Richard Dawkins

Tonight we attended Richard Dawkins’ lecture (first stop of a 2008 college tour) at ASU’s Grady Gammage auditorium on “The God Delusion,” which was the 2008 Beyond Center lecture, introduced by Paul Davies. The lecture was accompanied by a giant screen on which the words of the lecture appeared for the hearing-impaired, apparently based on voice recognition. I was pretty impressed–it was far more accurate than the typo-laden closed captioning that you can see on television, and kept up pretty closely with him, but it did make errors from time to time (some of which it corrected). My favorite uncorrected error was early on, when Dawkins was making the point that atheists disbelieve in just one more god than the countless gods that theists disbelieve in, and listed Zeus and Wotan among them. When Dawkins said “we don’t worship Wotan,” the captioner said “we don’t worship Voltaire." Dawkins began by saying that “this is the largest audience I have ever addressed.” Originally ASU just asked people to submit a form on a web page to indicate desire to attend, but they had such great response that they had to issue tickets through Ticketmaster. There were more people who didn’t get tickets who also showed up, and some of them were able to be seated in empty seats which were held for ticket holders who didn’t show up by 7:15 p.m. (the lecture started at 7:30 p.m.). The auditorium was very nearly full to its capacity of 3,017 seats. I still haven’t yet read Dawkins’ The God Delusion, but I believe most of his lecture was drawn from the book’s content, accompanied by a slide presentation. At the end, he showed some twenty books that have been published in response to the “new atheists,” most of which were directed at his book. For good measure, he included a picture of the cover of a book titled The Dog Allusion. He also responded to those atheists who have criticized him for intemperate and inflammatory language directed at religion, pointing out that far more inflammatory language may be found in London restaurant reviews (with several hilarious examples). He disagreed with the idea that religion deserves special treatment to be exempt from criticism, and quoted a passage from his book describing the God of the Bible which could be considered intemperate and inflammatory (e.g., God is “a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully”), but which he characterized as less inflammatory than the restaurant reviews. I think it was quite similar in character to the restaurant reviews he quoted, only less hyperbolic and more accurate. He ended with some “consciousness-raising,” showing a photograph of three four-year-olds taken at a Christmas pageant play published in a British newspaper, along with its caption, which described them as “Muslim,” “Sikh,” and “Christian.” Dawkins asked us to imagine instead that they were labeled “conservative,” “liberal,” and “socialist,” or “atheist,” “agnostic,” and “secular humanist,” observing that these are all equally absurd. While it would be accurate to describe them as children of parents who are Muslim, Sikh, and Christian, a four-year-old is not old enough to have considered opinions on cosmology or anything approaching a critical world view. (My thought was that this is somewhat agist, and there are many adults haven’t given their religious views much more thought than most four-year-olds. But I think his basic point is sound.) During the Q&A, he was asked if he thought four-year-olds could be atheists, and he said he thought the same point applied–it’s not accurate to describe a four-year-old as an atheist, either. In another question, someone asked whether Dawkins had a background in theology, to which he referred the audience to P.Z. Myers’ “The Courtier’s Reply” at Pharyngula, which he recommended that everyone Google and read as he didn’t think his paraphrase did it full justice. One individual asking a question said that he is an atheist with a friend who is a very intelligent Mormon who he frequently converses with and believes he has helped lead to some mutual understanding and perhaps even some change in his views. He questioned Dawkins’ approach. Dawkins responded that “seduction” is not his style, but commended the questioner and stated his approval for different styles of atheism, comparing it to a “good cop, bad cop” methodology. I found little to disagree with in Dawkins’ presentation (and little of which I’ve described above, due to lack of note-taking). There were perhaps a few points where he presented metaphysics as science, but I agree with his point that science and religion are not “non-overlapping magisteria” (as Stephen Jay Gould put it) and that religions do make empirical claims and are criticizable when they contain false, ridiculous, unsupportable, and immoral statements. UPDATE (March 7, 2008): John Wilkins has posted some critical comments about Dawkins’ lecture, which may be a topic of discussion when I meet him on Saturday for beer and conversation with John Lynch. John Wilkins writes that: In particular I was annoyed that those of us who do not condemn someone for holding religious beliefs were caricatured as “feeling good that someone has