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.
I'd consider it enumeration. A=1, B=2 is no different than 1=A, 2=B, which is what you're doing. Every character is enumerated, assigned a number, and then you arrive at a meaning by iterating through multiples of a given number.
"Show me one "top expert" (actual scientist working in the field) who even acknowledges ID when doing science."
OK, one more. No, they don't explicitly acknowledge ID, but they *cannot* explain the first living cell by purely naturalistic, "random" processes. Until they can explain it, ID is really the only alternative, whether they or you realize it or not.
And the problem is not just that we "don't yet know" how it happened, the problem for naturalists is that mathematicians have essentially proven that the first living cell could not have come together by random chance.
It would seem so, but I know a woman that calls herself an atheist, but also claims to be a witch.
No, that is not it.
They don't assign anything. It's simply reading, but skipping over some of the characters. The only place where the number comes in at all is in identifying what the particular spacing is. The spacing is something that has to be found by examination of the text; you can't just decide for yourself; it's just what is there.
What is observable is the great diversity of species on the earth. What is also observable are modifications or adaptation within a specie -- micro changes. What is not observable is the mechanism of "evolution" giving rise to new species.
Only a fool would deny that the concept of gravity is bogus. Step off a tall building, and "theory" is confirmed. Shoot a manned spaceship out into space with the assumption that gravity is a bogus idea, and we'll never hear from that ship's crew again as it will be flung out into the far reaches of space...by gravity. But if I say that "evolution is bogus," nobody, including myself, dies. What does it matter? Darwinism may be an interesting speculation, but as an solid explanation or a "law" to base other disciplines on, it's hardly critical to anything. David Berlinsky mused that, "The problem facing us at the [beginning of a new century] with a magnificent body of theoretical accomplishments in physics and mathematics, and a very rich body of descriptive material in biology, is to come to an understanding that when it comes to the large global issues that Darwin's theory is intended to address, we simply do not have a clue. This is a daunting admission to make, but if we're intellectually honest, we should make it. The mechanism that Darwin proposed, that of random search or a stochastic shuffle is known to be inadequate in every domain in which it's applied. It's known to be inadequate in linguistics, and it's certainly inadequate when it comes to the overwhelming complexity of living forms. There is no reason on earth to believe that this mechanism is adequate to the task that it sets itself." So why do people still hold onto it? I can understand scientists still seeking proofs for the theory. Fine. That's the nature of science. But to make grandiose claims about how it is a "fact," and the "debate has been settled," is, as I characterized it in an earlier comment, simply arrogance.
It means that (1) not to just trust scientists based on some kind of moral standing, (2) just because a scientist is sure that one thing is true and another thing is false doesn't necessarily mean the opposite is so, and (3) that science never finds "truth", but has models and theories that fit to reality to varying degrees.
No, shuckmaster, I can't. I didn't see it.
Frankly I'm surprised that anything of R-A's would be pulled, for he usually conducts himself in a very civil manner.
So, my question for you, who have seen this post: Did you notice anything "uncivil" about it? Was there name-calling? Were there attacks on persons or groups? Or anything else that might be considered a breach of civility and/or hospitality here?
That "spacing" is simply a numerical sequence. If you want to call it "notnumerology", and everyone who disagrees with you the antichrist, that's fine.
That looks considerable more qualified than the quote you provided from Planke.
Precisely. They cannot be, due to their length, and to the fact that they echo the subject of the surface text.
"In my view, people poring over Scriptures, looking for hidden messages and proofs, are missing the point entirely"
In an age that is so computer driven, and full of nay-sayers attacking the word, these people have given us astounding proof that the Bible was not just fables written by men, but the only reliable thing on Earth; a genuine communication from God.
So you accept so called "micro-evolution"? If so, please tell me the difference between the process of macro and micro evolution.
Hopefully, were not relying on her for an objective definition of "atheist".
"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."
The author is making the point that Dawkin's is hung on his own petard. He argues that adherents on an intelligent designer face the fatal flaw of the first cause but he accepts axiomatically the existence of the first self replicators. It is pretty funny actually.
Dawkins has a problem and judging by your posts so do you. Biogenesis is the law of the land so to speak, life has only been observed to come from other life. Now that is a scientific proposition that is eminently falsifiable, create life in the lab by intelligent design and that law is repealed. Abiogenesis, otoh, is not science. Any theory that claims that life was created from non life is not falsifiable by the very nature of the claim. In order to falsify that claim every chemical reaction in every square mm of the universe would have had to have been observed since t=0+.
So you call the first replicators an axiom and have at it from there. We, the dreaded creationists, have an analogous word that we call faith. However, we are up front about our faith while the Professor Dawkin's of the world use words like axiom and hand wave away the religious equivalent which is faith. Pretty amusing, no?
Sorry, I only read books about destroying Darwinist flaws; I'm not into hanging out with monkeys at the zoo flinging excrement.
Carry on!
"OK, one more. No, they don't explicitly acknowledge ID, but they *cannot* explain the first living cell by purely naturalistic, "random" processes. Until they can explain it, ID is really the only alternative"
Wow, that is a HUGE leap. Because you don't know something, the supernatural is the only answer? Why study anything at all? What if aliens implanted the first living cell? That is as provable as an old man in the sky.
This is just a side discussion, I am arguing that evolution does not depend on how that first living cell got here. Evolution only requires that a living organism, capable of reproduction exist.
NO, it is not a numerical sequence, it is a constant spacing of letters. Even you should be able to see that counting a space that remains the same throughout, and sequencing, in which what is sought is the variation from one number to the next.
Most important of course is the content of the message. The fact that the content does not vary from the surface text proves statistically that the phenominon is deliberate.
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