Posted by Helen on: 10.20.2006 /
I was considering posting Stephen Colbert’s interview with Richard Dawkins, but Hemant beat me to it. (I know some of you read Hemant’s blog and I wanted to post something you hadn’t seen) So here’s a serious interview with Dawkins which I found very interesting.
Here’s another Dawkins interview in which I thought the interviewer asked excellent questions.
Comment by: NCxian
1Thanks for the clip, Helen!
I found two phrases of particular interest. “Fanatical ideology” and “moral philosophy”. He focuses on making a case against fanatical ideology and speaks in favor of moral philosophy. I don’t think Dawkins allows for the fact that for many people, me included, religion as a belief system is much more akin to a “moral philosophy” than a “fanatical ideology”.
He also seems to be addressing spirituality in a very cold, calculated, cost-benefit analysis kind of way. Which is, of course, not how people of any or no religion experience “transcendent” things. Nor does he take into consideration the extent to which religion is not just assent to a set of intellectual beliefs but is about human interaction and behavior over time and space–community, multi-generational wisdom and growth–those aspects of it.
I have not read the book, though, so these comments are just a reaction to the clip. I suppose I ought to read it (my “oughty-shouldies” coming out?), but he just leaves me kind of cold.
Comment by: Jesse
2I’m cringing at the commentary that will emerge from Christian leadership. I’ve already seen an embarrassing video of Dawkins attending one of Ted Haggard’s church services and speaking with him afterwards.
I have a copy of the book, and I plan on posting a critique/exploration of it’s main premises in a week or two on my blog.
Comment by: Helen
3NCxian, from all I’ve seen my sense is that he’s aware of the sort of open faith you and many others have. I think his response would be to try to get you to agree that really, there is no evidence for God so why not just keep the morals and forget about God?
I found it fascinating how passionately he spoke about the importance of ‘truth’ in both videos - because this is exactly the way conservative Christians talk! Like him they say “It’s better to know the truth than find comfort in what is false”.
Quite far into one of the videos - maybe it’s the second (non-embedded) one - he says things about what he likes which make him sound quite human ;-)
Jesse, I posted the clip you’re referring to last Friday! We had some discussion of how each of Dawkins and Haggard came across in that clip last week - feel free to add your own thoughts there if you want to.
I’ll try to remember to stop by and read your summary of the book (The God Delusion) when you post it. I’m interested to read peoples’ reactions to it. We’ve bought it but not read it yet.
Comment by: NCxian
4And I would say, and while we are at it, why don’t we just make all our babies in a lab and forget about sex? (Cold, cold, cold . . . )
Comment by: David H
5I haven’t read the book, but I tend to agree with many of Dwakins’ feelings regarding organized religion. However, his acknowledgement that people can make a psuedo-religion of almost anything — including moral philosophy — seems to counter his “solution.” Perhaps the problem isn’t that people over-idealize religion and then run amuck. Maybe it is a human condition to search for something that can be over-idealized and organized religion is just something that has quite often served that purpose.
How does humanity strip away all things for which there is not clear proof? How do we eliminate all labels except those that we choose for ourselves? Who gets to police that? What enforcement mechanisms will be used? What is a suitable punishment for someone who fails to comply?
Reality is that people are unlikely to do this on their own. Even Apostles of Truth such as Dwakins want the labels and beliefs that suit their own self-image. While Dwakins seems to be an exception, for many self-applied labels are probably not very sticky but potentially still very painful to themselves and others.
So who gets to decide what things have enough truth to be believed? Who gets to pick the labels to be assigned to those who can’t be trusted to decide for themselves? And once we cured the world of this delusional belief, what will we blame for the problems that remain?
Comment by: Siamang
6I’m pretty far into the book. I’d love for others here to read it as well and we can have a book discussion of it. I see some interesting gaps in Dawkins’ thinking… there are certainly some things he seems “color-blind” to. I delight in his clinical approach… just as much as I see that it may have a deep flaw.
I’m planning to catch a lecture given by him at CalTech next week. Hopefully I can gather my thoughts into a cogent enough question by then.
As to David h’s points here
“So who gets to decide what things have enough truth to be believed?”
I don’t think Dawkins thinks that these things need to be decided by anyone but the individual. He’s merely adding his voice to the conversation to convince some people to go a different way.
Dawkins by no way believes that he or anyone else will eliminate religion from the world.
