My Las Vegas debate with Christopher Hitchens continues to attract attention and comment. If you'd like to read an account of the debate, you can do so here.
Also on Monday July 21, at 4.30 pm Eastern time, I'll be debating Richard Dawkins (yes, Richard Dawkins!) on Al-Jazeera (yes, that Al-Jazeera). This is a noteworthy development because Dawkins has so far refused to debate me. But now we're appearing together on the Riz Khan television show, which I understand has some 25 million viewers worldwide. If you want to watch Monday's debate live you can watch it here. The segment will also be posed on the web and I will link to it on this blog.
I also hope that, upon seeing for himself that I am not a Hitlerite kind of speaker, Dawkins will summon up the courage to step into the public arena with me. Like one of the atheist commenters recently said on Dawkins's own website: all the best spokesmen for unbelief have gotten a whipping from this D'Souza guy and it's now up to Dawkins to try and redeem the reputation of atheism.
Given that my thoughts are currently focused on how to deal with Dawkins, I'm going to post here on a question that seems to mystify him and many other scientific atheists. These fellows wonder: if there is reasonably good evidence for evolution--as, by the way, both Dawkins and I believe there is--why do around 50 percent of Americans refuse to accept it? The conventional wisdom among Dawkins and others is that Americans oppose evolution because they are religiously committed to a literal reading of the Book of Genesis.
But there is a much better explanation of why Americans reject evolution: the idiotic claims of leading champions of evolution who are promoting an atheist agenda. Consider Dawkins himself, rebutting the claim that there are significant "gaps" in the fossil record. Dawkins concedes that there are such gaps, but then writes this: "The gaps, far from being anoying imperfections or awkward embarrassments, turn out to be exactly what we should positively expect."
In other words, the absence of evidence for evolution is itself proof that the theory is correct! This is so bizarre that it makes one wonder what the presence of evidence might do to this theory. Would a complete fossil record without gaps be evidence against Darwinian evolution, as we hear that Dawkins and his fellow biologists "exactly" and "positively" expect that such evidence should not be present?
Dawkins finally puts his cards on the table by saying of evolution: "Even if the evidence did not favor it, it would still be the best theory available." And if Dawkins is dismissed as a crank, here is Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker making the same point. "Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it."
We have here the weird spectacle of so-called scientists who are so wedded to a theory that they cannot even imagine it not to be true. This is a level of dogmatism that would embarrass any theist. Even the strongest religious believer can imagine the possibility that there is no God. So how can these self-styled champions of reason adopt so closed-minded an approach?
The short answer is given by Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin, who in a 1997 essay in the New York Review of Books makes a revealing admission: "We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant proises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment--a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation for the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori commitment to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, the materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
And you thought I was making this stuff up! No wonder Americans are skeptical of these apostles of skepticism. They are peddling their own metaphysical dogmas in the name of science, even though few are as honest as Lewontin in admitting it.
Reader Comments ( Page 7 of 40)
91. pro-ponderousness????
I lOVE it!
In the context, much better than "preponderance."
Call Stephen Colbert!
Godless Heathen Brian at 3:49PM on Jul 18th 2008
92. My dogma chewed a lot of my materialism until I bought him a soccer ball. Any chance that would work with gonesh?
Clif Kuplen at 3:49PM on Jul 18th 2008
93. If you are a kind, compassionate and caring person, keep doing whatever it is that makes you that way. It's working.
Bigtuna, thanks for the flatfish link. I find asymmetry in nature fascinating. It is the least likely method of evolving though. Doubling is much more likely. People have two complete sets of legs, extra thumbs etc. Sometimes it is the seam that joins the two halves that malfunctions like a cleft palate.
a born atheist at 3:49PM on Jul 18th 2008
94. Just got back on the 'net within the last half hour(or so), GHB.
I have to watch that debate yet. Wonder if D'Souza used the old, "Imagine God sitting in front of a row of dials. Now if He(God) tweaks one of those dials, "POOF!", no more life in the Universe!"
Now if you find this kind of "argument" "compelling"
make yourself a cone hat, print a big 'D' on it, put it on and sit in the corner facing the walls.
