While i dont like the example with nobel prizes, its a very valid point that too much islam, like all religion, seems to hinder scientific and moral progress.
Is Richard Dawkins giving atheists a bad name?
by slimboyfat 59 Replies latest social current
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Xanthippe
Interestingly I seem to remember from my history studies that much of classical literature, Greek and Roman, including natural philosophy which developed into science, was preserved in Islamic libraries and that is why we have it today.
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slimboyfat
Well I've read a number of Dawkins' books, starting with the Blind Watchmaker, which was the best, but also The God Delusion, A Devil's Chaplain, Climbing Mount Improbable, The Selfish Gene and most of The Ancestor's Tale. I read a little bit of The Magic Of Reality, but I really wasn't enjoying it so I stopped after the first chapter or thereabouts. The quality of his books has deteriorated over the years.
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OnTheWayOut
Adding to what Nathan Natas says, I haven't read a particular quote from Dawkins but I do know that the original thought that this idea about Muslims not getting Nobel Prizes was a comparison of how much science and scholarship came out of the middle east way back in the day, how those people were so far ahead of others until their "dark age" of Islam.
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cofty
"The Ancestor's Tale" is his magnum opus.
He is first and foremost a brilliant biologist; specifically an ethologist, with a gift for making his subject accessible to the non-specialist.
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slimboyfat
Except, from what I gather, that his one big original idea, that genes are the central unit of selection, is now disputed.
I found The Blind Watchmaker much more readable and interesting than The Ancestor's Tale.
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cofty
What can natural selection select if not differences in genotypes?
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slimboyfat
Never heard of group selection? Is this news? Even Lamarckism seems to be making an unexpected comeback.
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cofty
Of course I've heard of group selection. It doesn't work. How do you suppose natural selection acts at a group level?
Selection at a genetic level is proven by thousands of examples that can literally be read through comparative genetics.
Epigenetics is a fascinating development but it is not Lamarkianism. It is about environmental factors that effect the expression of genes.
The "Selfish Gene" remains the most powerful explanation of the main mechanism of how natural selection works.
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still thinking
Overall I like Dawkins...but I removed him from my facebook page too...like you Phizzy I grew weary of his posts...or should I say, the posts of people who appear to be representing him on his page. I agree with 'some' of his views. But not all. He does not represent me. No one does.