tnf...here's a link you could give to any retarded students

[R00k]

Michael Ruse for one,

Not only are there better writers,
Dawkins is not writing to reach any middle ground, eg calling pope JP II a hypocrite for declaring in favour of Darwinism and saying he prefered an honest fundamentalist; which he plainly does not! - just one example of his lack of depth in approaching religion in this book.
The blind watchmaker was a far better read.
the point (gky) is not whether God is probable, it is whether he is actual, Dawkins fails to grasp this.

Haven't heard of Michael Ruse, might see what he's about.

I have the Blind Watchmaker, but only read about 60-70 pages of it so far. It is good, but I think The Selfish Gene was better from what I've seen; it's one of the best books I've ever read. The elegantly simple terms in which evolution is described was just astounding to me, not to mention the in-depth discussions of altruism and evolutionary stable systems. It's very easy to see why it made such a wave a while after it was written.

[S@M]

The point (as I said above) is not whether he is actual OR probable, as much as the fact that the burden of proof is on the believer. After that point is established, then the probability is used to further increase the burden of proof, and when you are finished the burden is nearly insurmountable, without seeing god physically float down from the heavens with your own eyes.

The real issue I have with the debate that relies upon probability is the lack of internal consistency in the approach as used by Dawkins, on one hand he happily admits the probability of evolution is tiny, on the other, he tries to argue that the probability of God existing is tiny. This is another internal consistency in his arguments against religion. Its a concern that his methods of thought lack internal validity given his dogmatic attempt to apply scientific reasoning to the question of gods existence.

I dont know how interested you might be in continuing this discussion so will add one more point then leave it. Not all phenomena in our world are amendable to absolute empirical reductionism although Dawkins maintains that science has or will have the answer to every possible question. However, scientific theory can not explain "purpose", not can it explain law, economics or sociology - all valid domains of knowledge which dont rely upon the natural sciences for their existence. There are lots of other interesting questions that the natural sciences cant answer - such as does nature have a purpose beyond reproduction? Sir Peter Medaware wrote more and better about the impact of the nature of reality on the ability for science to answer questions outside its domain. Medaware is no kook having be awarded the Nobel prize for work on acquired immunological tolerence, his book is called "The limits of science".

yes Dawkins is polarising in his views, Is this helpful, constructive or open minded? I'm not sure.

[tnf]

I rather like Dawkins even if he is polarizing. And I think he addresses some of the criticisms that are brought up here in his work.

[R00k]

The real issue I have with the debate that relies upon probability is the lack of internal consistency in the approach as used by Dawkins, on one hand he happily admits the probability of evolution is tiny, on the other, he tries to argue that the probability of God existing is tiny. This is another internal consistency in his arguments against religion. Its a concern that his methods of thought lack internal validity given his dogmatic attempt to apply scientific reasoning to the question of gods existence.

Well, I feel like you sort-of dodged my point that the burden of proof is more important than any probability figures. The fact that anyone would feel they need to prove god doesn't exist in a discussion like this indicates to me that it is not correctly framed. Every human being is born an atheist; belief in a specific god is a learned behavior. Every other case in the world where we "stand on the shoulders of giants," is something that can be tested or proven to be true, otherwise we discard it.
Also - importantly - Dawkins never says that the probability of evolution is tiny. On the contrary, he comes very close to saying it is inevitable.

I dont know how interested you might be in continuing this discussion so will add one more point then leave it. Not all phenomena in our world are amendable to absolute empirical reductionism although Dawkins maintains that science has or will have the answer to every possible question. However, scientific theory can not explain "purpose", not can it explain law, economics or sociology - all valid domains of knowledge which dont rely upon the natural sciences for their existence. There are lots of other interesting questions that the natural sciences cant answer - such as does nature have a purpose beyond reproduction? Sir Peter Medaware wrote more and better about the impact of the nature of reality on the ability for science to answer questions outside its domain. Medaware is no kook having be awarded the Nobel prize for work on acquired immunological tolerence, his book is called "The limits of science".