You speak in grand terms like “humanity strip away all things”… as if “humanity” was one person with one brain and it always agrees with itself! That’ll never happen. But because I say “consider something different” that doesn’t mean I think I should dictate all the beliefs of everyone in the world.
Comment by: Siamang
7One thing I am enjoying about these video appearances and tv shows is that Dawkins is being seen by the public.
I think he’s quite an affable fellow, and I think he’s gotten a bit of a bad rap. I think he can make strident statements… but on the scale of stridency they’re quite mild compared to some atheists and some very popular religious people in the media.
Anyway, I think it’s good that people see that the man doesn’t have horns sprouting out of his forehead.
Comment by: Mike O
8That would make it difficult for him to argue against the supernatural, wouldn’t it? :)
Comment by: Julie Marie
9I was suprised to see Dawkins smile and laugh. I wonder if part of his bad rap comes from episodes where he snaps in exasperation at the same old attacks on science. Seems like the world is watching whenever someone shows their behind. (in lieu of fanny)
I’d like to be part of the God Delusion discussion, so I’ll check again this weekend for his book. It wasn’t at Barnes and Noble the first time I checked.
Comment by: Helen
10Siamang, I agree that Dawkins comes across as quite affable in these interviews. I think he comes across way better in them than he did in the two part tv series that the Dawkins-Haggard clip was from.
I’d love to participate in a discussion of the book here once people have had a chance to read it (including me!) Would you consider starting one on here sometime?
Comment by: Julie marie
11lol Mike O!
Comment by: David H
12I don’t believe that humanity is monolithic or that such decisions can be made in a block either for or against faith/religion. However, Dwakins does sometimes appear to treat faith/religion/belief in God as it is a monolithic thing. He does pretty much say that God is the problem, so if we (humans) would just stop believing …
And even if he does believe that it is an individual decision, it only takes one person to make that stripping away an institutional activity (Stalin and Mao leap immediately to mind). Of course they had ulterior motives, but isn’t that always the way of human endeavors?
I don’t think Dwakins can be dismissed. He tweaks me a bit, but that is good thing. And given the problems organized religion continues to create in the world, he undoubtedly has a valuable point of view. I intend to read his book.
Comment by: Karen
13David:
I haven’t read the book (I’m going to the lecture next weekend, so I’ll probably buy it there). But I have listened to several lectures, radio and TV interviews he’s given. What I get from them is that he thinks “faith” is the problem more than that “god” is the problem.
A culture that extols people for believing in something despite what he sees as total lack of evidence is something he’s come to view as dangerous, particularly in light of 9/11.
In terms of him personally, he comes across as an absolutely charming guy in his other books, particularly “The Ancestor’s Tale.” I heard him do a reading from that book with his wife, the actress Lalla Ward, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalla_Ward, and I assure you neither of them is at all cold. If anything, they’re more like bohemians (in the best sense of the word, of course) ;-)
Comment by: benjamin ady
14ncxian–i like the way you draw comparisons between sex and god =). Leaving God out of morals is like leaving sex out of making babies. Interesting. One could argue that if we could just make our babies in labs, and completely stop all sexual activity as a species, then that would make the world a better place because there would be no rape, sexual abuse, etc. Like Dawkins saying if we could just do away with the idea of god, he thinks the world would be a better place. your analogy works well, and your cold cold cold describes this well. I think.
By the way, is Dawkins sort of the guru for atheists like Mclaren is sort of the guru for emergent churchers.? just curious.
Comment by: Siamang
15I wouldn’t call him a Guru. His ideas in the religion department are not very original and sometimes not very well-put. What I do like about him is that he’s out there saying these things… often quoting other people, many online, who have made these points for him. As such he’s a good aggregator of ideas, and a popularizer. He reads the atheist websites for you, in a way! So if you don’t have time to troll the Internet Infidels site and the JREF and a couple other sites, you can read Dawkins instead and get it in one lump!
I’ll state though that as a writer about BIOLOGY, and a popular writer at that, he is without equal. He’s about 200 times smarter when writing about biology than he is when writing about religion. I would absolutely recommend that people read one of his biology books after they read God Delusion.
I think if GD is the first book of Dawkins’ someone reads, they probably will come away wondering why people seem to think he’s so brilliant.
Comment by: David H
16Dawkins’ primary objection appears to religion. But in interviews and other writings he pretty much lumps God and faith (both of which he would label unreasoning beliefs) in with the organized trappings of those belief systems.
