Is Religion the Root of all Evil?
Last night, I tuned in to Channel 4 for The Root of All Evil? a programme by Professor Richard Dawkins (Chair of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, pictured) damning the revival of religious superstition.
(For some background on Dawkins, check out criticism by Clive Bradley, a reply from Dawkins, and Les Hearn defending Dawkins).
Most unfortunately, as soon as the programme had started, nearly-two-year-old Harrison woke up, and made such a noise that he also woke newly-four-year-old Joe. So my attention to the first section of the show was limited. Still, it lasted an hour, which was thankfully longer than my kids’ wakefulness. So I’ll pass a few comments.
In religious programming and beyond, there is plenty of TV that presents religious belief without questioning it, so this programme was welcome. On the broad question he addressed – science versus religious superstition – Dawkins is absolutely right, and he is right to raise the alarm about the revival of religious belief and the repression and violence it can lead to. He has a beautiful turn of phrase at times – there were plenty of soundbites in the opening ten minutes that I would have written down had I not had a child in each arm. And he addressed Islam, Christianity and Judaism, so sparing himself ridiculous accusations like “Islamophobia” that the defenders of reaction and superstition like to chuck at people whose arguments can take them apart.
But, there are some buts. Before laying into him, I should point out that this TV programme is a two-parter, and some of these points could well be covered next week.
Firstly, Dawkins chose to interview some of the more obviously barmy advocates of religion. It is quite right to show that such people exist, and that they have frightening power over their flocks and in politics, but they were easy for him to expose, even lampoon, because they pretty much did it themselves. If, as he claims, he wants to debunk religious belief per se, not just its extreme manifestations, then it would be good to see him argue with someone more “reasonable”.
Secondly, whilst the Prof showed how religionists influence politics, I did not hear him address how willing politicians are to be influenced by them. Creationists are certainly villains against science and humanity; but so are the politicians who want to let them run state schools.
Thirdly, the programme appeared to present the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians as simply a clash of religious fundamentalisms. Of course, there is a strong element of this, and it certainly makes the situation worse. But you can not understand this issue without also acknowledging that the Palestinians are dispossessed and denied national self-determination, and that their intifada is not simply an uprising against the desecration of a mosque, but against the military occupation and terrible conditions that they live under. Nor that Israeli Jews are not simply fixated on keeping their own holy land, but have understandable fears about anti-semitism and conquest. And that there are secularists, even atheists, on both ‘sides’ of the conflict, who are not in the least motivated by religious crusading.
Finally, and I think most importantly, Root Of All Evil? showed the limitations of bourgeois secularism. Dawkins is very articulate in his de-bunking of religion, but often seemed reduced to exasperated shoulder-shrugging about how ignorant and primitive people are.
He explained well how delusion persists if it is mass delusion, as people’s superstitions are reinforced by hearing them back from others. But that is not all there is to it. Many people stick to religion because they cling to a hope of something better than their inadequate life in an unjust society. Yes, science debunks religion, but does it offer people a better life in a better world? On its own, no.
To effectively win people away from religion, you have to show that people ourselves can change the world through our own struggles. It is no accident that the revival of religion has come during a slump in the labour movement.
The conditions in which capitalism makes people live will always drive them into the arms of religion. It seems highly improbable to me that there could be capitalism without religion. But even if there could, it would still be a system that exploits, impoverishes, debases, discriminates and kills.
Religion is, if you like, “evil”. But the root of all evil is not religion, but the division of society into classes.
Part 2 reviewed here
- Janine's blog
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Dawkins
I entirely agree with Janine. I enjoyed the confrontations with Christian and Muslim fundamentalists (and sympathised with Dawkins' inability to argue with them). But the case against religion as such is put with such crassness that by the end I was wondering if the whole effort would not prove counterproductive.
Dawkins basically says that all religious belief is the 'thin end of the wedge' to violent extremism because it is a system of thought based on not thinking.
But religious belief has also, for example and just to take one example, inspired some of the world's greatest works of art. The idea that everything from Bach to Coltrane, etc etc, is only the thin end of the wedge to suicice bombings is simply nuts.
And - so far - Dawkins only attacks religion at its weakest. There are scientists who, without being 'religious' in any obvious sense, argue that there are, for example, peculiar aspects to the nature of the universe - which don't necessarily prove the existence of a creator or anything, but require more of a response than Dawkins gives. Not all religion is stupid people relying on texts.
Part two promises to be Dawkins on religion as a virus, a comment for which he is quite famous.
Science and Religion
One of the things I noticed at the beginning of the programme was that in part Dawkins almost described science in religious terms. He referred to the problem of religiion being that each religion believes its God is the real one, and can have no truck with others (that's not particularly true of Buddhism), but the same thing can be true of science.
Dawkins referred to an instance where at a seminar in Oxoford (?) a visiting professor gave a presentation which dismantled the theory of one of the Oxford professors. He said that at the end they both shook hands and the Oxofrod professor thanked the visitor for showing him that he had been mistaken for 15 years. But there are plenty of examples where such good nature is not common. The ideologists of capitalism are not likely either to simply accept the evidence presented to them by socialists or to thank them for showing them the error of their ways.
Dawkins assumption is that there must be some objective truth which only has to be uncovered. But the example should also be one that is humbling to scientists in arguing with religionists too. Dawkins argument was that the difference is that science is based upon evidence whereas religion is based on faith. True, but as his example showed for 15 years the evidence provided the basis for a "truth" that turned out not to be true at all. Dawkins argument that the religious community provides a solidairity in which the "God" myth can be sustained because it is easy to beleive what everyone else believes is equally true of science. As Marx put it "The dominant ideas.....".
Challenging the growth of religious bigotry and fundamentalism is definitely needed at the moment. I thought Jonathan Miller's series on Disbelief was very good, but it was probably not very accessible to people who have not studied philosophy to some degree. I'm not sure Dawkins programme fills the gap, but I'll be watching the next part anyway.
Arthur Bough
Dawkins and science
I don't know that Dawkins' view of science was religious but it was certainly the classical empiricist view of scientists inventing hypotheses and going out to disprove (as he said)them. This view of science is both naive and rather self-defeating in the argument with religion.
Dawkins does not appear to accept that scientific development is a social process in which anything other than pure scientific considerations are taken into account. As such, it is enmeshed in class interests, gender and racial assumptions and has been used as an ideological justification for everything from genocide to pollution. (Dawkins would doubtless argue that this was bad science, but that begs rather a lot of questions.)
There are also established small p political, institutional and social processes by which 'facts' become established in science. This, incidentally, is not the same thing as saying there is no objective truth in nature. Confusion between the two has led to some classic post-modern idiocies.
Without recognising this, Dawkins can't explain why so many people are disillusioned with science and just envoking it may not convince many to abandon non-rational modes of thought.
Bruce Robinson
Science and religion
There is, though, surely, sometimes at least, an objective truth to be uncovered. Of course sometimes what scientists believe to be true isn't true - this was the point the idiot evangelist was trying to make - but this is a point wholeheartedly embraced by Dawkins, and any other scientist. (He called it, I think, 'the beauty of science').
