Richard Dawkins Forum

Richard Dawkins

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I read "The Selfish Gene" and, in part, "The Blind Watchmaker". In general, I agree with positions of R. Dawkins. I was educated in datholic religion and I was a seminarian, for 5 years, But, after leaving the Seminary (for wanting no more to be a priest), I rejected totally the religious convictions. I washed it out. Now, I am a psychologist.

>>By Francisco Roque (Sunday, 26 Jan 2003 09:51)

I liked very much to read "The selfish gene". And I find important the R. Dawkins defend repeated y his positions bout religion and morality (for avoiding the consensual "politically correct" sense according to which one MUST NOT CRITICISE RELIGIONS).

>>By Francisco Roque (Sunday, 26 Jan 2003 09:51)

One of his best books is Climbing Mount Improbable. He argues evolution through various examples that include spiderwebs, eyes, flight, and mullusk shells. Plus he describes modern computer simulation programs that attemtp to show natural selection and evolution at work. This is certainly more science than philosophy and rarely if ever deviates from the central thesis. Religion isn't discussed and for the most part neither is the human condition.

>>By Hume Ungus (Tuesday, 25 May 2004 00:19)

The God Delusion is fantastic.

>>By Flagg (Wednesday, 15 Aug 2007 19:57)

The only book of his that I have actually read is The Ancestor's Tale. I found it a very interesting account of details in the evolutionary process of which I was unaware. I understand that in The God Delusion he advances the idea that religion is inherently a source of evil. (Please correct me if I am wrong as I have only read reviews of this book.) While I am not a religious person I feel that the true source of evil is not any particular belief but an attitude about belief. I had a professor in college who was a teenager in Germany during WW II and one of the the things that he said that most impressed me was "The most dangerous thing in the world is a person who knows that he is right". It seems to me that any belief becomes evil when someone believes that he has a right and a duty to force it on others who happen to disagree.

>>By 21pinetree (Sunday, 11 Nov 2007 21:01)

That's largely what Dawkins says in The God Delusion. He says religious fanatacism, not religion itself, is what causes problems. But he also says religion itself, and a lot of religious scripture, *encourages* fanatacism. The way the Bible is written, everything in there is presented primarily as fact. The whole "guide to being a decent person" thing is secondary, especially in the Old Testament.

>>By Flagg (Monday, 12 Nov 2007 18:33)

also, dawkins says that the religious moderates, who so often promote the notion that we ought never critisize religion, are the main reason why fanaticism is able to flourish in today's climate. The untouchable traditions and dogmas, according to many religious leaders, should not be subject to debate and inquiry int eh way scientific ideas are, and when one does commit such an insult, he or she is attacking. Well, that is awfully convenient, considering that upon inspection, religious propositions are some of the most fallable in the world of ideas today. If they could stand on their own merit, then their adherents would not be so quick to scream foul. One can get a sense of why there is a hyper-defensiveness when it comes to questioning the religions of the world. although scientists can fall victim to their own egos, and behave in a similar fashion, at last, they have no reasonable argument when it comes to criticism. Either their ideas hold water, or they don't. Until we as a people can get past this political correctness, as Dawkins pleads, we will always be forced to live with blatant ignorance at every level of society and culture. Consider: The candidates for the Presidential position still insist on being a good christian. Our current president doesn't believe in evolution! That is astounding. For me, that is an automatic disqualifier. That is cause, I think, for the rest of the world to laugh at us and hold us in disdain. Dawkins points out that the U.S. is one of the world's most religious and conservative countries today. For all of the apparent progress in science and industry, we still demand thatour leaders identify with an out of date set of traditions in order to convince us of their moral integrity. As if a moral philosophy cannot exist without a belief in a god or higher power! Yet Dawkins tirelessly explains how morality, like language, and genetic change, has evolved over time. It is a purely organic enterprise, and is only truly firm and reliable when we recognize that it must rest on the understanding of human nature, and not on the fanciful nature of jesus, or allah, or buddha, or the pagan gods that christians stole their idols from.

>>By Hume Ungus (Friday, 1 Feb 2008 03:46)

Precisely.