It is hard to argue that religion and a certain type of faith didn’t play a primary role in 9/11 — at least as manipulating factors — on multiple levels (let’s not just blame the radical muslims when American politico-socio-economics cloaked in the name Christiainity played an equal role). People can argue about whether those “religions” are interpretative abberations that have little to do with true under-pinning faith, but given the history of religion that can be a tough position to defend.
However, thereseems to a potentially dangerous idea at the core of what Dawkins holds true. In the interview at this url — http://www.beliefnet.com/story/136/story_13688_1.html — he says that no genuinely intelligent person ever seeks the supernatural unless they have been brainwashed to believe that it exists. A remarkable statement that apparently we must take on faith.
He also believes that it woould be “paradise” if children were raised without any religion. A world without religion would have less hate and more time for “really worthwhile things,” Dwakins says. Finally, he contends that religion is like a disease.
How can this sickness be irradicated, the interviewer asks? “Only by education and reason,” Dawkins responds. But there are other options and they have been tried in the past. One is that you can irradicate those who refuse to be educated or reasoned with.
Perhaps I’m just paranoid and I certainly don’t contend that Dawkins intends anything nefarious. But the ultimate end of his line of reasoning could result in something just as terrible as those done in the name of misguided religion.
I don’t purport to have an alternative. I know personally the wrongs that can be done through religion. But I’m also fairly certain that religion won’t be “reasoned” out of existence. I just think there might be alternatives other than a world ruled by unreasoning religion or one dedicated exclusively to Dwakins’ vision of enlighted reason.
Comment by: Siamang
17David H wrote:
“And even if he does believe that it is an individual decision, it only takes one person to make that stripping away an institutional activity (Stalin and Mao leap immediately to mind). ”
Oh that’s a terrible argument. What a sloppy slippery slope you’ve constructed.
I assume you’re a Christian? Does it only take one person to make compelling belief an institutional activity?
Telling people your belief and asking them to consider it is a FAR cry from outlawing all conflicting beliefs by threat or use of force or violence.
Stalin and Mao have far more in common with Torquemada and Osama bin Laden than they have with a tweedy Oxford professor whose only threat and power lies in writing science and theology books.
Comment by: David H
18I don’t think Dawkins is a bad guy. I don’t think his ideas are bad. He may not even get as angry about organized religion as I do.
Likewise I apologize for my terrible argument. Mere ideas can never be turned into dangerous practices. But it is possible that the institutionalization of beliefs begins with just one person (I’m thinking in part of a certain Roman emperor and the Catholic Church).
Yes, I absolutely agree that Stalin and Mao had more in common with certain religious leaders. But instead of religion and God, they substituted an idea and themselves, then compelled their contrymen to believe. It wasn’t even their idea, they stole it from tweedy Karl Marx.
Almost any idea can go bad in the hands of selfish people. As a, for want of a better term, Christian, I would say that is exactly what happened with my “religion.” I can’t speak for any other faiths, because I am not nor have ever been a practioner.
Comment by: Doreen
19I actually agree with some of what he said - for example, some people “cherry pick” from the Bible.
I found his statements about religious people not having their eyes open and not being realistic very insulting.
Comment by: Andrew
20Dawkins is a miltant evangelist for atheism - I much prefered the Colbert interview - it made me laugh!
I also posted it a few days ago - credit where due!!! ;)
My wife made an interesting point regarding Dawkins explanation of evolution being non-random etc. Thermodynamics is working against him - which brings him right back to the old causality problem!
:)
A
Comment by: Siamang
21Andrew,
If you think thermodynamics is against him, you don’t understand thermodynamics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organisation#Self-organization_vs._entropy
Which I think is Dawkins whole deal.
I think there’s a deeper point to be made that Dawkins takes creationist arguments and such like the Thermodynamics problem and use it to argue against God.
As I said, I’m not convinced its a valid argument to take creationist claims as being valid predictions of a universe with a God, and then disproving them scientifically, thereby disproving God in the process. I think he gives creationist claims too much creedence in this regard.
I’m still working out whether I think this approach is valid. I find it suspect.
Comment by: Siamang
22David H,
I saw this post and was reminded of your point above (now withdrawn)…
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/francis_sedgemore/2006/10/egotism_disguised_as_piety.html.printer.friendly
He proposes a new law of internet discussions, ala the famous Godwin’s law about people referring to Nazis.
From this I take it that this is the way a lot of discussions run.
