# Salon.com interview: Dawkins dumbs down **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 30, 2005, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833 "2005-04-30T05:00:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/1 "2005-04-30T05:00:42Z")
The [link](http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/30/dawkins/index.html). (You will need to be a subscriber or use the “day pass.”) Two quick points before I analyze snippets of the interview: 1. I believe in evolution and do not believe in a monotheistic “God” (I’m a pantheist). 2. I know that Dawkins can speak and read in a very intelligent, sophisticated manner, and hence I was diheartened by his manner in this interview, which seems no better than one with J. Randi or someone of a similar intellectual caliber. I’ve added “Q” and “A” in here. Obviously, the “A” is Dawkins. > [@](#): > > Q: Once again, evolution is under attack. Are there any questions at all about its validity? > > A: It’s often said that because evolution happened in the past, and we didn’t see it happen, there is no direct evidence for it. That, of course, is nonsense… I question the “again” of the interrogatory. Dawkins goes right into a weak point over whether evidence is “direct” or not; from what I’ve read, creationists mainly argue that evidence is lacking. In any case, the interview is not about whether evolution is real or not but about how bad religion is. Dawkins’ first response–both on the tonal (pissy and disdainful) and rhetorical (favoring strawy or non-sequitury men) levels–sets the stage for the interview as a whole. > [@](#): > > Q: How does [agnosticism] differ from atheism? > > It’s said that the only rational stance is agnosticism because you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of the supernatural creator. I find that a weak position. It is true that you can’t disprove anything but you can put a probability value on it. There’s an infinite number of things that you can’t disprove: unicorns, werewolves, and teapots in orbit around Mars. But we don’t pay any heed to them unless there is some positive reason to think that they do exist. Dear me, this is truly cliched skeptical rhetoric; if only he had said “little pink unicorn” it had been perfect." More, importantly, however, this is botched philosophy. Whether God exists or not is clearly not a matter of probability but rather concerns the foundation of Reality itself. Further, God is not “just another” entity that can be proposed but instead is a concept that concers how we can conceive of any entity at all. Any philosophy or, for that matter, rational inquiry, has had to deal with notions of Ultimate Reality. If someone as smart as Dawkins can speak so ignorantly, I wonder just what our Science (i.e., “Natural Philosophy”) of today is really worth. I sense that, by calling agnosticism a “weak” position, Dawkins is saying that he prefers aetheism for political or aesthetic reasons (“I take my non-belief straight with no chaser”). > [@](#): > > Q: So why do we insist on believing in God? > > A: From a biological point of view, there are lots of different theories about why we have this extraordinary predisposition to believe in supernatural things. One suggestion is that the child mind is, for very good Darwinian reasons, susceptible to infection the same way a computer is. In order to be useful, a computer has to be programmable, to obey whatever it’s told to do. That automatically makes it vulnerable to computer viruses, which are programs that say, “Spread me, copy me, pass me on.” Once a viral program gets started, there is nothing to stop it. “Nothing to stop it” is hyperbole but is also flat-out incorrect. Dawkins’ response overall, however, is not to the point–which is pretty much how the whole interview goes. He may be right about how a child’s mind works, but where is his concept of memes competing and the adaptive among them surviving? Are we to believe that everything a child is told will be passed on and down forever? I don’t think Dawkins himself believes this; he’s just talking really sloppily. In any case, if we buy into Dawkins’ own meme idea, we may conclude that religious belief has been highly adaptive for the species, and that is why it continues. > [@](#): > > Q: You are working on a new book tentatively called “The God Delusion.” Can you explain it? > > A delusion is something that people believe in despite a total lack of evidence. Religion is scarcely distinguishable from childhood delusions like the “imaginary friend” and the bogeyman under the bed. Unfortunately, the God delusion possesses adults, and not just a minority of unfortunates in an asylum. The word “delusion” also carries negative connotations, and religion has plenty of those. Such poor thinking. In addition to ignoring the possibility of adaptivity (I’m not saying that Dawkins always ignores that point, but he does so in this interview), Dawkins continues to fudge his reasoning. In these few sentences there are many layers of error to explore. First, one can have a philosophical belief in God that has nothing to do with empirical “evidence,” and many intelligent people since antiquity have had such a belief. They may be incorrect, but they are not deluded. Second, people believe many things without the kind of “evidence” Dawkinds means here: things like historical facts. And many people have (wrongly, I