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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.
I constantly see your work referenced both by opponents and proponents and feel like they don't always fully understand the concepts. My personal favorite is when I find a proponent of your work taking the personification of the gene to a new level past its role as a mere didactic device -- sometimes expounding at length about what genes want and desire. So what is your favorite misunderstanding that may have ended up as a headline, news story or that you've found on the internet?
My work here is dung.
What is your fondest memory of Christopher Hitchens?
The God Delusion helped me make explicit several inchoate ideas I had about why a belief in a god is not necessary to explain the world around us. Why do you think that so many people around the world still feel the need to rely on a personal god?
Do you believe a democratic society can exist which has no form of religion in its laws, or within government?
Believe me, if I started murdering people, there would be none of you left.
DNA methylation seems an interesting property that has been shown to be heritable in some instances (cannot remember citation, study involving desert plants in Arizona or New Mexico, USA), changing the phenotype without the genotype. If this is inheritable, this seems to break your assertion that the gene is always the level of selection. In this case a gene producing X phenotype is methylated to produce Y phenotype, which could be selected for against (either direction) phenotype X, phenotype Y individuals net result in my hypothetical is a increased fitness and fecundity relative to individuals with phenotype X. Do you view this as escaping your assertion or a mere special case as it is still the gene being methylated. AlphaA
Do you think that it will ever happen that a society exists without religion?
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
In a recent Gallup poll it has been shown that there has been no change in 30 years of Americans accepting evolution as truth. What do you think are the major factors for this?
It seems that most creationists are successful in convincing their peers of the faults in the theory of evolution because they are the only source of information on what the theory actually is. They setup a completely outdated or just plain fabricated version of the theory and then argue against that. Which makes them look like they know what they are talking about and makes their arguments convincing to the ignorant. How do you convince people that what they have been taught is completely wrong without insinuating that they or their respected teacher/pastor etc is a complete idiot?
At any point, have you ever had a religious person say "I think you're right, it is all bollocks!" after they've had a chat with you?. It seems like so much hard work to destroy the fantasy.
Is it possible to fully comprehend the world scientifically, and foster a mechanistic perception of the universe, and still foster a faith at the same time? If this it isn't possible, and it is argued that faith will cloud our otherwise pristine judgement, how can we trust the observations or arguments produced by scientists of faith?
More specifically, given how widespread belief systems are in the world I assume there's a survival advantage for humans who hold onto a belief even when it contradicts observable facts.
Isn't it the case that anything could have unforeseen consequences? Related to this, if that avoiding unforeseen consequences were a requirement, how would you show that something does not have any unforeseen consequences?
Given that religion is present in every society, and by far the norm in almost every society, it stands to reason that we are genetically disposed to be religious. That would imply that religion has some evolutionary benefits.
Do you agree? If not, why not? If so, what are those benefits, and how can they be provided by a fully secular society?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You've become an incredibly polarizing figure in a contentious debate. In certain groups, you're akin to the Anti-Christ, and in others you're quoted without question like a religious prophet. How do you handle that? Does it feel weird to have everything you say dissected (and possibly misinterpreted)? Is there pride? Exasperation? Amusement?
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Hi Professor Dawkins and thanks for offering to answer some of our questions.
In the past, some science educators (Dr. Tyson for example) have criticised what they perceived to be your overuse of the stick in promoting rationalism and fact-based decision making where they considered the carrot to be a better tool. There is some evidence that simply stating the facts may actually be counter-productive: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~nyhan/nyhan-reifler.pdf
Would you mind talking about the efficacy of both approaches to the greater understanding of the value of fact-based decision making?
When I received my religious education as I child, my rabbi taught me about the Documentary Hypothesis -- not to deny it, but to show me that the torah was not always what it is today. What are your thoughts on this sort of religious education i.e. religious education that is not based on denying or avoiding scientific or historical realities?
Palm trees and 8
Something that's always troubled me about memes is that I cannot understand what the core language or data is for a meme. I know that our genes can be pinned down to be DNA but with memes it's troubling for me to try to imagine a language that conveys what is happening in them. We can observe a meme's transmission, we can observe a meme's mutation, we can observe a meme's fitness and we can observe its extinction -- but what we can't do is break those things down to some finite chunk of information such that we can analyze them on a empirical level. For instance, mutations of memes appear to be limited to only the human imagination and physics. It feels as though I would have as much luck describing how art went from cave paintings to film CGI with only mathematics as the language. So what is the concrete language of memes or are they destined to be more of a curious observation than a falsifiable and reproducible analysis like genetics?
My work here is dung.
There is a small percentage of Christians, such as myself, who adamantly believe in both evolution and Christianity. We believe that scripture must be read and interpreted through a context that understands that scripture should be interpreted by first considering the culture of the original audience. As such, we believe that the "historical" aspect of the Biblical account of creation isn't as important as understanding the purpose and point of all of "creation", humankind and who we are in relation to our creator. My intent is not to lecture on the creation of mankind. Instead, I am interested in knowing if you've ever spoken or debated much with other Christians who have similar beliefs as myself. For many of us, evolution is unquestionable! However, the sheer existence of such truth does not exclude the fact that a creator couldn't have been a part in the process. Much of your Christian (or other religious) interactions that I've observed tend to involve arguing against the most commonly propagated beliefs of creationism. I am interested in your thoughts, on such a different perspective, as my own. Please comment. Thank you so much.