I think it’s probably very hard for believers to relate to non-believers. I think that some believers look at non-believers and wonder at a very basic level what makes them tick, if they can be trusted, if they make good citizens whose values they share. And if freedom of religion is a shared value or not. Religion is so important, so central to so many people’s lives. It is a core founding value of this country. It is a core human right that should be protected. But to hear someone coming from a perspective of a non-believer, you could rightly wonder “do they share this core value?”
The problem, as I see it, is that we talk about the protection of “religion”, but not “beliefs”. If we were to instead say that “beliefs” are what we should protect from government infringement, then that is something that I think all atheists (hello, incredible minority here) agree on.
Comment by: Helen
23I think it’s probably very hard for believers to relate to non-believers. I think that some believers look at non-believers and wonder at a very basic level what makes them tick, if they can be trusted, if they make good citizens whose values they share. Siamang wrote:
I think that’s true but I think Dawkins illustrates that at least one atheist feels similarly about people who believe the Bible is true. My sense about him is that he can’t relate to people who believe the Bible is true; that he mistrusts them; that he questions whether they share (or whether they sufficiently prioritize) the ‘core’ values which are most important to him and which he thinks should be most important to all humans.
Comment by: David H
24I don’t want to limit Dawkins ability to speak. He is obviously a highly intelligent man who has thought quite a bit about what he believes as well as what he doesn’t. However, I’m not sure he accords me the same respect.
He says:
1. No intelligent person seeks the supernatural unless they have been pre-programmed to do so.
2. Religion is child-abuse and the world would be a better place if no child was raised with a religious background.
3. Religion is a virus that needs to be expunged from human code.
Those don’t seem like positions from which to begin an open conversation. And in other places, Dawkins has made it clear that he isn’t particularly interested in talking with people like me who would consider themselves “true believers” in God. We are either too brainwashed or lack the native intelligence to think our way out of the God box we have created.
Forgive me if I bristle a bit at that. It’s not that I’m brilliant — I’m not the smartest guy in the room even when I’m alone — but I’m no sure if anyone is really keen on being called a dupe.
However, as I’ve said many times, I believe that Dawkins has the right to say what he thinks. He isn’t shouting fire in a crowded theater, so under US law his speech is protected. Moreover, he has many valuable things to say. Things that Christians — at least — should hear. People claiming to be Christian have done lots of harm through history and Dawkins has plenty of reasons not to like us.
Likewise, I agree with you that religious people in the US call foul far too frequently and do, in fact, attempt to quash debate via their protected status. Also, I think US government in the past few years has gone too far with incorporating religion into its institutional fabric. However, real Christians should be at least as uncomfortable about that as aetheists.
For myself, I wish for a stricter separation of Church and State than has probably ever been followed in the United States. I’m not sure it would do any good for the country, but it would undoubtedly benefit Christianity. Then there might not be so many people who sort of believe but don’t know why. If it isn’t safe to believe something than you do have to think about it. Regardless of what religious people say in the US, it is far too safe in this country.
Comment by: Siamang
25David..
Let’s look at what Dawkins said in context. Here’s the interview where the intelligence quote came from.
I think he’s specifically commenting on this notion that someone is a materialist and a scientist and pursues science as far as it can go, like an Einstein, and then having journied to the edge and finding it wanting, resorts to religion IF they weren’t brought up in it. He doesn’t say that there are no genuinely intelligent people who are religious. He says he’s never met a person who wasn’t brought up in faith and has a love of science and wonder who then became religious. He suggests that there aren’t any. I’m sure if you prodded him on it he’d admit that there certainly may be exceptions. But the specific statement he’s responding to has him discussion a particular hypothetical that he has never encountered, and so he doesn’t think it’s a particularly valid hypothetical model, especially as an argument for religion.
He shouldn’t have used the word “intelligent” as that’s the insulting bit. It’s the part that, if you focus on it as being the point, really makes it an insult. But Dawkins isn’t talking about intelligence itself as the divider. I think the dividing point that Dawkins talks about isn’t “intelligent vs stupid” it’s either “raised in religion vs. not.” He’s talking about whether you’ll find a lot of people not raised in religion “needing more” after taking science to the edge.
He gets ahead of himself quite planely, and yes, what he said is insulting in the way he himself phrases it. I think your phrasing of it has simplified it even more and made it more insulting, however.
Comment by: David H
26I acknowledge the simplification. I was attempting a personalization to demonstrate how people coming from views other than his might hear what he was saying. I apologize, such tactics may not help to foster conversation either.