grant) believed in God simply because they were told stories about Him and took these for facts. One can be said to be “misled” in such cases but not “deluded.” In fact, the connotation of the word “deluded” is pretty specific and implies that someone believes something that completely defies common sense or even obvious matters of fact (eg, believing that one is Napoleon). Nor do we apply the term to relgion, since religion is a phenomenon seen historically in every society around the world. Hence, Dawkins commits what I call the “fallacy of the borrowed connotation,” a pernicious and extremely common error in reasoning. Dawkins chooses this word to belittle those who possess religious belief. > [@](#): > > Q: What are its negative connotations? > > A: …[D]isagreements are settled by other means which, in extreme cases, inevitably become violent. Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence. Much the same is true of philosophers, historians and literary critics. I know that this was oral and in such cases mistakes are made, but even by such a standard Dawkins’ comments are replete with slop. Violence is “inevitable” in “extreme cases”–an ill formulation. The fact is that the vast majority of time religion has only been a surface reason to fight, not the essential reason, and Dawkins explicitly admits this later in the interview. The idea of scientists and philosophers not fighting is stupidly irrelevent. Scientists invented nuclear weapons. They fought in their own way. Religious people don’t fight either, do they? No, soldiers do. What, Mohammed fought? So did Marcus Aurelius. Etc. > [@](#): > > Q: Fifty years ago, philosophers like Bertrand Russell felt that the religious worldview would fade as science and reason emerged. Why hasn’t it? > > That trend toward enlightenment has indeed continued in Europe and Britain. It just has not continued in the U.S., and not in the Islamic world. Later in his response, Dawkins equates Bush and Bin Laden, indicating just how clueless he is. But this “trend toward enlightenment” in certain parts of the world is his own delusion (a real one). Even if we grant that all of Europe no longer accepts Christianity, that belief wasn’t in the past and isn’t now being replaced with what Dawkins would consider an enlightened atheism. People always turn to some sort of cause be it a less dogmatic religion (New Age, Wicca) or a secular religion like Bolshevism, National Socialism, or PETA membership (seriously, that’s what it is). I think it’s also true that hardcore atheism/materialism/skepticism is also a secular religion in the forms it often takes. Further, the relgions of belief have a much better historical track record than the religions of unbelief. Compare the Inquisition to Maoism for overall destructiveness. Again, my point is that people always have _some_ sort of belief system, and you can’t just unplug the religion module and be “enlightened.” In fact, one of the healthiest things about almost all religions is that they teach that man is _not_ the supreme intelligence and he is bound by laws above him and not conceived by him. Atheistic belief systems (even if they were correct in stating that God does not exist) have led people to believe that right and wrong are arbitrary concepts and that the good is equivalent to that which is held to be correct politically. The result has been the worst mass murders in history. A little further Dawkins makes the admission I mentioned above: > [@](#): > > What is going on is more like a vendetta. It was one of their lot’s grandfathers who killed one of our lot’s grandfathers, and so we’re getting our revenge. The “their lot” and “our lot” is only defined by religion. In other parts of the world it might be defined by color, or by language, but in so many parts of the world it isn’t, it’s defined by religion. That’s true of the conflicts among Croats and the Serbs and Bosnians – that’s all about religion as labels. > > The grotesque massacres in India at the time of partition were between Hindus and Muslims. There was nothing else to distinguish them, they were racially the same. They only identified themselves as “us” and the others as “them” by the fact that some of them were Hindus and some of them were Muslims. That’s what the Kashmir dispute is all about. So, yes, I would defend the view that religion is an extremely potent label for hostility. That has always been true and it continues to be true to this day. There is no doubt about it, but cause and effect are muddled here. Dawkins in effect is admitting that religion was just an “excuse” to fight in India. Of course, people really felt that religion really mattered, and to some extent it did. But we know from experience that taking away religion makes any two arbitrary groups like each other or be more peaceful. That’s like saying, “If we just got rid of politics, everything would be peaceful and hunky-dory.” It is to suppose that we can alter human nature. > [@](#): > > Q: The idea that evolution could be “random” seems to frighten people. Is it random? > > A: This is a spectacular misunderstanding. If it was random, then of course it couldn’t possibly have given rise to the fantastically complicated and elegant forms that we see. Natural selection is the important force that drives evolution. Natural selection is about as non-random a force as you could possibly