That's close to what Dawkins says. But instead of saying that science has or will have the answer to every question, he says that he believes every possible question about things that have an effect on our existence in any way must by definition fall under the scientific domain. But he admits that science is not necessarily ever going to be able to answer all questions, only that it conceivably could.
But I can't personally say I agree with him on that. I could very well be wrong, but I don't believe for instance that we would ever be able to recreate or predict human thoughts by neurological manipulation of the brain.

Either way, I believe the word "purpose" is loaded to begin with. To say that it is a fault of science not to be able to explain "purpose," is to imply that the existence of life itself has a purpose to begin with, which is far from a given, and also far from a prerequisite for existence. If it is possible for biological life to exist without a predetermined purpose, why should we take it for granted that there is one?
Also, the scientific method has been brought to bear against law, economics and sociology with valid results. And in terms of natural science, all three of these phenomena can be explained with some accuracy by the natural tendency toward an evolutionary stable system.

yes Dawkins is polarising in his views, Is this helpful, constructive or open minded? I'm not sure.

Yea, I think I mentioned how I feel about this in an earlier post.

[Dave]

one time i read a series of uni texts the same subject that spaned decades.

i learned alot obout tings

was it eric hobsbawm's epic 10-volume masterpiece "a complete and utter history of not making any fucking sense whatsoever"? because that i would believe...

I have a feeling that if plained were reading Hobsbawm, he'd be able to type properly.

[Hannibal]

Every human being is born an atheist....

I can't buy this. One can't even talk about being an atheist or theist until one possesses a grasp of a buttload of other concepts, and we have no good reason to believe that the concepts that atheism presupposes are somehow 'given' at birth.

...he says that he believes every possible question about things that have an effect on our existence in any way must by definition fall under the scientific domain. But he admits that science is not necessarily ever going to be able to answer all questions, only that it conceivably could. But I can't personally say I agree with him on that.

Good for you because, frankly, that's just plain kooky talk.

Either way, I believe the word "purpose" is loaded to begin with. To say that it is a fault of science not to be able to explain "purpose," is to imply that the existence of life itself has a purpose to begin with, which is far from a given, and also far from a prerequisite for existence.

Well sure 'purpose' isn't a given; it only arrives on the scene with us, and arrive like a muthafucka it did! The question of purpose (broadly conceived) begins with us, and I think it is an inescapable feature of our being in the world...for even when we attempt to avoid, deny, or redescribe it into oblivion we are recognizing the question's claim on us and offering an answer of sorts. We can certainly say 'there is no purpose to human life' or 'the purpose is X, Y, Z'. People have been barking about this shit from day one. I think the more important question here would be: can the question of purpose (meaning) be properly addressed by the methods, concepts, and assumptions of the natural sciences?

Also, the scientific method has been brought to bear against law, economics and sociology with valid results. And in terms of natural science, all three of these phenomena can be explained with some accuracy by the natural tendency toward an evolutionary stable system.

This paragraph is giving me trouble, so I apologize in advance if I misinterpret you in what follows. Yes, practitioners in each of those disciplines have employed 'scientific' methods and assumptions in their work. That doesn't mean, however, that their 'objects of inquiry' are terribly similar to the objects studied in chemistry, physics, or even biology (depending on where one wishes to draw disciplinary boundaries). Be careful not to confuse an approach to studying a set of objects with the objects themselves. I wonder if you meant something else here though...feel free to correct my understanding.

[R00k]

Thanks for the reply.

(sorry to be so long winded here...)

Every human being is born an atheist....

I can't buy this. One can't even talk about being an atheist or theist until one possesses a grasp of a buttload of other concepts, and we have no good reason to believe that the concepts that atheism presupposes are somehow 'given' at birth.

Yea, I can see I should have clarified/qualified that comment. When I say atheism, I'm talking about a lack of a specific belief -- not necessarily a stance on the issue. That's my own interpretation of the word (I started a discussion about it here before: http://www.quake3world.com/forum/viewto ... =1&t=30231 ).

But my comment after that one stands, and is more to the point (emphasis on the word 'specific'):

belief in a specific god is a learned behavior.

...he says that he believes every possible question about things that have an effect on our existence in any way must by definition fall under the scientific domain. But he admits that science is not necessarily ever going to be able to answer all questions, only that it conceivably could. But I can't personally say I agree with him on that.

