Richard dawkins

Dolph said:
Actually, Dawkins has written many books that mix his science with his philosophy, such as the blind watchmaker, as well as many papers and articles on the subject (such as Virus of the mind).

His evolution work, when he leaves out the philosophical bent, is fantastic. It's just a shame he tarnishes it with the rest of his behaviour.
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All of his books contain an aspect of theology/philosophy but it's only really the gd that has mostly theology/philosophy and very little science and that's probably why i regret the gd next to his excellent books on evolution!

The god delusion is mostly his opinion on the problems with religion and one that he is perfectly entitled to in a free country! The gd has invited his arrogant reputation because on most of his interviews and speeches now, the interviewer or questioner seems to always ask him about theology/philosophy even though he might be promoting a book on evolution!
 
Castiel said:
I would be interested in reading Hitchens also, so I think a trip to the book shop is in order tomorrow.
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If your chief criticism of Richard is that you don't believe he understands religion, the same cannot be said, and I will not allow it to be so, for Christopher. In fact, as I mentioned above, he has a firmer, more coherent grasp of not only what religion is, but what it means for the individual and the world.
 
NormanPorkinson said:
All of his books contain an aspect of theology/philosophy but it's only really the gd that has mostly theology/philosophy and very little science and that's probably why i regret the gd next to his excellent books on evolution!
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He does have a tendency to mix the two, and make claims that can't actually be substantiated by the scientific method without belief in realism, that is true. It doesn't stop his evolution work being excellent, it just means he pushes it a little further than it can actually go without faith. (eg, evolution implying somehow that god doesn't exist. It doesn't, at best it implies that god is unnecessary, which is a similar result but definitely different overall).

The god delusion is mostly his opinion on the problems with religion and one that he is perfectly entitled to in a free country! The gd has invited his arrogant reputation because on most of his interviews and speeches now, the interviewer or questioner seems to always ask him about theology/philosophy even though he might be promoting a book on evolution!
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That is a problem of Dawkins' own making though, he used his scientific reputation to shoehorn his philosophical beliefs into the world, if he wants to stop being pulled up on it, perhaps he should stop doing it.

As for it being a free country, of course it is, and I fully support Dawkins' right to publish whatever he wants, that doesn't mean I am required to give it any more credibility or attention than work by any other religious fundamentalist.
 
Refuting doctrine should be easy, but it seems that every time it is refuted, it's changed. That's my biggest problem with a lot of religious debate, the religious put forward an unfalsifiable argument, which can never be proven, nor disproven. This contrasts the theory of evolution (which is obviously separate from the question of whether there's a God), which is positively falsifiable.
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oh heres a question:

How do you know your mother/father/wife/gf/bf loves you? Can you prove it?
 
Dolph said:
He does have a tendency to mix the two, and make claims that can't actually be substantiated by the scientific method without belief in realism, that is true. It doesn't stop his evolution work being excellent, it just means he pushes it a little further than it can actually go without faith. (eg, evolution implying somehow that god doesn't exist. It doesn't, at best it implies that god is unnecessary, which is a similar result but definitely different overall).



That is a problem of Dawkins' own making though, he used his scientific reputation to shoehorn his philosophical beliefs into the world, if he wants to stop being pulled up on it, perhaps he should stop doing it.

As for it being a free country, of course it is, and I fu







I think he has actually stopped doing debates with creationists and theologians! If theolgy comes into the equation on a scientific debate then he is obliged to answer!

lly support Dawkins' right to publish whatever he wants, that doesn't mean I am required to give it any more credibility or attention than work by any other religious fundamentalist.
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NormanPorkinson said:
Could you be so kind to point me to a good book that sucessfully rebukes the gd? I tried the dawkins delusion by the theolgy professor alistair mcgrath but it was pathetic and actually made dawkins arguments look stronger not weaker. Thanks in advance!
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I've never read a book directly rebutting the God Delusion, successfully or otherwise. Quite frankly, it would be a waste of my time. The only part of the Dawkins Delusion that interests me are the bits written by McGrath's wife regarding Dawkins' use of the term 'Delusion' - as her academic background is in Psychology. That was one angle that didn't really stick out to me, when I read TGD.