imagine. Here Dawkins isn’t even speaking in scientific terminology; in fact, he’s speaking in outright mistaken ways. Natural selection isn’t a “force”; it’s a mechanism. Further, to speak of evolution as “random” may not be correct, but Dawkins is avoiding what the question really means. There certainly is a huge chance factor is how evolution works, and that’s what the interviewer supposes might bother people. For example, it’s a matter of chance whether a huge meteorite crashes into the Earth making most species extinct and forcing the survivors to adapt to new conditions. Mutations can be chance events (as Dawkins admits a few sentences down). It’s not God forming the species from clay with a clear plan in mind. > [@](#): > > Q: Is there an emotional side to the intellectual enterprise of exploring the story of life on Earth? > > A: Yes, I strongly feel that. When you meet a scientist who calls himself or herself religious, you’ll often find that that’s what they mean. You often find that by “religious” they do not mean anything supernatural. They mean precisely the kind of emotional response to the natural world that you’ve described. Einstein had it very strongly. Unfortunately, he used the word “God” to describe it, which has led to a great deal of misunderstanding. This too is all verbal politics. “God” is what those deluded believers believe in, not we enlightened scientists. Stick to the talking points! I would say that people (scientists or otherwise) choose the term “God” precisely because of the connotation of that word and specifically because they believe what they feel is not merely an “emotional response.” > [@](#): > > Q: Some scientists say that removing religion or God from their life would leave it meaningless, that it’s God that gives meaning to life. > > “Unweaving the Rainbow” specifically attacks the idea that a materialist, mechanist, naturalistic worldview makes life seem meaningless. Quite the contrary, the scientific worldview is a poetic worldview, it is almost a transcendental worldview. We are amazingly privileged to be born at all and to be granted a few decades – before we die forever – in which we can understand, appreciate and enjoy the universe. Dear me, we have our rhetoric again: “die forever.” I did an OP on that old saw not [too long ago.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=300865) What could “almost transcendental” mean in this context? People say that such a worldview makes life seem meaningless to them for reasons I suspect are beyond understanding. However factually correct it may be, it just doesn’t satisfy. I’ve only quoted a portion of the interview (fair use and all that), but there is a lot more prattle in the rest. I was disappointed to hear Dawkins talk like any other media skeptic. Even having read the interview, I think he’s above that level. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/2 "2005-04-30T05:16:05Z")
I agree with most everything Dawkins said, particularly with regard to probabilities. He’s right that God is no more inherently probable than werewolves. Youre trying to argue that “God is not just another entity that can be proposed,” but you’re wrong. Loading a hypothetical entity with unique or profound hypothetical attributes does not make it any more probable. You might as well say your hypothetical unicorn is more probable because it’s so damn big. > [@](#): > > I would say that people (scientists or otherwise) choose the term “God” precisely because of the connotation of that word and specifically because they believe what they feel is not merely an “emotional response.” Einstein specifically denied that his use of the word “God” had any such connotation. ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/3 "2005-04-30T05:21:06Z")
> [@Dawkins on evolution](#): > > _This is a spectacular misunderstanding. If it was random, then of course it couldn’t possibly have given rise to the fantastically complicated and elegant forms that we see._ Yeah, the query was meant regarding teleology. Dawkins’ seems to be a blatantly political creature. Not that I know about his earlier approach and sincerity. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/4 "2005-04-30T05:25:22Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Loading a hypothetical entity with unique or profound hypothetical attributes does not make it any more probable. Right, but God in theory is the founder of probability; hence, His existence is not a matter of probability. Further, “God” can be shorthand for several philosophical problems/issues that can’t be handwaved away by calling God just “another proposed entity.” I mean, you might as well make an argument about the probability of 2 plus 2 equalling 4. (That is, whether 2 plus 2 equals 4 or 5 is not a contingent proposition, and neither is the existence of God. It’s either right or wrong.) [/quote] Einstein specifically denied that his use of the word “God” had any such connotation. [/QUOTE] Yes, I’ve read this and that about it. Apparently he was trying to chose a nice, politically pleasing term for the masses. But I was referring to others who choose to use the word “God.” ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/5 "2005-04-30T05:42:51Z")