>>By Flagg (Friday, 1 Feb 2008 16:43)

I've listened to the audio version of the God Delusion & i find little to disagree with. I'm with 21pinetree on people who know they're right being very dangerous & the trouble with religion is it insists that, if you want to be in their gang, you have to believe and if you don't you're wrong. It always impresses me how the inginouity of man comes up with convincing and sincere ways of taking a simple message like thou shalt not kill & turn it into a reason for going to war on a big scale. I guess the only thing you can't afford to tolerate is intolerance.

>>By Clive Photo (Saturday, 2 Feb 2008 01:48)

People are scared of Dawkins or reluctant to support him because they think he's as dangerous as religion. After all, he "knows he's right" too. But there's one big difference between his thinking and religious thinking, that people seem to overlook: he'll change his beliefs overnight if better evidence is found.

>>By Flagg (Saturday, 2 Feb 2008 21:00)

he often times does updates of his own work when new discoveries are made. He has several editions of "The Selfish Gene," for example. His notion of when he is right has much more to do with how he thinks than exactly what he believes. This is the way of the honest scientist. He feels certain that the way in which he proceeds in arguments is the most effective path to true understanding of nature, in particular, of biology. A careful read of most of his work demonstrates areas in which the verdict is still out, and he has no problem saying as much.
I cannot remember which book it is, but he has a great chapter on how the scribes and monks responsible for translating the biblical verses into Greek made very serious errors. One such error concerns the myth of the virgin Mary, an issue that really annoys biologists and rational thinking people in general. The monks mistranslated a common term for an unmarried woman into a virgin, which subsequently became a central them in Catholicism. What a major mistake that people all over the world now hold onto so strongly. He relates these copying errors in written text to the rare but necessary copying errors in genetic transmission from parent to offspring. A very small error, it turns out, is exactly the reason why organisms evolve instead of producing exact copies of their genes to their children. these mutations occur, and are usually more harmful than good, but occassionally provide a great advantage to later organisms. Unfortuantely, for the written word, such errors are accepted, good or bad, and past on for many generations. Science is the only real way to sift out the bad mutations and let them die. Rationality should act as a safeguard against these kind of changes in ideas, but it is a rare tool indeed. We cannot expect the religious thinkers to utilize it, and it is evident what disasters can arrise! ideas, like organisms, evolve. However, the selection pressures for ideas are not always consistent, whereas nature is exact and unrelenting. If the genes dont make good, then death is a guarentee. If a bad idea comes up, you can almost count on gullable minds to eat it up and pass it on to other gullable minds. In particular, the child's mind, which is malliable, is subjected to ideas from parents and society. A child cannot rightly know how to decipher the true from the rediculous, but instead automatically accepts what is given by an authority figure, and is likely to place a high truth value on it, whether it is in fact true or not. That is why education is so important today. It starts at the youngest of ages, and once ideas are conveyed, they can be nearly impossible to overcome. Creationism vs. evolution is a fine example. The overwhelming evidence is nothing compared to an emotional connection to a creationist mindset. Fear and ignorance is stronger than critical thinking almost every time. Dawkin's greatest wish, im sure, is to get to these minds before they can be corrupted by ill-informed parents and religious leaders. Imagine a middle east where this could happen. In one generation, the concept of jihad could be erased, or at least placed in the proper context, which is of course that of the insane.

>>By Hume Ungus (Saturday, 9 Feb 2008 03:33)

Unfortunately the scientific axioms from which Dawkin and his writings follow absolutely preclude an accurate and holistic understanding of either religion or morality. While he may legitimately speak authoritatively about those things that fall in the current realm of science -- the physical world and its phenomena, governed by natural laws -- his 'evidence' cannot at all inform an understanding of things which purport to go beyond the physical, to some deeper, transcendent mode of existence. Morality, and the religious traditions of society, are rooted in this alternative mode of existence. To explain them with reference to exoteric-historical, physical and biological phenomena, suggesting that there is nothing supernatural that can be relevant to their existence, is a dangerously seductive form of reductionism and rationalised ignorance.