Hey bigTuna, so you imagine that Dawkins was going to be blindsided by D'Souza on Al Jazeera?
Even if that were true, it is still kind of weak to be blaming Dawkins, don't ya think?
not-pboyfloyd at 3:51PM on Jul 18th 2008
95. "Materialistic" science has cured polio and landed a man on the moon, among many other accomplishments. What has theology accomplished, besides burning people at the stake?
emelpe at 3:53PM on Jul 18th 2008
96. Bigtuna, thanks for the flatfish link. I find asymmetry in nature fascinating. It is the least likely method of evolving though. Doubling is much more likely. People have two complete sets of legs, extra thumbs etc. Sometimes it is the seam that joins the two halves that malfunctions like a cleft palate.
a born atheist at 3:49PM on Jul 18th 2008
----------------------
Baby flatfish, as in flounder and similar species, are symmetrical. As they mature they "lie down" one one side more amd more often, and the eye on the "down" side eventually migrates to the "up" side, the "up" side darkens while the "down" side lightens, etc. The mouth remains more or less in original orientation, looking like a sideways mouth in the adult fish.
I didn't see the link, so I can only assume that "flatfish" equates to "flounder." If not, can it get posted again?
Godless Heathen Brian at 3:54PM on Jul 18th 2008
97. "Materialistic" science has cured polio and landed a man on the moon, among many other accomplishments. What has theology accomplished, besides burning people at the stake?
emelpe at 3:28AM on Jul 19th 2008
98. Good to have you back, notpboy.
Did you see the supposedly satirical/ironic post a few days back? Just curious.
What's new? Been away?
Godless Heathen Brian at 3:59PM on Jul 18th 2008
99. Duhhh'Souza,
"Dawkins concedes that there are such gaps, but then writes this: "The gaps, far from being anoying imperfections or awkward embarrassments, turn out to be exactly what we should positively expect.""
Dawkins was implying when he said that we should expect to find gaps in the record that the conditions under which remains become fossilized for us to find many years later do not promote such things as a complete, continuous parade of transitional forms. You're twisting his words to promote your fundie agenda again.
GearHedEd at 4:00PM on Jul 18th 2008
100. I like the bumpersticker "Your dogma is chasing my karma"
Godless Heathen Brian at 4:05PM on Jul 18th 2008
101. And of course the classic-
"My Karma ran over your Dogma."
Robert at 4:06PM on Jul 18th 2008
102. We should expect to find gaps because conditions are not always optimal for fossilization.
GearHedEd at 4:06PM on Jul 18th 2008
103. "Hence, (unless some sort of intelligent actor intervenes) every outcome is pre-determined . . . leaving no room for 'accidents.' So, to the extent that Nature functions like a clock, with no room for accidents, then how could evolution involve accidents? From this perspective, it seems to me that the evolution of life must have been a result of the set-up or 'design' of Nature from the very beginning."
Name at 10:50AM on Jul 18th 2008
Name made me riff. I have a question (a real question with no pretention).
If there are any determinists out there, how does determinism jibe with the mutation aspect of evolution?
If I remember correctly there are many theist and atheist free-will people so this is not a "God" vs. "Not God" question.
There just seems to be a philosophical loggerheads and I would genuinely enjoy an explanation, because I'm sure there is one. I just can't think of it.
oneblood at 4:06PM on Jul 18th 2008
104. "Hey bigTuna, so you imagine that Dawkins was going to be blindsided by D'Souza on Al Jazeera?"
I wasn't going to comment on this again, it was a speculation, so now I'm speculating on a speculation and it becomes absurd, but just for you pboy: I think when you go on one of these news shows as a commentator you expect that there will be other commentators with a range of views, and they keep these shows lively by encouraging debate. You can turn on cable tv and watch this all day long. Dawkins had to know he would be engaging someone with a different opinion, apparently he didn't realize it was D'Souza.
Maybe appearing on Al Jazeera, which isn't exactly his home crowd, might be a factor as well.
bigTuna at 4:08PM on Jul 18th 2008
105. Brian,
the original comment:
http://news.aol.com/newsbloggers/2008/07/18/the-dogma-of-materialism/4#c13244854
bigTuna at 4:11PM on Jul 18th 2008