> [@II Gyan II](#): > > Yeah, the query was meant regarding teleology. Dawkins’ seems to be a blatantly political creature. Not that I know about his earlier approach and sincerity. I don’t understand what was wrong with Dawkin’s response there. He corrected a common creationist misrepresentation of the facts. Natural selection is not a “random” process (I think **Aeschines’** semantic quibble about whether it can be called a “force” is inconsequential). It may not be a process which is directed or guided or manipulated towards any particular “goal” by any external conscious intervention (and that’s what creationists really mean) but it’s not Dawkin’s problem if the creationists can’t articulate their objections more accurately. > [@Aeschines](#): > > Right, but God in theory is the founder of probability; hence, His existence is not a matter of probability. This is just a tautology. If God exists then God is “the founder of probability,” but there is still no more inherent probability that God exists just because you define him as the “founder of probability.” The probability of God’s existence is not affected by how you define him. > [@](#): > > Further, “God” can be shorthand for several philosophical problems/issues that can’t be handwaved away by calling God just “another proposed entity.” Obviously, Dawkins was referring to the common conception of a personal God. Do you believe he should have belabored the question by pinning the interviewer down to a specific definition of “God?” is there really anything wrong with just presuming a normal conversational intent to the interviewer’s question? If the interviewer had intended to probe Dawkins on more abstract definitions of God, he could have done so in follow up questions. > [@](#): > > I mean, you might as well make an argument about the probability of 2 plus 2 equalling 4. (That is, whether 2 plus 2 equals 4 or 5 is not a contingent proposition, and neither is the existence of God. It’s either right or wrong.) So is the existence of unicorns. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/6 "2005-04-30T13:24:44Z")
Dawkins is actually just [interpreting Ockham’s Razor just like I do](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6083994&postcount=6). He really just chooses stronger verbiage to me, which is why he might rub you up the wrong way and I don’t (at least, _as often_ :)). ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/7 "2005-04-30T14:28:59Z")
One of my pet peeves is the conflation of evolutionary theory with atheism. The two have nothing to do with each other. Evolutionary theory is a scientific theory explaining the diversity and structure of living things. It has nothing to do with the question of whther or not God exists. Admittedly, evolutionary theory shows how the structure and diversity of life does not require a deity, but the theory of gravity explains how and why things plummet without reference to a deity either. Conflating Evolutionary theory with atheism is not only silly, it is counterprductive as well. It exacerbates a conflict that shouldn’t exist at all. Many Christians accept evolution. The Catholic Church officially accepts evolution as do mainstream protestant churches and even a few evangelicles. I imagine the same holds true of the other major and minor religions around the globe. Religion can absorb evolution just as it absorbed heliocentrism. I admire Dawkins as a writer and popularizer of science. But lately he’s been coming off as a prick who doesn’t want to fight ignorance so much as pick fights. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/8 "2005-04-30T19:04:45Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I don’t understand what was wrong with Dawkin’s response there. He corrected a common creationist misrepresentation of the facts. Natural selection is not a “random” process… It’s a semantic issue, and here Dawkins was arguing at cross-purposes with the creationists. I’m not saying that what he said was flat-out _wrong_ either, just missing the point of the question. > [@](#): > > This is just a tautology. If God exists then God is “the founder of probability,” but there is still no more inherent probability that God exists just because you define him as the “founder of probability.” The probability of God’s existence is not affected by how you define him. Actually, my disbelief in a personal “God” is based on the fact that “God” could not possibly have “founded” the rules of mathematics and pattern; they are primary. But a philosophically generated entity must be disproved with a philosophical argument. How would you generate a probability for God’s existence? Whether such a being exists is not a matter of chance nor of natural processes to which probabilities could be assigned. There is no probability for unicorns existing, either. We know that unicorns are a fictional animal. Further, if you really want to get into it, most atheists hold their position not because the probability of God’s existence is low, but because they hold a philosophical principle that unless God can be proven to exist, then He should be considered not to exist. I can respect this position. > [@](#): > > Obviously, Dawkins was referring to the common conception of a personal God. Actually, he wasn’t. He was talking about fellow scientists who believe in God because they have a particular feeling when they observe or study the universe. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/9 "2005-04-30T19:06:24Z")
