Is Richard Dawkins a scientist?

@Setanta,

This is written by some "Barbara King" from NPR who, claims that Dawkins' foundation sought out a meeting with her, based on her writings.

Quote:

I admire many aspects of Dawkins' work. His embrace and explication of evolutionary theory, and the workings of the natural world, are beautiful and necessary. So are his efforts on behalf of secular humanism and the separation of church and state. As the world's alpha atheist, he takes up for people who are often treated with shock, suspicion and prejudice when they share their atheism with others.

I questioned whether Dawkins was the best choice to be headline speaker at the March 24 Reason Rally in Washington, given that one of its goals was to change negative stereotypes about atheists.

I'm a big fan of reason. I'm just no fan of the stereotype, embodied by Dawkins, that we atheists equate others' religious faith with a lack of intelligence or courage, or both.

Another example comes from Saturday's rally...His exact words after describing the Catholic ritual, were "Mock them. Ridicule them."

http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2012/03/26/149310560/atheist-firebrand-richard-dawkins-unrepentant-for-harsh-words-targeting-faith

Obviously, just another fundy reporter working for that right-wing NPR outfit, eh? Yet another false report. It seems that EVERY media member reporting on the incident conspired to slur Dawkins, sho nuff. What else would you expect when fundamentalists control everything? They also falsely reported that the crowd exploded with cheers and loud applause when he putatively said the things he is falsely accused of saying.

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@layman,

In the cite given in that last post, they even included a faked video, where Dawkins is made to appear to be urging the crowd to "Mock them, with contempt, in public." I just noticed that. There just aint no bottom to how far these fundies will sink to slur poor Richard, I tellya.

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Dawkins was at his best when he urged people to deeply contemplate their own existence.

His take on it was how incredibly lucky he was to be this chance assemblage of atoms capable of rational thought, independent action and shear enjoyment of life during his brief stay on this obscure planet. It is an appealing POV and one that makes you feel just happy to be alive. It's good advice.

The thing is, the more I did that, the more convinced I became that this amazing phenomenon of 'being alive' could not have been 'by chance'. First because of the shear wonder of 'my own incredibleness' and later because I couldn't convince myself of the possibility of mere biological life springing up on it's own, let alone beings capable of contemplating all the **** we do.

So credit where credit is due, he weren't all bad.

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Ah, layman is into his Stepin Fetchit routine again. I'm under no obligation to defend Dawkins' morality or behavior. Stepin Fetchit made Dawkins out to be a monster, sho nuff, but has not proven it. Stepin Fetchit basically employs snide remarks in his never ending attempt to pick a fight, but he has not provided convincing evidence for his case. He employs hyperbole and straw man fallacies. Basically, he hasn't got much going for himself, as far as rhetoric goes. Just hatred and worn out, puerile tactics. Stepin Fetchit is a sad case.

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@Setanta,

Wow, racial slurs. I'm impressed!

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@Leadfoot,

How is that a racist slur, asshole? Layman's the one who posts this "sho nuff" bullshit and similar Stepin Fetchit language. Don't blame me for his pose.

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@Leadfoot,

PS, layman is a white guy , so his "bro"-ken English is kinda like doing a George Kingfish Stevens as the interlocutor of a minstrel show.

Not necessarily racist but kinda like a non-Jew doing the "Oy, from this you should be knowing" crap as a WASPY impersonator

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@farmerman,

That's cool. I've been doing an impersonation of an edjamacated guy for awhile myself.

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A tangent to this topic:

I was reading about biological altruism and gene level evolution when a theory appeared to me.

I have naturalism genes. I'm a natural born religion-killer. My lethal weapon is tolerance. To see why, you need to accept this narrative: that religion has adapted to the threat posed to it by naturalism. It's become a thing that can use an attack as a means of revitalizing itself.

Christianity's origin story centers around attempts to annihilate it. Over the centuries, it has used surges of emotion stemming from perceived threats to send its roots down and survive. It's following a recipe for survival laid out by it's evolutionary predecessor: Judaism. History testifies that the Jewish identity will survive direct attacks and subsequently thrive. This evolutionary adaptation leaves it vulnerable to tolerance. Tolerance opens the door to assimilation.

Following Dawkins' idea of the selfish gene, people who launch attacks on religion may ironically be manifesting religion genes. Religion has become an entity that is dependent on attacks to fuel itself. A secondary target of the religion gene would be tolerance.

This is of course all bunk. Dawkins followed the scientific community in backing away from strict gene-level evolution. It's still a handy way to think about things, though. Although... associating genes with religion is Nazi-talk. Nothing animates tolerance like a bunch of Nazis.

In other words: I just realized how profoundly Dawkins actually influenced contemporary thought. I've been using the idea of the "meme" for a while now without realizing it came from him. Damn. He is an eminent scientist.

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@Tuna,

Whatever the explanation, Tuna, I agree with your general conclusion that extreme intolerance is counter-productive.

But, of course, that itself would depend on what it is you want to "produce."

If it's a display of pretense to superiority and self-congratulation, then it IS productive, not counter-productive.

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@layman,

My thesis is that tolerance is an ally of naturalism. This is true because religious people have been successful in creating civilizations that endure for centuries. So far, no group of atheists has accomplished this. When naturalism appears, as it did among the ancient Greeks, it is first perceived as deviant and immoral. The crime pinned on Socrates was basically blasphemy, indicating that Socrates' view that "there is no such thing as Zeus" was not new, but it had been outlawed by Solon himself.

By the 1st Century BC, naturalism was emerging, not as a sin, but as a valid alternative to religion. Tolerance of diverse views was an ingredient to that emergence. But probably the main ingredient was social stability created by the power of Rome.