religion somewhere”. Bullshit. That is not why we dislike the Us’n’Themism of TGD. We dislike it because no matter what other beliefs an intelligent person may hold, so long as they accept the importance of science and the need for a secular society, we simply do not care if they also like the taste of ear wax, having sex with trees, or believing in a deity or two. Way to go, Richard. Good bit of framing and parodying the opposition. Real rational.While I agree with Dr. Wilkins that the particular beliefs he lists are not objectionable, I very much do care if people hold beliefs which cause them to engage in political actions such as denial of rights to homosexuals, female genital mutilation, honor killings, issuing of fatwas, suppression of factual information and dissemination of misinformation about evolution, and so forth, which I believe is the primary concern of Dawkins, as well. The mere belief in God is not a problem (as Thomas Jefferson famously wrote, “it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg”), it’s all the additional baggage that religion typically brings along that causes the problems. (Likewise, mere lack of belief in God is not a problem, but it also seems to frequently be accompanied by political baggage.) Wilkins writes as though the majority of religious believers in the world fall under 100-200 on the scale in this video for calculating your “God Delusion Index," while I suspect Dawkins’ (and I know that my) concerns are primarily with those who score much higher than 100. (My own score was not zero–it was 45.) A few other blog posts reacting to Dawkins’ lecture: Labyrinth: A Maze of Ramblings Lone Locust Productions A post at the Motley Fool atheist forum I also should mention that Dawkins used one of my favorite arguments for the falsity and social transmission of religion, which is that people tend to believe the religions of their parents (and this is still the case despite the fact that in the U.S. a large minority of people tend to change religious sects within a religious tradition). Dawkins showed a map of the world displaying large geographic areas as represented by adherents of particular religions, and commented on how odd that fact is, if religion is supposed to be true. For contrast, he showed the same map, with the names of religions replaced with various scientific theses, and observed that that doesn’t happen. (In actuality, it does happen from time to time in science–some scientific disputes have divided upon regional lines, though typically evidence on the dispute builds and the regional division goes away, replaced by consensus.) John Wilkins is unhappy about Dawkins’ advocacy of truth as something that we care about from science, stating that we only care about good enough (pragmatism), not truth. I disagree–I don’t think that even “good enough” can be talked about without reference to true predictions, at the very least, and I think Dawkins is quite right to care about truth. Certainly it can be hard to establish what is true (it’s often easier to establish what isn’t true), and it’s a mistake to become wedded to a particular theory as true if that causes you to ignore anomalies and contrary evidence, but I likewise think it’s a mistake to say that science doesn’t care about getting true explanations. I’d also like to add a comment about one of the exchanges in the Q&A that came from a religious believer (of whom there were many in the audience–I was coincidentally seated a few seats away from a gentleman who is in my parents’ Bible study class, who had with him a worn and heavily annotated copy of Dawkins’ book as well as a copy of one of the critiques published, The Dawkins Delusion). That person suggested that Dawkins was mistaken to assert (which he didn’t, at least not at the lecture) that religion was the primary cause of war without providing empirical evidence. He stated that this is certainly something that can be empirically studied, and that he doubts that it is true. He also stated that studies have shown that religious believers tend to be happier, are more likely to give to charitable causes, even non-religious charitable causes, than the secular, and so forth. (I’ve previously blogged about studies which show that religious believers are more generous than the secular, and conservatives more generous than liberals.) Dawkins’ response was that he didn’t say what the questioner thought he did, and also observed that the two largest wars in the world’s history (WWI and WWII) were not about religion, and that the studies referred to by the questioner may be correct, but that they miss the point. For Dawkins, having better social consequences is not a reason to believe in religion if the religion is not true–it’s truth that is the closest thing to sacred for Dawkins. UPDATE: P.Z. Myers takes issue with John Wilkins’ criticisms of Dawkins. A poor quality video of the lecture (via cell phone?) is on Google Video. UPDATE (March 13, 2008): Chris Hallquist reports on Dawkins’ appearance in Madison, Wisconsin. UPDATE (March 24, 2008): Near the end of Dawkins’ talk, he showed this YouTube video of a Marcus Brigstocke rant about religion. (Thanks for the link, Tim K.) ...