> [@Larry Borgia](#): > > I admire Dawkins as a writer and popularizer of science. But lately he’s been coming off as a prick who doesn’t want to fight ignorance so much as pick fights. Dawkins gets rather silly, to the point of making non-sequitor analogies, when it comes to athiesm. While I tend to agree with his belief in that regard, his attempts to establish natural selection as a disproof of a Creator result in weakening his entire argument, and indeed he’s often wont to go off onto tangents that do not pertain whatsoever to his central thesis in pursuit of his claims. _The Blind Watchmaker_, an otherwise excellent book, has many examples of this, and ends rather farcically with Dawkins arguing against Lamarkism–as if anyone is seriously still supporting it–and then brushing off religious belief and any competing theories to natural selection and an explaination for evolution in a very weak, I’m-tired-and-I-have-a-deadline-so-I’m-going-to-end-it-here manner. A few years ago, Gould and Dawkins had an exchange of correspondance where they both agreed to no longer accept invitations to debate Creation vs. evolution, as it just offered a platform for Creationists to spout. The late Gould made good (and frankly, for the most part, he’s something of an apologist for creationism, at least in a historical context, as a pre-Enlightenment refinement on the knowledge of the natural world in that day), but Dawkins continues to hammer away, often pointlessly. I don’t disagree with him in concept, and he’s welcome to publish his beliefs (even if a hypothetical Creator, being a non-falsifiable proposition, is beyond disproof) but I sure as hell wish he’d stop conflating it with his rather good work in explaining the mechanisms of natural selection. It has made his last couple of books quite agonizing to read. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/10 "2005-04-30T19:21:47Z")
Aeschines You’re going to get some flak for this OP, but in my opinion it is one of the strongest OPs I’ve ever seen in Great Debates. Your logic is spot-on. Your points are well made, and easy to understand. There are some real gems in there, including this: _Whether God exists or not is clearly not a matter of probability but rather concerns the foundation of Reality itself. Further, God is not “just another” entity that can be proposed but instead is a concept that concers how we can conceive of any entity at all. Any philosophy or, for that matter, rational inquiry, has had to deal with notions of Ultimate Reality._ For me, it’s downright spooky when a scientist says things like this: _Religion is scarcely distinguishable from childhood delusions like the “imaginary friend” and the bogeyman under the bed. Unfortunately, the God delusion possesses adults, and not just a minority of unfortunates in an asylum._ It goes beyond merely being incorrect, massively ignorant, and downright rude. It is almost Mengelean in its disregard and disdain for other humans. Nicely done. ---
**Author:** ![Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58956e/32.png) [@Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoodoo_Ulove)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/11 "2005-04-30T19:45:14Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Further, if you really want to get into it, most atheists hold their position not because the probability of God’s existence is low, but because they hold a philosophical principle that unless God can be proven to exist, then He should be considered not to exist. I can respect this position. A quibble, if I may. I think most atheists would not demand proof of existence before considering Him nonexistent, just _some_ evidence of existence. I agree with **Liberal** , if not with you – good OP. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/12 "2005-04-30T20:46:47Z")
> [@Larry Borgia](#): > > Conflating Evolutionary theory with atheism is not only silly, it is counterprductive as well. It exacerbates a conflict that shouldn’t exist at all. Many Christians accept evolution. The Catholic Church officially accepts evolution as do mainstream protestant churches and even a few evangelicles. I imagine the same holds true of the other major and minor religions around the globe. Religion can absorb evolution just as it absorbed heliocentrism. Well put. > [@](#): > > I admire Dawkins as a writer and popularizer of science. But lately he’s been coming off as a prick who doesn’t want to fight ignorance so much as pick fights. My sentiment exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/13 "2005-04-30T20:51:31Z")
Thank you, **Liberal**. I appreciate your comments greatly. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/14 "2005-04-30T20:55:12Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > It is almost Mengelean in its disregard and disdain for other humans. Are points awarded for the most obscure Godwinization of a thread or something? Thinking that religious beliefs are delusional is emphatically _not_ on par with performing grotesque experiments on unwilling human subjects, and suggesting that it is diminishes you. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/15 "2005-04-30T21:39:59Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > You might as well say your hypothetical unicorn is more probable because it’s so damn big. Now are you talking about _ontological_ bigness? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/16 "2005-04-30T22:36:28Z")
