Children see the world as designed Much to Richard Dawkins chagrin
Article from Creation
by David Catchpoole
Much to Richard Dawkins’ chagrin, children infer from their own observations that there must be a Creator
Prominent misotheist Richard Dawkins has long argued (e.g. in his book The God Delusion) that belief in God is propagated through “indoctrination”, especially of children. But Dawkins is having to face up to some awkward facts. Awkward for Dawkins that is, because the facts point to children recognising that living things are designed, i.e. nature originated at the hand of a Creator God.
For example, researchers at Oxford University (at which Dawkins himself was until recently the holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science) have earlier reported finding children who, when questioned, express their understanding that there is a Creator, without having had any such instruction from parents or teachers. As Dr Olivera Petrovich, who lectures in Experimental Psychology at Oxford, explained in an interview with Science and Spirit:
My Japanese research assistants kept telling me, ‘We Japanese don’t think about God as creator — it’s just not part of Japanese philosophy.’ So it was wonderful when these children said, ‘Kamisama! God! God made it!’—Dr Olivera Petrovich, Oxford University
“I tested both the Japanese and British children on the same tasks, showing them very accurate, detailed photographs of selected natural and man-made objects and then asking them questions about the causal origins of the various natural objects at both the scientific level (e.g. how did this particular dog become a dog?) and at the metaphysical level (e.g. how did the first ever dog come into being?). With the Japanese children, it was important to establish whether they even distinguished the two levels of explanation because, as a culture, Japan discourages speculation into the metaphysical, simply because it’s something we can never know, so we shouldn’t attempt it. But the Japanese children did speculate, quite willingly, and in the same way as British children. On forced choice questions, consisting of three possible explanations of primary origin, they would predominantly go for the word ‘God’, instead of either an agnostic response (e.g., ‘nobody knows’) or an incorrect response (e.g., ‘by people’). This is absolutely extraordinary when you think that Japanese religion — Shinto — doesn’t include creation as an aspect of God’s activity at all. So where do these children get the idea that creation is in God’s hands? It’s an example of a natural inference that they form on the basis of their own experience. My Japanese research assistants kept telling me, ‘We Japanese don’t think about God as creator — it’s just not part of Japanese philosophy.’ So it was wonderful when these children said, ‘Kamisama! God! God made it!’ That was probably the most significant finding.”
Today, nearly a decade since Petrovich’s study, there is now a “preponderance of scientific evidence” affirming that “children believe in God even when religious teachings are withheld from them”.
Dr Justin Barrett of the University of Oxford’s Centre for Anthropology and Mind says that children have “a predisposition to see the natural world as designed and purposeful and that some kind of intelligent being is behind that purpose.” He cited one study where young children who were asked why the first bird existed replied “to make nice music” and “because it makes the world look nice”.
However, Barrett and other evolutionists are endeavouring to claim it as “an evolutionarily useful skill”. That is, it’s something that evolution hard-wired into our brain. (A very common fallback position for evolutionists, which, unfortunately for evolutionary theory, completely destroys their claims of rationality—see, e.g., How your brain creates God? and C.S. Lewis on materialistic thoughts.)
According to Barrett, it is evolution that explains our “predisposition” to believe the world was created, and also the widespread public resistance to believing evolution.
“Children’s normally and naturally developing minds make them prone to believe in divine creation and intelligent design,” says Barrett. “In contrast, evolution is unnatural for human minds; relatively difficult to believe.”
Yes, and it’s especially difficult for people to believe evolution once they’ve been shown its falsity, and that the biblical account of the history of the universe makes sense of the evidence around us, as one leading creationist scientist can personally testify.
Unfortunately, a barrage of evolutionary pronouncements continue to dominate print and airwaves, as if “Darwin” is now established fact—signed, sealed and delivered. However, New Scientist, despite its overt evolutionary bias and proclamations, deserves some credit at least for confronting Richard Dawkins with this challenge: “If children have an innate belief in god [sic], however, where does that leave the indoctrination hypothesis?”2
But Dawkins glossed over the difficulty as if the contradictory facts weren’t awkward at all. “I am thoroughly happy with believing that children are predisposed to believe in invisible gods—I always was. But I also find the indoctrination hypothesis plausible. The two influences could, and I suspect do, reinforce one another,” he said.
Such wordplay doublespeak hardly does the former Professor for the Public Understanding of Science credit. But it does explain why evolutionists are so keen on indoctrinating students, even if it involves deception. New Scientist then related that Dawkins went on to suggest that “evolved gullibility” is behind children’s widespread (cross-cultural) belief in a Creator.
Au contraire, if there’s gullibility in evidence here, it’s not being demonstrated by the children, who can recognise Good Design when they see it.
Tags: Christianity, Education
July 16th, 2009 at 8:33 am
After having been a Dawkinsian atheist for many a long year, I was powerfully touched by the love of God on April 12th 2008.
There have been many changes in my life since that date, but there is a question which has been intriguing and perplexing me, and which won’t go away.
At least nothing satisfying.
So here’s hoping you can help me out.
HES EVOLUTION OUT-EVOLVED EVOLUTION?
Perhaps this question could be a subject of discussion, debate, or even an award-winning article in the category “Natural theology for the under-fives.”
My problem is that either I am seeing something that isn’t there (in which case I will immediately reduce my coffee intake) or I am seeing something that others don’t deem worthy of comment – which I would find surprising, and I need to know why.
As a card-carrying RDNet atheist I had successfully acquired almost all the necessary “blind spots” (intellectual and emotional) in order to join in the merry but merciless sport of “believer-bashing”.
