What's Wrong With Richard Dawkins?

[Civilized Worm]

I haven't read any Gould yet, where's a good place to start?

 

[CFLarsen]

Gould died some time ago... he and Dawkins both agreed not to debate creationists... Gould and his "NOMA" didn't forsee the Discovery Institute and the steady stream of creationist lies that would be infiltrating the US-- and the bigotry they'd spread against scientists, atheists, Darwin, and those who tell the truth.

Is there no limit to your ignorance?

The Discovery Institute was founded in 1990. Stephen J. Gould died on May 20, 2002. His idea of NOMA was first published in Rocks of Ages, from 1999.

There were plenty of creationists before Gould.

 

[Smiledriver]

Let me just say I was a Christian as little as three months ago and I am now an Athiest. It was the wit and clarity of Christopher Hitchens did the convincing and I actually read Dawkins well before Hitchens.

I got a few problems with The God Delusion, but that title and his thesis irk me the most.

He essentially says that religious people are deluded. This is a filthy rhetorical trick. It does the one thing a philosopher and scientist should never do. Namely, set himself up to be irrefutable. How do I as a religous person counter the charge that I am delusional? If I concede the point, naturally Dawkins wins. If I resist and argue that I am not deluded? Ah precisly what a deluded person would say. Dawkins wins.

So the book just becomes a series of reasons why the author thinks you have a mental defect. You engage in nothing thats the problem.

As for Harris, he argues so well. Love that guy

 

[Civilized Worm]

There's a difference between having a delusion and having a delusional disorder you know. Dawkins simply meant delusion as in an unjustified belief.

 

[skeptical]

He essentially says that religious people are deluded. This is a filthy rhetorical trick. It does the one thing a philosopher and scientist should never do. Namely, set himself up to be irrefutable. How do I as a religous person counter the charge that I am delusional? If I concede the point, naturally Dawkins wins. If I resist and argue that I am not deluded? Ah precisly what a deluded person would say. Dawkins wins.

I think you are extrapolating quite a bit from the title. A "delusion" is simply a false belief. If you say a belief is a "delusion", the way to counter that is to offer evidence that it is not, period. There's no rhetorical trick to it, its just saying "if you believe such and such, what is your evidence for that?". It is simply asking for the same amount of evidence for religious claims that everyone requires for all their other beliefs every day. Or, at least, proportioning the warrant of the belief to the amount of evidence that exists for it.

I think you are confounding the idea of a delusional _person_, someone who we lay people might call "psychotic", with a delusional _idea_. The book was not titled "The delusional religious", in which case you might have a point, it was the "The God delusion", as in the idea of a God having little if any evidence or a belief which is held completely disproportionate what is warrranted. Granted, the title is somewhat provocative, but controversy sells books. Hitchens didn't subtitle his book "how religion poisons everything" for nothing you know. I suppose he could have called it "The God mistake", but that doesn't sound quite as catchy.

 

[westprog]

I haven't read any Gould yet, where's a good place to start?

All his series of books are accessible, likeable and interesting. I'd go for one of the books of essays, like Bully For Brontosaurus or The Panda's Thumb. The one-theme books are a little heavier - such as The Mismeasure Of Man or Wonderful Life - but they're still good. One of the best popular science writers ever.

 

[Herzblut]

I'm sorry, this sophistry isn't really working for me.
We've got 4 distinct concepts: truth, proof of truth, proof and measure, and at the moment they're all quite easy to tell apart.

If you could go back and edit your posts so that you use the words "knowledge" or "knowing" as a place holder for all of these different concepts, it'd be prime sophism and I'd have much more trouble disagreeing with it.

Please express your proposition about what we discuss, or point me to where you did. I will then happily respond.

Edit: your only recognizable assertion is "scientific theories can be true" for which you have been kindly requested to provide a justification, but you didn't.

 

[GreyICE]

Spokesperson for what? Limp apologies for religious stupidity? Gould was a nice guy, and a smart guy, but he was wrong in his approach, IMO.