>>By Obfuscated (Wednesday, 20 Feb 2008 14:41)

I don't agree. By that logic you could say any ridiculous thing you want and say "this goes beyond science", expecting people to accept it. The only reason you *can* do that with religion is because religion is already such a big, well-established thing that no one is going to argue with you. It's big and well-established not because there's any truth in it but because over the centuries it's been very helpful to those without power and very lucrative to those with power.

Also, I think morality and religious traditions are rooted in human beings, not some "alternative mode".

>>By Flagg (Wednesday, 20 Feb 2008 19:53)

I agree, Flagg...And I don't think reductionism is inherently a bad thing...But, as Dawkins also points out, greedy reductionism gives us a poor perspective indeed. We wouldnt want to explain a football game from the molecular point of view, and the intentional stance is a more appropriate point of view. It is a convenient argument, and one with no basis, to insist on an alternative mode. Where does it come from. ow do we judge its credibility? Or is it just another form of human incredulity? His work on the roots of morality is a scientific one, and seems perfectly capable of grasping our conduct as interactive beings. He begins with a study on "Game Theory" and its implications. this represents a foundation not just for humans or rational agents, but also the automatons found throughout the biosphere. On the genetic level, we can begin to see how concepts like selfeshness and supposed-altruism are meaningful. I think it wouldbe a big mistake to assume that morality comes from anywhere else that our biological histories. But it is always a huge hurdle for critical thinkers to overcome, because it seems to be a quirk of human nature to anthorpomorphise such issues. Similarily, most historical descriptions of God take on humanesque properties, most fundamentally, the ability to think and rationalize. Of course, there has never been evidence of a god, let alone the powers we give him. The outdated "Mind-First" conception of the universe has been overthrown by the Darwinian approach to order and design in the cosmos. No longer do we have to place a purposeful agent at the beginning in order to arrive at things like organisms, or the artifacts they create. Surely a paperclip is more designed than a human, because it presupposes the existence of a human. But the presence of a human only supposes what the evidence clearly shows-an evolutionary tale from simple beginnings. Morality also arrives at its current state from simpler beginnings, and evolves. The selective pressures aren;t just biological, but a combination of biological and cultural. Ah...will add more later...must go to work...

>>By Hume Ungus (Thursday, 21 Feb 2008 00:06)

People are so absorbed in materialism, that is, the state of consciousness and belief-system where only physical objects -- bodies, molecules, genes, etc. -- exist, that they cannot understand religion (or, for that matter, anything) clearly. Thus it is thought by many people, as supported by scientific findings, that this world is the only world that exists, and that any other type or mode of existence, or state of consciousness, is not 'real'. Then, bizarrely, any other types of being and experiencing that other people talk/write about are merely brushed off, explained with reference to factors in the immediate physical state of being "you believe that because of your brain/genes/society", etc.).

But the simple and inescapable truth, is that the immediate world of objects is NOT the only mode of existence. To explain those phenomena that occur outside it by things that occur inside it is reductionist, and will always lead to ultimately unsatisfactory conclusions. By saying that such super-natural phenomena are outside the current scope of science, I did not mean to say that they cannot be empirically investigated, observed and experienced as fully as the screen in front of you; if only the conceited men of so-called science would change their scope. Daydreams, thoughts, emotions, dreams, drug-induced trances, religious visions -- in every era and society people have perceived things which do not exist in the physical world, some more than others, and it is only a recent trend to say of such things "this is caused because of the brain/upbringing/genes", etc. Before civilisation began its so-called progress, people said what they fundamentally experienced -- a thought here, an object there, a dream there -- not merely a function of neurochemistry or the social system, but different types of being, different worlds.

As long as the science of Dawkins and his ilk is ignorant of the phenomenologically obvious fact that not everything is physical, it will think that it has disproved religion, as men in a cave disprove the existence of the sun by pointing around the cave and showing that there is no sun.

Although sadly the perverted men of 'religion' have exploited their subjects and told them to believe their doctrines on blind faith, the belief in metaphysical realities does not have to be like that; one has only to walk out of the proverbial cave, and see the facts for themselves. That would truly be science, not of the physical, but of the spiritual.