Good for you because, frankly, that's just plain kooky talk.

Yea, this is one point in the book where he lost me - even though you can trace a strand of logic through his points. i.e., if some being is out there which can physically manipulate our universe (i.e. miracles), then that physical manipulation should theoretically be detectable, and maybe even measurable. Even if he is outside our universe, he or some manifestation of his will must be projected in to our universe and be detectable. Again, this seems like a somewhat shaky position to me, even though it sounds superficially logical.

Well sure 'purpose' isn't a given; it only arrives on the scene with us, and arrive like a muthafucka it did! The question of purpose (broadly conceived) begins with us, and I think it is an inescapable feature of our being in the world...for even when we attempt to avoid, deny, or redescribe it into oblivion we are recognizing the question's claim on us and offering an answer of sorts. We can certainly say 'there is no purpose to human life' or 'the purpose is X, Y, Z'. People have been barking about this shit from day one. I think the more important question here would be: can the question of purpose (meaning) be properly addressed by the methods, concepts, and assumptions of the natural sciences?

Good points, and it's undeniable that the question of purpose is a fairly permanent fixture of the nature of human experience. So in that sense, the question of purpose is understandable. It would be easy here to talk about whether purpose is simply an invention of the human mind, its true nature, etc. So I agree with you: that's been gone over and over since day one, and there's no reason to drag it into our discussion here.
You say the more important question would be whether natural science can accurately address the answer to the question of purpose. I agree that it is a question worth thinking about -- and we may never know whether it can or not (I almost hope we don't, personally).

But I think the more important question, in the context of this debate, is this: Does the question of purpose itself lend any evidence to whether there is a god or there isn't one? Does the fact that there is a question justify a belief in a specific god - any specific god at all? No, the only way "purpose," can logically justify a certainty that there is a god, is through the answer. Only a certain subset of the answers to that question would lead to the logical certainty that a specific god exists (i.e., the "purpose" is that he made us to do this task; the "purpose" is that we live in a certain way to benefit him, etc.). Since there are also conceivable answers to the question of "purpose" that would NOT lead to the logical certainty of a specific god, then simply the question of purpose in and of itself cannot be used as an argument FOR the existence of a god.

Don't get me wrong here... this question of purpose is undoubtedly what causes many people to seek god, and when they find god they feel they have found the answer. In this way, it is certainly justifiable to that person that he or she sought and found god due to the baffling question of our "purpose;" especially if finding god has helped that person's health or happiness or livelihood.

But I believe it only brings us around full circle, back to the point that a belief in a specific god is a matter of personal choice (for the people who have that freedom). Because anyone who claims the question of "purpose" is their reason for believing in their god, is also admitting that they have made the choice to believe a certain answer to that question (for whatever reason).

Also, the scientific method has been brought to bear against law, economics and sociology with valid results. And in terms of natural science, all three of these phenomena can be explained with some accuracy by the natural tendency toward an evolutionary stable system.

This paragraph is giving me trouble, so I apologize in advance if I misinterpret you in what follows. Yes, practitioners in each of those disciplines have employed 'scientific' methods and assumptions in their work. That doesn't mean, however, that their 'objects of inquiry' are terribly similar to the objects studied in chemistry, physics, or even biology (depending on where one wishes to draw disciplinary boundaries). Be careful not to confuse an approach to studying a set of objects with the objects themselves. I wonder if you meant something else here though...feel free to correct my understanding.

Well, I wanted to approach the point from both angles: first that those three disciplines can in some cases be considered scientific disciplines in and of themselves, depending on whom you ask (obviously I wouldn't make the statement that they are scientific disciplines, just that they have proven to be good material for the use of scientific method); and secondly, that there are natural scientific areas which explain a lot of the underlying human behaviors which are the basis for these disciplines. And we are learning more every day. i.e., he says that law, economics and sociology can't be be "explained" by the natural sciences; I am saying that natural sciences have in fact explained a lot of specific elements of these disciplines, and more are being discovered all the time.

