Dennett's new book on religion and evolution

[Angus McPresley]

...savaged in a New York Times review. It starts like this:

THE question of the place of science in human life is not a scientific question. It is a philosophical question. Scientism, the view that science can explain all human conditions and expressions, mental as well as physical, is a superstition, one of the dominant superstitions of our day; and it is not an insult to science to say so. For a sorry instance of present-day scientism, it would be hard to improve on Daniel C. Dennett's book. "Breaking the Spell" is a work of considerable historical interest, because it is a merry anthology of contemporary superstitions.

It gets worse from there. He may as well have titled his review "Science Can't Explain Everything (Therefore My Beliefs Are Safe)". Read the rest here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/b...cb401ef9fc3e82&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

 

[Iacchus]

Are you suggesting that there's a difference between the belief in religion and the belief in evolution?

From the same page ...

And Dennett's book is also a document of the intellectual havoc of our infamous polarization, with its widespread and deeply damaging assumption that the most extreme statement of an idea is its most genuine statement. Dennett lives in a world in which you must believe in the grossest biologism or in the grossest theism ...

Yes, I agree.

 

[Mojo]

Are you suggesting that there's a difference between the belief in religion and the belief in evolution?

Yes. Belief in religion is faith-based. Science requires evidence. There is a vast amount of evidence supporting the theory of evolution by natural selection.

 

[Iacchus]

Yes. Belief in religion is faith-based. Science requires evidence. There is a vast amount of evidence supporting the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Yes, but what do you believe? If evolution were so certain, why should it require anyone to assess this is so? In fact I shouldn't even have to wait for your report to tell me this. I, you and everyone else should automatically know it. So yes, it's all about the process of belief and, to which extreme you are willing to take it. That to me sounds like the earmark of superstition.

 

[Mojo]

Yes, but what do you believe? If evolution were so certain, why should it require anyone to assess this is so?

Because it is a matter of fact, not faith. To establish something factually, it is necessary to consider the evidence and devise a theory that fits the evidence, not just to make some wild guess.

In fact I shouldn't even have to wait for your report to tell me this. I, you and everyone else should automatically know it.

How do you think anyone can automatically know about anything without examination of the available evidence? Are you suggesting that people should just believe whatever they are told, or do you think knowledge should somehow just pop up in people's minds from nowhere?

So yes, it's all about the process of belief and, to which extreme you are willing to take it. That to me sounds like the earmark of superstition.

Unthinkingly jumping to conclusions without considering the evidence is the hallmark of superstition. And it is also, it seems, the hallmark of your thought processes.

 

[Iacchus]

Because it is a matter of fact, not faith. To establish something factually, it is necessary to consider the evidence and devise a theory that fits the evidence, not just to make some wild guess.

Nonsense. How would I have ever guessed if I weren't so educated to believe that it were so? Indeed, why should it require your affirmation in the least?

How do you think anyone can automatically know about anything without examination of the available evidence? Are you suggesting that people should just believe whatever they are told, or do you think knowledge should somehow just pop up in people's minds from nowhere?

Yes, and did anyone believe in this before Darwin came along?

Unthinkingly jumping to conclusions without considering the evidence is the hallmark of superstition. And it is also, it seems, the hallmark of your thought processes.

Really? I know more than to just base this upon yours or, anyone else's say-so. And what's more ironic, is I consider evolution to be a viable explanation for what actually happened ... the development of the natural world anyway.