Of course, sometimes, scientists cling to 'false truths' for ideological reasons, or purely reasons of personal pride, or whatever. Or because they don't want to be considered crazy by their peers, etc.
But so what? Dawkins overstates the case, and is too insensitive to the possible ideological biases of science. But it surely isn't true that the scientific method is 'the same' as religion.
Darwin, for instance, was overtly influenced, in developing his theory of natural selection, by the bourgeois economics of Thomas Malthus. But Darwin was still right (in the sense of being backed up by evidence).
As I said above (the first comment was me), Dawkins puts the case against religion crassly. It seems to me, though, that the case he puts for science is pretty much right.
(PS, if I may link to something I think is a bit better than my exchange with Dawkins, which Janine links to above, there's this article about Stephen Jay Gould in New Politics, which includes a discussion on the two scientists' attitude to religion.)
Objective truth and science etc
Clive,
I am not sure if your comments were addressed to me or Arthur. If me, I obviously didn't express myself well. I don't think scientific method is the same as religion and I do think there is such a thing as objective truth. However I think there's a bit more than periodic ideological bias involved.
I will try and dig out something I wrote about this ages ago and post it. For now I'm off to watch 'Shameless'
Bruce
Social processes
Bruce
I was addressing Arthur. And I agree science is a social process, etc. But don't you think that the bulk of what is considered established scientific fact is either true, or true to the best of anyone's ability, or provisionally true? I don't mean that anything a scientist says (eg Dawkins!) has to be accepted as true; and anyway scientists can disagree with each other over more than 'the facts'.
Dawkins is a case in point: his version of gene-centred neo-Darwinism remains highly contentious, on ideological grounds, among scientists - though I have to admit I am less persuaded by some of this criticism than I was at the time of my 'exchange' with Dawkins a few years ago. His opponents are just as - or more - ideological, and I'm not sure their ideology is as unambiguously 'on the right side' as I used to.
And it's at least an interesting argument that such things as cosmology might be very open to ideological influences - Big Bang theory fits with a particular social mood, etc. But equally, there is *evidence* for the Big Bang, for the age of the universe, etc, and the theory isn't reducible to ideology.
In any case it seems reasonable to me to explain the scientific method to a wide audience as 'testing hypotheses', etc. The trouble with Dawkins, I think we agree, is that his militant atheism, or whatever it is, is too insensitive to the reasons people want religion (and yes, why they're disillusioned with science, if they ever were illusioned). Consequently, it seems unlikely he's going to persuade anyone.
When he isn't really talking about religion, but just positively about the wonder of nature, etc, and about what science can, positively, explain - which he hasn't done much yet on this show - he's much better.
Dawkins not persuasive
One example from the programme. Dawkins is horrified by the fact that, according to surveys, nearly half the population of the USA - that's many millions of people - believe that the universe is less than ten thousand years old.
At that point, he could have given over just one minute of his programme to show scientific evidence that the universe is much older than that. Instead, he simply asserts that this evidence exists.
People who are familiar with the evidence and share Dawkins' views on religion will join him in throwing up their hands in horror at American popular ignorance. But anyone else will be left unpersuaded, probably patronised, possibly put right off.
Actually, I think there are probably lessons here for socialists in how we present our politics.
the root of all evil
cut all the cackle ! I would like to refer you all to the words of MARK TWAIN , "IF there is a god, he is a malign thug"
.......No one can explain , the big question WHY ALL THE SUFFERING and what the hell are we doing here, our brains are some what limited
Malign Thugs
If God existed would the fact that he is a malign thug make him any less a God. I used to like playing simulation games like Settlers. I could have played these games with a nice harmonious development of the settlements in each are of the map etc. But I suspect like virtually everyone who plays such games I preferred building settlements in such a way that I developed a strong army and could take over other settlements. Now that coudl just say something about me, but I think the reason is more simply that the latter is more entertaining.
Who is to say that if a God existed he wouldn't be a normal game player, and find death, destruction and all the rest more entertaining.
I prefer to dismiss the idea on the basis that their are better explanations.
Arthur Bough
Science and Religion
To make it clear I was not saying that science and religion are the same, or that Dawkins presentation of what science is made it the same as religion. What I was saying was that the way he described science as almost necessarily being true because "look we have all this evidence to back up our claims" sounded very similar to the certainty with which religious views are held. It merely requires us instead of having "faith" in the religious sense to have faith in the evidence, its extensity, relevance, neutrality etc. There are many cases where a particular hypothesis both in natiural and social sciences has been asserted to be vindicated, and in a similar manner to the "solidarity" of religious communities more and more evidence is gathered to support the hypothesis. Whatever the claims about trying to disprove the hypothesis it is usually easier for scientists to get a hearing if they support current thinking.
A while ago I was reading a book Martin had recommended that took apart neo-classical economics. I can't remeber what is was called now, but its not important. One chapter dealt with theories in general, and it said that what tends to happen is that a theory tends to explain something partially. For a time this explanation is accepted as a truth that explains that bit of reality. In itself that leads to a framework building up around the theory. However, over time bits of reality encroach which the theory cannot explain. But the first reaction is to find reasons for this to make adaptations or excepional rules (I suppose the fact that a perfect market does not exist is a good example), but it is only when these exceptions reach a certain level that it has to be accepted that the theory itself is actually wrong, or at best only a partial truth.
If you just think about all the scientific truths in relation to say diet and health, which overnight become yesterday's truths, it becomes clear how dangerous it is to put too much emphasis on supposed scientific truths being anything other than provisional, and some are more provisional than others.
As for whether there are absolute truths which can be scientifically discovered, I suppose it depends on how trivial a level you want to examine it. Unless, there has been some severe calamity whilst I have been writing this that has brought about a change, then I can say fairly confidently that it is a fact that Paris is the capital of France. But the whole basis of Quantum mechanics is that there are no such certainties at an atomic level. Indeed if my limited understanding is correct, it is precisely the fact that everything at an atomic level is a matter of probability rather than certainty which leads to the possibility of reality actually being a continual springing into existence of alternate realities. The most we could claim then would be the possibility of uncovering an absolute truth for a particular reality.
I think that this is the basis of Martin Reese's Theory of the Multiverse, which is his explanation for the problem posed by the cosmological constant.
Arthur Bough
Scientific truth
Clearly there are 'scientific truths' which turn out to be false, others which are in any case controversial and contested (by other scientists) etc. One of the most interesting things about science is that you have rival theories, frameworks, narratives, paradigms or whatever you want to call them. Scientists argue the toss with each other, storm out of each other's conferences, and so on.
But I am worried by what seems - forgive me if I am wrong - to be an implication here that since no truth is more than provisional... well, ergo what? (Economics, neo-classical or otherwise, is not a good analogue with science). There surely *is* an absolutely enormous amount of evidence to back up the stuff Dawkins is talking about, namely the fact of evolution, and the theoretical framework for explaining it, natural selection, provided by Darwin. By enormous, I mean enormous. And anyone who doubts the theory of evolution had better not be bothered, even slightly, by bird flu...