[Ryoki]

You know what's weird, we had this whole is-God-really-real debate in Europe way back in the 1950's - i really wonder what makes it pop up in the States nowadays.

You yanks have always been great at living comfortably with that seemingly impossible combination of faith in a christian god, trust in science and ice cold capitalism. What the deal here, what happened..? Is there some slow moving social revolution going on that i'm unaware of?

[Grudge]

I like to think about all this in the way of regarding religion and scientific method as simply two different cultural tools or artifacts. Religion have served it's purpose very well during the last couple of millenia, and I'm convinced that it has greatly contributed to the phenomenal growth of human civlization these last three or four thousand years (which when you consider that almost everything we consider to be civilization has arisen during this last percent or so of the lifetime of our species so far, is quite remarkable).

Dennett for example mentions the benefits of religion in it's way of keeping people on a relatively tight moral leash, by threatening to exact judgement for one's actions in the afterlife, thus acting like a very effective "secret police" without the exuberant extra costs to society that a equally effiective proper police force would infer. Other benefits such as creating unity and purpose within the ethnic group have been mentioned before.

However, religion also comes with additional baggage, that has proven to clash with more recently developed cultural tools such as scientific method. For example, the authoritarian top-down management and rigid claims of being the bearer of an untimate, objective truth that were so successful in the tribal and feudal societies that dominated the world before the enlightenment don't really work that well in a society where democratic principles, an open market, a weakened national state and global communications have proved to be vastly superior and have offered much greater material and intellectual benefits to people than the older systems they have replaced.

So, tools like scientific method has overtaken and is threatening religion in many areas. However, despite widespread education and a (relatively) free society where information is readily available, scientific method won't really replace religion in every arena just yet, for a number of reasons. For example tradition is a strong force (which also have proven to be very successful throughout our history). But the nature of scientific method also in itself requires people to question existing knowledge, whereas religion does the opposite and thereby makes for a much more aggressive meme, which perhaps more easily gets stuck in people's minds.

[Grudge]

Come to think of it, it's almost as playing a game of Civilization. First you research religion and monarchy and such, which works great for a while, then you replace them with scientific method and democracy in order to recieve the much greater benefits of those "techs". And when you replace one system with another you have to go through one turn of anarchy where the old system clashes with the new (which is where Europe were in the 50's and where the US is now).

[R00k]

I really like Jordan Peterson's take on it (he's the guy Jules posted a thread about - Chaos and the Organizing Principle, I believe it was).

Essentially that religion is one of humanity's many means (and possibly the most powerful one) of putting the chaos of everyday life and experience into a simpler order, which makes it so much easier to carry on the day to day operations necessary to live, without getting caught up in the "semantics" of how things work and how they're made up. He used a car as an example. Nobody wants to think about a car as a collection of all its many working parts - they think of a car as one single unit that does a task they need, and gets them from where they are to where they want to be. It is not until the car breaks down, or doesn't start for them, that they have to reconsider the car for what it is, and ponder the complex machinery it's comprised of.

When striving for mere survival, there is not as much benefit in recognizing the complexity of the world, as there is in seeing things in terms of their most practical uses, and utilizing them as such without digging in any further.

I don't think it's a coincidence that many of the highly conservative, religious and undereducated people who make up the majority of "red state" America are practically struggling to survive from day to day. If they weren't in a constant struggle just to make ends meet, their worldview would not be pressed to consider everything in life in the most ordered, organized way possible.

....if that makes any sense....

[S@M]

I like teh analogy, its a great conceptual way of thinking about societies from an ethnographic pov as well as others like religion...but the link to lower socioeconomic status and religious people seems pretty out there (IF thats what your implying?).

I think people with low socioeconomic status around the world tend to focus on necessity regardless of their belief system or lack of one.

[GONNAFISTYA]

Hey tnf, I think you've made it abundantly clear the reaction your students have to topics such as evolution. I'm curious about how your students react to other scientific topics/courses such as genetics, geology, quantum mechanics and thermodynamics?

Are they accepted because of (like evolution) the mountain of evidence to support it? If so, have you ever challenged a student on evolution based on their acceptance of the other "tangible in our lifetime" sciences?

Do they even teach those other sciences in middle/high school in America?

