Oh Dawkins, you’re such a card

The BBQ Pit
21

To add to and clarify the comments that others have made, as well as Dawkins’ original contention–the harm of astrology, naturopathic medicine, et cetera is that they adopt the language and terminology of science but are not themselves based upon science or fact. Casually reading and enjoying the horoscope column in the Sunday paper is one thing (I prefer The Onion for all of my astrology needs), but when you are making descions about the fate of the free world you should probably be consulting more, uh, astute sources than your wife’s soothsayer. (Robert Heinlein hit that one on the head, at least.)

When you get into a field like medicine the damage becomes even more pronounced. “Naturopathic medicine”–and in particular the snake-oil pseudoscience of homeopathy and allopathic medicine–serves only to provide a nonsense alternative to effective, if less hyped standard medical treatments treatments. The alleged mechanisms behind such treatments make less sense than the four bodily humours, and the result is often that patients eschew proven treatments with limited (but realistic) claims in favor of the miracle quack nostrums to their eventual ruin. How many breast cancer patients who could have survived via surgery and light chemotherapy have instead succombed while persuing a program of Laetrile treatment?

This isn’t to say that Western pharmacological-based medicine is the end-all, be-all of medicine; as the field develops it is often discovered that some standard treatments are little more effective than placebo, or that illnesses thought to have one simple cause are in fact the result of several unsuspected influences. Indeed, it is the key facet of the scientific method that any theory, no matter how established, is still subject to challenge and disproof. Nor can it be said that there is nothing to be gained from investigating traditional or osteopathic treatments; new drugs are often discovered in (and improved from) folk remedies, and osteopaths, acupuncturists, and other “traditional healers” have long known what is only now becoming apparent to Western medical science, namely that accurate and comprehensive diagnosis requires a holistic approach to pathology rather than just zeroing in and treating the obvious symptoms. But these are lessons to be winnowed out from the chaff of superstition.

From that perspective, these “crazy things” aren’t just harmless diversions but instead insidious mistruths which detract from the ability of people to make accurate observation and critical assessment of the world around them. If you believe that light bulbs are illluminated by faerie magicks then you aren’t going to bother learning about electricity, and when the fuse blows out all of the praying and sacrificing to the faerie king isn’t going to bring the lights back. As fighting against ignorance and learning to appreciate the beauty in knowledge rather than worshiping a veil of mysticism is the key theme of the book (the title of the book is a reference to Keat’s criticism of Isaac Newton shattering the elegance of a rainbow by describing the components that make it), this essay was particularly adroit, certainly moreso than some others included.

Aside from his positions in his technical field of study (evolutionary zoology), I tend to agree with Dawkins philosophically on most counts, including his advocacy of atheism and criticism of unfounded mysticism as an obfusacatory tactic by those who advocate positions that they cannot validate. But I have to admit that he often overreaches–and in a manner that is obnoxiously polemical–when he tries to conflate his writings on evolution with his position on religion, and as a result weakens both arguments. As a scientist and champion of Ronald Fisher’s study of quanatitive genetics and George C. Williams theory of gene-centricity kin selection (as well as making valuable contributions of his own in ethology) he’s done very valuable work, and his popular writings (The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype, The Blind Watchmaker) have served to make modern evolutionary theory accessible to non-technical readers (even if they have been rampantly misinterpreted in their themes and appropriately questioned in some details). As a philosopher and social theorist, however, he comes across as being distinctly amateurish; his contemporary and competitor in science popularization, Stephen J. Gould, was actually much superior in this regard and made the effort to present the viewpoints of those he stringently disagreed with not as deluded or ignorant but rather based upon a different body of knowledge and understanding of the natural world.

In the case of the article quoted from the OP, it seems that Dawkins was attempting–rather lamely and unsuccessfully, in my personal literary opinion–to engage in social satire in the vein of Johnathon Swift. One can scarcely read past the second paragraph without coming to the realization that he’s making an analogy, and one that is rather old hat for all of that. I don’t think he’s wrong–he makes some valid points in the article–but the writing isn’t particularly effective as satire and could be taken by many as being simply in bad taste, which is nearly always the response to ineffective humor.

Stranger

22

I agree it was kind of lame, but…

What mad prejudices would those be?

