"Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion, said it was a wonder "that America is the leading scientific nation despite having this incubus around its neck of an uncultured ignorant almost majority.“He suggested that if “the fundamentalist-not-quite-majority” were not hindering America, science might have advanced further. “You have to wonder what it could be like if it didn’t have that burden,” he said.”
LINK
( apologize for the link. I am unable to get a good link to the original source in the Wall Street Journal.)
Now 2 things strike me here:
He says while the United States has a huge religious majority he cannot figure out why the US still leads the world in scientific progress. BUT he doesnt say which other countries without such strong religious people are that much better.
He says that without Americas religious majority scientific progress would be much father ahead. BUT he doesnt say how or where?
I mean Dawkins, who recently turned 70, is saying that if it wasnt for religion, what? We’d have cured cancer by now? We’d be walking on Mars by now?
He also fails to mention a single scientific investigation that was stopped purely for religious reasons. Did religion stop the recent finding of water on Mars? Has it stopped the super collider from being built? Has it stopped the development of nano technology? The only thing I can see stopped is the issue of stem cells or using parts of aborted fetuses.
Now I’ve only recently began to study Dawkins because he just this week came to Kansas City and members of my religious circle have been discussing his work. I’ve never read any of his books and have only heard his lectures on the web but it seems to me he is more upset that Americans still hold onto views he despises than in actually proving how we would be better off otherwise.
I mean the world is a huge place and scientific progress takes place all over from non Christian countries like China and Russia, to semi-religious countries like in Europe, non Christian countries like Japan and India, to countries with major Christian influences like the United States.
Frankly studying Dawkins he seems to push atheism more than he does science. Also why does a man who yes, has expertise in one area of biology now claim to be an expert in all areas of science (ex. astronomy, paleontology, geology)? In fact what great scientific breakthrough or great invention did Dawkins ever make?
Now I know there are some prominent atheists and evolutionists on this board and I suppose I’m just a dumb redneck from Kansas so I would like to hear some of your thoughts especially those who are big fans of Dawkins.
Yup, Dawkins is, as I understand, an accomplished and qualified biologist. For anyone - including himself - to tout the view that on that account his views on anything at all are necessarily worth more than the man in the street is to be guilty of the Appeal to Authority fallacy.
Dawkins says stuff like this because he is Dawkins and this is his shtick. To admit, even by silent implication, that religion might have benefits or be on the whole harmless, would be counter to his MO and maybe, by his lights, a self-betrayal.
Yeah agreed. I enjoy some of Richard Dawkins books but have avoided the atheist polemics. Not that I’m particularly religious but I don’t enjoy the sincere beliefs of other people being held to ridicule.
Also I think Dawkins deliberately overlooks the spiritual and abstract conceptions which the human mind is capable of exploring.
A worthy man who has a particular obsession which the rest of us can put to one side if we wish.
He’s right in the sense that a significant portion of Americans believe in certain specific kinds of nonsense (creationism in its many guises, for example), and don’t accept that scientific research is the best way to solve many problems; and if this weren’t so there would probably be more support for public funding of scientific research. But this is a pretty trivial claim, I think.
Dawkins is an asshole but let’s not forget the spike the Bush administration put into certain areas of government-funded scientific research - most notably stem cell research - for several years. Whether you want to attribute that to religious views or political ones is up to you.
Indeed: this accounts for the lack of scientific discoveries in America over the last 50 years and how it has been vastly outstripped by the Atheist State of North Korea.
Over half by one man.
I can buy that but for the relative overreligiosity of Americans vs. other Industrialized Western societies we could have made further *social *progress. But of course that depends on whether what I call progress you don’t call degeneracy.
