Debunking Dawkins'
21/08/2007 Filed in: In The News
| Science and
Religion
As you have
surely noticed, the new incarnation of ‘militant
atheism’ is stirring continuous debate both online and
on TV. Just to site posts that have just appeared since
last weekend in my rss reader: http://thisquantumworld.com/wordpress/2007/08/19/an-open-letter-to-messrs-dawkins-dennett-harris-and-hitchens/,
http://amnap.blogspot.com/2007/08/materialism-as-reaction-to-religion.html,
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/16/sunday/main3174781.shtml,
and http://richarddawkins.net/article,1540,n,n.
The last one links to Pr. Richard Dawkins’ website, which has become a lively place where religion-bashers congregate and share their… acrimony - if you want to get an idea, enjoy reading the comments to a couple posts. Strikingly similar to what you can find coming from the very people they bash.
There is an industry thriving on the Dawkins phenomenon - an evolutionary biologist (of the staunchly darwinian kind) gone science writer for wide audiences (a pretty good one though I prefer SJ Gould), gone militant atheist in writing and in TV shows. Many books have been written to point out the mistakes and flaws in Dawkins’ knowledge of history and theology (Alister McGrath is a notable example), but one can’t really blame the man given his beliefs (or lack thereof). In his latest book, The God Delusion, Dawkins candidly concedes that he had set out to convert his readers to atheism.
Let me start by saying that I support Dawkins’ self-appointed mission to fight creationism in its more extreme manifestations. He may come across as arrogant, blunt, and annoyingly well spoken, but he does make some very good points on that subject. But you have to you overlook the sad fact that it all comes from a flawed logic.
Indeed, without even going into the finer points of his latest works (there are a few books doing just that), what I will argue here is that the very premise of Dawkins’ attack debases all subsequent developments of his thought. When the premise is flawed, none of the ensuing positions can be right. Just like in mathematics, if the demonstration is wrong, the result can only be wrong.
Interestingly, or rather ironically, the flaws in his arguments not only stem from his wilful ignorance of theology, but are also founded in bad science.
It’s quite simple. Dawkins’ position can be summarised as such (paraphrasing his own words): although God cannot be entirely disproved, it is vastly improbable that such an entity exists at all (for an example, this discussion between Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath).
This appeal to the probabilistic argument is based on the following premise:
…which allows him to claim that the God hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis about the universe. [Let’s pretend not to see that he chose a demonstration that would fit his pre-formed conclusion.]
Therein lie two major flaws. I’ll start with the lesser:
- It’s bad science: his hypothesis cannot be tested, as Dawkins himself acknowledges. There is only one Universe amenable to the kind of evidence that Dawkins asks of religious beliefs. One should expect from Dawkins at least the same kind of evidence for his own assertions. (For the scientists out there: sample size n = 1).
- The greater flaw is that in order to consider God as a scientific hypothesis, Dawkins commits a petitio principii. Indeed, ”for an argument to have any epistemological or dialectical force, it must start from premisses already known or believed by its audience, and proceed to a conclusion not known or believed.” Dawkins, however, starts with premisses that are not accepted by his targeted audience. By all definitions of god, be it named Brahma, God, Allah or Yahveh, the principle characteristic of said deity is that it is the creator of all things. Let us be clear. {Name} is the creator of the Universe, by definition. Dawkins’ phrase “a universe without a God” is like saying “water without atoms of hydrogen”, and begs one to agree to the argument that God can be anything but the creator of the universe or that the universe may exist without God.
For Dawkins to validate his argumentation, he would first need to prove that his premise does not violate the accepted definitions of ‘God’ and ‘Universe’. However, if Dawkins’ god is not the creator of the universe, then he might as well call his god a fairy or a teapot. Which he does. And that, indeed, has no bearing on the faith in God, Allah, Yahveh or Brahma.
Alternatives to the statement that ‘God is the creator of the universe’ could be ‘God is not the creator of the universe’; but saying so implies that God and the universe may exist but are not causally related. This as I said, would demote God to the rank of a ghost or a Tooth Fairy, and the argument then would not concern believers in God. Or else, one could say “There is no God”, but this again violates the beleivers’ definition of God if the universe’s existence is assumed. Thus, in both cases, the argument misses it’s purpose.
