'Mommy, why are atheists dim-witted?'

Reviewers have not been kind to The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, professor of something called "the public understanding of science" at Oxford. Critics have found it to be the atheist's mirror image of Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism - long on in-your-face rhetoric and offensively dismissive of all those holding an opposing view.

Princeton University philosopher Thomas Nagel found Dawkins's "attempts at philosophy, along with a later chapter on religion and ethics, particularly weak." Prof. Terry Eagleton began his London Review of Books critique: "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the British Book of Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology."

Dawkins's "central argument" is that because every complex system must be created by an even more complex system, an intelligent designer would have had to be created by an even greater super-intellect.

New York Times reviewer Jim Holt described this argument as the equivalent of the child's question, "Mommy, who created God?"

Nagel provides the grounds for rejecting this supposed proof. People do not mean by God "a complex physical inhabitant of the natural world" but rather a Being outside the physical world - the "purpose or intention of a mind without a body, capable nevertheless of creating and forming the entire physical world."

He points out further that the same kind of problem Dawkins poses to the theory of design plagues evolutionary theory, of which Dawkins is the preeminent contemporary popularizer. Evolution depends on the existence of pre-existing genetic material - DNA - of incredible complexity, the existence of which cannot be explained by evolutionary theory.

So who created DNA? Dawkins's response to this problem, writes Nagel, is "pure hand-waving" - speculation about billions of alternative universes and the like.

As a charter member of the Church of Darwin, Dawkins not only subscribes to evolutionary theory as the explanation for the morphology of living creatures, but to the sociobiologists' claim that evolution explains all human behavior. For sociobiologists, human development, like that of all other species, is the result of a ruthless struggle for existence. Genes seek to reproduce themselves and compete with one another in this regard. In the words of the best-known sociobiologist, Harvard's E.O. Wilson, "An organism is only DNA's way of making more DNA."

THAT PICTURE of human existence, argues the late Australian philosopher of science David Stove in Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity and Other Fables of Evolution, constitutes a massive slander against the human race, as well as a distortion of reality.

The Darwinian account, for instance, flounders on widespread altruistic impulses that have always characterized humans in all places and times. Nor can it explain why some men act as heroes even though by doing so they risk their own lives and therefore their capacity to reproduce, or why societies should idealize altruism and heroism. How, from an evolutionary perspective, could such traits have developed or survived?

The traditional Darwinian answer is that altruism is but an illusion, or a veneer of civilization imposed upon our real natures. That answer fails to explain how that veneer could have come about in the first place. How could the first appeal to higher moral values have ever found an author or an audience? David Stove offers perhaps the most compelling reason for rejecting the views of those who deny the very existence of human altruism: "I am not a lunatic."

IN 1964, biologist W.D. Hamilton first expounded a theory explaining how much of what appears to us as altruism is merely genes' clever way of assuring the propagation of their type via relatives sharing that gene pool. The preeminent defender of Darwin - Dawkins - popularized this theory in The Selfish Gene.

Among the predictions Hamilton made is: "We expect to find that no one is prepared to sacrifice his life for any single person, but that everyone will sacrifice it for more than two brothers [or offspring], or four half-brothers, or eight first cousins," because those choices result in a greater dissemination of a particular gene pool.

To which Stove responds: "Was an expectation more obviously false than this one ever held (let alone published) by any human being?" Throughout history, men have sacrificed themselves for those bearing no relationship to them, just as others have refused to do so for more than two brothers. Here is a supposedly scientific theory bearing no relationship to any empirical reality ever observed. Stove offers further commonsense objections: Parents act more altruistically toward their offspring than siblings toward one another, even though in each pair there is an overlap of half the genetic material. If Hamilton's theory were true, we should expect to find incest widespread. In fact, it is taboo. Finally, the theory is predicated on the dubious proposition that animals, or their genes, can tell a sibling from a cousin, and a cousin from other members of the same species.

SOCIOBIOLOGY, Stove demonstrates, is a religion and genes are its gods. In traditional religion, humans exist for the greater glory of God; in sociobiology, humans and all other living things exist for the benefit of their genes. "We are... robot-vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes," writes Dawkins. Like God, Dawkins's genes are purposeful agents, far smarter than man.

He describes how a certain cuckoo parasitically lays its eggs in the nest of the reed warbler, where the cuckoo young get more food by virtue of their wider mouths and brighter crests, as a process in which the cuckoo genes have tricked the reed warbler. Thus, for Dawkins, genes are capable of conceiving a strategy no man could have thought of and of putting into motion the complicated engineering necessary to execute that strategy.