This was a rough draft of something I wrote after reading TGD, and eventially posted here. It pretty much sums up how I feel about the book. I intended to get around to editing it a bit and putting it on a book review site but never bothered in the end. I've edited the bit about positivism now, as it didn't make sense at first but here you go:

Uriel said:
If you wanted to find out about the culture of an Amazonian tribe, would you send an anthropologist or a missionary? The former might seek to keenly observe the people and beliefs they are interested in. If particularly dedicated, they may even seek to assimilate themselves in to the culture. Unless they are repulsed by what they find, we might expect it to be rare that they would seek to change the people they interact with. The missionary, while perhaps taking time to learn the language and local etiquette, will ultimately seek to change the people they interact with.

In Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, the author clearly has an agenda of change in mind. I don’t know if he’d mind the term, but he has an air of missionary zeal about him. As early as the prologue, he states his intentions: that agnostics and theists reading the book might become atheists. Although he has religion in general in mind, his attack on religion is particularly targeted at Christianity, as that is the religion with which he is most familiar.

Christianity, in its various guises, has a few easy targets to aim for. Dawkins, an authority on evolutionary biology, is well equipped to take down some of the more ridiculously anti-scientific or unscientific expressions that have become attached to it. He is a clear communicator and the book is easy to read, especially when presenting scientific concepts. As we can fully explain these processes, Dawkins goes on to indicate that there is no room for a god-of-the-gaps. If we don’t need a god to explain anything , why would we need one at all?

As Dawkins strays from his professional field though, a few inconsistencies are apparent. He is happy to voice support for hypotheses with little evidential basis, as long as they suit his position. As he wanders from biology into physics, his enthusiasm for the concept of an evolving multiverse slips in. For someone seemingly so grounded in scientific empiricism, voicing support for something that is not currently falsifiable seems a little odd. The author doesn’t fail to notice this. Endorsement of this currently unproved hypothesis is claimed to be justified over belief in God, in that it is inherently simple, and therefore relatively believable. If God existed, explains Dawkins, He would be inherently complicated. The probability of such a being existing is explained in evolutionary terms and, according to such terms, would be improbable.

There’s an obvious objection that must be voiced here: no theistic system that I am aware of, with the possible very tenuous exception of Mormonism, believes in these kinds of god. They are classic straw man fallacies, and obvious ones at that. Perhaps Dawkins doesn’t realise that the arguments come across in a similar way to Aquinas’ proofs: arguments intended to stand together, cementing an existing position. And so the book progresses, although often with more subtlety, as men of straw are successively lined up and dispatched, one by one.

As Dawkins’ book continues, one can’t help but notice a strange pre-Popperesque air of positivism. Non scientific knowledge is implicitly, and in the case of theology – explicitly, dismissed. It is here that we run into the book’s biggest flaw. Dawkins has stumbled headlong into academic fields of which he is deliberately ignorant. The author claims that there is no need to engage in theology, any more than one would study pixies. Why then, does he waste so much time developing his own probabilistic theology and take so little time engaging in discussion relating to presumably recognised academic disciplines such as history?

An extraordinarily selective view of first century Christian history is presented and little peer-reviewed work cited, with some frankly crackpot fringe views thrown in because they vaguely support the intended argument. Dawkins fails to mention where the few sources he does cite recognise the canonical gospels as early (and in at least one case) primary witnesses by people that believed that Jesus was resurrected. He dismisses this historicity of the New Testament based on the opinions of 19th Century theologians with, it has to be said, some- but by no means universal -current support . As it happens, things have moved on from there, although not necessarily to the literalistic historicity the Fundamentalists might hope for.

A ten year old biology textbook would be out of date in some areas. Likewise, history and theology have moved on. Recent peer reviewed work by secular historians on the dating and nature of the Gospels might have given Dawkins a harder argument to tackle but he chose not to engage with it. The lack of reading in this area was a glaring omission at first but has taken a more recent ironic turn. Earlier this year, A. N. Wilson, the author of one of Dawkins’ few sources on the historical Jesus publicly retracted some of the views he had expressed in his biography Jesus: A Life. While announcing his conversion to a relatively standard Trinity-believing Christianity in a national newspaper, Wilson blamed his former atheism on intellectual ‘peer pressure’ from Richard Dawkins, amongst others.

