Just in case anyone is still labouring under the misapprehension that Richard Dawkins is an objective scientist whose atheistic prejudices don’t affect his day job, Dawkins has helpfully set the record straight.
Dawkins – hectoring ring master of the atheistic circus
By Andrew Halloway
Just in case anyone is still labouring under the misapprehension that Richard Dawkins is an objective scientist whose atheistic prejudices don’t affect his day job, Dawkins has helpfully set the record straight.
His latest book in worship of evolution seems to show as much evidence of showmanship and verbal trickery as it does evidence for Darwin’s theory.
The Times on 24 August published an extract from this forthcoming tome, ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’. In the extract, Dawkins states his book is not about attacking religion, as he’s got the T-shirt on that – yet that’s exactly what he does in this extract. He maintains that believers in creation are the equivalent of Holocaust deniers and mocks them as history-deniers, and in the very same paragraph after saying he’s not attacking religion he continues to trash creationism and then tells vicars not to support it in the pulpit!
Here is what he says (my interpolations are in bracketed italics):
“The Greatest Show on Earth is a book about the positive evidence that evolution is a fact. It is not intended as an anti-religious book. I’ve done that, it’s another T-shirt, this is not the place to wear it again. [And in the very next breath:] Bishops and theologians who have attended to the evidence for evolution have given up the struggle against it. Some may do so reluctantly, some, like Richard Harries, enthusiastically, but all except the woefully uninformed [i.e. anyone who dares to doubt evolution] are forced to accept the fact of evolution. They may think God had a hand in starting the process off… thoughtful and rational churchmen and women accept the evidence for evolution [implication: believers who don’t are irrational and thoughtless]… Be careful, Vicar. You are playing with dynamite.”
And so it continues.
But aside from that hypocrisy, the main problem with this extract is that Dawkins elevates his name-calling to new heights. Previously, creationists and Intelligent Design theorists were denounced as ‘science deniers’ but, as I’ve said above, apparently they are now also ‘history-deniers’ on a par with Holocaust deniers.
Now, apart from this being insulting (nothing new there as far as Dawkins’ invective is concerned), it is also an unscientific use of language. History, by definition, begins with written evidence. ‘Pre-history’, again, by definition, pre-dates history because it refers to the era before human writing began.
Therefore, for Dawkins to claim that evolution is solid history is clearly a misnomer, for the vast majority of evolution’s story relates to pre-history – the time before man wrote anything, indeed long before man is supposed to have existed. In the evolutionary scenario, man only appeared in the very recent past, and writing man in only the last blink of geological time. The development of the vast majority of life pre-dates homo sapiens. Consequently, how can a theory about the incredibly ancient past, with no human witnesses to testify about it, be in any way reasonably compared with something that happened within memory of living human witnesses that has a wealth of documentary (and film) evidence to support it?
There is no comparison whatsoever, yet Dawkins is a master of word association. Call someone something often enough and people will believe it in the end – propaganda by anyone else’s definition.
Here are two extracts from Dawkins’ extract to illustrate:
“Imagine that, as a teacher of European history, you are continually faced with belligerent demands to ‘teach the controversy’ [a reference to Intelligent Design theorists’ campaign to allow teachers to teach children about the evidence against evolution as well as for it], and to give “equal time” to the “alternative theory” that the Holocaust never happened but was invented by a bunch of Zionist fabricators… The plight of many science teachers today is not less dire. When they attempt to expound the central and guiding principle of biology; when they honestly place the living world in its historical context — which means evolution…”
“I shall be using the name ‘history-deniers’ for those people who deny evolution… The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust.”
Not content with that, he then asserts his belief yet again, in blunderbuss style, that evolution is a fact and any scientist who disagrees can’t be “reputable”:
“Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact… and my book will demonstrate it. No reputable scientist disputes it, and no unbiased reader will close the book doubting it.”
Methinks he doth protest too much! The truth is that there are plenty of reputable scientists with lists of degrees longer than your arm who dispute the claims of evolution. Dawkins knows this, but insists on calling even the most highly qualified of them disreputable simply because they question the truth of evolution.
Dawkins’ unassailable faith in neo-Darwinism goes beyond what any scientific theory, however well evidenced, can justify. Even the so-called ‘laws’ of physics and chemistry, undisputed by anyone, are known to be the best descriptions of reality that we can come up with, but they are still not hard and fast laws that can never be adjusted in the future. No one can be 100% certain that a better description won’t come along.