> [@Dawkins](#): > > A delusion is something that people believe in despite a total lack of evidence. Religion is scarcely distinguishable from childhood delusions like the “imaginary friend” and the bogeyman under the bed. Unfortunately, the God delusion possesses adults, and not just a minority of unfortunates in an asylum. The word “delusion” also carries negative connotations, and religion has plenty of those. I don’t believe in a personal God, but in trying to understand why most people do, I’ve come to the conclusion that people tend to interpret natural phenomena in such a way as to make them appear as strong indirect evidence of God. The apparent orderliness of the universe seems to be at the bottom of it. I find this position subtle and hard to argue with, because you’re talking about matters of opinion - to one guy, the universe appears orderly and “in control,” and to another guy, it looks like complete chaos. Dawkins seems willfully ignorant of this kind of thinking. When he says “a total lack of evidence,” he surely means direct evidence, e.g. Dawkins asks God to strike him dead with a lightning bolt, and God obliges him. But even in science, we accept things like the existence of forces, even though forces cannot be directly observed or measured. We accept them because mechanics doesn’t make sense otherwise. I can see how certain people accept the existence of God because the world doesn’t make sense to them otherwise. One can argue that the world is inherently nonsensical, but then there would be no point in doing science, either. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/17 "2005-04-30T23:51:55Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > But even in science, we accept things like the existence of forces, even though forces cannot be directly observed or measured. We accept them because mechanics doesn’t make sense otherwise. Well, to be fair, in science we expect “invisible” forces to at least be predictable and repeatable before we offer them credence as a validated theory. If a measurement is repeatable and predicted by the theory, then we offer the theory as validated, though always subject to refinement or replacement by a better-fitting theory. In religious belief events are either non-repeatable (miracles which fail to be repeated under observation), or beyond perception, even via indirect measurement. It doesn’t mean that nothing is there, any more than we could argue the ocean is bottomless because we can’t see the floor from the surface, but given the failure of most religions to make specific, falsifiable claims and the tendency to offer explainations for phenomena based, charitably, on some bloke’s say-so (or better yet, on a bit of inflammible shrubbery) it’s a bit difficult to take the whole business seriously. What may be beyond the shroud of quantum froth underlying the macro reality or beyond the maximum redshift of the universe is untestable, for now and quite possibly forever. There most certainly _could_ be an underlying intelligence or creative intent, but I highly doubt that it’s a dude with a beard blasting plagues of locusts upon his creatures. > [@Hyperelastic](#): > > I can see how certain people accept the existence of God because the world doesn’t make sense to them otherwise. One can argue that the world is inherently nonsensical, but then there would be no point in doing science, either. Gould has an excellent essay in [Ever Since Darwin](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393308189/qid=1114904334/sr=1-8/ref=sr_1_8/104-5083798-8508730?v=glance&s=books) (can’t remember which one off-hand) in which he speculates not only why the natural scientists and philosophers of Darwin’s age and before not only could, but quite logically should have placed greater likelyhood on biblical Creation rather than the (rather patchy) fossil record and other observations. A belief, or search for, a God or Creator or whatever isn’t inherently silly, though for many of us it is “obvious” (i.e. outside the realm of intuitive expectation) that such a search will be fruitless. I do find the pomp and circumstance, as well as much of the mythology pertaining to most religion quite often misguided, though there is much cultural wisdom to be found there, too. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2005, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/18 "2005-05-01T03:28:38Z")
> [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > In religious belief events are either non-repeatable (miracles which fail to be repeated under observation), or beyond perception, even via indirect measurement. It doesn’t mean that nothing is there, any more than we could argue the ocean is bottomless because we can’t see the floor from the surface, but given the failure of most religions to make specific, falsifiable claims and the tendency to offer explainations for phenomena based, charitably, on some bloke’s say-so (or better yet, on a bit of inflammible shrubbery) it’s a bit difficult to take the whole business seriously. I think it’s a lot simpler than that for most people. They really do see indirect evidence of God in the material world, maybe because they’re conditioned to. Theologians and philosophers are always concerned with the epistemological and moral questions, but the typical human being doesn’t seem able to imagine a world without someone in charge. I liken it to folk medicine - you have a bunch of anthropologists running around looking for deep, spiritual undercurrents, but fundamentally, people believe in it because they think it works. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2005, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/19 "2005-05-01T12:44:41Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Whether God exists or not is clearly not a matter of probability but rather concerns the foundation of Reality itself. But our beliefs, the output of our cognitive apparatus, _are_ themselves probabilistic in character: we say we are or believe _strongly_, or are _pretty sure_, or are _uncertain_. We express the position of the needle of the Belief-O-Meter representing this computer in our skulls _no matter what the statement_. I can still say that it is _possible_ that I live in a computer simulation: that this statement involves ‘reality’ does not change the nature of our cognition regarding it. > [@](#): > > Further, God is not “just another” entity that can be proposed but instead is a concept that concers how we can conceive of any entity at all. Again, I’d suggest that this makes no fundamental difference. Cognitive science seeks to explain how “entities are conceived” - specific properties of those entities (_eg._ invisibility or timelessness) do not change the computational basis. > [@](#): > > If someone as smart as Dawkins can speak so ignorantly, I wonder just what our Science (i.e., “Natural Philosophy”) of today is really worth. Wonder as you will, but you would also have to explain those incredible _predictions_ of scientific models which, amazingly, came true against all odds (and, ultimately, saved the lives of our loved ones who would surely have died in past centuries). > [@](#): > > I sense that, by calling agnosticism a “weak” position, Dawkins is saying that he prefers aetheism for political or aesthetic reasons (“I take my non-belief straight with no chaser”). As do we all - if I liked your position more than mine, why, I’d hold _it_ instead. Personally, I’ve never understood agnosticism as any more than a trivial tautology. _Of course_ we can never know - that’s why we say what our _guess_ is. Surely every theist or atheist is an agnostic? > [@](#): > > In any case, if we buy into Dawkins’ own meme idea, we may conclude that religious belief has been highly adaptive for the species, and that is why it continues. No, you misunderstand memetics: it is simply about _what memories/beliefs are statistically prevalent at any one time_, not about which ones might allow the individual or group which **hold** it to outcompete another which doesn’t. Dawkins would agree that religious belief is highly successful, but only for _itself_ (hence the virus analogy). > [@](#): > > Dawkins chooses this word [delusion] to belittle those who possess religious belief. Maybe so, but I’d be happy to admit that if God exists, I am _deluded_ or _delusional_ in my belief that He doesn’t. > [@](#): > > this “trend toward enlightenment” in certain parts of the world is his own delusion (a real one). Careful with your _tu quoque_s. And careful also with equating atheism with Socialism or PETA membership. And with the argument-to-age in religion’s “track record”. And associating atheism with a moral absence or mass murder. In short, that paragraph of yours was _sloppy_. > [@](#): > > Dawkins in effect is admitting that religion was just an “excuse” to fight in India. A powerful excuse, mind - if they had all been _one_ religion it seems unlikely that such bloodshed would have occurred, although I admit it’s a possibility. > [@](#): > > Natural selection isn’t a “force”; it’s a mechanism. I’ll grant you this quibble: no, it is not a change in momentum of a massive object. > [@](#): > > Dear me, we have our rhetoric again: “die forever.” I did an OP on that old saw not too long ago. Outside of your lifetime you are dead. The 13.7 billion years before birth and moment of death onwards is “forever”. Remember that you admitted on the final page of the OP that we _are_ like hard drives filled with memories and then thrown on a bonfire. Your OP, to me, is rather just splitting hairs. Yes, he puts things in stronger language than others (like, say, me), but compared to the _theists_ I see in the media regularly, he is a paragon of restraint. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2005, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833/20 "2005-05-01T22:15:44Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Are points awarded for the most obscure Godwinization of a thread or something? Thinking that religious beliefs are delusional is emphatically _not_ on par with performing grotesque experiments on unwilling human subjects, and suggesting that it is diminishes you. I think you’re wrong, and I don’t think quite understand what a serious charge Dawkins is leveling. Men who are declared delusional may be involuntarily committed to mental institutions for evaluation and treatment. I believe that “Mengelean” is a perfectly descriptive adjective for asylums that would house unwilling human subjects and do grotesque pseudo-scientific psychiatric experiments on them for the sole reason that they believe in God. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salon-com-interview-dawkins-dumbs-down/301833.md?page=2)