I am (pleasantly) surprised by how many of my friends have "come out," as it were, as atheists over the last few years. I'm a young person, and I suspect that the amount of closet atheists among younger people (in America at least) is much greater than that among older people. In general, how optimistic are you about humanity getting past religion in the next few decades?
Esoteric reference.
Fictional doctor House M.D. is famously quoted as saying, "If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people." Is this your experience? If religious people are immune to rational arguments, how do we have a productive discussion with them? How do you impress on a religious person the importance of evidence and reason?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
So why does god get a free pass to come from nothing?
The anthropic principle does not mean what you think it means.
And what, exactly, is your basis for postulating that life is rare?
It's not an explanation. Even if you accept it as one, you still have to explain where god came from.
I'd give your apologetics a 1 out 10. Try harder.
HAND.
My wife and I attended the Reason Rally on the National Mall this year, which was billed as a positive expression of non-theistic secular thought. We met many wonderful people there and were truly inspired by Adam Savage's incredibly positive and inspiring speech on the wonders of science, Nate Phelps remarkably eloquent denunciation of his father's Westboro Baptist Church, and your own speech highlighting the absurdity of having to hold such a rally at all; however, I we were also incredibly put off by vitriol on display by so many other speakers who were entirely focused on the evils of religion rather than the good science and rationality brings to civilized life. We ended up leaving the rally in the middle of PZ Meyer's speech because we found it so distressing in its Rush Limbaugh-esque tone.
It bothers me that so many of us define ourselves by what we don't believe rather than what we do. As Carolyn Porco elucidated so concisely at a talk you were involved in, I am not an atheist, I am a scientist. Like Carl Sagan, I get a profound sense of spirituality from science that I want to desperately for everyone in the world to open their own eyes and discover.
My attempts to get people to read your book The God Delusion were met with strong resistance, people were very turned off to its tone, but those same individuals loved your book The Magic of Reality . As someone who has pursued both the strategy of being highly critical of religion in one work, while apparently softening that criticism in your latter work in exchange for focusing on the wonders of the natural world, could you speak to pros and cons of these different strategies of persuasion, not just in your own work but in the efforts of others like Adam Savage and PZ Meyers?
Thank you so much for your taking the time to interact with us on /.! This really is an exciting development and an honor.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
How about the religions that are believed by the young earth creationists (which includes all three of the religions you mentioned)? Or the religion that persecuted Galileo? Or the religions which refuse to acknowledge the over whelming evidence in support of evolution? It's nice that the old book has those passages, but it has a lot of passages that people ignore these days, the fact is that a sizable percentage of religious people do reject scientific evidence when it disagrees with their faith. That's not to say everyone who is religious does so, only that it's far more common in people who are heavily religious.
Indirectly, they all do. They are based on the idea that you are supposed to believe in some things, and are not allowed to doubt them. Only then you are virtuous. But, well, that is ignorance.
Every time you hear a religious person complain that Darwin's theories are the work of the devil or somesuch, then they are saying that ignorance is good.
A lot of information is supposed to be kept away from certain groups of people (women, children) to keep them docile. This is considered a good thing, and yes, this *is* valuing ignorance.
Friend, I consider myself a Christian, but these days, there are so many who have a fundamentalist belief system, and take every word of the Gospel as basic fact without the faintest consideration for context, physics or the nature of the conversations contained in both the Old and New Testaments. That the entire world was flooded when Naoh saved the animals... where did enough water to flood the world come from and where did it go to? The magical thinking is shocking. That the world is thousands of years old and that people lived with the dinosaurs like the Flintstones. These too are beliefs grounded in the same scriptures that you quote, and these good and decent people have given up all rational consideration to instead cling to mysticism and magical thinking. The universe is so vast in size and time and we can see such a precious small slice of that eternity, that is it perfectly appropriate for men of knowledge to probe the mysteries and hold faith in those places for which answers may forever exceed our grasp. I am simply concerned that too many would avoid the light of simple truth, for fear that it would threaten their clockwork belief of God and this universe.
How do you reconcile Georgia Rep. Paul Broun saying in videotaped remarks that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are "lies straight from the pit of hell" meant to convince people that they do not need a savior? Worse, that this man has immediate and direct influence on the future of scientific research in the United States. Do you question his faith, his understanding of his religion, his sect or orthodoxy, his belief or his sanity? I appreciate that there is a critical need for ethicists in the science community, to look at the impact of our growing technological information and how we can best apply our growing understanding to serve the greater interests of humanity. That neither explains or excuses a growing number of people who have turned away from truth and wisdom in the name of religion, or the religious leaders who would have them behave this way. Part of the problem, is that the Bible is a book, most of which was written in a context specific to a rowdy dessert people living in the Sinai Peninsula 5 to 2 millennia ago. The amazing thing is that so much of the human content is so completely valid and appropriate thousands of years later. The prophesies, that are only now coming to pass. Most amazing is the amazing accuracy of the historical content as every year archeologist discover some new dig which validates the descriptions portrayed in the Bible. That said, the book is a gift from God, and even contains the fascinating process by which men gathered the Word and selected from all the Christian writings to come to a place where it was decided this is our religious text. It reflects the strong Jewish influence in the early church, and the desire to keep the early church as close as possible to Jewish faith, so the Gospel of Mary was left out. The most powerful thing about Christianity, has been its spiritual core of Love and Service. As it spread its ability to coop pagan culture and symbols and still pass the core belief along intact and healthy.
Its time for Christians and all other religions that are the children of Abraham, to let go of the dogma. Stop trying to force people to obey your beliefs on threat of death. Its time to honor the Prince of Peace, by really being peaceful.