The blind spots, of course, concerned such questions as “Why is there something rather than nothing” (Our answer, naturally, being “Who are you to decide that “nothing” is the default state?”) and the Pinker “hard problem” concerning the nature of consciousness (our answer being “We don’t fully understand yet but we will one day soon. In the meantime just keep buying the DVD’s and get on with being rude to theists! What is wrong with you?)
Today I am in the totally thrilling position of rediscovering everything in the light of the love of God, but I have the impression that one of the Dawkinsian blind spots seems to pass unnoticed by Christian authors.
I am probably mistaken.
I would love to be shown that I am mistaken.
(The last time I was shown to be in the wrong, it changed my life.)
Allow me to sketch out a summarised time-line of Life, the Universe and Everything as seen by Atkins, Dawkins and my postman. (French postmen can be very talkative, and very opinionated. They have also been known to deliver the mail. The Quantum Delivery Service – both my neighbour and I receive my letters.)
In the beginning there was nothing. (An RDNet mathematician once tried to explain to me that mathematical nothing, or zero, was “unstable” and bound to become something sooner or later. Well, that reasoning didn’t work with my bank manager, so it won’t work with me either.)
Then there was a Bang and it was very Big. (We don’t know why, but that doesn’t matter. Get yourself a life.)
Perhaps three minutes later there was a generalised baryon, invitation-only knees-up which led to the appearance of helium and hydrogen.
The grand cosmic Dance of the Particles continued (“What was there to stop it?” a Yorkshireman could ask) yielding atoms, molecules, galaxies, stars and eventually – perhaps ten billion years later – life.
When life was only beginning to flex its muscles, it was just a question of some complex molecules accidentally acquiring the capacity for self-replication which required their eating each other from time to time then going to pieces and falling apart.
Simultaneously, evolutionary mechanisms kicked in, and it was just a matter of time (about 3.5 billion years, give or take a few nano-seconds, but who’s counting?) before the appearance of Manchester United supporters, Dawkins and me.
So far so good.
Evolution explains everything about Life.
Whatever shows up, if it favours survival and replication, Evolution invites it to the party.
Sooner or later.
Usually several magnitudes of later.
Except for the occasional surprise, open-air concert given by The Saltation Army.
(Sorry – I digress. Normal service will be resumed as soon as probable.)
The human being is an example of evolution in its most staggeringly complex, tax-paying form.
The human brain evolved leaving the brawn with flat feet, inguinal hernias, and chronic back pains (none of which apparently hinder reproduction. Well, that’s what they say in the books.)
Ah, the human brain.
That’s where things start to get messy for the Dawkinsian atheist.
In RD’s own words (according to the blurb on the cover at least)
“The brain exists originally as a device to aid gene survival; the ultimate rationale for the brain’s existence and very large size in our own species is, like everything else in the living world, gene survival, which tends to imply short-term selfishness. ”
BUT
as part of this the human brain has been equipped by the natural selection of genes with the power to make its own decisions, which can override the ultimate goals which were originally used to programme it.”
Elsewhere Dawkins has said:
“Our brains are flexible enough to be reprogrammed away from the goals that are directly concerned with gene survival, and toward a new and competent purpose, led by a religion, by patriotism, or a sense of duty or loyalty to a party or faith.”
Faith?
Well, hallelujah, brother!
Er, no, not exactly.
But almost.
“We need to rise above our Darwinian heritage,” he says.
In what way? “Well, we devote our lives to writing books, composing music, creating poetry — all higher functions of the brain. If we were following Darwinian dictates, we males would be spending all our time fighting other males to get females ….in order to have lots of children and grandchildren. I’m very glad we have risen above all of that.”
Hang on a sec, what is going on here?
Evolutionary forces have allowed us to rise above…..evolutionary forces?
OK. Let’s accept that for a moment.
We’ll move into our “Willing suspension of disbelief Happy-Hour.”
What do we get when our brain has out-evolved evolution?
Books, music and poetry.
Patriotism, a sense of duty, loyalty to a party or faith.
Religion and God.
Brotherly love.
Self-sacrifice.
And a whole truck-load of other “non-essential “stuff.
(I sense myself reaching for my coffee at this point – my disbelief suspenders are being stretched to their limits.)
Do our evolutionary gurus have an explanation for any of this noble silliness?
Well, yes, actually.
Things like brotherly love, symphonies, a sense of humour, condoms, child adoption and God are:
“evolutionary misfiring”,
“spandrels”,
“exaptations”,
“by-products”
and more recently “neo-purposes ”
or “neo-goals” as an accidental extension of “archi-purposes”.
I’ll bet that makes you feel better, mate!
(Just don’t make the same mistake as I did last Valentine’s Day. I sent my significant other a card with the message:
“My evolutionary survival mechanisms are powerfully misfiring in your direction.
You are the spandrel of my dreams.
Let us exapt together forever”
She put salt in my coffee.)
As I consider all this, I am tempted to paraphrase Shakespeare and say, “There is something mad-bad-or-stupid in the kingdom of Dawkins.”
Humankind’s finest aspirations are simply evolution gone wrong? (including Dawkins himself, who shamelessly cherry-picks his exaptations, his ability to exercise this choice being another exaptation of course. Like the legendary turtles, it’s exaptations all the way down.)
“I am a passionate Darwinian,” he tells us, ” in the academic sense that I believe that Darwinism is the main ingredient in our understanding of our own existence and that of all life, I am a passionate Darwinian in that sense, yet I am a passionate anti-Darwinian when it comes to human social and political affairs and political planning for the world.”
So, Darwinianism got us into all this mess, but it will take anti-Darwinianism to get us out.
Darwinian in order to make a living and sell books.
Anti-Darwinian when he gets the chance to rule the world.
So – has the blind watchmaker’s watch stopped telling the time?
Has the selfish gene become the accidentally repentant gene?
Have Dawkins and his pals arrived at the summit of Mount Improbable and fallen over the edge?