Dawkins - 'The God Delusion'

As near as I can tell, scientists seem to be divided into two camps concerning the interplay between science and religion.One camp believes that education is the answer, and proponents are people such as Lawrence Krauss, Director of the Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics at Case Western Reserve University, Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith, and Richard Dawkins, current holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and author of the book that is the subject of this thread.The other camp believes that while education is important, the key concern is that scientists do not give religion the proper consideration or respect, and this results in a critical lack of understanding that dooms any efforts at conciliation. I won't provide specific examples of proponents, but they tend to be in the soft sciences like experimental psychology.But most important in all this is that the first camp, the one that thinks its just a matter of properly explaining science, is divided into two sub-camps. One sub-camp wants to develop an open and ongoing dialog, the other sub-camp holds religious believers in strict contempt and wants to bulldoze them into the ash heap of history.Dawkins belongs in the second sub-camp, and this is why he brings such embarrassment upon the scientific community. He long ago noted that his temperament is inappropriate for the task he has set himself, and why he's doing it anyway is both a mystery and a tragedy.--Percy

I agree that it is an inaccurate characterization to call Dawkins book a "rant-rather-than-reason", but it is a rant. Dawkins isn't interested in a dialogue. He's taking the approach, "Let me show you how stupid you are." This is what has other scientists so abashed.There was much anguishing among scientists at the Beyond Belief 2006 conference about the difficulty of each side understanding the other, and a visible though perhaps minority opinion was that this problem has no solution. Each side has significant non-negotiable positions, for example representative among them is that the earth is 6000 years old on one side and 4.56 billion years old on the other, as we're well aware here.Dawkins approach of, "You blithering idiots, can't you see you have no evidence, and that a book by primitive nomads of long ago is not a science book." I know sentences of this precise sentiment do not appear in the book, but evangelical Christians will come away from the book's reading feeling as if they've been called blithering idiots.The problem is that Dawkins is both right and wrong. He's right that they are blithering idiots for ignoring obvious science. And he's wrong in thinking that in this approach lies a solution. In fact, it seems guaranteed to increase intransigence.The other side has few of the Dawkins type, at least at the national media-visible level. They are much more savvy about packaging their message attractively. But they in essence feel the same as Dawkins, that scientists are blithering idiots for ignoring the plain truth of the Word of God as recorded in the Bible.Religion and science have been bickering for centuries, and it's unlikely to end. But as Sam Harris accurately notes, we live in a time where religious ignorance can produce consequences on a global scale, and we can perhaps no longer afford this ignorance if we hope to survive to the next millennium.--Percy

Hi Crash,Ned says he agrees with you, and so do I. Much of your post is written as if you're disagreeing with me, but I think you just interpreted a couple portions differently than I'd intended. You're right. I had another difference in mind, that Harris is interested in dialogue and Dawkins isn't. Dawkins is dismissive where Harris is inquisitive. That doesn't mean they believe differently, but they definitely interact with the other side differently. For example, I doubt Harris would ever talk himself into the situation Dawkins did with Ted Haggard, where Dawkins was upbraided for arrogance, ironically by someone who only a few months later was revealed a hypocrite of the highest order. Dawkins and Harris definitely agree about this. But Dawkins wants to do it regardless of how the religious feel about it. Dawkins has the kind of intolerance that makes you glad he wasn't a member of the Nazi party during World War II. The type I was thinking of was the "arrogant, let-me-make-myself-look-as-bad-as-I-can" type. Right. We agree. And it's the kind of confrontational style that leads people to bar the doors and unlock the gun racks.Scientists for the most part are today blessed that religious atrocities are usually committed against the religious. Dawkins style is capable of changing that. I don't want him for a front man.Concerning his book, I haven't completed it yet, but what I find startling is its lack of original insights. It is a diatribe and I'm reading it as a chore rather than because I think I'll learn anything.--Percy

It's not that I disagree with what everyone else is saying, but when it comes to this: And it's not that I disagree with this point. But we do have to live with these people on the same planet, and whatever the solution is, Dawkins doesn't have it. I don't want someone speaking for my side who is capable of alienating his own fairy godmother.Crash compared Dawkins on the science side to Falwell and a couple others on the faith side, but there's really no comparison. You put Falwell in front of a camera and he'll charm the average listener. You put Dawkins in front of a camera and all you'll get is more converts to the other side. This is a serious problem, especially since it concerns someone who holds a chair for the communication of science to the public.By the way, and I guess this is for Crash, one key difference between Harris and Dawkins is that Dawkins sees fundamentalists as the root cause of the problem as compared to religious moderates. He almost sees religious moderates as allies, think of the Methodists and so forth. But while Harris agrees with Dawkins that fundamentalism is the root source of concrete threats to civilization, he sees religious moderates as far more sinister because of the enabling role that they play, and the way that they make it okay in our society to believe as a group what would be considered insane in an individual. They make it okay to be irrational.--Percy

Right, exactly. You're already polarized. So to take the most recent and probably most egregious Falwell example, I don't think the "average viewer" saw Falwell's comments about 9/11 on the Pat Robertson show as terribly offensive, at least not until the comments themselves became news and drew very specific criticism. Until they make headline news, the topics discussed here are not often thought about, if at all, by the general public.--Percy