NOTE: This essay was written by Josh for Atheism is Dead (True Freethinker’s predecessor).
I though I’d share a few thoughts of mine about the new Dawkins interviews making their way around the internet. I’ll treat the five videos separately, starting with part 1.
Not a lot to note in the first part, but a little nit-pick on Ben Stein’s behalf. Whatever you think of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Let me suggest that the reason Stein was surprised at Richard’s answer to the question of intelligence was because he was apparently allowing something like aliens to be the designer and not a god. Furthermore, I have my doubts that he was trying to extend an olive branch to the ID people. I’ve seen a lot of his stuff on ID in books, articles, debates, interviews and website, and nothing leads me to believe that he is ever interested in peaceable relations.
On a more positive note, Richard spends most of his time here explaining clearly and coherently the roles or the important ingredients of genetics. He admits that much of this interview will be speculative, but it is interesting to get inside the head of a wonderful geneticist and science popularizer. He is obviously very creative and explains things like he is excited by it.
(Keep an ear ready for his final words in part 1)
And here we are, Richard’s (in)famous philosophical argument against God’s existence. Before I comment on this argument, please note I have mentioned that an argument offered by Dawkins is successful (in the sense I outlined in the post). I don’t think this argument is very good, nor ought it be persuasive to any of those who have read the chapter in The God Delusion.
I take the following as the explicit core of his argument:
C) Any complex subject must be explicable by something not as complex.
Is (C) true? It may or may not be, but I will note that Dawkins does not provide much of an argument for it. Sure, we know that algorithm of evolution moves from simple to complex (in most cases) but that alone does not support a bloated metaphysical proposition such as (C). I mean, if (C) is true, why not (G)?
G) Any living organism must have a biological equivalent to the gene.
I see the same support for (G) as I do (C) and both appear to be false, in the sense that neither (G) or (C) would dictate what kind of thing God must be. They may be good scientific principles inside the universe, but I can’t make sense of Richard’s claim that these or logical principles which, ostensibly, apply to everything in the universe.
Even if (C) is true, it isn’t altogether clear that God is such a thing that falls into the category of a complex being. Granting the traditional attributes of God, we know he doesn’t have parts, isn’t extended in space and is not contained in space. In what sense would he be complex?
I have mixed feelings about this part. On one hand, much of what Richard says is undoubtedly true. On the other hand, he makes questionable statements to the effect of our being here is explained by our being here. He then moves on to the highly controversial multiverse theory which, contrary to what Richard hints at, is related to the Many Worlds Interpretation. But he ends with the curious bit of philosophy that he is satisfied with a naturalistic explanation of our existence because of the anthropic principle. I don’t understand why it would satisfy him anymore than thinking that a wet sidewalk explains the rain. The fact that we exist and can muse upon existence does not help explain why we exist; it just goes to show that we can’t go about questioning our existence.
His exposition of skyhooks is quite clear and spot on. However, he suggests that everything must be explained, in which case we are off to the infinite races and nothing is ever really explained. His principle is good in general, but it is another one that I’d be very careful of bloating into the class of the principles of logic. I’ll post the last video, but I don’t have much to say about the Q&A session that followed.
I’ll just note that he apparently believes that our love of music, poetry and mathematics (and probably consciousness) was just a lucky draw. Consider me skeptical.