Dawkins-The Greatest Show on Earth

by KateWild 189 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Etude

  konceptual99:

  “It is not presented as gospel. It is not presented as infallible.”

  Not quite. In fact, Dawkins’ fervor is as militant and emphatic as the best of Evangelicals on TV. As I mentioned before, I get the feeling that Dawkins is rather smug about his theories to the chagrin of other scientists. He criticizes Paul Davis (a renowned physicist) for pointing out the failure of science to explain its own foundations (beyond the Anthropic Principle) while Dawkins himself has difficulty justifying his own theories.

  For example: Carl Coon (an atheist and vice president of the American Humanist Association and author of several books) puts the dismissal of Group Selection [as an alternate explication for certain non-genetic behavior], particularly coming from Dawkins, this way: “It was as though he [Dawkins] had informed me that the American Association for the Advancement of Science had repealed the law of gravity.” Now, that’s smugness and intellectual protectionism. He is not in agreement in many specific ways with the rest of the scientific community. He can advance the idea of Evolution by repeating it in his books, but not because he has all the right answers.
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  Etude

  That fact that his work is criticized is because what some, or even Dawkins, characterize as "evidence", is really not evidence and hence is being challenged. That's not to say that it is out of the realm of possibility. But it can't be considered evidence unless it's been corroborated and verified.
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  QC

  Etude: Natural Selection has seen fit to give us something for which we have no need for, namely the concept of a deity.

  Yes

  I gree, it is not plausible that in a GODLESS universe Natural Selection has seen fit to give us something for which there is no need for, namely the concept of a deity.

  Something entirely void of God would have no impulse for God.

  Great point.
• 

  Etude

  QC:

  I understand what you mean, but only partially. The very intent of Dawkins, as a scientist, is to explain that which seems counter intuitive. As a scientist, he feels the need to explain, via the process of Natural Selection, the anomaly of a diety. The problem is that he does not differentiate the idea of deity, religion and that sense of "more" some people call spirituality. Instead he lumps all of that into a single entity. I consider myself a profound agnostic NOT for the reason that the idea of God is impossible, but for the reason that there is no way to demonstrate that such an idea is a reality. So, I'm not ruling out the prospect that Natural Selection would have something to do with the creation of the deity concept. However, I can't assume that it did from Dawkins' explanations. They just don't hold up.
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  KateWild

  Etude,

  Thank you for your input into this thread. I found your post 358 very easy to read. The points you made were clear and logical. You seem to agree with some of my points about Dawkins. It's nice to get opinions across the board.

  I am reading chapter two atm. When I post my review I would love to hear you views on that also.

  Kate xx
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  KateWild

  Not quite. In fact, Dawkins’ fervor is as militant and emphatic as the best of Evangelicals on TV.-Etude

  Good point. I "quote mined" him which he doesn't like in another post, about arming people with his book to challenge evolution deniers. I feel it was a somewhat dogmatic approach.

  Kate xx
• 

  Etude

  In my post # 358, instead of:

  “This also brings confusion about the verb “prove” (/pro͞ov/). The parent root “proof” (n.) is simply a repeatable process which will either confirm a thing or to validate it.”

  It should read:

  “This also brings confusion about the verb “prove” (/pro͞ov/). The parent root “proof” (n.) is simply a repeatable process which will either confirm a thing or fail to validate it.”

  I should also mention that in the sentence “That could simply mean that the organism already has the ability in its genotype to produce changes, not that it spontaneously arose”, the word spontaneously is a relative term in the context of “Evolution in action”. It simply means that it happened relatively quickly for us to observe it and not that it happened in an instant, considering that the postulate of Evolution is that significant changes occur over millions of years.
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  cofty

  Etude - there are details regarding the perocess of evolution that are still uncertain. Like any good scientist, Dawkins will robustly defend things until the evidence shows otherwise.

  Group selection is one such example - although when you examine the details the debate around group v gene selection is mostly semantics.

  Meme theory is not part of evolutionary biology. Dawkins invented the idea but it was championed by Susan Blackmore in "The Meme Machine".

  Regarding evolutionary biology there is no serious debate in science. The common ancestry of all living things is, for all practical purposes, a "proven" fact.

  The evidence from comparative genetics, that is being added to daily, puts to beyond doubt. There is no theory in science that is less likely to be refuted.

  Comparing Dawkins defense of scientific facts to an evangelical preacher's sermonising is profoundly disingenuous.
• 

  SanLuisObispoTruthSeeker

  " "the only machinery of replication that we
  know of seems too complicated to have come into existence by means of
  anything less than many generations of cumulative selection!"

  Scientific American 1986 Richard Dawkins

  Fast Forward to PanSpermia

  "

  By Steve Connor Tuesday, 1 March 2011

  As scientific mysteries go, this is the big one. How did life on Earth begin? Not how did life evolve, but how did it start in the first place? What was the initial spark that lit the fire of evolution?

  Charles Darwin solved the mystery of life's wondrous diversity with his theory of natural selection. But even he was flummoxed by the ultimate mystery of mysteries: what led to the origin of life itself?

  In trying to answer the problem, scientists have turned to the stars, or at least the "builders' rubble" of meteorites and comets left over from the formation of our solar system some five billion years ago. These space rocks, they believe, could help to explain why life began here on Earth."

  http://old.richarddawkins.net/discussions/597670-new-evidence-for-panspermia-in-the-news

  It's so much easier to believe life evolved from little complex single-cell creatures floating around made of star-dust, falling in to a prebiotic earthly soup, guided by blind chaos evolving in to very complex multi-cellular creatures and finally by pure chance and astromonical odds we arrive at more complicated forms of life. I thought this was a science fiction story until I read how it inspired many young adults to put faith in Richard Dawkins, as one poster wrote, "they believed he is a God for them", I suppose you have more faith in these matters than Christians do. I got another quote from Dawkins but I don't want to see "Witness my Fury" shedd all his fur and go bald, must be gentle with the believers of these sensitive subjects.
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  cofty

  I don't understand your post SLOTS. It really is a car crash of random assertions.

  Evolution is not about abiognesis.

  It's not impossible that life began on earth as a result of arriving here on a meteorite. If it did that only moves the question to how did it arise on some other planet.

  The progress that has been made in the field of abiogenesis is very exciting. Have you read the latest research regarding conditions in ancient alkaline vents? It is astonishing how many of the remaining questions it answers. It even accounts for the evolution of the krebs cycle. Nobody believes that "organic soup" explains abiognesis, you need to try harder to keep up with progress.

  Why do you equate natural selection with "blind chaos"? The two things are exact opposites. Is it because you have never read anything about evolution or because you want to dishonestly misrepresent it?

  The evolution form single cell organisms to multicellular ones is not a mystery by the way. Have you ever thought about reading a book?