after the 'debate' is over and the rest of the world has moved on. I am sure you could find more than a few people willing to 'debate' the merits of ley-lines, dowsing, psychic surgery and Atlantis.
People who are quick to take offense maybe ought to try to understand that the "offender" in this case is trying to help them. They are under no coercion to accept that help. But a Christian is under an obligation to offer it:
“So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me.Perhaps we Christians could manage to find a way to "help" that doesn't set people off into such a frumious tizzy....“If I say to the wicked, O wicked man, you shall surely die; and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.
“But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way; he shall die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your soul.” -- Ezekiel 33: 7-9
In any case, one's personal actions speak louder than words here....
Thanks so much for writing, metmom!
Sure it would .. it would mean a non Evolution species creation mechanism exists I.E. two paths to "species" .. that in no claims Evolution done not happen but it does mean Evolution can not be the only explanation of every "species"
It would also mean non Evolution species creation must happen before any Evolution can happen... so Evolution can not claim to be origin species but only modifier of original specie... it's the different of being the inventor of the "wheel" and been the modifier of the wheel to it many forms
I'm not arguing if Evolution is or isn't but the logical ramification of saying "The appearance of the very first living cell is outside of the scope of the Theory of Evolution, plain and simple."…. That a loads statement that takes a sledge hammer to some peoples foundational premise of how think work if they think about it
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