I appeared Monday on the Riz Khan show on Al-Jazeera with Richard Dawkins, and guess what? We had a civilized three-way dialog. No one erupted into Hitler-type yells. The Gestapo didn't show up, nor the Inquisition police, to drag Richard Dawkins from the studio. Host Riz Khan interviewed me for the first half of the show on the compatibility of Darwinism and religion, and on the issue of how to teach evolution in the schools. Then Khan interviewed Dawkins for the second half, mainly on why he encounters resistance to evolution and also why he rejects arguments for God as the creator of the universe.
Unfortunately Al-Jazeera hasn't yet posted the show on the web, so I'll withhold comment on Dawkins's central argument until I can link to it. But I do think that there is something on which everyone who sees the show can agree. Dawkins's excuses for not debating me (Dinesh is a "creationist" or Dinesh uses Hitler-style "yells and shrieks") are utterly absurd. Why won't Dawkins simply admit he's afraid? I don't really mind a coward as long as he's an honest coward.
I'm not the only one befuddled by Dawkins. So is evolutionary biologist and atheist David Sloan Wilson. Several months ago Wilson wrote a savage review of Dawkins's The God Delusion for Michael Shermer's magazine Skeptic. Basically Wilson said that Dawkins is supposed to be an expert about evolution but his book fails to examine religion from an evolutionary perspective. Rather, Dawkins insists on faulting religion based on claims--theological, philosophical, historical--that lie entirely outside his area of knowledge. No wonder that Dawkins's one-paragraph "refutations" of the likes of Aquinas have an amateurish, even juvenile, quality.
Wilson argues that a true scientist would develop a hypothesis about religion and then test it to see how it holds up. For instance, against Dawkins's and view that religion is a kind of destructive virus, a culturally transmitted epidemic that may benefit its parasitic carriers (the preachers) but certainly not those who succumb to the infection, Wilson offers a rival hypothesis. Wilson's view is that "religious groups are products of cultural group selection....A given religion adapts its members to their local environment, enabling them to achieve by collective action what they cannot achieve alone or even together in the absence of religion. Even though elements of religion often appear bizarre, irrational, and downright dysfunctional to believers, when examined closely most of them will make sense."
In his book Darwin's Cathedral, Wilson offers the case study of the Calvinists in sixteenth-century Geneva. At a time when factionalism and internecine conflict was rending the social fabric of the city, Calvin and his deputies introduced the Ecclesiastical Ordinances. Wow, do they sound harsh! Fines for dancing and jail for gambling are only the beginning. Yet Wilson surveys a wide body of historical scholarship that concludes that "there is little doubt that Calvinism was instrumental in solving the problem of factionalism and helping the city of Geneva survive as a social entity."
How? Basically Wilson found that morals are the key to restoring social morale. (The two terms "moral" and "morale" are connected by more than the similarity of their sounds.) Wilson writes, "I was especially impressed by how the mechanisms for preventing cheating extended to the leaders in addition to the rank and file. The head of the church was not a single individual but a group of pastors who made decisions by consensus. Calvin shared all the duties of a pastor, despite his enormous additional workload as primary architect of the religion. Double accounting methods were used to prevent the inappropriate use of charitable funds. The egalitarian spirit of Calvinism is perhaps best illustrated by the duty of caring for dying plague victims. This life-threatening task was decided by lottery."
Wilson concludes, based upon this data, that at least in this one important case, the Dawkins view is wrong and his hypothesis is vindicated. The Calvinist leaders were not out to benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else. It is simply wrong to say that they got ahead while everyone else suffered. Rather, the opposite is true. Calvinism's dour doctirnes of original sin and predestination contributed to an unprecedented identification of leaders and followers and caused the introduction of checks and balances to curb the suspect tendencies in human nature. To put it in blunt evolutionary terms, Calvinism was socially adaptive.
So what does Dawkins have to say about all this? The short answer is: nothing. Dawkins wrote a lame response to Skeptic, noting that he didn't purport in his book to be using an evolutionary understanding of religion. This would be like a doctor saying, "Well, I wasn't claiming to be giving a medical opinion." I suppose Dawkins considers it normal for an evolutionist to ignore his own field and dispense folk prescriptions based on a cursory persusal of other disciplines. I hope that Wilson does not invite Dawkins to debate this issue. What excuse will inventive Richard come up with this time?
Reader Comments ( Page 6 of 20)
76. To say that religion is just another tool in the struggle is mindnumbingly ignorant
So religion has never been used to justify violence by one group against another? >>>>
I didn't say anything close, you stupid puke. You are trying to say that relgion only brought us more or a slightly different struggle between the weak and the strong, when all the historical evidence is to the contray. What a pile of stupid!
Thomas J Gassett at 2:19PM on Jul 23rd 2008
77. While your busy spitting on your montitor and calling people stupid, here's a little something you might have missed.....
Not your religion. It didn't humanize, it demonized. The knights templar, the gnostics, the cathars, the "witches," the protestants, the moslems during the crusades, the native americans... Your faith is a bloodbath, and you can ignore it how again exactly? >>>
You're wrong and you either see it or you are one stupid MF!
Before religion, you didn't need to 'demonize' anyone. Don't you get it stuipd? Without God there are no demons. You didn't need to 'justify' murder, as the struggle between the weak and the strong is all there was. Rape pillage, and murder was the order of the day, you stupid cretin!
Thomas J Gassett at 1:49PM on Jul 23rd 2008
Note how he says; NOT YOUR RELIGION. IT DIDN'T HUMANIZE, IT DEMONIZED.
And you responded; BEFORE RELIGION, YOU DIDN'T NEED TO "DEMONIZE" ANYONE. DON'T YOU GET IT, STUIPD?