I’ll also acknowledge that I know many thoughtless religious people. I don’t know if that makes them stupid or unintelligent, but it does make them hard to speak with.
By and large it is that aspect of organized and especially institutionalized religion I find most troublesome. Such religion does not encourage a questing mind, it does not validate even doubt, it often asks no more of adherents than to shut up and do what they’re told. That’s never very bright in my estimation.
Comment by: Siamang
27continuing..
The reason I looked it up is that it just didn’t sound like something Dawkins would say. He doesn’t have a chapter in the book titled “Why Intelligent People Don’t Believe in God.” It’s just not a point that he supports. Rather, in one of the clips above he fully admits that some very good, very bright scientists are religious. When invited to say that means that they aren’t good scientists or that they don’t do good science, he refuses. He says he doesn’t understand them. He says that he thinks that they keep their beliefs and their science through mental compartmentalization. (All of which might be insulting enough things to say.) But the more grotesque assertion, that of intelligence vs belief is not one I’ve heard him make.
Seperate from Dawkins’ arguments, these things sound much worse than they are.
For instance: “Religion is a virus that needs to be expunged from human code.”
Is that really what he said? That doesn’t sound like him at all. I recognize his assertion that religion operates like a virus. That’s his argument for memetics. It’s not a perjorative assertion in this context. He’s also said that wearing baseball caps turned backwards is like a virus. He says that political ideas operate like viruses. It’s because he says that ALL ideas operate like viruses within human public consciousness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
It’s true he doesn’t like religion. It’s true he thinks it’s harmful. He thinks it’s quite deadly. Pick up a newspaper and his argument is made for him.
But phrasing his argument that way, I don’t buy it. You’ve phrased it as a political manifesto… something to put on the banners of the coming atheist inquisition. That’s ceased to be Dawkins’ words and is now the ideology of Marx.
Here’s Dawkins’s “Viruses of the Mind”, written in 1991.
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html
His ideas may or may not be offensive. But I think there’s something different about reading his arguments and having them summed up by an absolutist conclusion.
Comment by: Siamang
28No, I think the conversation is still quite interesting. They aren’t my arguments, so I’ve got no dog in the hunt.
I think what I’m enjoying about the video clips and the colbert appearance is to see Dawkins, and hopefully other people seeing him and wondering why he isn’t the frothing-mouthed angry atheist boogyman they pictured! Where’s the revolutionary shouting “Exterminate the Virus of Religion!”?
;-)
I think more people have read the reactions (and possibly the summations) of Dawkins than have read Dawkins.
It’s quite interesting. It reminds me of the history of religion. I remember hearing a lecture about early Christianity where I learned that there are some early Christian sects and cults which we know very little about. What we do know about them, the only things in some cases, come not from them but from the writings we have from the history of Orthodox Christianity! So all we might know about some sect of Gnosticism or something is inferred from what the people arguing against them said.
Comment by: David H
29“Christians” can be very unforgiving, there is no doubt. I attend a Mennonite church. As part of the ana-baptist tradition they believed that the Lutheran reformation didn’t go far enough. As a result, they found themselves tortuted and executed by both the Catholics and the early reformationists. The capper is that both of their opponents weren’t nearly as upset by their theology as their perceived anti-government position. The towns, city-states and countries in which they resided used infant baptism as a way to keep tabs on population and taxes. Anyone challenging that “core” belief was challenging government as well as church.
Of course, the anabaptists have their ugly history as well (e.g. The Munster rebellion). That incident might almost be laughable except for the number of poor, helpless people who were killed.
The history of religion in the world is ugly and sordid. There can be no argument on that score. Anyone who attempts to minimize the evils conducted and perpetuated by Christianity (slavery, the Crusades, the Inquisition, homophobia, and on and on) should consider the words of Jesus — “whatever you do to the least of people, you do to me.”
Comment by: Siamang
30History always has delightful stories like that one where someone’s head ends up on a pike and their genitals are nailed to a door…
Yikes!
What the H was up with people back then? They’re hanging people’s bones in cages???!?! From a church??!?!?
Comment by: David H
31If I had to have my head on a pike and my genitals nailed to a door, I would wish the former first.
Yikes is right. People have often done awful things in the name of God. But for most of modern history — no excuses for some of the stuff in the Old Testament — many of those things were really done to serve individuals, institutions or governments. God was just a justification tacked to make it all OK.
Comment by: Siamang
32I think it’s called in-group amity/out-group emnity.