Last night while looking for something else, I came across my copy of the September 1996 issue of Internet Underground, a short-lived glossy magazine promoting interesting things on the Internet. This issue featured an article I wrote for them about skepticism on the Internet, which I present for your enjoyment below. If I had to update it today, I’d need to add information about blogs (like Science Blogs), podcasts, and various online forums that have come into existence in the last eleven and a half years or so (including IIDB, its offshoots like Freethought Forum and Heathen Hangout, and skeptical forums like those of the James Randi Educational Foundation and Richard Dawkins), but everything I described below is still around, despite some name and domain changes (I’ve updated the links) and diminishing significance of Usenet. I’m not sure how I missed the Skeptics Dictionary or Snopes.com, which were both around at the time. You can see a PDF of the article in its original format here. 403 Forbidden: Skeptics Seek the Cold Hard Truth By Jim LippardThe Internet is a place where world views collide. Christianity meets atheist, conventional wisdom meets conspiracy theory, fringe belief meets orthodox science. While most Usenet newsgroups promote particular views and are populated mostly by their purveyors, the critics make up the majority on sci.skeptic. These critics who refer to themselves as “skeptics” have only a tenuous connection to the skepticism of the ancient Greeks, such as Pyrrho, who denied the possibility of knowledge of any kind. Instead, they tend to hold that while knowledge is quite possible, it must be grounded in scientific inquiry and rational investigation. Doubt is valued as a means to reliable knowledge rather than an end in itself. Skeptics often share an interest in the unusual, bizarre, and the seemingly impossible with the denizens of newsgroups such as alt.paranormal, alt.astrology, alt.alien.visitors, and alt.forteana.misc. There are plenty of fans of The X-Files to be found among skeptics. Where skeptics differ from “believers” is with regard to what are acceptable standards of evidence and what constitutes reasonable methods of investigation. A commonly touted skeptical aphorism is “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” and testimonials, feelings and handwaving are not considered extraordinary enough to carry the weight. ...

Jon Ronson, the author of the excellent books Them and The Men Who Stare At Goats, went on a cruise with Sylvia Browne. He tells the story at the Guardian Online, and it’s a good read. An excerpt: Famous anti-psychics, such as Richard Dawkins, are often criticised for using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Dawkins’ last television series, The Enemies Of Reason, was roundly condemned for making silly, harmless psychics seem too villainous. This criticism might be true were it not for the fact that, when the likes of Sylvia Browne make pronouncements, the police and desperate parents sometimes spend serious time and money investigating their claims. ...