Writing in 1979, Prof. R.D. Alexander made the bald assertion: "We are programmed to use all our effort, and in fact to use our lives, in production." And yet it is obvious that most of what we do has nothing to do with reproduction, and never more so than at the present, when large parts of the civilized world are becoming rapidly depopulated. Confronted with these obvious facts about human nature and behavior, sociobiologists respond by ascribing them to "errors of heredity."

As Stove tartly observes: "Because their theory of man is badly wrong, they say that man is badly wrong; that he incorporates many and grievous biological errors." But the one thing a scientific theory may never do, Stove observes, is "reprehend the facts."

It may observe them, or predict new facts to be discovered, but not criticize those before it. The only question that remains is: How could so many intelligent men say so many patently silly things? For Dawkins, the answer would no doubt be one of those evolutionary "misfires," such as that to which he attributes religious belief.

Your first mistake is applying human traits to natural processes.

Wrong. I am asking how human consciousness (i.e. human traits) ultimately came from purely mindless mechanisms. IOW, how do intrinsic mindless chemicals and chemical processes form human consciousness ultimately from a purely natural progression void of any direction? Upon what grounds should humanity base any morals if they only exist in humanity and not anywhere else in the mindless universe that created our consciousness?

And I am totally open to a higher being having a hand in nature. I doubt it is the one described in the Bronze Age Hebrew creation myth though. I dont know what the nature of such being would be.

In order for to believe the Hebrew creation myth and Intelligent Design, one would have to throw out nearly the entire fields of biology, geology AND astronomy. You have to make way too many leaps in logic.

Now, ‘your’ mistake is applying intelligent design to the Bible. The entire book of Genesis could be found totally false and this would have no impact on id. And since you are open to ‘a higher being having a hand in nature’ you are open to id.

But, if you want to criticize creation myths that ‘you’ believe have been debunked due to science - I can offer some scientific creation myths that maybe ‘you’ have faith in:

Let me now try to summarize Darwin’s contributions to the thinking of modern men. He was responsible for the replacement of a world view based on Christian dogma by a strictly secular world view. Furthermore, his writings led to the rejection of several previously dominant world views such as essentialism, finalism, determinism, and of Newtonian laws for the explanation of evolution. He replaced these refuted concepts with a number of new ones of wide- reaching importance, also outside of biology, such as biopopulation, natural selection, the importance of chance and contingency, the explan atory importance of the time factor (historical narratives), and the importance of the social group for the origin of ethics. Almost every component in modern man’s belief system is somehow affected by one or another of Darwin’s conceptual contributions. His opus as a whole is the foundation of a rapidly developing new philosophy of biology. There can be no doubt that the thinking of every modern Western man has been profoundly affected by Darwin’s philosophical thought.
Mayr

Is this your ‘belief’?

I have argued that the discontinuous gap between humans and 'apes' that we erect in our minds is regrettable. I have also argued that, in any case, the present position of the hallowed gap is arbitrary, the result of evolutionary accident. If the contingencies of survival and extinction had been different, the gap would be in a different place. Ethical principles that are based upon accidental caprice should not be respected as if cast in stone.
- Dawkins

Or is this your belief?

The time has come to take seriously the fact that we humans are modified monkeys, not the favored Creation of a Benevolent God on the Sixth Day. In particular, we must recognize our biological past in trying to understand our interactions with others. We must think again especially about our so-called “ethical principles.” The question is not whether biology—specifically, our evolution—is connected with ethics, but how. As evolutionists, we see that no [ethical] justification of the traditional kind is possible. Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. Hence the basis of ethics does not lie in God’s will.... In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding. Like Macbeth’s dagger, it serves a powerful purpose without existing in substance.
Ethics is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference. This is the crux of the biological position. Once it is grasped, everything falls into place.
-Michael Ruse and E. O. Wilson, “The Evolution of Ethics,” in Religion and the Natural Sciences: The Range of Engagement, ed. J. E. Hutchingson (Orlando, Fl.: Harcourt and Brace, 1991)

Maybe this is what you believe?

Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.
- William Provine (from Darwin Day speech)

Is this your creation theory?
And what do you think of this hypothesis from ‘purely natural‘ causes regarding human consciousness from science?