[GONNAFISTYA]

Regarding the posts on Dawkins, good discussion.

While some people think that he's brash I'd simply say that religion went from being bedtime stories to the grand controller and - like the flat earth idea - needs to be washed away from the vernacular. Enough with superstitions already.

[Big Kahuna Burger]

thats why i never understood that debate. i was taught evolution in public HS and that was that. along with those other sciences too, nobody even thought to bring up god in physics class

[MKJ]

Regarding the posts on Dawkins, good discussion.

While some people think that he's brash I'd simply say that religion went from being bedtime stories to the grand controller and - like the flat earth idea - needs to be washed away from the vernacular. Enough with superstitions already.

w3rd. to me the question isnt "is religion evil?", simply because I dont deny what religion has done for mankind over the past few millennia. to me, the question is "does religion have a place in modern society?". I say No. our civilization has 'grown up' so to speak, and scientific method has taken the upper hand. Western Religion as it is today is nothing more but fanaticism and unfounded arguements against naysayers, simply because [they] dont want to admit their wrongs.

a good discussion on this is transcribed in the book "Is belief in God good, bad, or irrelevant" - letters and emails between posterboy atheist/naturalist Dr Greg Graffin and highly religious history professor Preston Jones over the course of a year.

[S@M]

I still hold that there is a middle ground.

the tendency to take extreme views and present them as normal, rather than outside the normal distribution is purely false positioning. Yes religion has freaky elements, is religion freaky, no, are the majority of religious people freaky? no.

has society outgrown religion? rather obviously not, even if some forms of christianity are on teh wane in some western societies, religion overall has not met expectations that it will dissapear since we are all so evolved now. Is that because we are controled? I think again there is a weak yet trendy arguement for that view.

I agree, good discussion here, but very limited in terms of commentary on DAwkins attempts to explain the theology of religion, he butchered all understanding of Luther, Thomas Aquinas and religious philosophy by generalising from particulars that dont relate to modern religious thinking. the intellectual faith that Dawkins describes as nonsense is often justifyable if not provable - confusing the a priori expection he places on religion with teh a posteriori position that serious scholars of religion generally hold to. The inability to debate the theological positions meaningfully is a whole aspect of Dawkins work we have not touched on here.

anyhow, enough from me

[Grudge]

the tendency to take extreme views and present them as normal, rather than outside the normal distribution is purely false positioning.

If an adult, otherwise intelligent, person told you in full seriousness that he believes that Santa Clause is real and is living at the North Pole (although no one have actually found his home yet), and that he believes there are gnomes and fairies living in his back yard (although he haven't actually seen them), wouldn't you feel that this person perhaps is a bit freaky? Wouldn't you say that this person has a bit of an extreme view?

Substitute Santa Claus with the christian god and gnomes and fairies with angels and demons, and you basically have what Dawkins is claiming.

Quite ridiculous, isn't it?

[S@M]

i can see how it has been be constructed that way,

however, we are talking about masses upon masses of adults with no learning disabilities across all known societies etc, religion, unlike the tooth fairy is a global phenomena and as such deserves a deeper, more scholarly consideration than the tooth fairy. How many people do not beleive in God as children but come to as adults? the reality of religion belies DAwkins claims of infantile society clinging to religion
DAwkins has constructed the similarity to feed his arguement rather than develop a position based on the reality of free thinking adults making deliberate and informed choices

[Grudge]

How can believing in a supernatural being be considered an informed choice? Informed by what?

As I wrote on the previous page, religion itself is constructed in such a way that it does not need people to make an informed choice. It's based on faith, not on rational reasoning, which is it's main strength since it, by it's own definition, can't be challenged by logic.

[R00k]

I still hold that there is a middle ground.

the tendency to take extreme views and present them as normal, rather than outside the normal distribution is purely false positioning. Yes religion has freaky elements, is religion freaky, no, are the majority of religious people freaky? no.

What views are you considering extreme; and what views are inside the normal distribution?

Even amongst the faithful themselves, there is no "normal." Every different denomination feels that it is the "normal" one. Religion has no mechanisms to control itself in the way that science does, so any attempt to talk about the "mainstream" of any particular faith/denomination, will be called an extremist strawman by some other group, the way you just have.