Lastly, one often argues that such a description of God is useless, as it has no explanatory power, and the whole idea might just as well be discarded. Well, it’s not meant to be a scientific explanation of how the universe works in the modern scientific world-view - believing that is bad theology of the kind you would find amongst creationists. One cannot prove the existence of God with the scientific method. But I believe that the idea of God is nonetheless the most illuminating path we may choose regarding our place in the world when we start working with the consequences of what was simply a philosophical argument, until then.
The last one links to Pr. Richard Dawkins’ website, which has become a lively place where religion-bashers congregate and share their… acrimony - if you want to get an idea, enjoy reading the comments to a couple posts. Strikingly similar to what you can find coming from the very people they bash.
There is an industry thriving on the Dawkins phenomenon - an evolutionary biologist (of the staunchly darwinian kind) gone science writer for wide audiences (a pretty good one though I prefer SJ Gould), gone militant atheist in writing and in TV shows. Many books have been written to point out the mistakes and flaws in Dawkins’ knowledge of history and theology (Alister McGrath is a notable example), but one can’t really blame the man given his beliefs (or lack thereof). In his latest book, The God Delusion, Dawkins candidly concedes that he had set out to convert his readers to atheism.
Let me start by saying that I support Dawkins’ self-appointed mission to fight creationism in its more extreme manifestations. He may come across as arrogant, blunt, and annoyingly well spoken, but he does make some very good points on that subject. But you have to you overlook the sad fact that it all comes from a flawed logic.
Indeed, without even going into the finer points of his latest works (there are a few books doing just that), what I will argue here is that the very premise of Dawkins’ attack debases all subsequent developments of his thought. When the premise is flawed, none of the ensuing positions can be right. Just like in mathematics, if the demonstration is wrong, the result can only be wrong.
Interestingly, or rather ironically, the flaws in his arguments not only stem from his wilful ignorance of theology, but are also founded in bad science.
It’s quite simple. Dawkins’ position can be summarised as such (paraphrasing his own words): although God cannot be entirely disproved, it is vastly improbable that such an entity exists at all (for an example, this discussion between Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath).
This appeal to the probabilistic argument is based on the following premise:
A universe with a God would look quite different from a universe without one. (R.D., repeatedly in The God Delusion, in TV interviews of or by him, for example, this video)
…which allows him to claim that the God hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis about the universe. [Let’s pretend not to see that he chose a demonstration that would fit his pre-formed conclusion.]
Therein lie two major flaws. I’ll start with the lesser:
- It’s bad science: his hypothesis cannot be tested, as Dawkins himself acknowledges. There is only one Universe amenable to the kind of evidence that Dawkins asks of religious beliefs. One should expect from Dawkins at least the same kind of evidence for his own assertions. (For the scientists out there: sample size n = 1).
- The greater flaw is that in order to consider God as a scientific hypothesis, Dawkins commits a petitio principii. Indeed, ”for an argument to have any epistemological or dialectical force, it must start from premisses already known or believed by its audience, and proceed to a conclusion not known or believed.” Dawkins, however, starts with premisses that are not accepted by his targeted audience. By all definitions of god, be it named Brahma, God, Allah or Yahveh, the principle characteristic of said deity is that it is the creator of all things. Let us be clear. {Name} is the creator of the Universe, by definition. Dawkins’ phrase “a universe without a God” is like saying “water without atoms of hydrogen”, and begs one to agree to the argument that God can be anything but the creator of the universe or that the universe may exist without God.
For Dawkins to validate his argumentation, he would first need to prove that his premise does not violate the accepted definitions of ‘God’ and ‘Universe’. However, if Dawkins’ god is not the creator of the universe, then he might as well call his god a fairy or a teapot. Which he does. And that, indeed, has no bearing on the faith in God, Allah, Yahveh or Brahma.
Alternatives to the statement that ‘God is the creator of the universe’ could be ‘God is not the creator of the universe’; but saying so implies that God and the universe may exist but are not causally related. This as I said, would demote God to the rank of a ghost or a Tooth Fairy, and the argument then would not concern believers in God. Or else, one could say “There is no God”, but this again violates the beleivers’ definition of God if the universe’s existence is assumed. Thus, in both cases, the argument misses it’s purpose.
Lastly, one often argues that such a description of God is useless, as it has no explanatory power, and the whole idea might just as well be discarded. Well, it’s not meant to be a scientific explanation of how the universe works in the modern scientific world-view - believing that is bad theology of the kind you would find amongst creationists. One cannot prove the existence of God with the scientific method. But I believe that the idea of God is nonetheless the most illuminating path we may choose regarding our place in the world when we start working with the consequences of what was simply a philosophical argument, until then.