Gould educated people about science and connected to the real world in a more articulate, interesting, and logical manner than Dawkins does. He really was one of the most interesting spokespeople for evolution and his theories were interesting from both a scientific and layman perspective.

Oh yeah, and it helps that he made a much better case for his theories than Dawkins. Evolutionary psychology seems about as useful as its predecessor.

 

[articulett]

Besides, the believer thinks all those other religions, myths, and woo are "delusions"-- he just doesn't apply the same scrutiny to his own beliefs.

 

[RandFan]

This is a filthy rhetorical trick.

Hi SD. Sorry for the smilie but your rhetoric attacking rhetoric really hit my funny bone. I say that not as an attack. I promise.

So, if I believe the guy down the road who claims to be Napolean is delusional what can I say about him that isn't a rhetorical trick?

 

[westprog]

Gould educated people about science and connected to the real world in a more articulate, interesting, and logical manner than Dawkins does. He really was one of the most interesting spokespeople for evolution and his theories were interesting from both a scientific and layman perspective.

Dawkins has written some perfectly good popular science books, but he's just not in the same league as Gould. It's possible to write good science, and it's possible to write easily understood science for the layman, but combining the two is next to impossible. Either you make it too inaccessible, or you lose important detail. Gould managed to circumvent this limitation.

Oh yeah, and it helps that he made a much better case for his theories than Dawkins. Evolutionary psychology seems about as useful as its predecessor.

I'm not qualified to comment on their relative merits as evolutionary scientists. Gould as a writer is far more appealing to me.

 

[NewtonTrino]

I'm sorry but Dawkins science books are simply top notch. The science is well explained in laymen's terms IMHO.

 

[andyandy]

The question shouldn't really be " what's wrong with Richard Dawkins?" but rather why he's been elevated to such a status where any mention of his name guarantees 200 posts in any thread. He's an excellent science writer and excellent scientist, a great public speaker and entertaining interviewee, but he's also a pretty average philosopher and hardly can have been said to made any original contributions to the discourse on religion. His only real achievement in this sphere seems to be writing a best-selling book, a commendable achievement in itself, but we don't see the same fervour or heat generated by a thread on Terry Pratchett or John Grisham. And so it is not the fame in itself, or indeed the book content (the God delusion whilst a fairly enjoyable read certainly doesn't tread new ground), can only be described as the cult of personality that has arisen about the man himself. Where any criticism of the man, his work or his writing is extrapolated from personal and taken as a general criticism of the atheist movement in general of which he is seen as the spearhead.

So, why are we all so bothered about Richard Dawkins?

 

[Jekyll]

Please express your proposition about what we discuss, or point me to where you did. I will then happily respond.

Edit: your only recognizable assertion is "scientific theories can be true" for which you have been kindly requested to provide a justification, but you didn't.

I have continuously asserted that you confuse the truth of a statement with a proof that a statement is true, and that these are different matters. You just seem to try to dodge and evade this point.

You didn't ask for a justification, you asked for a proof which is a different matter.

Here is your justification.
These are two different scientific theories:

(1)The earth goes round the sun.
(2)The earth doesn't go round the sun.

Now (2) is the same as "not (1)", so by the law of the excluded middle. [latex] $ (1) \vee (2)$ [/latex] is true. So at least one of the statements (1) and (2) are true.
Therefore a scientific theory is true.

Now, if this doesn't meet your idea of a formal proof, I'll need your formal definition of proof, and a justification of your ability to recognise a valid proof.

 

[Civilized Worm]

Dawkins has written some perfectly good popular science books, but he's just not in the same league as Gould. It's possible to write good science, and it's possible to write easily understood science for the layman, but combining the two is next to impossible. Either you make it too inaccessible, or you lose important detail. Gould managed to circumvent this limitation.

On which count do you think Dawkins fails?

 

[Faithkills]

Ah, so you don't believe in Evolution, right, Herzblut?

Or do you just not know the branches that led to the Human species?