The point I'm making is that you are asking the naturalist/atheist/non-religious community to do something impossible -- something that the faithful themselves can't even agree on.

What would be considered the most reasonable and mainstream of religious views? If you could define it, I would be happy to limit my part of the discussion to those particular views.

[Hannibal]

Just for the record, my main concern with Dawkins is not about whether he 'gets it right' about religious beliefs, the probability of God's existence or whatever. My point (and S@M's initial point as well) had more to do with the naive scientism that appears to anchor his position. Roughly, it is the view that all that is really important, in terms of demonstrable impact on our existence, can be properly codified, studied, or otherwise addressed within the framework of our scientific worldview. Now I'm just restating a summary of Rook's paraphrase, so if he misread Dawkins here, then I'm off in the swamp on my own.

The implications of this view range far beyond the realm of religious belief, as should be obvious. Law, morality, and even politics are in effect reduced to the application of technology. This results is what Habermas calls the coupling of 'scientism' and 'decisionism'. I can say more about this later if you want, cuz this is where the bee gets all up in my bonnet n' shit. The religion vs science debate is not really what I'm after.

[Grudge]

Daniel C. Dennett writes quite eloquently about how morality may have developed through both genetic and cultural evolution in his book Freedom Evolves.

And isn't law just morality codified via empirism (through cultural experience)?

[Hannibal]

Daniel C. Dennett writes quite eloquently about how morality may have developed through both genetic and cultural evolution in his book Freedom Evolves.

I haven't read that yet. My guess would be that this account (partial genetic basis for morality) would be purely descriptive, am I right? Or does he suggest any implications for moral theorizing?


BTW, its Napoleon's birthday.

[R00k]

Just for the record, my main concern with Dawkins is not about whether he 'gets it right' about religious beliefs, the probability of God's existence or whatever. My point (and S@M's initial point as well) had more to do with the naive scientism that appears to anchor his position. Roughly, it is the view that all that is really important, in terms of demonstrable impact on our existence, can be properly codified, studied, or otherwise addressed within the framework of our scientific worldview. Now I'm just restating a summary of Rook's paraphrase, so if he misread Dawkins here, then I'm off in the swamp on my own.

Two things: I was mis-remembering my own reading of Dawkins there. That part of the book was where he got pretty physical, and wasn't what I was really focusing on. As it stands, I disagree with my mis-remembrance (as I said earlier), but the reading I took from it originally was in my other thread, and it is more reasonable. Also, I'm not sure Dawkins ever really implies that "all that is really important, in terms of demonstrable impact on our existence, can be properly codified, studied, or otherwise addressed within the framework of our scientific worldview."
I think you probably did surmise this from my poor memory of that part of the book. My original reading said that his statement was much more narrowly focused:

One thing I agree with Dawkins on is this: If, when you talk about believing in a higher power, you are not talking about Einstein's higher power, then you are talking about a material being somewhere, whether he is made of floating crystals or some gaseous cloud. And if that is the case, then it is certainly conceivable that its existence could be proven, even if it isn't possible right now.

I do fairly agree with him on that point, but I am biased, because I don't believe in the "supernatural." Jules pretty well nails my stance on that issue at another point in that thread (http://www.quake3world.com/forum/viewto ... =1&t=30231).

The implications of this view range far beyond the realm of religious belief, as should be obvious. Law, morality, and even politics are in effect reduced to the application of technology. This results is what Habermas calls the coupling of 'scientism' and 'decisionism'. I can say more about this later if you want, cuz this is where the bee gets all up in my bonnet n' shit. The religion vs science debate is not really what I'm after.

Having said all that, I have quite a bit of respect for Dawkins' interpretation of evolutionary stable systems in The Selfish Gene, and it seems highly possible to me that this kind of naturally corrective phenomenon could indeed have a lot to do with the development of our morality, which in turn has a strong bearing on law, politics, and other areas of human behavior.

Are you familiar with the concept of evolutionary stable systems in this context?

edit: Evolutionary Stable STRATEGY, that is. my fault.... O_o