23

It’s not clear to me why having a more dressy or politically-correct philosophical argument that flatters your opponent (instead of stating the obvious, or there would be no debate, that the opponent is essentially ignorant and/or deluded) makes the argument more valid or valuable. That Dawkins can be curt and abrasive is beyond dispute. That he’s no philospher of science par excellance might be seen as refreshing by some who consider philosophy in its present form a study or worthless abstractions. Of course, we who think that are used to being derided as ignorant, close-minded, even bigoted ourselves, but at best its a load of value judgements based on oppinion. Could someone please point me to something in his commentary that Dawkins has been obviously wrong about, even if, by some standards, simplistic?

24

Sorry, “study of worthless abstractions”.

25

Right, and I personally find his “sky pixie” of science-as-the-only-path-to-knowledge insulting and very counter-productive.

Of course it hurts people when their hard-earned bucks are scammed away under false pretences. But honestly, if it makes me feel better to take echinacea, why does that - in and of itself - make me worthy of his derision?

The reason it upsets me so much is because really, I completely agree with him on every point he makes that doesn’t have to do with insulting people who believe differently. For example, I agree with the following completely, and I have been known to evangalize this argument among my friends:

Personally I think astrology is a load of bunk, homeopathy probably does way more harm than good, and religion is usually no more than ‘my sky pixie is better than your sky pixie.’ The difference is that I understand that even though these things have no value for me, they do for other people, and I don’t presume to force my world view upon them if it is not doing them any harm to believe otherwise.

It does bug me when ‘naturopathy’ gets lumped in as snake-oil along with homeopathy. I don’t know if Dawkins has ever actually spoken to a naturopath but all the ones I’ve met are much more concerned with things like diet and exercise than bodily humors. His tirades make me - someone who agrees with most of what he says - feel like he thinks I’m a worthless moron because I prefer eating well to running to a drugstore. Not a good rhetorical technique, to say the least.

26

Loopydude is absolutely right about Communism. It is as much a religion as Buddhism or Christianity. It has devils (capitalists), prophets (Marx and Lenin), lesser prophets, an eschatology, a heaven, and even a God of sorts in the forces of history. It appeals to the same human search for meaning as all religions do. Its atheism is not so much real atheism as it is the contempt of the One True Faith for all the other faiths. Another baleful 20cen religion is of course the fanatic nationalism exemplified by Hitler. Pointing out that these doctrines have caused as much carnage as religion ignores the fact that these doctrines are religions, in all but name.

However, this just shows that religious feeling is strong in humans. If you try to supress it, it returns, often in horrible, twisted forms.

The problem with Dawkins is that he alienates the very people science and rationality need in the current struggle against fundamentalism: intelligent believers. On this very board you can find many believers who accept the theory of evolution and the rest of modern science: Tomndebb, Polycarp, DocCathode, and others. On The PBS evolution doc, they even had an evangelical Christian who supported evolution. Darwin is not the property of atheists, and it’s foolish and couterproductive for atheists to claim otherwise.

Also, while Dawkins is an excellent science writer, when he gets on his atheist horse he comes off as a major-league asshole. He seems to have made atheism a religion of its own.

27

This comes from a place so callow and benighted I’m barely sure where to begin to shed light.

Your “steady supply of healthy, profitable swine” is the result of thousands of generations of forced evolution via artificial selection (i.e. selective breeding) to turn gamey, aggressive, feral hogs into the modern, docile, palatable and high-value meat producing domestic pig. Similarly, the domestication of wild wheat is what permits us to enjoy such a bountiful supply of flour that we don’t even have to think of the cost and effort it would be to scavenge our carbohydrates from nature. A working understanding of the priciples of evolution and genetics is paramount to effective breeding and domestication, and is what has allowed us to avoid famine (except where politically expedient) in the 20th Century.

Will that do you for a start?

Stranger

28

If someone can show me where Dawkins has ever argued Darwin is his “property” because of some exclusive appeal to atheism, I’d be more accepting of that straw man.

The “asshole” ephithet is a value judgement of the most unquantifiable nature. And Dawkins has surely not mistaken a lack of faith in God with some alternate faith in something else. It is faith itself, and the negative consequences of that mode of human thought, that Dawkins argues against. In my oppinion, he does so very effectively, if sometimes impolitely; but if people are going to close their minds to his arguments only because of his style and not his substance, then who is mistaken in their judgement?