Can you logically attack any of his arguments, or can you just participate in childish mocking?

Wow I agree with Herz. This confuses me

I like Dawkin's in general but on this point..

Dawkins arguments parallel, on an evolutionary level, the pro life arguments on an individual level.. 'potential'.

There is nothing wrong with holding something special about the species to which I belong than holding something special about the person who I am.

More.. it's likely that soon these issues will become more of a concern for us, as geneering comes (will happen) and AI's get developed (likely to happen imo) our species will lose it's objective superiority, and conceivably may risk being superceded.

If other species have value because they have potential to be 'like us' then doesn't this lead to the possibility that they may have more value than us if they have potential to be better than us?

As technology advances then practically any animate entity will have this potential, and likely previously inanimate things will have this potential.

How can we justify our existence at all then? Our very existence takes resources from some potential entity that may be potentially superior.

I think speceism is just as valid, and in the same way valid, as individualism. We have the right to attempt to progress, to seek advancement, to seek personal 'evolution' or species evolution if you will, and this progression may sometimes take resources from other individuals, or other species.

Mind you I do not think that's an absolute right or law. And I think to so advance, our ethics must also advance, and that does mean limiting needless cruelty. To use the example that's always on everyone's mind.. don't experiment on cat's when rats will do. Don't experiment on rats when computer models will do.

But absolutely do not 'experiment' on humans with untested medical treatments when animals will do.

 

[articulett]

I'm pretty sure Dawkins point was that religion causes people to care more about zygotes that can't feel or suffer and most of whom die anyhow (due to "god's" natural abortions) than they do about actual people and animals that can feel and suffer and want-- that do exist.

That's twisted. At least it is to me. Humans that could be are not more important than life forms that are-- that exist and can feel and suffer. The idea of a special human soul causes people to do irrational things. This "soul" is supposed to make humans more moral... and yet other animals show morality without threats of hell and so forth.

Don't take Herzy's interpretation of what Dawkins said as your own. Read it for yourself.

 

[Egg]

If that's a fact, then I stand corrected.

That said, I pretty much agreed with your earlier post on the subject.

 

[Mobyseven]

Information that is useful.

Okay, I'll grant you that as a good attempt - but there are still hidden assumptions in your definition that I'd say incorporate the concept of 'truth'.

As a hint: When is something 'information' rather than just a 'belief'? And by what criteria can we determine that something is 'useful'?

 

[Lonewulf]

Wow I agree with Herz. This confuses me

I like Dawkin's in general but on this point..

Dawkins arguments parallel, on an evolutionary level, the pro life arguments on an individual level.. 'potential'.

There is nothing wrong with holding something special about the species to which I belong than holding something special about the person who I am.

More.. it's likely that soon these issues will become more of a concern for us, as geneering comes (will happen) and AI's get developed (likely to happen imo) our species will lose it's objective superiority, and conceivably may risk being superceded.

If other species have value because they have potential to be 'like us' then doesn't this lead to the possibility that they may have more value than us if they have potential to be better than us?

As technology advances then practically any animate entity will have this potential, and likely previously inanimate things will have this potential.

How can we justify our existence at all then? Our very existence takes resources from some potential entity that may be potentially superior.

I think speceism is just as valid, and in the same way valid, as individualism. We have the right to attempt to progress, to seek advancement, to seek personal 'evolution' or species evolution if you will, and this progression may sometimes take resources from other individuals, or other species.

Mind you I do not think that's an absolute right or law. And I think to so advance, our ethics must also advance, and that does mean limiting needless cruelty. To use the example that's always on everyone's mind.. don't experiment on cat's when rats will do. Don't experiment on rats when computer models will do.

But absolutely do not 'experiment' on humans with untested medical treatments when animals will do.

It seems to me that your argument is hampered by the fact that killing off, torturing, and doing whatever we want to "lesser" species, would be much worse example when we end up the "lesser" species. However, I don't tend to put my moral philosophies around hypotheticals like the above, which rely on a few too many hurdles for my taste.