It is pretty certain - isn't it? - that the world is roughly spherical, orbits the sun, which is a small star in a galaxy, and there are millions of others (stars and galaxies); or that genes are the unit of inheritance and consist of DNA; or that Homo sapiens is closely related to chimps and bonobos and shares a common ancestor (and the rough date of Homo sapiens' first appearance is kind of certain: certainly it won't be wrong by more than a hundred thousand years or so); and that dinosaurs used to exist and haven't for 65 million years; and the earth is much older than creationists say it is (and if science's current consensus, about 4.5 billion years, is wrong, it's not because actually it's only a few thousand...) and so on. And so on.
To say that there's evidence for all this, which seems pretty certain, is simply not at all the same as to assert a religious certainty.
Scientific Skepticism and Religious Truth
Clive, I am not arguing against scientific method, and certainly not that science and religion are the same. I am, however, cautioning against treating science as being the provider of absolute truth, when it never can be. Let me give an example, for centuries if you had asked the wisest men about one of the things you list - the shape of the earth - they would have told you that it was flat. Any amount of evidence could have been rallied to prove the point. Only a madman could have failed to look at the evidence presented and come to a different decision. But it was wrong. Or take light for a couple of hundred years all the evidence provided by the scientific method proved that light always travels in straight parallel lines - until Einstein “proved” it doesn't. Until very, very recently we thought light always travelled at the same speed, now we “know” that at the beginning of the Universe it travelled faster. We used to think that space was an empty void, now we know it is full of dark matter, and we talk of space as being made of a fabric, and being a plane in which dense objects can cause indentations bending and folding space-time itself. These things themselves have implications for everything that exists within that space too, such that although old truths may remain true, the nature of the truth is itself completely changed because the context within which it is true is completely different.
Now take all of the certainties you think you know. I agree that on the balance of probabilities it is very, very, and many more times very unlikely that we will find that the earth is not round – except to the extent of course that it is in fact flat also. On the basis of all the evidence we have, and the degree of scientific knowledge at this moment it is virtually inconceivable that this truth could be wrong. But in the past on the basis of existing evidence and knowledge scientists were no less certain that the earth was flat, and that light always travelled in straight parallel lines. The scientific method was in fact really codified by Descartes who sat in a log cabin and tried to reduce everything along mathematical principles to only that which he could prove. He rejected all certainty down to and including his own existence. Hence Cogito Ergo Sum - I think therefore I am. But even Descartes had to accept that although this fact - thinking proving existence - set a base line of knowledge - I know I exist - it did not prove anything about the nature of this existence. As materialists, we take everything in the material world as existing outside ourselves independently of us (which until the 18th century was not the dominant school of philosophy), and being composed of matter, and yes we have a wealth of accumulated knowledge and evidence about the nature of that matter, but yet we really do not know the essence of it. According to string theory, for instance, all of existence, all matter, is composed of strings resonating at different frequencies across a number of dimensions (I think the latest figure is 7). The nature of these strings is completely different from what we conceive of as matter i.e. something tangible. Rather they are more of the nature of energy. So yes there may be facts that we can uncover and be fairly confident about such as the Earth is 5 billion years old, but in a certain sense this becomes almost like the trivial fact that Paris is the capital of France - a fact, which itself is only provisional – Rio de Janeiro was the capital of Brazil until it wasn’t, and as dialecticians we know that change does not occur abruptly but is a process of quantity changing into quality, the real change having taken place in content before the change in appearance is apparent.
But, further questions arise. I watched a programme a while ago that dealt with these kinds of questions, and also looked at the way our understanding of the Universe is being revolutionised by the rapidly increasing power of computing. The programme concluded at the end that just as increasing computing power enables a greater understanding of the universe it opens up the possibility of modelling that universe. It concluded that if computing power continued to increase at the current rate (and it is likely to increase as computers themselves generate the next generations of chips and technology) then in about one hundred years it would be possible to produce a computer simulation of the Universe. More importantly, and returning to Descartes it also concluded that given this possibility there was a greater mathematical probability that we all exist as characters within a computer simulation than that we exist in the form we believe we do.
Now as I wrote in my blog "The Matrix Revisited" you have to be careful with these kinds of extrapolations and ideas because the issue of whether art is mimicking science or science mimicking art creeps in. The popularity of The Matrix and other such films/books can lead futurologists and scientists around them to come up with theories that chime with popular culture and ideas. But it is not just off the wall scientists that have such ideas. The problem of the cosmological constant poses a serious challenge to scientific explanations of the Universe, and as far as I am aware the only person with a credible solution to the problem is Martin Reece with the idea of the multiverse. But Reece himself has said that if there are in fact an infinity of universes, then it is quite conceivable that an intelligent species in one of these universes could have produced a sophisticated model of a universe, and that we are no more than data within that model.
From a philosophical and practical perspective does this matter? No, I don't think so. Would you act differently if you knew you were only a character? I don't think so. You would have no more nor less inclination to want to be happy, to avoid harm etc. etc. The only difference is that you would have a better understanding of your true nature. Provided the rules of the simulation continued to operate in order to avoid arbitrariness i.e. things do not get pulled down by gravity one minute, and pushed up by it the next, without reason, then everything would remain the same. But in another sense it would not. Yes, the earth would remain 5 billion years old, but the reason it was 5 billion years old would be not because of some random event but because the computer programme dictated that that was the way it should be. This possibility that what we perceive as reality is in fact a simulation does not, however, mean that everything is pre-ordained. The same simulation could run billions of times and random variations at a quantum level would ensure that each run was different.
Of course, Reese says that the multiverse opens the other possibility too. In a multiverse, comprised of an infinity of universes, there would statistically have to be (in fact an infinity) of universes in which the cosmological constant was what it needs to be. In these universes, the earth could be 5 billion years old, and it could be the result of a random event, and we are not part of some super computer simulation. The fact is we don't know, but either way an explanation for existence can be demonstrated without resort to God.
"To say that there's evidence for all this, which seems pretty certain, is simply not at all the same as to assert a religious certainty."
Yes there is, and materialism and the scientific method dictates that we accept that as the best explanation until it is disproved. But the scientific method itself dictates that all theories, however, much evidence there is to back them up remain hypotheses waiting to be disproved, not absolute proofs. On an everyday basis modern electronics uses quantum theory. Rather like the calculus the fact that these pieces of electronic equipment work is a very strong reason for believing that quantum theory is correct. Yet Einstein rejected it with his famous statement “God does not play dice with the universe.” Another example. For centuries quack physicians used to use leeches. With the advent of modern medicine these physicians were scorned. What ignorant, barbarians they were. What on earth did they think they were inflicting on people. The scientific method showed that such witchdoctoring was based on no rational principles. Until of course more recently when it has been found that leeches do in fact have useful medical applications because of the coagulant effect they can have on the blood. This didn’t mean the old physicians knew what they were doing using leeches (though the likelihood is that their use was based on some experience of their usefulness), but it does prove that the scientific rejection of their use, and the overwhelming acceptance of the scientific evidence, was wrong, and it was wrong no matter how strong the evidence appeared to have been. It is impossible for us to say what scientific truths we believe with the same certainty today will in fact prove to be false because we do not know what further evidence and discovery will bring forth in the future.
