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.
It appears that the problem lies in your idea of what constitutes a refutation. Tis, Tisn't, seems to be your level.
But I would have preferred that it remain up; it defined you so well that I kind of liked it. Now my reply has nothing to link to. (although the key part of it is still there in my reply)
If it is, we're in deeper do-do than I'm ready for. If there was no first Adam, then the second Adam is not our kinsman redeemer, and we will have to pay for our own sins :o(
"Explain how human consciousness is ‘ultimately’ the result of mindless mechanisms. No, actually… Explain how ’you believe’ your brain (morality, ethics, etc..) ultimately came from mindless mechanisms (stupid design)."
Your first mistake is applying human traits to natural processes. Is the nuclear fusion that powers the sun a "mindless mechanism"? Is plate tectonics a "mindless mechanism"?
As an aside, if life was "intelligently designed" as opposed to "stupidly designed" why do Whales have feet? Why do we have a Pancreas? Why do have an appendix? Why is the Octopus eye better than ours? Why do we have wisdom teeth?
Do cars have parts that aren't needed? Care are most definitely DESIGNED. If a car designer added parts that weren't needed he'd be rightly fired.
As for human consciousness, will say what Scientist (although I am far from a scientist) aren't afraid to say...
I don't know.
There are several plausible theories that have been tested. Some say our consciousness is carried by the electromagnetic field in the brain. This has been extensively studied. The evidence isn't overwhelming convincing as it is in Plate TEctonics, Evolution and Relativity.
And I am totally open to a higher being having a hand in nature. I doubt it is the one described in the Bronze Age Hebrew creation myth though. I dont know what the nature of such being would be.
In order for to believe the Hebrew creation myth and Intelligent Design, one would have to throw out nearly the entire fields of biology, geology AND astronomy. You have to make way too many leaps in logic.
"there are some other variations in this scenario like "God started it" or "Aliens started it" but the result is the same there is NO HOLY SPIRIT and man ultimately does not have a spirit.. ToE is a practical assault against the HOLY SPIRIT as an entity... and by inference Jesus the Christ(Messiah) and "the Father".."
The only thing ToE states is life evolves over time. PERIOD. The only reason you see it as an assualt on man having a spirit is because you are married to the Hebrew creation story.
If there is a higher being, why does it have to be the one from the Hebrew Bronze Age Creation myth? What gives that story precedence over the Maya, the Chinese, the African, and Native American myths? Why can't one believe in a higher being without discarding science?
And why should one abandon all logic, throw out the entire fields of biology, geology and astronomy in order to conform to a 6,000 year old collection of books written by various men in the Bronze Age, who didn't even know that the Earth was a sphere, and later translated numerous times?
Or anything else. Freep mail is supposed to be private; if you don't like it, delete it.
Cheers!
Well since you miss it so much, I'll try to provide an acceptable substitute (apologies to RA if I come up short, since I missed the original).
I'll refer you to your post at 459, and note that you seem to think your religious beliefs dictate that you have to attack other people for theirs, even if their beliefs pose no possible threat to you and yours.
IMHO, it's un-Christian, un-American, un-conservative, and totally un-called for. Personally I think you're way out of line and an embarrassment to the site.
If I get the wrath for telling you off, so be it. I'll consider myself in good company.
Niggling point, just to yank your chain.
Evolution is often described as changes in the allele frequency within various populations over time.
In other cases, it is referred to as the process by which differential variations of members of a population to a fitness function act to preferentially select certain random mutations, to effect changes in the population over time.
In other cases, it is referred to as related to speciation.
And speciation is often described by terms of "ring species" (can you say "Nice doggie" ?)--after enough changes, the members at various extrema of certain physical characteristics cannot breed.
Cool.
My question is, since bacteria reproduce by fission, what is the operative definition of "species" when considering evolution in such microbes?
Not a flame, nor a troll, it just occurred to me after one too many drinks...
Can you give me some help here?
Cheers!
Hmmmmm - The synthetic stuff I was referring to was the chaff he was promoting on the thread, but thanks for the laughs GW.
Like, is that your own composition?
Cheers!
There *are* exceptions.
One is a quote from authority, e.g. quoting Einstein's "God does not play dice". This is not a logically valid form of argumentation, but it does show up in dorm-room bull sessions and the like.
Another is for humor, or because the quote says your point much more elegantly than you yourself could.
Another is technical material, so you don't have to derive the fundamental theorem of integral calculus from first principles.
And it is an example of this third case I think LGN was attempting.
But it is best to do this only when you have not just "memorized" the material in question, but "digested" or "assimilated" it: so you know *whether*, *why*, and *to what extent* the quotation is appropriate to the point under contention.
And I agree, that in this case, LGN in conflating first and second law, seems to have fallen short.
Full Disclosure: I have seen many Christians attempt to engage in argument, and when losing the argument, begin a fusillade of seemingly random scripture quotations. The misattribution of common scientifice errors to one's opponent seems like a similar attribute of the pro-materialistic evo adherent.
Cheers!
You won't get the 'rath,' you'll get the snickers.
Evangelism can hardly be called unchristian. - Try harder!
'Tis odd you should say that. Many cartoons have been posted mocking Christians for disbelieving evolution, and proposing that said Christians be forced to forgo the benefits of such things as vaccines, GMO foodstuffs, etc., on the grounds that these items are the fruits of evolution's power to be harnessed.
I would draw the distinction that in the current state of knowledge, evolution in many ways is more like the humanities (sociology or psychology) in that it can predict general trends and correlations, but cannot predict even in principle individual outcomes.
Full Disclosure: ...and they call economics "the dismal science".
Cheers!
That would depend on the topology of the fitness landscape and how it is assumed to vary over time.
Cheers!
"'Tis odd you should say that. Many cartoons have been posted mocking Christians for disbelieving evolution, and proposing that said Christians be forced to forgo the benefits of such things as vaccines, GMO foodstuffs, etc., on the grounds that these items are the fruits of evolution's power to be harnessed."
Well man-made evolution CAN predict the outcome. Animal husbandry, et al. i was speaking of naturally occuring evolution.
I'll second that emotion, I'd never want that crud in my body! There's a web page up somewhere on a test of GM corn. They attempted to feed it to some cattle, and the cattle went over a week without eating rather than munch the stuff. I'll see if I can find it again.
Begging the question...but Sherlock Holmes didn't know the moon orbited the Earth. (Yes, I know he's fictional, but it's still a great rhetorical point to make).
The crux of the issue you raised can be distilled to:
1) Are the scriptures divinely inspired?
2) Was the kernel of what was inspired transmitted closely enough that the inspiration is unsullied?
3) If the parts of it which talk of a 6,000 year old Earth are part of the divinely inspired part, were those parts meant to be taken literally, or to illustrate vital moral truths in a way that even the Bronze Age Wal-Mart crowd would get?
Cheers!
This appears to contradict your quote in (IIRC) post 438:
You have it exactly backwards. The theory can only explain why things are the way they are. It cannot predict the path of evolution and it doesn't try to.
Is there a distinction here I am missing, or was one of those two remarks a careless statement?
Full Disclosure: Yes I noted the adjective "man-made" but there seems to be no intrinsic "fitness function" involved: the selection involved is not "natural" but explicitly the result of human decision. There is a mathematical similarity in the effects of any selection pressure upon a breeding population, true; but the prediction here is a result of knowing in advance exactly what will be selected. Cheers!
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