DAWKINS: (snip)"…But yet we have this gathering together of genes into individual organisms. And that reminds me of the illusion of one mind, when actually there are lots of little mindlets in there, and the illusion of the soul of the white ant in the termite mound, where you have lots of little entities all pulling together to create an illusion of one. Am I right to think that the feeling that I have that I'm a single entity, who makes decisions, and loves and hates and has political views and things, that this is a kind of illusion that has come about because Darwinian selection found it expedient to create that illusion of unitariness rather than let us be a kind of society of mind?"
PINKER: "It's a very interesting question. Yes, there is a sense in which the whole brain has interests in common in the way that say a whole body composed of genes with their own selfish motives has a single agenda. In the case of the genes the fact that their fates all depend on the survival of the body forces them to cooperate. In the case of the different parts of the brain, the fact that the brain ultimately controls a body that has to be in one place at one time may impose the need for some kind of circuit, presumably in the frontal lobes, that coordinates the different agendas of the different parts of the brain to ensure that the whole body goes in one direction. In How the Mind Works I alluded to a scene in the comedy movie All of Me in which Lily Tomlin's soul inhabits the left half of Steve Martin's body and he takes a few steps in one direction under his own control and then lurches in another direction with his pinkie extended while under the control of Lily Tomlin's spirit. That is what would happen if you had nothing but completely autonomous modules of the brain, each with its own goal. Since the body has to be in one place at one time, there might be a circuit that suppresses the conflicting motives…"(end snip)

I think that if these guys existed a few thousand years ago, wore sandals, and tended sheep while writing these crazy ideas - these guys would never get the attention that ‘they’ believe they deserve. We probably would not even discuss their ideas - but because they did not tend sheep a few thousand years ago…

Einstein, Newton, Pascal, et al. did not attempt to solve human consciousness and morality via science - this is why Darwinism is separate.

DAWKINS: (snip)"…But yet we have this gathering together of genes into individual organisms. And that reminds me of the illusion of one mind, when actually there are lots of little mindlets in there, and the illusion of the soul of the white ant in the termite mound, where you have lots of little entities all pulling together to create an illusion of one. Am I right to think that the feeling that I have that I'm a single entity, who makes decisions, and loves and hates and has political views and things, that this is a kind of illusion that has come about because Darwinian selection found it expedient to create that illusion of unitariness rather than let us be a kind of society of mind?"

PINKER: "It's a very interesting question. Yes, there is a sense in which the whole brain has interests in common in the way that say a whole body composed of genes with their own selfish motives has a single agenda. In the case of the genes the fact that their fates all depend on the survival of the body forces them to cooperate. In the case of the different parts of the brain, the fact that the brain ultimately controls a body that has to be in one place at one time may impose the need for some kind of circuit, presumably in the frontal lobes, that coordinates the different agendas of the different parts of the brain to ensure that the whole body goes in one direction. In How the Mind Works I alluded to a scene in the comedy movie All of Me in which Lily Tomlin's soul inhabits the left half of Steve Martin's body and he takes a few steps in one direction under his own control and then lurches in another direction with his pinkie extended while under the control of Lily Tomlin's spirit. That is what would happen if you had nothing but completely autonomous modules of the brain, each with its own goal. Since the body has to be in one place at one time, there might be a circuit that suppresses the conflicting motives…"(end snip)

Oh my, Heartlander, re: this Dawkins/Pinker exchange: Isn't it an excerpt from their famous The Guardian-Dillons "debate," entitled "Is Science Killing the Soul?" of a few years back (1999?) It was truly memorable. Still I made a bound hard copy....

The conclusion I have been able to reach (so far) in reading these lines is that here we are exposed to the thought of two thoroughly indoctrinated "collectivists." Plus a second conclusion: This was no "debate."

Thanks for the great post!

Actually it is a split in information. Fruit fly abcdef has branched off into fruit fly abcd and abef without enough information to any longer reproduce with each other. In a sense it becomes a case of devolution, whereas, information is being reduced rather than added on. The variations were already present in the gene pool to begin with. Mutated changes are errors and usually not viable but rather can only be carried on if they are not sufficient to destroy the organism but are almost never positive or life enhancing.

Viruses being incomplete have the ability to join with other viruses to create viruses that have more information than before they joined, thus a virus that was not airborne but deadly may become airborne when it joins with a virus that is airborne such as a cold. This may happen if one host has both viruses at the same time. (It also makes me wonder about the true nature of current sicknesses caused from vegetables as they are often genetically modified using viruses particles). They usually do not last and "burn" out rather quickly. Even when this happens it is not new information but rather a joining of two compatible information pools, both being viruses and remaining so.

Often the word mutation is loosely applied. For evolution to take place new information would have to constantly be added to organisms bringing them from the very simple (though really incredibly complex, even the simplest) to the infinitely complex. Survival and specialization depends on the manifestation of myriads of traits already hidden within the gene pool waiting to become evident as differing environment caused the necessary traits to flourish. Also, extinction, of course, may take place.

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Ain't E just WUNNERFUL?!