A final example. Calculus. Martin is much better able to explain this than I, but I’ll have a go. For a very long time mathematicians rejected the calculus. Why because it defies Aristotelian logic and mathematics had basically developed on the basis of the syllogism. The calculus basically asserts that at the point of tangency a straight line and a circle have the same angle. This is clearly a contradiction in syllogistic terms. A circle which is a continuous curve cannot possibly be a straight line at the same time. From the point of logic and reason the calculus could not be correct. But in the end all mathematicians had to accept that it was correct. Why, because it always worked. This of course could take us back to your point about the spherical nature of the earth. Do we know its round? Yes we do, but it is also flat at the same time.
And a final point. Descartes in rejecting everything he thought he knew in order to only base his knowledge on what was provable argued that he could not believe his senses because on many, many occasions his senses deceived him. But all scientific knowledge is in fact based on information we receive from our senses, most importantly sight. Yet we all know how fallible this sense in particular is. We have a magician here in North Staffs who has a workshop where he makes tricks for many of the world’s top magicians. A few years ago I saw him perform in the open air at the local Carnival. In the middle of a field he placed a box. The box was surrounded on all sides by spectators. His son then rode a motorbike into the box. The open side was closed, and then the box was completely laid flat to the ground by dropping each of its sides. The motorbike had gone. Now I know that is a trick. How on earth it was done, I haven’t a clue. But if I and all the people around that box believed the overwhelming evidence of our eyes we would have to conclude that he had made a solid object vanish into thin air. You can think of all the optical illusions that lead to our eyes deceiving our brain too.
But all science is based on the principle of first observe, then develop a hypothesis to explain what you have observed, then test the hypothesis, and finally observe the results of the test to see if the hypothesis is verified. If the observation at either end of the process is flawed then so too will be the conclusions. The fact that we produce tools to enhance our sense of sight might in fact not make our observation, more accurate more defining but merely amplify the error. For example, you can take a set square and use it to draw a square. But if the set square is slight out of true you could proceed in the same manner, and believe that what you have created is a square. What you will have created would be consistent with being a square in the way you have constructed it, you would have no reason to suspect that it is not a square. The reality is however, that what you would have created would be a parallelogram with completely different properties.
Does any of this mean that I think the earth is not 5 billion years old, that man is the product of evolution, no. Do I think that despite the overwhelming evidence there might be another explanation, yes. And that is the difference between religious certainty, and scientific scepticism.
Arthur Bough
scepticism
The scientific method is, surely, sceptical by its very nature. Truth is provisional, etc; scientific truth, by definition, is open to disproof.
But suppose you are arguing - which is where Dawkins is coming from - with someone who thinks that the world is ten thousand years old or less, fossils are put there to test our faith, etc. The earth fucking *is not* ten thousand years old. Dinosaurs *did* exist. I can't see how it makes any sense to say 'well, obviously the age of the earth is only provisionally knowable, and well, we may one day learn that dinosaurs didn't exist after all...' This wouldn't be a subtle, historically nuanced understanding of the social and cultural influences on science, or an argument about the nature of truth. It would be ridiculous.
People thought the earth was flat, and they were wrong. We now *know* - like, pretty incontrovertibly, due to satellites and so on - what shape it is. We *know* it orbits the sun. And so on.
Of course there *might* be another explanation for evolution than Darwin's. But it's not the scientific method simply to declare this hypothetical possibilty. That way lies not science, surely, but the most meaningless relativism. On that level, I suppose it *might* be true that the universe was created by God in an afternoon, or whatever it is. But where does that get you?
Materialism and Pragmatism
I think you are making the same mistake as Dawkins. Because there is overwhelming evidence for most of the current theories, evidence which allows us to treat those theories in many cases as absolute truths, truths which in turn allow us to base our actions, and on which we base attempts to gain further knowledge you convert these truths into absolute truths even though you claim that science is by its nature sceptical. I cannot see how the two things are compatible.
It is quite possible for me to accept on the basis of the overwhelming evidence and the logical reasoning behind geological science that the theory that the earth is 5 billion years old is "true" whilst the idea that it is 10,000 years old is false. I am quite happy from a pragmatic perspective to base the rest of my understanding of the evolution of life on earth on that basis, and also to incorporate other theories such as Darwin's into a much wider theory expalaining the existence of human beings, rather than to accept the idea that they were created by God in the afternoon. You are right to do any other simply leaves you incapable of basing any action on any presumed knowledge. But at the same time the scientific method requires that I keep my mind open to some other possibility, the nature and scope of which I could not possibly perceive given current available knowledge, but of which I have given some suggestions even so.
What we treat as truth is in fact based on pragmatism. If I am putting up shelves or erecting a large building, laying a railway track etc. do I work with the truth that the earth is round, and try to build some curvature into my constructions, or do I work with the truth that the earth is flat?
I have no problem with accepting the best truth we have, that is relevant to the particular situation as the basis on which to base actions. I do have a problem with accepting such truths as the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Arthur Bough
Theory
What's the wider theory than Darwin's?
I am not arguing about 'absolute truth', whatever that is exactly. And I am not arguing against scepticism. I am by nature, I think, pretty sceptical and uncertain about stuff. And there are areas of science which are highly controversial (especially in cosmology and that sort of thing, but also in biology - in fact I think the most public controversies are between biologists).
But this argument started about Dawkins. In a different context, if Dawkins was saying 'there is no room for argument about anything; we have reached the end of the road in terms of our knowledge of the material world and everything we now believe is true', it would be reasonable to object. (Or when he talks about 'memes', as I think he will next week, as established scientific facts). I don't think it's reasonable to complain that he is too certain about Darwinism in a context where what he's up against are people saying the earth is ten thousand years old.
As I've said, I think he puts the case against religion crassly. But I think your objection - that a scientist - even in a debate with ID - should always make a big thing of the provisional nature of truth - is to miss the point.
I don't think this is just a pragmatic question. What we now believe to be true might turn out not to be. But surely it's also reasonable to have some notion, some assessment, of how shaky the ground is. If we were to discover that the earth did not revolve, elipticaly, around the sun, and the sun is not a star, and this star is not one of billions in this galaxy alone - it would be more than a confirmation of the virtues of scepticism. More would be wrong than me having too absolute an idea of the truth.
The problem with Evidential Truth
The wider theory I was talking about was not a wider theory of evolution than Darwin's. I didn't express myself well. What I was meaning to say was that Darwin's theory fits into a wider set of knowledge or theories about the development of the Universe, and the Earth within that. If those other theories fall then it could mean that evolution became unsustainable - or it might not. For example, the argument against Darwin by creationists was for a long time the "evidence" that the Earth could not be 5 billion years old because of its current temperature put forward by Kelvin. If for some reason - and I agree I cannot think of why this should be the case - we found the earth was much less than 5 billion years old (even if much older than 10,000 years) then evolution might fall as a theory because the necessary timescales would not fit.