Fast-forward to the present, and so far it's still true that the most successful strategy for protecting naturalism and science is secularism which holds tolerance as a prime virtue.

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@Tuna,

Quote:

Fast-forward to the present, and so far it's still true that the most successful strategy for protecting naturalism and science is secularism which holds tolerance as a prime virtue.

I agree. And I've often been puzzled by the fact that those most in need of tolerance (some small minority) often display themselves to be the most intolerant.

All while ostensibly extolling the virtues of tolerance (toward themselves).

The irony of it all, know what I'm sayin?

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@Tuna,

Interesting thesis, and reminds me of a variation of that that's been percolating in my head about Dawkin's favorite theory.

I think it was a different but related thread but someone recently stated an oft-quoted 'truism' that "Evolution Explains Everything" [about life].

As you pointed out, religion, or belief in a God or gods, has been around for a long time in spite of repeated attempts to stamp it out. It would seem to place it's believers at a disadvantage in many ways. It would inhibit better understanding of the natural world, places non-productive demands on it's adherents, inhibits mating and 'gene spreading', demands sacrifices of valuable resources, etc. Given these evolutionary disadvantages, it should have gone extinct by now rather than spread. This is especially true in the post Darwin enlightened world.

So the question is, if 'Evolution Explains Everything':
What is the evolutionary benefit of belief in a God? Or if there isn't one, why does it persist?

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@Leadfoot,

Quote:

So the question is, if 'Evolution Explains Everything':
What is the evolutionary benefit of belief in a God? Or if there isn't one, why does it persist?

Of course the easiest, and in my view the most reasonable, answer to that is that "evolution" (whatever that is, but let's just say it refers to Neo-Darwinism) does NOT explain everything. But don't EVER try suggesting that to some fanatically dogmatic panadaptionist neo-darwinist (like Dawkins, for example), eh? That will NOT be tolerated, even as a conjecture or a topic of discussion.

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@Leadfoot,

Leadfoot wrote:

What is the evolutionary benefit of belief in a God? Or if there isn't one, why does it persist?

If we could time-travel to Central Asia around 3000 BC and ask a resident for proof of a god, she would point at the sun and wonder what's wrong with us. I think that when hominids first developed the ability to ask what the sun is, it's not that religion and science were born simultaneously. It's that they were originally the same thing.

The oldest literary form is the epic. An epic is a fusion of religion, science, history, and political theory. All ancient epics explain the right of the ruling class with a story about gods and goddesses. So religion isn't something we can separate out from life in general in the ancient world.

That separation came about in fits and starts. It seems fairly well established now, but it's not hard to imagine circumstances in which it could disappear again. So maybe the question isn't: how has religion survived. It's how has knowledge survived? I think the answer is writing.

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@Tuna,

Quote:

That separation came about in fits and starts. It seems fairly well established now, but it's not hard to imagine circumstances in which it could disappear again. So maybe the question isn't: how has religion survived. It's how has knowledge survived? I think the answer is writing.

That was an interesting inversion.

The actual numbers have remained amazingly stable (using U.S. Gallup Poll numbers). The percentage of people who believed in a 'higher power or God' has remained above 90% as late as 2011 (the last year I checked). There has been no "separation". Note that the question has to be asked about 'God or a higher power', not religion.

I find that to be a remarkable figure but I'm definitely NOT saying that the popularity of the belief is evidence of God but there has to be an explaination better than epic stories in the ancient world for this persistence in spite of the evolutionary disadvantages.

'Evolution Explains Everything' is definitely not verified by the explaination of early observations of the sun, nor has your 'separation' occurred. At least not as of 2011.

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@Leadfoot,

You're saying religion and science are still essentially the same thing? Since the majority of religious people do accept the authority of science, I can see truth in that.

So all that's left is God. I've been immersed lately in literature that was written 4000 years ago, so monotheism seems young to me at the moment. But I guess my assessment would be based on the religious people I know. It's not fundamentally about God. It's community. Religion is providing the outlines of the community and rooting it in ancestry. Community celebrations are fun. Community provides fortitude for facing death and disaster. Religion has provided a base for social protest. One sign of the power of religion is its place in the military. Militant atheists aren't really militant. The US Navy is. Check out Hans Zimmer's arrangement of the Naval Hymn. Singing "amen" and saluting at the same time is powerful stuff. Even for an atheist.

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@Tuna,

Quote:

@Leadfoot,
You're saying religion and science are still essentially the same thing? Since the majority of religious people do accept the authority of science, I can see truth in that

My appologies Tuna, my mis-statement or misunderstanding of what you meant by 'separation' was caused by PUI (posting under the influence). I read it as peoples's separation from belief in a God (or higher being), not between science and belief. You are probably more familiar with ancient cultures than I. I don't know what the mind-set was 3000 BC but by 1500 BC, mono-theism was definitely the norm (Old Testament days).

OTOH, you still can't say there is 'separation' between science and belief in God today because the average person today is as relatively scientifically illiterate as they were in 3000 BC because science as we understand it did not exist then and Most A2K participants in threads like this are more scientifically grounded than today's Joe 6pack (appologies to a2k member of the same name) but they STILL profess a belief in God or a Higher Being. That is the thing I find anomalous if evolution really did explain everything.

I'll think more about your points when I'm not so smashed. But I must admit, sometimes an ethanol induced perspective can be helpful...

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@Leadfoot,

How wonderfully hilarious a passage of incoherence that was. By the way, "JoeSixPack" here is a sock puppet of Neologist.

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@Setanta,

His sock puppet huh, interesting. He sounds so different. Maybe I need one too when it's time to PUI.

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Is Richard Dawkins a scientist?

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