Ask Richard Dawkins About Evolution, Religion, and Science Education

Richard Dawkins is an author and an evolutionary biologist. For 13 years, he held the Simonyi Professorship at the University of Oxford. His 1976 book The Selfish Gene helped popularize the gene-centric view of evolution and coined the word "meme." Several other of his books, including Climbing Mount Improbable, River Out of Eden, and The Greatest Show on Earth have helped to explain aspects of evolution in a way non-scientists can more easily understand. Dawkins is a frequent opponent of creationism and intelligent design, and he generated widespread controversy and debate in 2006 with The God Delusion, a book that subjected common religious beliefs to unyielding scientific scrutiny. He wrote, "One of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding." Most recently, Dawkins wrote The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True, a graphic book that aims to introduce kids to science. He's also recently begun a video series titled "Sex, Death, and the Meaning of Life" about how our world would look without religion. Mr. Dawkins has graciously agreed to answer some questions for us. Post your suggestions in the comments below, but please limit yourself to one question per post. We'll post his responses sometime next week.

Comments

I'll be moderated down into oblivion, but...

[alexgieg]

About every serious scholar of comparative religion, history of philosophy and theology, including non-religious ones, consider what you write on those subjects to be clearly devoid of any serious research. Atheists philosopher of science Michael Ruse, the same one whose testimony in McLean v. Arkansas helped the Arkansas judiciary develop the definition of science based on which the teaching of creationism in public schools was blocked back in 1982, for example, has famously said about one of your works:

"Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion would fail any introductory philosophy or religion course. Proudly he criticizes that whereof he knows nothing. As I have said elsewhere, for the first time in my life, I felt sorry for the ontological argument. If we criticized gene theory with as little knowledge as Dawkins has of religion and philosophy, he would be rightly indignant."

Glancing over criticisms made to the philosophical side of your works by Ruse and others leads one to the conclusion that your scholarly critics think you misrepresent concepts, oversimplify arguments into straw mans, and generally plainly doesn't understand what you're talking about whenever you dwell into them.

So, here's my question: why do you keep doing to these academic fields pretty much the same things the worst of the creationists you so well criticize do to the fields you actually know about? Why the double standard?

Re:Good one

[mcgrew]

And what, exactly, is your basis for postulating that life is rare?

We have yet to find any. It's pretty rare right here in the solar system. You have to have a planet that has a stable orbit in just the right spot around its star, with the right chemical composition, and quite possibly may need something to cause tidal forces to mix the chemicals.

Evolution is a well tested theory that has so far held up exceptionally well, but evolution doesn't explain life's beginnings. If you know of any decent theories that explain its creation, I'd like to read about them.

I find it odd that so many believe without doubt that there is extraterrestrial life despite no indication that there is (note, I think there there probably is, considering how many planets there must be, but accept that this rock may possibly be the only one alive), yet are just as certain that God doesn't exist, despite witnesses to the contrary.