Bill Muehlenberg’s blog has a review of Robert Morey’s 21-year-old book, The New Atheism and the Erosion of Freedom, which he applies to “atheist storm troopers such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.” Muehlenberg characterizes Dawkins and Harris as trying to “suppress all religious freedom, not unlike what was attempted in the former Soviet Union.” Muehlenberg offers nothing to support this accusation, but that’s not the point I’d like to respond to. In his review, he makes the following statement: He [Morey] even quotes from a famous atheist debating guide, in which every trick in the book is offered to fellow atheists as they attack theists. Published by Prometheus Books, the main atheist publisher, The Art of Deception by Nicholas Capaldi teaches atheists how to deliberately use deception to refute theists. After reading Moray’s [sic] description of, and quotations from, the book, it occurred to me that all the atheists I have been debating must have well-worn copies of the book. It certainly explains why actually having a rational debate with an atheist is so difficult. All the dirty tricks, ruses, ploys and deception makes any debate with them a one-way affair.Muehlenberg has been deceived by Morey, and is deceiving others with this description. First, Nicholas Capaldi is not an atheist, he is a Catholic who teaches at Loyola University New Orleans and has written a number of religious publications from a Catholic perspective (though his central focus is on business ethics). Some of his publications include “From the Profane to the Sacred: Why We Need to Retrieve Christian Bioethics” and “A Catholic Perspective on Organ Sales” (both in Christian Bioethics). Second, The Art of Deception is not “a famous atheist debating guide.” The book’s content is fairly standard introductory material for a course in informal logic, logical fallacies, and critical thinking, and there is no focus on arguments for or against the existence of God. There are four examples of such arguments in the book (pp. 97-100, 120-121, and 142). The first set of pages includes a circular argument for God’s existence from the Bible’s say-so and a refutation of the argument from design from David Hume, the second gives the example of an appeal to ignorance to argue for the existence of God from an inability to disprove God’s existence, and the third is an example from Paul Tillich of arguing that your opponent really agrees with you, for example from the claim that a respect for logic is “a sign of ultimate concern and therefore a proof of God’s existence.” (Similar arguments are made regularly by presuppositionalists–that if you use logic you are presupposing the existence of God.) Note that three of these four arguments are deceptive arguments for the existence of God, not against, and the fourth is an example of a refutation of bad use of analogy to argue for the existence of God. There’s nothing in Capaldi’s book which even purports to teach atheists how to use deceptive arguments against theists. Finally, Capaldi’s book was not written with the intent to promote the use of deception. Rather, he wrote the book in a Machiavellian style in order to make it more entertaining. Capaldi’s explicitly stated purpose is to enable the reader to recognize and not fall for deceptive arguments from others. He writes in his introduction (pp. 13-14): … I have written this book from the point of view of one who wishes to deceive or mislead others. On the assumption that “it takes one to know one,” I have found that people are able to detect the misuse or abuse of logic if they are themselves the masters of the art of deception. I ask the reader to contemplate the prospect of a world in which everyone knew, really knew, how to use and thereby detect the misuse of logic. To exemplify this perspective, I wish to use an analogy with writings on politics. There are at least three great books which seek to describe political reality: Aristotle’s Politics, Hobbes’s Leviathan, and Machiavelli’s The Prince. Aristotle fails because he is so dull that he is often not read, while Hobbes’s perceptiveness is lost in the controversy over the theoretical context in which he embeds his insights. Machiavelli’s vivid account is the most popular and the most effective. I believe that more readers have learned about politics from reading Machiavelli than anyone else precisely because Machiavelli’s Prince is presented in a format of active manipulation rather than passive recognition. I hope that my presentation of informal logic will have the same kind of impact as Machiavelli. ...

Mark Vuletic points out that the March 11 New York Times hardcover bestseller list includes five books of interest to infidels in the top 25: 7. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel 12. Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion 13. Chris Hedges’ American Fascists 21. Victor Stenger’s God: The Failed Hypothesis 24. Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation

P.Z. Myers pointed out the beginnings of a backlash against “the new atheism” in the Wall Street Journal on January 5, now on January 16 Ken Ham at Answers in Genesis has joined in: We’ve warned you about them before on our website—but now they’re on a much more aggressive march all across America. No longer are they just staying in their classrooms or writing books and articles in the comfort of their offices. They are “the new atheists,” and they are aggressively going after your children, your liberties, and your faith! … These atheists are not just publicity seekers. They are very serious about their mission. Dawkins, from England, was recently crusading across America to proclaim his atheism to newspapers, websites, and at public meetings. ...

Science writer John Horgan (author of the excellent book Rational Mysticism) weighs in on Jerry Adler’s “The New Naysayers” in Newsweek, an article about Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris: As I expected—can it be otherwise for a mass-market essayist?–he panders to his audience, which is after all predominantly religious. (Adler notes that a recent Newsweek poll found that 92 percent of Americans believe in God and only 37 would vote for an atheist for President.) He does a fair job of summarizing the “highly inflammatory” arguments of Dennett/Dawkins/Harris, namely, that religions make false and contradictory claims and spur people to commit destructive acts. But Adler not-so-subtly distances himself from the skeptics’ viewpoints. … And what is Adler really saying here? Just this: we must give a pass to delusional beliefs that are held sincerely by millions of people, especially if they are Newsweek subscribers. I have my differences with Dawkins et al, but I admire their courage, especially compared to the cowardice that afflicts pop-culture intellectuals like Adler when they write about religion.P.Z. Myers has are more detailed critique of the Newsweek piece here.