>>By Obfuscated (Monday, 25 Feb 2008 18:15)

Well I don't think science can completely disprove spiritual ideas, but spirituality and religion are very, very different from one another. Someone may pray or meditate and have a spiritual experience that is very personal to them. Someone may have a spiritual experience when playing a musical instrument or painting. This I can understand. I can't understand why someone would choose to believe a book that was written over hundreds of years by many different people all with different interests and agendas. That book didn't come from God, it came from human beings.

Interestingly, Dawkins notes in The God Delusion that he's mainly talking about Christianity, Judaism and Islam when he mentions "religion". He chooses not to concern himself with less dogmatic religions like Buddhism (which many people claim can't really be called a religion).

>>By Flagg (Monday, 25 Feb 2008 19:46)

The word 'spiritual" comes with some baggage, so it can be difficult to speak on it without some misunderstanding. Certainly a so-called spiritual experience doesn't imply that the person is religious in any way. One could refer to the experience as an existential insight, or just a moving moment in one's life. But no matter how you cut it, it is always a jump or leap to conclude that such an experience is different in nature to a more mundane, ordinary experience in everyday life. Again, perhaps the best explanation of these types of experiences isn't on the nuerotransmitter level, but the psychological level instead. Although thoughts and ideas can be broken down into their component parts, it isn't always useful to think of them as just patterns of electro-chemical firings of the brain. nature and nurturing are at the heart of our experiences, and explanations for seemingly odd, out of left field thoughts can be explained scientifically. To dream of an object that doesn;t exist in a true physical way, doesn't imply that something special has occurred. Unicorns are the familiar example of how ideas can play in the mind without experience of said animal ever being perceived first. But when you break ideas down, and this can be a tricky task, you will find that the components do in fact exist. The juxtaposition of "horse" and "horn" is the example here. Some experiences or ideas are more complex and harder to sift through, but that shouldn't make us think that they are somehow exceptional because of this. At the heart of the controversies in biology is the dilemna of complexity. The traditional approach was to assume that complexity demands an intelligent agent at its origin. Darwin showed us how, bit by mindless bit, the work can be accomplished without anything resembling a mind there to help. This method does cut through all disciplines, and forces us to tackle problems of intelligence by finding rational, non-miraculous histories. I too can become baffled by the strangest of my thoughts and experiences, but I try to remember that evolution is more clever than us all. It requires discipline to stay on track and not leap to fanciful modes. For most, however, the thought of materialism leaves an empty, hopeless feeling inside, and pushes the human mind to create meaning and purpose wherever it can. It simply doesn't satisfy, even when the science of the mind shows us just how pwerful and amazing the material world actually is.

>>By Hume Ungus (Tuesday, 26 Feb 2008 23:06)

"On blind faith they place reliance / What we need more of is science."

- M.C. Hawking

>>By Flagg (Wednesday, 2 Apr 2008 20:52)

Just found an entertaining/informative dialogue called "Ant Fogue" in Dennet's "The Mind's "I"." Discusses the perspectives of holism and reductionism, attempting to find the proper level of explanation for consciousness by using an ant colony as a metaphor. The "dumb" or mindless parts that emerge into a conscious agent at a somewhat fuzzy point in their interactions. perhaps the valuable part of the piece is to say simply that the fuzziness is still a problem for scientists and philosophers, and that greedy reductionism, as well as greedy holism will always miss the truth, whereas an acceptance of the happy medium is more promising. As it relates to this discussion, it sheds light on just what both terms really mean, how they work, and how they can become misused, fueling senseless rhetoric on both sides of the issue. It is surely a physicalist point of view that comes through, which Dennet and Dawkins seem to be. Leaving the Cartesian models behind, as they have become utterly useless for scientist, and acceptable to a shrinking minority of philosophers, Dennet continues to wage his views on his materialistic foundation for consciousness, and of course brings it forth with an evolutionary underpinning. Although certain conjectures are still in need of clarification and verification, as a whole, I think it is exactly where our thinking should be. Im excited to learn more from these guys, especially as it relates to A.I. and the problems of thinking machines. For more on that discussion, Dennet has argued strongly in almost all of his work for the possibility, agreeing that the famous "Turing Test" is a valuable tool in deciphering intentionality from mere as-if intentionality. So much to say, never enough time!

>>By Hume Ungus (Sunday, 13 Apr 2008 00:44)

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