What I objected to in Dawkins method of argument was that he rightly decried the religionists for believing that absolute truth is revealed, and is a matter of faith, and yet presented scientific truth in what I still believe to be a similar fashion. "This is true because all the evidence says it is true." As opposed to "this is true because the Bible/Koran/Reverend Moon etc. says its true."
"What we now believe to be true might turn out not to be. But surely it's also reasonable to have some notion, some assessment, of how shaky the ground is."
I agree but this is where a problem with evidential truth arises. It can lead to conclusions we would perhaps not like. Take the reference I have made before to Reece. On the basis of the latest scientific theories we have concerning the universe, and the laws which govern it, and which can be supported by evidence we would have to conclude that the universe is the product of intelligent design. Why because all of the current theory concerning the nature of the Universe requires the cosmological constant to fall within impossibly small limits, so small that mathematical theory dictates that the constant could not fall within these limits other than by design.
It turns out that this number needs to be set to an accuracy of one part in a trillion, trillion trillion, trillion trillion, trillion trillion, trillion trillion, trillion. Any minuscule variation and life is a non-starter. Now at this level it is beyond the realms of possibility even given the huge numbers involved for the constant to just happen to be the right amount. Hence the debate returns to Intelligent Design. If the constant cannot be the right number by chance, and yet it is the right number, it can only be so because someone has designed the Universe to be so.
Is there another explanation. Yes, that given by Reece that there is not just one universe, but an infinity of universes comnprising a multiverse. Because in the context of infinity even the tiniest possibility becomes a certainty, the cosmological constant must always be the right number in some of these universes (and given the paradoxical nature of infinity this number must itself also be infinity).
But the problem then is that we have absolutely no evidence that these other universes exist. The only evidence we have is that this single universe exists. If we are to base our understanding purely on evidence then we arrive at the conclusion that the only universe we have evidence for is the product of intelligent design. If we accept that conclusion then you are right - more would be wrong than you having too absolute an idea of the truth.
Martin Reece
Arthur Bough
PS Is it just me having problems with posting. I keep getting fatal error messages each time I post(but on no other site) and cannot log out.
ID
Yes. This stuff within cosmology is what I was referring to in my original comment as the stronger arguments Dawkins doesn't address. I think it raises all sorts of interesting questions (including, for instance, whether in fact what we observe about the universe is partly dictated by our own structures of thinking. Or, to sort of put that another way, maybe we're - as a species - just not clever enough to answer these really deep questions).
So I agree that stuff is challenging and interesting. Maybe the problem here is that Dawkins doesn't define his subject, and his target, clearly. If you want to get into a really difficult and interesting debate, then sure, the strangely conducive-to-our-existence (or, indeed, stars and planets' existence) nature of the make-up of the universe is pretty important.
But if you want to deal with Intelligent Design, and the actually old-fashioned Creationist basis of it, then this is an entirely different level of argument. Against ID as it really exists (not as an argument, basically, in theoretical physics), referring to the pretty-damn-incontravertible facts about, for instance, the age of the earth is reasonable enough.
An Interesting Piece On The Validity of The Theory of Gravity
I was just reading this from one of the links from the Martin Rees link. It may be of interest.
Is The Theory of Gravity Bogus
Arthur Bough
Just a quick point
It should be pointed out that although the theory of gravity may be subject to change gravity it's self is a verifiable fact as is evolution which can be verified through observation.
Can It
You say gravity itself can be verified. Can it. I have not read the whole book of which the above link is only the first chapter, and I have only quickly read this first chapter, but I thin that the points made above are to challenge the idea that any such ting as gravity exists.
The arguments for this seem to be.
1. The effects attributed to gravity as a force can be explained by reference to other scientific principles.
2. If gravity is a force it appears to breach scientific principles, because any force requires a power source, and no such power source for gravity has been identified.
3. Without a power source then the work done by the force should result in it being drained and the force itself becoming weaker, yet "gravity" appears to continue to exert a constant force.
4. What is the speed of gravity? According to Einstein nothing can travel faster than the spped of light yet gravity appears to do so as the thought experiment the authero gives demonstrates. i.e. oif the Sun disappeared tomorrow we would continue to receive light from it, because of the time it takes light to travel the 93 million miles. However, the gravity would disappear instantly.
As far as I can see the author suggests that these "facts" give rise to the question of whether what we have termed gravity can in fact be explained by other scientific principles, for example a geometric solution to orbits - which I confess to not understanding.
Arthur Bough
Sic Transit Gloriam Popper
Dear Arthur and Clive,
Thanks for the above, which has been very stimulating and generally of a far higher order of coherence than most websites on this topic, which are kind of extended rants on both sides. I must concede to be roughly on Arthur's side here. Dawkins presents himself as an adherent of falsificationism as the principle methodology of science, which I have no problem with. The problem comes when, as part of "setting out his stall" for science, he makes claims for the TRUTH of science, and thus veers radically away from falsificationism's core arguments, and into the territory of religious authority.
Karl Popper (as part of his search to remove metaphysics from science) argued precisely this in his Logic of Scientific Discovery, and later The Open Universe: because a scientific hypothesis must be falsifiable in order for it to be scientific, it must ALWAYS be possible for a scientific hypothesis to be disproved for it to remain 'scientific'. As Popper himself argued:
"I can therefore gladly admit that falsificationists like myself much prefer an attempt to solve an interesting problem by a bold gesture, even (and especially) if it soon turns out to be false, to any recital of a sequence of irrelevant truisms" (Popper, 1969, Conjectures and Refutations)
Let's not get Popper wrong here. He's not saying that TRUTH is an irrelevence, rather he is saying that the only way to unearth truth is by asserting hypotheses that, by their very nature, are scientfic because they could be mistaken. Moreover, under the falisificationist banner, no scientific theory can be proven true in a final untimate way: it is always open to falsification.
This is where, to my mind, Dawkins goes awry. Unlike Popper, Dawkins reaches a stage where a pet hypothesis (in this case, evolution), has so many 'mountains' of evidence, that he BELIEVES THAT IT IS TRUE. Here, I'm afraid I disagree with Clive. Within falsificationism, 'mountains of evidence' are a complete irrelevence: Newtonian mechanics had 'mountains of evidence' until Einstein came along with a single fact - the speed of light - that undermined its entire mathematical basis. Some hypotheses (in Newton's case, the mathematical autonomy of time versus space) are so central to a general way of looking at the world, that to falsify them is also to falsify a way of doing and thinking about scientific method (consider poor old Tycho Brahe). Scientific calculations regarding the age of the earth are built on a wide range of assumptions, some of which (not all) are unfortunately unfalsifiable. That doesn't stop it being a pretty good guess, but it certainly doesn't make it a relaiable object of faith from a logical point of view. Indeed, to take it as an item of faith (Clive) is to start talking like a religionist.
To my mind, it is this point where our naive Professor for the Public Understanding of Science unbuttons his white Falsificationist Coat (which has no pockets to hold mountains of evidence, only the smooth seams of doubt) and dons instead the Mantle of Certainty (which has pockets aplenty).
Unfortunately - and this is the crux of the matter - there is only one shop where you can purchase Mantles of Certainty, and that is the Religions R Us warehouse.
