Robert Winston criticises dangerous 'science delusion' (Dawkins et al "irresponsible" "dangerous")

Lord Robert Winston has renewed his attack on atheist writers such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens, whose arguments he said were "dangerous", "irresponsible" and "very divisive".

Evolutionary theory starts “in the middle”; the fact that life exists is assumed as a starting point, much as the science of physics rests on the assumption that matter exists, without speculation about where it came from.

Nice try, but both are involved in the overarching philosophy of evolutionism, which is what I critique. Anyone familiar with the literature knows that discussions of abiogenesis fit neatly and extensively into the overall discussion of evolution and origins - the attempt to single out natural selection, define it solely as "evolution" and then argue that abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution is simply intellectually dishonest circular reasoning.

Re: being off topic- my original post was about the dubious assumption that skepticism about religious dogma is itself religious dogma. You brought abiogenisis into it.

That's because the underlying issue to what the thread is actually about is evolutionism, upon which the topic of abiogenesis bears directly.

I’m sorry, I don’t think you’ve demonstrated that evolution necessarily entails belief in abiogenesis. Otherwise, why resort to the term “evolutionism” as an “overarching philosophy” that necessarily includes evolution (as I understand it, the change in allele frequencies over time)? It seems to me that introducing a new term and then saying that *that’s* what you’re critiquing is just moving the goalposts.

Personally I think the only scientifically tenable position is to remain agnostic about the ultimate origins of life. Certainly the fact that science hasn’t conclusively demonstrated that abiogenesis occurred isn’t proof that it didn’t occur.

As far as what the underlying issue of the thread is, I guess we just read the article two different ways. I took it as a criticism of the methods of people like Dawkins (a criticism I agree with) and some oblique references to the nature/nurture debate and the role of science in technology. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

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