Perhaps intellectual peer pressure really does get to the crux of the matter. The title of the book gives it away. Dawkins admits that the theistic argument that he finds most difficult to deal with is the one from ‘personal’ experience. He emphasises the ‘personal’, as it is easier to dismiss than corporate or objectively demonstrable experience, which is harder to dismiss as a delusion. And here is where Dawkins, slips into an argument from personal incredulity. He goes to great lengths to dismiss the views of theists that he regards as ‘otherwise’ objective, seemingly misrepresenting individuals (Robert Winston certainly wasn’t happy) and attempting to portray an artificially minimised number of theists working in mainstream science. Sowing seeds of doubt here is Dawkins’ riposte to what will be most convincing for many believers: if you think you’ve experienced anything supernatural, you are mistaken.

The most uncomfortable argument for a reader from one of the Abrahamic religions is probably where Dawkins turns to ethics. Here we are reminded, based on the Bible, of the acts of the Israelite people and their sometimes fierce, warrior God. There are serious questions here. Can an end ever justify such terrible means? Can a God that endorses, and indeed commands, such violence really be regarded as good? If religion makes people comfortable with these things then perhaps there is something wrong with it.

There is something of a recovery in the latter stages of the book, which builds to a wonderful crescendo on the sense of awe that scientific knowledge can bring. I fear that by this point, Dawkins will have lost those of his readers with much knowledge in the areas in which he is ignorant. Even if he had engaged them in the early stages, they will have been turned off by carelessness on par with a Young Earther dismissing radiometric dating.

Thinking back to my introduction, we can imagine a third visitor to our remote corner of South America: the travel writer. This third figure isn’t necessarily interested being immersed in the local culture. Their job is simply telling the uninformed whether it’s worth going there. The chances are that their article will mainly be read by people that don’t live in the depths of the Amazon. Most of the people reading it, will never have considered visiting the place and this won’t change their opinion. Some people, who were thinking of going, will be put off. What if the anthropologist or the missionary were to read the article? If either of them did read it, I expect they might respond with “so they didn’t see...”, “so they didn’t understand...” or “why didn’t they mention ...?”. One might wonder whether it’s more probable that people of the Amazonian tribe will read the unfavourable article, or if a reader will decide to visit the area, in spite of what they’ve read.
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Edit: Originally posted here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=14400892#post14400892
 
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Here's a question for Naffa, Norman etc.

Science can prove (at least beyond reasonable doubt) that the existence of a deity is not necessary for humans to have come to exist. However, putting aside any of your moral views about religion ("it starts wars", "people ram it down my throat" etc), for what reason do you believe that the theory of evolution is actually the way that we came to be, rather than God?

I am, here, casting evolution and religion as mutually exlusive, which they aren't - please take it as though they are for the purposes of this query though.
 
Dolph said:
He is a fantastic evolutionary biologist, truely brilliant within his field.

The trouble is, he tries to use reputation outside of this field when he moves into philosophy, where he has proven over and over that he knows pretty much bugger all.
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Spot on.
 
Uriel said:
I've never read a book directly rebutting the God Delusion, successfully or otherwise. Quite frankly, it would be a waste of my time. The only part of the Dawkins Delusion that interests me are the bits written by McGrath's wife regarding Dawkins' use of the term 'Delusion' - as her academic background is in Psychology. That was one angle that didn't really stick out to me, when I read TGD.

This was a rough draft of something I wrote after reading TGD, and eventially posted here. It pretty much sums up how I feel about the book. I intended to get around to editing it a bit and putting it on a book review site but never bothered in the end. I've edited the bit about positivism now, as it didn't make sense at first but here you go:


Edit: Originally posted here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php? p=14400892#post14400892
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No offence but this review is quite poor IMO especially if your aim was to rebutt dawkins' assertions! In fact it reminds me of the alistair mcgrath book I mentioned, where he goes to great lengths to try and look like he's broken down rd's ideas but doesn't actually get anywhere.
 