I suspect it’s the norm whether the grouping is religious or not.
Comment by: David H
33I have an aversion to running with the pack. That may be due to some in the pack into which I was born.
Comment by: Andrew
34“If you think thermodynamics is against him, you don’t understand thermodynamics.”
Without wanting to sound like a snob, I think I do understand thermodynamics - I spent a fair bit of time during my astronomy degree studying it! Though the comment I made came from my wife who is currently also studying thermodynamics as part of a metalurgy degree.
:)
Comment by: Siamang
35Okay,
I’ll bite. The second law of thermodynamics applies to an isolated system, right?
So what is the definition of the closed system that you contend evolution violates? Is it the planet earth? Is it the earth and the sun? Is it the solar system?
Please explain precicely which system your saying violates it, and how it violates it. And without analogy please. Don’t talk about rooms getting messy, or Mt. Rushmore or things like that which change the subject.
You did read this part of my link above?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organisation#Self-organization_vs._entropy
Comment by: Andrew
36Firstly - exlplain to me - using thermodynamics or any other set of laws:
a) How the universe came into being in the first instance.
b) The abiogenesis of life from lifeless chemicals.
I don’t really think you are interested in anything I have to say - but if you are I can post links to a couple of articles that deal with your questions nicely. If you are able to answer my questions (using good science) then you should probably also cc your answers to the Nobel Institute, I am sure they would be interested! ;)
Comment by: Siamang
37Now now, I asked my question first.
You seem to be changing the subject. You said you understood the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I never said I can explain the Big Bang or abiogenesis. You, however, did proclaim that you understand the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
If you do, it’s an easy question to answer. What is the definition of the isolated system that you are contending is violated, and what action specificially violates the second law within that isolated system?
Please no links to websites. I’ve seen them. Please tell me in your own words, again without analogies, exactly what you are contending violates the second law, and please give your definition of the boundaries of the isolated system you are asserting.
The amazing thing is not that you misunderstand the Second Law. The amazing thing is that you are quite secure, to the point of smugness that you do.
Comment by: Siamang
38Sorry, Andrew.
As this is the conversation blog, I’m going to withdraw that last sentence and apologize for it.
I forgot my place here for a second.
Comment by: Andrew
39No problems - my comments were meant tongue in cheek - I didn’t mean to cause any offense either :)
The isolated (or closed) system in question is ultimately the universe. The organisation required for lifeless chemicals to organise themselves into something as complex as DNA and the ongoing addition of info to the genome required for evolution to occur as an ongoing process are “the” violations of this law.
There is no example of a decrease in disorder at a local or universal level that I am aware of that does not result in an net increase in disorder to the system as a whole - even though disorder may be (temporarily) decreased at a local level if there is alread a suitable mechanism (i.e. self replicating life) in place to enable this decreases to occur. This is the abiogenesis problem. Even life essential chemicals have never, ever been shown to form into life, itself, under any circumstance. Life only arises from life and not from chance processes (I don’t see how Dawkins can call the evolutionary process ordered - it is blind, random, chance). There is no way around this - hence the causality problem.
As an evolutionist I think Paul Davies in his book “The origin of life” deals with this problem honestly - rather than trying to sweep it under the carpet or using smoke and mirrors to hide it in the way Dawkins and many others do. If you like (though I suspect you won’t) I will find Davies treatment and send it to you (you can email me through my website if you like - I think we have gone far enough beyond the bounds of this forums subject matter for now).
:)
Comment by: Helen
40Siamang and Andrew, thanks for keeping things friendly.
The evolutionist response to “evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics” is one of those things I feel like I should research, so I understand it. But I haven’t yet.
Andrew, we set up an Off The Map discussion board earlier this year to give people a place to continue these sorts of specific discussions which develop in the comments sections. Feel free to take this discussion about evolution and the 2nd law of thermodynamics there if you want to. It’s easy to join the discussion board and Siamang is a regular participant there.
Comment by: Andrew
41Thanks Helen,
I don’t think I really have the time to get bogged down in discussions like these - they tend to be a bit like a tennis match - with a tendancy for one or the other or both participants ending up sounding like John Macenroe!.
I don’t think we are coming from a similar place and experience tells me I probably won’t change his opinion by debating him on the net.
Cheers!
Comment by: Siamang
42Andrew, if you choose, let’s bring it over to the discussion board.
Just repost your explanation there and I’ll respond.
-Siamang