29

cowgirl “His tirades make me - someone who agrees with most of what he says - feel like he thinks I’m a worthless moron because I prefer eating well to running to a drugstore” is disingenuous. If you would change “I prefer eating well” to “suspending warm stones over my shakras” then you would better describing Dawkins’ opinions.

30

We’re surrounded by straw men! When has Dawkins ever tried to “force his world view” on anybody? He’s argued for it, but there is nothing compulsive in the argument beyond reason. If people feel oppressed by confrontation with reason, why are they given such sympathy? If claimed I was being oppressed by paleontologists who called my bald assertion Nessie is an immortal pleiosaur a load of horseshit, I’d get laughed out of the room. Because some people are more sentimental about their sky pixie than they are about bigfoot does not make that sentimentality intrinsically deserving of respect, nor does it make vigorous debate with religionists a form or persecution.

31

Entirely true, and yet this also demonstrates that fanaticism is not confined to people belonging to conventional religions (something Larry Borgia expounded upon quite well). If Dawkins was investigating or criticizing things like the unquestioning loyalty and delusion that allow societies and leaders to go crazy and do these terrible things to each other and to other nations, that’d be interesting and possibly helpful. It’d also stand up nicely from the “bright” perspective, as it’s skeptical of things other than just religion. But instead, it feels to me like he’s cherry-picking examples to make religion look bad. And that’s coming from a guy who’s pretty damn athy in his own right.

32

I wish I had a copy of the book nearby, but I got rid of it, so I have to go by memory. It has been several years since I read it, so I will do the best I can.

Note that I am not arguing about specifically what he said, I am arguing about the effects of what he said - basically, in the mind of this reader, to acclaim his own position as the only true and correct one, and that any alternative suggestions are not worthy of his consideration.

That’s what bugged me. That is intellectually dishonest and makes him sound like wanker of the highest order. Most of us don’t like to be told that someone else knows the Truth and that if we deign to disagree, then we are idiots. This is the overwhelming impression I got from that paragraph, and it is being confirmed by the OP of this thread and also from comments like this:

Furthermore, I objected to his conflation of naturopathy with homeopathy. Thus FordPrefect’s comment that

completely misses the point, because people like Dawkins and in fact Stranger

are the ones who conflate it. I am trying to make the point that naturopathy has value beyond the snake-oil pseudoscience of homeopathy (ie nutritionism, in this example), and Dawkins dismisses this out of hand. In this regard also, he is being intellectually dishonest.

The thing is, there’s a lot of grey area between pure, cold, atheistic scientific reason, and snake-oil garbage like draining old people’s bank accounts on the promise of contacting their dead relatives.

Dawkins feels that not only is there no grey area, but that he himself is entitled to define the precise location of the line between the two. It is this arrogance which has made me lose all respect for him, despite the genius of The Selfish Gene.

33

What’s intellectually dishonest about saying “On every point, evidentially, you have been shown to be wrong, and hence your argument is completely refuted”?

34

Whether there’s a gray area or not, if he’d dealt with illogical behavior or something larger, he could have made a more interesting point. And yes, the satire was totally ham-handed. I think a 14-year-old could have said the same things with the same depth.

35

It’s this incredibly lazy sort of critique that is so exasperating. Why does having a thoroughly convincing and evidentially-supported argument equate to a sense of entitlement about some philosophically amorphous dilineation of the “truth”? That’s nothing more than putulent complaint that you can’t prove the guy wrong. The force with which he makes a strong argument is irrelevant, a red herring, a vacuous objection. Again, this is all about percieved attitude, and I suspect the misguided sense religionists have that their arguments be afforded some kind of special rhetorical deference and respect merely because they care about it.

36

Specifically?

  • He is assuming what “my” points are without having heard them; that if I believe in position X then I must, necessarily, also believe in positions Y and Z

  • He is assuming (for example) that homeopathy = naturopathy, which is clearly not the case

  • If my “argument” is “I feel better when I take echinacea/go to church/read my horoscope,” there is no way to show that it is wrong or to refute it, no matter how stupid he thinks it is.