I can also support that the greater American tendency to fall on the faith “side” of the fallacious faith/science excluded-middle dichotomy results in popular policy positions contrary to science such as on evolution and sex-ed in schools, vaccines, stem cell research, GMOs, climate change or environmental issues in general, or (to go back to the social side) use of a social science/health care appproach to matters of drugs/poverty/crime as opposed to a punitive/disciplinary/martial approach. Often from a position mirroring Dawkins’, that is that people will distrust the presumed-leftist-secularist academics and will rather support a politician or corporate businessman on the basis of “he shares our values” being more important than what the data supports.
I don’t think that absent that we’d be living in Jetsons World by now, though.
When it comes to describing how the physical world runs, and determining legal policy decisions, religion should step to the side and comment but not obstruct. But that does not mean it should go away altogether, just know its place. A campaign to cast religion/Christianity as per se harmful to the national interest is IMO probably a nonstarter.
I would put it this way: I’d say superstition and wilful ignorance ultimately hinder science and progress in general. But just because the US is more religious than most first-world countries doesn’t mean it’s the most prone to superstition.
As for Dawkins, he does mention fundamentalism, so I think he had in mind those waging a campaign against teaching evolution, say. Which I would agree with.
The “almost majority” stuff I don’t get…it’s a painful turn of phrase, and doesn’t really make sense with the rest of what he’s saying. It would be good to see the video (unfortunately it’s blocked from my current location).
Some Christians complain about the War on Christmas. Dawkins complains about the War on Science. I would need to see some actual examples before deciding what to do about either.
IMHO the main areas we could be further ahead in are fetal stem cell research and research into renewable energy. The latter isn’t directly linked to religion, but is part of the Republican platform supported by far right religious people. There is also the possibility that some highly intelligent people turned away from a career in science due to being raised in a fundamentalist culture. As for how much further along we would if we lived in a society with less religious fundamentalism, it’s just a wild ass guess, but I’ll say 5 to 10 years or so in the areas that I mentioned, and a few months at most in other areas. In other words, my guess is religion probably hasn’t really hindered us all that much.
I think that, if this is at all true, Dawkins himself and those of his ilk deserve at least a little of the blame, for making certain religious people think that they should be hostile to science because science is hostile to them.
His claim is unprovable, but I wouldn’t put much emphasis on it. Seems like something he said off the cuff-- it’s just one sentence, after all. It’s not like he just published his next book and it’s: Why American Science is Being Held Back by Religion.
I doubt there is anyone who hasn’t said something like this at some point in their lives. And let’s keep in mind that he said “you have to wonder…”, which isn’t the harshest wording one can imagine.
You are referring, of course, to embryonic stem cell research. Other types of stem cell research have no restriction on government funding. And even the embryonic kind is not illegal, so you are free to fund it as much as you like.
According to thisLINK, Dawkins is worth $135 million (100 million euro). Almost all of that thru selling his books and speaking fees (and he has a movie deal coming out).
Now as I understand it, he taught at Oxford. If so, what would his retirement be worth just from that?
Also, how much scientific research could he fund with that $135 million?
Probably a stretch, but conservative politics in Texas seems to have the effect of dumbing down science texts in elementary/high schools. I could imagine aguing that such efforts has some effect in “holding back science.”
Also could imagine arguing the deleterious effect of religious beliefs/pandering by politicians. Not only the likes of climate change deniers, but the time, money, and effort being spent debating and legislating bullshit “religious” social issues like school prayer, marriage, and the like, could be spend more profitably elsewhere - including directed at scientific efforts.
IMO Dawkins has a lot of interest to say. Of course, not everything he says is of equal value. Also, as is common among advocates, he can at times push his agenda too far, or phrase it poorly.
There have been several recent important papers in my own field that have come out of Europe because their source material came from things like unwanted or aborted fetuses that would have been illegal to use in the United States.
Not commenting either way on Dawkins or his statement; but it is factually accurate to say that there is science not being done in the US due primarily to religiously motivated restrictions.
Illegal, or just not able to be federally funded? I only ask because people often confuse the two.
Note that even for embryonic stem cell research, states can fund it. In fact, CA tried to, but I haven’t heard of that producing any results (maybe it has, and I just haven’t heard of it).