And this, to my mind is why Dawkins is such a miserable proponent of science: because he (like you, apparently, with your 'evangelical atheism') is actually a religionist in disguise. It is also why he gets so angry: by trying to 'set up his scientific stall' in the Hall of Religion, he believes that science is simply an alternative to religion (rather than somethinbg else altogether, which it is), and thus gets grumpy when the old hands already inhabiting the Hall of Religions are better at pulling the punters than he is.
Best wishes,
Martin Mills
Popper etc
Yes, a theory is scientific if it is falsifiable. (As I understand it, even strict Popperians think it's a bit more complex: and in any case most science is done by testing hypotheses rather than pure induction, etc etc). But surely what this means is that it is open to disproof, not that we are agnostic about its (provisional, sure) truthfulness.
My concern is that in a time when science is under threat both from religious revivalism and post-modernism (or whatever), to move too far in the direction Martin and Arthur seem to be urging is to concede too much.
And I don't think the criticism they're making of Dawkins is fair. He is concerned, in the face of a revival of creationism under a new name, to defend Darwinism by explaining that there is a vast amount - an absolutely enormous amount - of evidence which supports Darwin. Belief that this mountain of evidence gives Darwin a pretty strong case simply is not the same as 'faith'.
We have a government, no less, which is prepared to tolerate the teaching of so-called Intelligent Design. That Darwinian evolution must be disprovable to qualify as science does not mean it is only a 'theory' with the same weight as any other theory - right? But I don't see how you can defend Darwinism without pretty forthrightly insisting upon its *truth*. We can discuss the relativeness of truth; but as against ID (and I'm not talking the finer points of cosmology), the theory of evolution is 'true'. That's the context, here. Should we defend the theory of evolution or not? I am for wholeheartedly defending it.
Of course it is only provisional, like any other scientific theory. But if you were debating a flat-earther, surely you wouldn't hedge around the claim that the earth is not flat with such considerations.
My objection to Dawkins is different. I think he makes far too simplistic a case that people with 'faith' are the thin end of the wedge to bigotry, violence and suicide bombing. I think religious people can and do make a positive contribution to society, and this sort of 'militant atheism' is insensitive and crass. (Dawkins wrote something at the time of the tsunami, I think it was, pouring scorn on people for believing in God. Of course on one level you can see his point; but if people found comfort and solace in their faith in the face of such catastrophe, it seems to me pretty nauseating, really, to gloat, effectively, about how stupid they are. That's the sort of militant atheism I don't like).
Disproof and Proof
"We can discuss the relativeness of truth; but as against ID (and I'm not talking the finer points of cosmology), the theory of evolution is 'true'."
There's a bit of my enemies enemy is my friend here. How can the validity of evolution derive from the non-validity of creationism. Evolution is not true "as against ID" it is either true - absolutely or provisionally - irrespective of creationism. If creationism did not exist this could not affect whether or not evolution is true or not. You could say that Keynesianism is true as against Neo-classicism in the same way. For a Marxist we wouldn't however say that, therefore, Keynsianism is true.
"But if you were debating a flat-earther, surely you wouldn't hedge around the claim that the earth is not flat with such considerations."
But if I were arguing with a neo-classicist I would not argue that Keynesianism was true. I might cocnede that certain aspects of Keynesianism are true and give a better understanding of the functioning of a capitalist economy than does neo-classicism. In debating with a flat-earther I might also concede that in some senses the earth is flat, whilst in others it is not, because that is "true", and like Trotsky I think the strongest ground on which to stand in any argument is the ground of "truth".
"And I don't think the criticism they're making of Dawkins is fair. He is concerned, in the face of a revival of creationism under a new name, to defend Darwinism by explaining that there is a vast amount - an absolutely enormous amount - of evidence which supports Darwin. Belief that this mountain of evidence gives Darwin a pretty strong case simply is not the same as 'faith'."
But that is my case. The mountain of evidence means that there is a "very strong case" for evolution, such a strong case that for practical, pragamatic purposes it can be taken as "true", but that does not mean that from a scientific perspeective it is "true". What concerns me is that if the purpose is to explain the superiority of science to faith, Dawkins method failed. Let me give two reasons why I think that is the case.
My wife was only casually listening to the programme whilst filling in another Soduku puzzle. She has very little interest in such debates. At the point where Dawkins was challenging the Creationist and said to paraphrase "I know that evolution is true because it is backed by a mountain of evidence" she said exactly what I have been saying, "He's just done exactly what he accused the other bloke did. He believes he's right just as much but for different reasons."
Now I think that had Dawkins said openly "the difference between us is that no matter how much evidence I provide to show that you are wrong you will not change your mind, whilst I start from the belief that I only know part of the answer, and therefore need to keep asking questions, but that what I do know is based upon not just rational argument but a whole maountain of evidence, which is constantly being updated and challenged" then he would have been on stronger ground. The moment he said, "This is true because the evidence proves it." He left that ground and went on to the ground of religion.
The second reason is that one of his premises was that much of the conflict in theworld is a result of religious certainty. In this exchange the shot of Dawkins face showed a deep sense of anger against the creationist, as if to say look you moron can't you see that what you are saying is a load of bollocks, and I am quite obviously right. But isn't that exactly the same kind of certainty on both sides of the argument that Dawklins was accusing religion of, and that his premise says is the cause of conflict - or the root of evil. There have in fact been more people killed in the name of Reason, than in the name of Religion.
Arthur Bough
"I am obviously right"
I agree with the last point - that presumed rationality, or secularism, too, is no guarantee of peacefulness and democracy.
But the rest of it, Arthur, I confess to utter bafflement. The idea that a debate between a Darwinist and a creationist is even remotely comparable to a debate between a Keynesian and a neo-classical economist, I'm sorry, appalls me. You are suggesting that a scientist, confronted with an ignorant bigot who disputes that humanity is related to apes (which the bigots in question do), is not entitled to feel 'you moron I am right...'? And yes, anger. OF COURSE he is right. The provisional nature of scientific truth doesn't mean that scientists (or we) should shrug their shoulders mildly and be terribly non-commital about it all.
Evolutionary theory is not some kind of lesser evil in comparison to Creationism. I am not in favour of defending it as some woefully inadequate ally, but the best we've got. I am in favour of defending it because it is a very good, persuasive, compelling theory.
Scientific truths are the product of many things, including, of course, history. And of course it is the case that some things regarded as true have turned out to be utterly wrong. I am on record disputing some of what Dawkins himself claims is true (though actually I wouldn't stand by everything I said). The advancement of human knowledge has been achieved - absolutely - by scepticism, self-criticism, being prepared to overturn cherished beliefs. (And some of the areas you've indicated are interesting areas of debate, in as far as I understand them I agree are interesting).
But - for instance. It may, hypothetically, turn out not to be true that Homo sapiens has a common ancestor with chimps and bonobos; it may turn out we are not even primates, I don't know. I suppose on one level in the spirit of scepticism we should keep open that possibility - as in, if someone really came up with hard evidence to show it, then evidence is evidence.