I figured that if I capitalized the important parts, maybe you can figure out what's wrong with this picture.
Good luck.
ex-christian at 2:26PM on Jul 23rd 2008
78. Uh Thomas that part about ignoring my god was kind of a joke. Since you are the lord of all definitions go ahead and define everything for me so I can refer to myself properly. If I'm a diest fine.
I was trying to say I don't know(agnostic?) either way, but your particualr religion is for weak minded scared little morons. Who spout psuedo science because there fragile ego can't accept that what they once believed is bullshit. 'I believe it so religiion has to good no matter the eveidence!' You are are I defined earlier the weak. (and I am the strong and mr. nine milimeter he is the shepard)
My label doens't make your completley baseless point any less idiotic.
tmo at 2:27PM on Jul 23rd 2008
79. You are trying to say that relgion only brought us more or a slightly different struggle between the weak and the strong, when all the historical evidence is to the contray.
Please cite one example of this historical evidence.
tmo at 2:32PM on Jul 23rd 2008
80. For the record - I'm not saying that all religion is a way for the strong to manipulate the weak, but it is a huge part of it.
tmo at 2:38PM on Jul 23rd 2008
81. Your faith is a bloodbath, and you can ignore it how again exactly? >>>
-Before religion, you didn't need to 'demonize' anyone. Don't you get it stuipd? Without God there are no demons.
---------------------------------------------
Oh, that's how you ignore it. You're agressively ignorant. That'll do it.
I meant demonize in the sense of making them inhuman, dehumanizing them so that everybody and their little sister wants to see them burn. But you bring up a good point. Without any god, there can be no demons. True, I think. See, God needs demons to keep us in line. Carrot and stick. Look at how well the method has worked with you, Thomas! Why, your intellect has been kept at about the tenth grade level if that, and you cajole and threaten and slur anybody that so much as breathes a word against your beliefs. You're a poster child for agressive ignorance. Praise the Lord!
Godless Heathen Brian at 2:44PM on Jul 23rd 2008
82. Organized religion means nothing. It is an empty word. All true religious authority lies with the individual, not the organization. While the organization holds memberships, each person who is a member is the authority. Even if they hold the same beliefs as others, they still give authority to those beliefs, so its one step back.
This authority has not evolved because it still lies within the individual. What has evolved is the individuals belief systems.
Thomas Gassett. For all your invective, you havent given anything to back what you are saying. All I see is you calling people stupid, and yet you offer no reason for that stupidity. You seem to have the temperment of a 3 year old.
CaptainCack at 2:50PM on Jul 23rd 2008
83. So religion has never been used to justify violence by one group against another?
I didn't say anything close, you stupid puke.
Yes you did. You said religion made us less violent, that seems pretty close.
tmo at 2:49PM on Jul 23rd 2008
84. Only to a weird little turd like yourself. To those of us with functioning brain cells it's history.
Thomas J Gassett at 2:11PM on Jul 23rd 2008
xxx
what a quaint little response! What makes you think you're functional, unless you call serving as a singularly bad example functional. I would have to concede that, at least.
Clif Kuplen at 2:49PM on Jul 23rd 2008
85. I didn't say anything close, you stupid puke. You are trying to say that relgion only brought us more or a slightly different struggle between the weak and the strong, when all the historical evidence is to the contray. What a pile of stupid!
****
Wow - seems Shelly Ann Gasset's personality has once again taken over Tommy Ann. Everyone say it with me...
you sthtupid tursth!
T.Brough at 2:54PM on Jul 23rd 2008
86. Thomas, if you are stuck with history and not archaeology, there isn't anything you can say about when mankind didn't have religion.
How could you have missed that the first time. Want to try again?
Here's your leadin: "I never said that you stupid moron turd muslim puke shithole!!"
you can take it from there, ok? A one, and a two...
Clif Kuplen at 2:52PM on Jul 23rd 2008
87. Still no response? not even some middle school name calling? How about my spelling and grammar? Surely you can insult me on that? I believe I called you weak and stupid with a fragile ego, I take your silence to mean you agree.
Given DD's standards for debate I shall declare myself the winner and Thomas the loser.(I know he's probably off line and will call me names later but remember these are DD's standards)
tmo at 2:54PM on Jul 23rd 2008
88. I see a person that constantly calls others stupid as a person who is very insecure about his own intelligence. He needs to think of everyone else as stupid. If they're not after all, it means that he's the idiot, and he can't even consider that possibility, not with that ego.
Godless Heathen Brian at 2:59PM on Jul 23rd 2008
89. Check it out, if anyone wants to touch people with their "noodley appendage" then click the link. You too can be one with the FSM http://www.venganza.org/games/index_large.htm
CaptainCack at 3:01PM on Jul 23rd 2008
90. Thomas Gassett, Thomas Gassett
Takes the blunt but doesn't pass it
Loves to come and ruin our day
Couldn't you find another way?
You rail at people you don't know
And love to let your anger show
You just appear, as if a ghost
And then insult us, more than most
Your life is simple, like your brain
And so you give us all a pain
By telling us just what you think
As if with muddled mind from drink
When you show up, the good times end
I bet you do not have one friend
Your words are as those from a boy
Who has just lost his favorite toy
And because he cannot get his way
He stomps his feet and screams away
He spits and swears and attacks at will
With bloodlust and the urge to kill
He foams and whines and tells us all
That we are nothing; He is all.
He is as angry, scared, and sick
As any christian lunatic
But he is special, there's no doubt
I wish they wouldn't let him out.
Godless Heathen Brian at 3:06PM on Jul 23rd 2008