37

Most of the naturopathy advocates I’ve talked to tend to talk interchangeably about diet and exercise with aroma therapy, aural treatment, and cranialsacral massage, as if comingling facts about the value of nutrition and fitness somehow validates the latter bumkum by association. Moreover, I think that most don’t even appreciate the distinction between the two–they don’t know enough to be critical about either science or mysticism. And it’s not as if “scientific research” provides absolute and unquestionable answers; he results of medical studies are often preliminary, incomplete, or just plain wrong, even those originating from that noted beacon of factual scientific inquiry, The Tobacco Institute, and a critical assessment demands that you question the premises and results based upon known principles. Failing to have a sufficient grounding in both knowledge and critical thinking results in people who cannot discriminate between genuine scientific theory and elaborate, well-polished pseudoscientific hokum.

But, as I said, there’s something to be gained even from looking at bunk, and seeing what does work, or appear to work, about it. Medical doctors today are largely trained in the direct forensic method; identify and isolate symptoms, follow a logical flowchart to determine what recognized illnesses fit those symptoms, and prescribe the pill that the glossy new brochures from GlaxoSmithKline promise will cure all ills. That works well for diseases with very specific symtoms or accurate diagnostic tests; not so good for chronic or systemic illnesses for which the symptoms are vague or irregular; and of course, in the case of general poor health with no specific pathogen or deficiency, it often causes a physician to misdiagnose just in order to justify some treatment. An osteopath or naturopath will, on the other hand, spend an hour or more getting a complete patient history, and picking up valuable clues as to why a patient feels ill. “Oh, you’re a vegetarian and all you eat is bread and pasta? Well, the reason you feel tired is that you’re anemic and protein deficient. You need to change your diet to include sources of…” And this is a lesson that is slowly being absorbed by the medical community (although it stands in opposition to the HMO/PPO assembly line philosophy). But it doesn’t mean that everything, or even very much about naturopathic medicine is correct and valuable.

Dawkins is grating, though, when he gets on his hobby horse. Regardless of how correct he might be, his superior-than-thou attitude is a major irritant, and when he delves into areas that scientific inquiry can’t provide definitive answers, he blunders on ahead making claims that overreach his ability to justify or disprove. With regard to his social theorizing he often oversimplifies; the second quote in the OP, for instance, lays the responsibility exclusively upon religion without acknowledgement of cultural and political motivations. Even when his arguments are in the bounds of fact, his tactlessness is better suited to a fiery debate between militants rather than a persuasive entreaty for understanding and enlightenment.

And I think it can be summarily concluded that he just isn’t very funny. Not even “funny for an Oxford don” funny.

(BTW, I’m glad to see that someone actually read that overextended post; looking back over it I didn’t realize how long it had gone.)

Stranger

38

Well, the fact is, you’re spending money on a therapy that has been shown recently in carefully-constructive clinical trials to not only NOT be efficacious, but to carry risks (greater risk of skin rashes being the least severe, but most common) beyond treating yourself with nothing at all. If you’re willing to waste your money on snake oil of a completely uncontrolled, unvalidated, disproven, and egregiously-overpriced (since it’s proven to be worthless) nature, offering nothing but “it makes me feel good” as a justificationt to others to follow your irrational lead, then I am extremely grateful there are people like Dawkins who are willing to call out your fatuousness in stark terms. It’s deserving of no less than extreme irritation for its corrosive influence, and if others disagree, it’s no better than a matter of oppinion. I’ve seen no substantive arguments in this thread against Dawkins beyond “I don’t like his style”. What of style? Are we acting as literary critics or people interested in accuracy. Are we, for instance, interested in wooly aesthetics, or the integrity of people who attempt to foist quackery on the credulous and ill-informed? What will it be, style or substance? If you’ve got both, that’s great, but if you had to choose, what would you value more?

39

But why does this upset Dawkins - and you - so much? It’s my body and my money.

And I would request that you address more than one niggling point in my argument. For example, can you tell me who it hurts for tomndebb to be religious?

40

The two are closely connected; among other things, naturopaths often use homeopathic “cures”.

Exactly what I’ve been saying over in the Report says America Worse Off Because Of Strong Religious Beliefs thread; you put it better I think.