Dolph said:
He is a fantastic evolutionary biologist, truely brilliant within his field.

The trouble is, he tries to use reputation outside of this field when he moves into philosophy, where he has proven over and over that he knows pretty much bugger all.
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manic111 said:
Here's a question for Naffa, Norman etc.

Science can prove (at least beyond reasonable doubt) that the existence of a deity is not necessary for humans to have come to exist. However, putting aside any of your moral views about religion ("it starts wars", "people ram it down my throat" etc), for what reason do you believe that the theory of evolution is actually the way that we came to be, rather than God?

I am, here, casting evolution and religion as mutually exlusive, which they aren't - please take it as though they are for the purposes of this query though.
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I have neither the time nor the scientific credentials to answer such a question which requires a great deal of detail and understanding. That's not to say I don't know anything about evolution because I do have an ok understanding for a lay person, it's just I'd rather avoid doing the theory any disservice. Buy a book by the author in the op, maybe the greatest show on earth!
 
NormanPorkinson said:
No offence but this review is quite poor IMO especially if your aim was to rebutt dawkins' assertions! In fact it reminds me of the alistair mcgrath book I mentioned, where he goes to great lengths to try and look like he's broken down rd's ideas but doesn't actually get anywhere.
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Oh well, I'll take it as a complement that I managed to do in a few paragraphs what took McGrath a whole book to achieve :).

Most of TGD isn't worth rebutting. Most of the arguments in the book are with straw men.
 
Uriel said:
Oh well, I'll take it as a complement that I managed to do in a few paragraphs what took McGrath a whole book to achieve :).

Most of TGD isn't worth rebutting. Most of the arguments in the book are with straw men.
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I can post some reviews that I've read on it, they're not that far removed from yours in tone but they do go into more detail.

http://www.kenanmalik.com/reviews/dawkins_god.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...e-god-delusion-by-richard-dawkins-425934.html

Here's a much longer one:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2007/jan/11/a-mission-to-convert/
 
Uriel said:
Oh well, I'll take it as a complement that I managed to do in a few paragraphs what took McGrath a whole book to achieve :).

Most of TGD isn't worth rebutting. Most of the arguments in the book are with straw men.
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You are a good writer and much better than I could ever be at that sort of thing and I agree that the gd is regretable when he is in fact a lot better than that, it's still a thought provoker, however, and it's written with his usual charm and accessability IMO! I predict he's learnt a lot since that book and I'm not surprised that he has said that he's not got any plans for any further book of that style.
 
Uriel, nicely put in that passage on the previous page. As much as I admire some of Dawkins work I do feel he is somewhat Victorian in some of his blind obedience to the world of Comte rather than how we view things now. I think one criticism put at Dawkins earlier (may have been Dolph - can't remember) was that science can not answer the why - well surely in the case of evolution the why is quite clearly answered?

As for the OP - well Dolph summed it up perfectly - as much as I admire his work in one area it does not necessarily translate to any great ability elsewhere. I also admire another genius - a certain physicist from Cambridge, I would not however want him in my 5-a-side team ...
 
maustin said:
As for the OP - well Dolph summed it up perfectly - as much as I admire his work in one area it does not necessarily translate to any great ability elsewhere. I also admire another genius - a certain physicist from Cambridge, I would not however want him in my 5-a-side team ...
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AHAHAHA! Brilliant!
 
maustin said:
I think one criticism put at Dawkins earlier (may have been Dolph - can't remember) was that science can not answer the why - well surely in the case of evolution the why is quite clearly answered?
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I'd say it was more of a how has been answered i.e. we know (or have a good approximation) of how evolution occurs. Unless you mean that the why is answered by "the conditions were right for evolution to occur"?

I believe it was vonhelmet who first brought up the question of science and the why but I also mentioned it. However even if we allow that science has answered the why - I think the phrasing I should have used is that science isn't set up to answer the why, science sets out to answer the how and anything beyond that could be considered a bonus based on whatever interpretation we want to put on it. The why is tangenital or secondary to the how and that's what we should remember here.
 
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