But in the context of a debate with a Creationist, such a hypothetical is surely, to put it mildly, not really the point.
Missing The Point
The comparison of Keynesians and Neo-classicists I agree was not perhaps the best one to use, though I find that arguing with Libertarians who try to defend Austrian economics on the basis of ideas equally remote from reality not too dissimilar to arguing with Creationists. However, you seem to have missed the point I was attempting to make. That is that you made the comment that "but as against ID (and I'm not talking the finer points of cosmology), the theory of evolution is 'true'.
I was merely seeking to emphasise the point that the truth or otherwise of the theory of evolution is not contingent on the falsity of creationism. Creationism can be found to be false, without that in any way changing the validity or otherwise of evolution. In short evolution is not true because creationism is false, it is true or false, solely on the basis of the evidence and argument that support the hypothesis. For example, suppose I had some new theory and supporting evidence that demonstrated that "evolution" was largely true but that it was only a partial truth - much like the way Einstein came up first with theory that went beyond and in some senses overturned Newton, and later evidence was provided which backed up the evidence. I don't know what that might be but let's for arguments sake say that we found that humans are actually descendants of some hominoid alien race that visited Earth some 5 million years ago, whose space ship crashed. Would I then still have to say that as an explanation of the existence of Man (as opposed to all other life on Earth which might still have evolved in accordance with evolutionary theory) the current theory of evolution is "true" solely because Creationism is false?
What I find disturbing is that you think that the right emotion for him to feel is anger, because it does not seem to matter here whether this anger is directed against someone who holds a different view because they choose to base their beliefs on faith rather than science or someone who holds a different view because they have a different interpretation of the evidence. It seems to me that Dawkins anger could in other circumstances equally well have been directed against someone else who used the scientific method and came to a different conclusion. That he might then say "Look you moron here is the evidence, why don't you interpret it the same way that I do, you must need psychiatric treatment to correct your thinking." That I think is a fatal flaw in Dawkins approach of trying to blame religion for conflict, and then adopting the same stance of certainty himself.
I am not at all suggesting that confronted with Creationism we should simply shrug our shoulders, nor that we should not defend evolution as the best theory we have of our existence. I am suggesting that the best way of defending evolution as a theory and of confronting creationism is to do it by arguing on the ground of science and not on the ground of religion. On the ground not of a world of absolute certainties requiring no proof of validity and no questioning of that validity, but on the ground of a world full of uncertainty, a world of flux where knowledge is continually challenged and accepted only on the basis of clear evidence and logical argument, and then only accepted as a partial tentative answer until something better comes along. The first world does indeed lead to anger and conflict arising out of competing claims to certainty, the second embraces diversity of thought, even heretical thought.
Arthur Bough
Closing thoughts...
... because this is getting repetitive.
I don't think Darwinism is proven true by Creationism being false. Still, Creationism is false. I am all for questioning validities and what have you.
But who is for defending evolution as 'certainty requiring no proof of validity and no questioning...'? I'm not; and nor is Dawkins. There's plenty to criticise Dawkins for, but I think in this basic point, you are unfair to him. It's true that Dawkins, and other scientists, can be pretty snotty even regarding the views of other scientists they disagree with (you only have to read exchanges between Dawkins and Gould, or Steven Rose, and others, to see how snotty they can get). But these are intellectual arguments; they are not simply assertions of faith, and there's a difference between intellectual arrogance and a religious mindset.
I guess you might say it's advisable to contain your anger even under the worst provocation. But I don't think it's to retreat to unquestioned certainty to get pretty pissed off with someone who *refuses to accept the evidence* that the earth is not ten thousand years old, that humans are related to apes - or, more generally, that science can and has addressed many of the things they say it can't and hasn't. In the programme, Dawkins got annoyed by the bigot saying evolution said the eye just happened by accident. I don't blame him.
Final Comment - At least on this bit
I think Dawkins was saying the book was closed on the truthfulness of evolution. Whatever else he might say about science being about continual verification and the possibility of disproving hypotheses that position stands in contradiction to it.
I think his method of argument is self defeating. When I first left school in 1970 I worked as an office junior at one of the local Town Halls. We had a porter who was a lay preacher. He used to come out with all this stuff back then, and because I have always been interested in science I used to spend a lot of time arguing with him. I would present all of the "facts" concerning the age of the earth, ask how he explained dinosaur fossils etc. But of course he had answers for all of these points. The age of the earth was a mistake, fossils were put there by the Devil to mislead us, Dinosaurs were the product of human experimentation that led to God destroying mankind through the flood etc.
Frustrating to argue against yes. But in fact there is nothing here different from the method of Descartes at root. Descartes started from the assumption he could not trust his senses or anything he believed to be true because he might be being deceived by an Evil Genius.
More relevant to Dawkins and arguing against creationists, it is important to ask the question, what is the point of the argument, who are you trying to influence. The reality is that the debate is really pointless in terms of trying to change the mindset of the creationist. Its like trying to convince a cat lover that dogs are better than cats. The need for the debate is not to change the mindset of the creationist but to prevent others from adopting that mindset. In that I think Dawkins method fails. Many, many years ago when I was lecturing I taught a Gernal Studies group in which were three 17-18 year old lads who were members of the Elim Pentecostal Church. If that wasn't bad enough they held pretty nasty racist opinions as well. Now I could have simply retorted with anger and asserted the truth of my beliefs both against their creationist views and their racism. Instead I decided to respond calmly and simply expose the baselessnes of their ideas. I think if Dawkins goal was to undermine creationism, he could have focussed on that. You can disprove creationism to an unbiased audience without needing to put forward an alternative solution.
I think we also have to be careful about the extent to which we allow cultural chauvinism to creep in. We all accept hte sco called scientific method because we have grown up during a period after the Enlightenment, and when partly because of the scientific prinicples brought forward by the Enlightenment, but only partly, European civilsation has been dominant, and the dominant ideas of that civilisation based upon rationalism have become the ruling ideas of the age. Consequently, we have imbibed the cultural chauvinism from capitalism which that implies. Yet the truth is that for thousands of years before the discovery of rationalism and scientific principles civilisations in the East whose cultures were dominated by mysticism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucionism etc. were doing very nicely thank you in building, for the time, advanced civilisations laying out maps of the stars, setting out mathematical principles, discussing the nature of value and commodities etc. etc. and the Wise Men (A Kung Fu master is literally a wise man because a master had to understand not just the fighting arts, but udnerstand philosophy, medicine, etc. and Kung Fu and Confucius come from the same root meaning wise)who developed these aspects of civilisation were the same men who were also the purveyors of mysticism. Even to this day some of the things they developed are not understood by western science, and yet much like the calculus are adopted because they work. For example, Chi. Chi is central not only to Chinese martial Arts as a means of producing strength and power, and of methods of paralysing your opponent by stopping the flow of Chi, but is central to accupuncture.
I am not suggesting a rejection of scientific rationalist thought in favour of mysticism, science is now coming to grips with the idea of Chi, and will no doubt eventually discover its nature, and understand how a Shaolin monk can use it to bend a solid steel bar with the soft tissue in his neck, but I am suggesting that setting up current modes of thought as absolutes against which all other modes must be wrong is not in itself scientific, and certainly not Marxist.