But for Dawkins, evolution is impervious to change – ironically, for a theory that is all about change. In the final part of the extract, Dawkins describes evolution as being better evidenced than any crime convicted in any court in the world – ever! Viz:
“We are like detectives who come on the scene after a crime has been committed. The murderer’s actions have vanished into the past. The detective has no hope of witnessing the actual crime with his own eyes. What the detective does have is traces that remain, and there is a great deal to trust there. There are footprints, fingerprints (and nowadays DNA fingerprints too), bloodstains, letters, diaries. The world is the way the world should be if this and this history, but not that and that history, led up to the present.
“Evolution is an inescapable fact… Given that, in most cases, we don’t live long enough to watch evolution happening before our eyes, we shall revisit the metaphor of the detective coming upon the scene of a crime after the event and making inferences. The aids to inference that lead scientists to the fact of evolution are far more numerous, more convincing, more incontrovertible, than any eyewitness reports that have ever been used, in any court of law, in any century, to establish guilt in any crime. Proof beyond reasonable doubt? Reasonable doubt? That is the understatement of all time.”
Firstly, Dawkins here is apparently unable to distinguish between what is called historical science, which should always be held tentatively, and empirical science, which can be observed, tested and retested in a laboratory. Historical science consists of theories about the past that cannot be subjected to the same rigorous rules as empirical, ‘test tube’ science. Historical scientific theories like evolution are, in the end, our best guesses about the past, based on logic. In that respect, evolution can never be on a par with empirical science, unless it CAN be observed happening “before our eyes” in our lifetime.
Secondly, Dawkins’ assertion that evolution trumps even the best legal cases in history is simply ridiculous. The fact is that eyewitness evidence – which evolution lacks – is one of the strongest forms of evidence in a courtroom, and any case which contains corroborating eyewitness testimonies would easily outweigh the case for evolution which has to rely on physical and circumstantial evidence alone, and make the best guess from such evidence. A lawyer would have a field day with Dawkins’ flawed line of reasoning here.
It’s clear that Dawkins’ evolutionary faith is more akin to the fundamentalist religious beliefs that he so vehemently opposes than to true science.
Unfortunately, many of our so-called respectable newspapers are only too eager to engage in the same mud-slinging as Dawkins, and support his agenda. For example, here is how The Times headlined Dawkins’ extract: ‘Creationists, now they’re coming for your children’. I couldn’t think of a more sensationalist, scare-mongering tabloid headline if I tried!
Sadly Dawkins and his disciples do a disservice to science. Modern science as we know it arose within a Protestant Christian culture. However much we owe to the Classical philosophers of Greek and Roman history, they never developed the systematic belief system that allowed modern science to arise. It is the Christian faith that Dawkins loves to hate that provided the confidence in the reliability and rationality of the created universe that was needed to get science going. If the universe was created by a rational Mind, then it was consistent to believe that investigation of phenomena would lead to rational understanding.
Dawkins is attempting to destroy the very foundation culture of this thing he trumps so loudly – science. Science only arose because of religion, and specifically the Christian religion at that.
(Forgive me, Richard, if calling you a ‘showman’ is name calling in return, but I don’t think it’s quite so offensive as being compared with Holocaust-denying Nazi sympathisers.)
Tags: Christianity, Science & Medical
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:35 am
Where to start with something like this?
I was attracted to Christianity by the influence of the minister at my church. He was a wise, educated and patient man who made a great impression on me. I retained my faith well into my twenties.
I wish I had had the author as my minister: I would have shed Christianity before I left my teens.
February 22nd, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Just seen this older article thanks to [unpronouncable]‘s comment. I just had to jump in. Perhaps too much time on my hands right now…
A pox on both their houses! Richard Dawkins is an eminent scientist who writes very clear books on biology for people without biology degrees. He also makes some good points in defence of his stand for Evolution and against literal Biblical belief. Unfortunately he just never seems to know when to stop! He cannot resist hyperbole and and sensationalist soundbites, that appear intended solely to get a reaction out of the religious community.
However, Andrew Halloway does no favours for the opposition. He just appears to be indulging himself in scoring points against some of the more outlandish statements made by Dawkins, whilst conveniently overlooking the core facts which are so lucidly argued by Dawkins in the book. In so doing Halloway may himself grab headlines, and be lauded as the darling of the Evolution nay-sayers, but he advances the argument not one jot.
Arrrgh! If only we could banish sound-biters….