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.
Various religions? There is ONLY One Creator. It's what HE says that is true, not 'various relgions'.
Noting that this is a News/Activism thread, what kind of political solution would you propose to implement this idea that people should only engage in discussion of the one, true Creator?
(Manipulating definitions and making arbitrary distinctions between theories just to prop one up is what's intellectually dishonest.)
Ironic you say this because that is EXACTLY what you are doing. You are redefining evolution in your own mind. Let me try again:
First, you are getting your terms wrong. Abiogenesis is not in of itself a theory. It simply means the generation of life from non living matter. There really is no dispute that we are essentially made of Carbon and other assorted elements, which is non-living matter. There are many theories as to how these elements that we are made of were formed together. Those theories fall into the realm of CHEMISTRY, not BIOLOGY. None of them have anything to do with evolution. Evolution is a biological theory and therefore does not deal with non-living matter.
Let me try this example:
Scientific evidence makes it more likely than not that OJ Simpson killed his wife. If we one day found out that OJ's father wasn't his REAL father, would that have any bearing on whether or not he killed Nicole Brown? THe only way that evidence could be thrown out is if we came to the conclusion that a man named Orenthal James SImpson never existed.
We have to stipulate that OJ Simpson and Nicole Brown were living existing humans before we can talk about the murders. How they they arrived on the planet earth is irrelevant.
So THe Theory of OJ killing Nicole has nothing to do with the ORIGIN OF OJ SIMPSON. If OJ were adopted, the Theory of OJ Killing Nicole still stands, if OJ was rocketed to earth from the planet krypton, HE STILL KILLED NICOLE BROWN SIMPSON. If Johnnie Cochran tried to introduce evidence of OJ's parentage, he would be laughed out of court.
Is that clear now?
Refer back to my original post. The faithful have faith despite evidence. They say that love makes you blind, and when you love God, you're blind to anything that might make Him less in your eyes. It's just too bad that literal readings of the Bible turn accepting the facts of science into a critique against God. There are plenty of confusing and unclear parts of the Bible and a great many Christians have concluded that Genesis is one of those and they still love God and accept the truth of evolution.
The sad thing is that if a creationist ever does begin to understand science, they're forced to reevaluate their faith in God. It didn't need to be that way.
Catholics once believed that the Earth was the center of the solar system, and it was a strain on their faith when they were forced by the truth to believe otherwise. Genesis literalists are in the same conundrum, and don't know it.
As for me, I'll put my credentials as an amateur paleozoologist up against yours any day of the week. You see, my hobby inclines me to keep abreast of the latest stuff coming down the pike. Heck, I even learned to use Google scholar to read some of the original works rather than rely on second-hand filtering by various outlets.
In other words, one can be an informed amateur provided one actually make an effort. Unfortunately, I have yet to see many people go that extra mile. They would rather someone else digest the data and feed them only that pablum that agrees with their particular inclinations.
"That's the biggest difference between science and faith. Science will admit what it does not know, while the faithful know everything."
Funny considering how scientists will stridently defend their pet theories even if proven wrong. Max Planck put it best:
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
--Max Planck
How does that article refute any tenet of the Theory of Evolution?
"...because every complex system must be created by an even more complex system.."
I find it difficult to believe that Dawkins would use this premise as it implies an "intelligent designer" somewhere. Using this premise he essentially undermines evolution.
--Max Planck
If that's true, then there is no such thing as objecively verifiable scientific inquiry. It's all simply propaganda. You sure you want to run with that?
No, I'm not talking about any kind of numerology. I'm talking about divinely provided seals on the content of most of the masoretic text through messages encoded in "long equidistant letter sequences." Some of them are so long as to deconstruct the concept of probability.
"If that's true, then there is no such thing as objecively verifiable scientific inquiry. It's all simply propaganda. You sure you want to run with that?"
Why would I want to run with a false dilemma?
That stuff was debunked years ago. Equidistant letter sequences can be found in the text of just about any book, especially if it is written in Hebrew, where vowels are omitted making the text more open to interpretation.
No Christians I know would dream of putting their faith into such a dubious mechanism.
Are these "long equidistant letter sequences" based on numerical analysis of the text?
I'm not talking about various creators, I agree there's only one. I'm talking about debating the flaws in the theory of evolution, not proselytizing any particular religious sect or belief, no matter how worthy.
Every single discussion doesn't have to turn into trying to convince someone to convert. In fact, every discussion shouldn't turn into that. No better way to alienate people who might be otherwise interested in the debate. You gotta take people step by step, not hit them over the head with everything you've got all at once.
It is entirely possible to destroy Darwinist flaws without mentioning any religious concepts at all. Just destroying their arguments is a great service to humanity.
I've met a number of folks in the latter category. Honestly, though, a religion is known by the actions of its followers. Islam isn't considered a bloodthirsty and barbaric religion simply because Christians say so. When someone sees Christians gloating at the prospect of their enemies burning forever in Hell, or who preach loudly it s their way or the highway, it's bound to turn him or her off.
"By their fruits you'll know them" and all that...
As stated, there is no dilemma. All the terms appear to be unqualified absolutes. Scientific theory is advanced through the longevity of it's proponents, and has nothing to do with the validity of the theory itself.
Perhaps I might be able to articulate an answer to that question after I get through the book.
(It is entirely possible to destroy Darwinist flaws without mentioning any religious concepts at all. Just destroying their arguments is a great service to humanity.)
I would love to hear you "destroy Darwinist flaws". Please proceed, this should be interesting. I submit that it is even easier to destory biblical flaws.
I would only recommend Richard Dawkins awesome new book for people who are mentally ready to pull their heads out of the sand long enough to read it.
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