I did want to revise my comment about the relevance of the keynesian/neo classical analogy. In fact I don't think the analogy was that far off. Over the last couple of years I have been arguing with Miseans on a Libertarian website. In fact as I commented on one occasion their approach is in fact not scientific but bears a striking similarity to the argument of the creationists. Indeed Miseans do not believe that Economics is a science or that scientific principles can be apllied to the study of social phenomena. They reject evidential proof, or the need to test their hypotheses against facts because they argue that it is impossible to identify facts that could prove or disprove the hypotheseis. Instead much as the creationists rely on faith the Miseans rely on deductive logic. A debate with a Misean then has much the same flavour as a debate with a creationist.
Arthur Bough
Sorry! just can't resist
... But I think you are confusing Dawkins' way of arguing with his actual argument.
I agree his manner is quite off-putting. And it's my experience in life that there are people who seem more 'certain they are right' in an everyday sense, and people who tend to doubt everything. I mean in the sense that if you were having an argument about whose turn it is to wash up, there are people who'd be so utterly sure they did it yesterday you'd end up thinking they were right. Dawkins thinks he's right in that sense, sure.
And he is surely *is* right that the volume of evidence supporting the theory, Darwinian evolution (actually, a blend of Darwin's theory with modern genetics) which he wants to defend is enormous. And while it might be advisable to stay calm, getting irritated and passionate in arguing about it is a perfectly human reaction.
But I think he does sincerely hold to this position because it is backed up by evidence, not because of faith; and he surely is, in principle, open to the theory being disproved. Wasn't this the whole point of his (rather naive) story about the professor thanking his opponent for crushing the theory he'd held to for 15 years?
And anyway if Dawkins doesn't sincerely hold this view in this case, that's just an observation about his personal psychology. The worldview he is defending for certain does not see any scientific theory, Darwin's included, as the last word on the matter.
I'll Be Watching Tonight Anyway
Maybe. I just think from a tactical point of view that if his object was to rubbish Creationism (and we both agree that is worthwhile in itself), and maybe to attack religion in general (though for reasons I've stated and to which I think you agree I think he is pushing the envelope on that side a bit) he would have been better to just attack the Creationists ideas than to try to defend Evolution. Why be put on to the defensive defending something the majority of people in the developed world already believe in. Just ridicule the Creationists ideas, and show why they are false.
I did want to make anoher point. I wonder whether you think that just as modes of production change in accordance with changes in the productive forces, and this brings about a change in the set of ruling ideas, whether also modes of thought might also be subject to such change.
What I have in mid is whether the current rationalist European mode of thought might itself be superseded - I suspect this is inevitable in Communist society. However, I wonder whether as the locus of economic power even under capitalism moves back to Asia, whether we might see the emergence of alternative modes of thought based around the more complex modes of thought more typical of the Orient. For example, a Computer programmer in India who trains and enhances his powers of intellectual concentration and perception by adherence to the Yoga Sutras, or the Chinese Physicist who organises his office to maximise his energy in accordance with Feng Shui might develop different thought patterns, merging these two different cultures, a sought of Yin/yang.
Arthur Bough
... And so will I ...
So did I, in fact. And I'll blog about it at some point today. Then we can start another discussion ...
Godbags
I broadly agree. The choice of interview subjects was interesting (particularly the seccular Jew-cum-Israeli settler-cum-Islamic fundamentalist), but hardly backed up his case that there was an inextricable link between such people and there more liberal brethren. A discussion with a theistic scientist like Robert Winston would have been interesting.
It was striking that Dawkins never mentioned the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Indeed if memory serves, the only person who did was the Islamic nutjob guy at the end. Dawkins also seems unaware of the long history of seccular suicide bombings carried out by the LTTE, PFLP, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and others. As you suggest, Dawkins' perspective can actually serve to shore up the status quo.
I await part 2 with interest mind.
http://disillusionedkid.blogspot.com
The World Is Not Round
Last night I was chatting to a friend of mine about a number of the issues above string theory, quantum mechanics and quantum entanglement. This morning whilst walking the dog I was still thinking about some of the discussion, and realised that Clive's assertion above that the earth is round (or roughly spherical) we already know to be false, and not just for the reasons I gave above that it is flat at the same time.
The problem is that Clive suffers from the same problem that the flat earthers suffered from - a limited perspective. The discussions of the other points my friednd and I were discussing highlight this. Take quantum entanglement. The principle of Quantum Entaglemnt is this. If you produce a particle of indefinite charge it actually divides into two particles one of which will have a positive charge, and the other will have a negative charge. Quantum theory predicts this result, because there is an equal probability that the particle will be negative rather than positive. Not only has this been verified by experiment, but it is actually used in cryptology.
The charge of either particle, however, is only determined as a result of observation. Once one of the particles is observed its charge then becomes fixed. However, once fixed this automatically determines the charge of the other unobserved particle. The fat of one particle is entangled with the fate of the other. Now my friend was telling me that he had recently been reading a paper that said that it is now believed that if the two particles were separated by several light years of space the same would be true i.e. as soon as the charge of one particle was determined by observation, then the fate of the other is instantaneously determined. But this means that whatever the carrier is that sends the message to the other particle that tells it it is positive or negative must travel faster than the speed of light, which according to Einstein is impossible.
However, I have a theory which might explain this,a nd brings me back to the opening remarks. When we look at objects we look at them in accordance with our limited perception. The people who believed that the earth was flat (actually people realised that it was not flat quite early on the Ancient Chinese for example knew it was not flat) did so because everything they could see told them it was flat, they looked out into the distance and it was flat. They could only view its surface two-dimensionally. The knowledge that it was not flat came not from an act of observation of the evidence, but by a process of logic. You could only see so far into the distance - about 22 miles to the horizon - yet you could travel further than this so the surface must be curved preventing you from seeing further.
But the statement the Earth is round is based on a similarly limited 3 dimensional perspective. But we know of at least 4 dimensions, and my friend was telling me that he had read a paper theorising the possibility of 10 spatial dimensions and one termporal dimension. Now back to the quantum entanglement. Two objects cannot occupy the same 3 dimensional space at the same time. However, viewed 4 dimensionally two obects can occupy the same space i.e. object A can occupy the space at time t and object B can occupy the same space at time t + n. Is it unreasonable then to consider the possibility that viewed in 11 dimensions that particles at a quantum level could in fact occupy the same space and time, and what appears as a spatial separation - even a spatial separation of several light years is only an apparent separation because we are unable to view space and time 11 dimensionally i.e. that what appears to our limited perception a 3 dimensional spatial separation is in fact a dimensional shift.
Now to return to the earth if we view it 4 dimensionally rather than 3 dimensionally i.e. if we view it through time it no longer appears round, but cylindrical because viewed through time it plots a track through space. If we were able to view it 11 dimensionally who knows what shape it is.
In short we see and believe that the Earth is round only because our sense and perception are still almost as feeble as those early humans who beleived it was flat because they could only perceive it two dimensionally.
Arthur Bough