adamah:
“The term 'meme' has become a commonly-accepted "meme" in itself”
I appreciate your explanation of the subtleties in the definition and I tend to agree. However, when I replied to Anony Mous and gave the meme example, I was not confusing it with the popular vernacular meaning that today has made it a cliché. I was discussing the concept that Dawkins himself put forth in his book.
“…it's NOT a theory for evolutionary biology”
Correct. And I don’t think I insinuated that or insinuated that Dawkins thinks that. In fact, I mentioned that memes is his attempt at an explanation for traits that cannot be explained via inheritance (hence Evolutionary Biology). Are we good on that? But the significance of memes is their role as vehicles for Natural Selection to pass on behavior and rituals, some of which may seem beneficial, some that don’t appear beneficial and none of which can be explained in terms of the selfish gene. His whole point is: why would Natural Selection give rise to an illogical behavior such as religion when it’s not beneficial? Memes is one of his means to explain that, along with Group Selection and Extended Phenotypes. It just doesn’t succeed for the reasons I already mentioned.
“Note that Wilson ALSO is selling a book countering Dawkins' assertion. A cynic would point out that BOTH are selling books, but Wilson is making a $ off of a career challenging and opposing the writings of Dawkins, and the lay public eats up someone selling books that tell off Dawkins.”
Yeah but, is he wrong? If you were really diligent and honest about it, you would find out that Wilson is something like 80 years old and has had an illustrious career in science. The Dawkins development is quite recent. Are you saying I should discount anything Wilson has to say about Dawkins because he’s making money? Do you see a nefarious motivation on the part of Wilson for addressing Dawkins’ issues and not because the science doesn’t hold up? If you know of any, please let me know. I hope you’re also aware that Wilson is only one of many. I already mentioned Sober and Coon.
Sure, I had the basics in college. And no, I was not pursuing a biology major. I was going for a Math major. What’s significant for me is that I never stopped learning. Therefore, I don’t find lack of more advanced courses a detriment for understanding aspect of Evolution and Natural Selection just as you suggested Dawkins not being a physicist or cosmologist is not a detriment in understanding science.
You said: “And a skeptic would withhold making a decision until AFTER there was sufficient evidence”, regarding my agreement about how religion is not called to the carpet. But, please don’t confuse the issues. If religion is not “called to the carpet” as you said, that has nothing to do with whether I should withhold my opinion of whether God exists or not. Which I don't. I believe religion exists and I believe it’s an anathema. That doesn’t provide any credence from me about God or UFOs or teacups flying around the solar system. I think you’re misplacing the word “belief”.
I really disagree with you on the binary state of things. The reason is because, even in real life there are things that cannot be known at any one time. For example, if I know of someone who was alive and traveled to the Philippines before the typhoon, I know the following: 1) that he or she was alive and may still be alive, 2) that he or she may be dead and 3) that he or she is in a state where I cannot know yet whether he or she is alive or dead. What I had mentioned in my prior post was an attempt to illustrate an intangible concept and not an effort to provide evidence.
This is where your train took another route. The idea of an unknown state applies to many things. You don’t seem to want to accept that for all practical purposes, I don’t believe there’s a God. But as matter of precision, there simply is no way for anyone to logically of factually prove it either way. The third state of things is making that conclusion: admitting that we can’t prove it. Instead, you’re making it out as if I’m debating in my head whether or not there’s a big magic guy in the sky. You’re missing the whole point.
“Enough with the coin-flip and Schrodinger's Cat and quantum physics metaphors”
Seriously? You’re not anti-science, are you? You don’t think that certain disciplines overlap and that often Philosophy is the meta-language for science? Maybe it’s you who needs more college courses or at least have some more education on why thought experiments and metaphors are essential in science. I imagine that you have a problem with mathematical beauty and cosmological elegance. Yes, scientists actually speak that way. Look it up.
But even you will hem and haw about definitions: “I am using conventions (eg soft vs hard) which are commonly-accepted by atheist organizations, eg atheist-experience.com, and used by the likes of Tracie Harris, Jen Peoples, Matt Dilahunty, etc.” Soft vs hard? C’mon it either is or it isn’t. Right? You either get a boner or you don't. Oh, wait! Can it be a little flacid. Yeah, I guess you can call that a third state of arousal. If we can’t agree on definitions or on the idea that some references make a distinction between atheism and agnosticism, then there’s no point continuing this conversation. For that reason, I doubt you’ll get your way and have agnosticism put out to pasture, certainly not any more than Dawkins is going to get his way (unfortunately for the world) and do away with religions. As a non-believer, I feel it’s a shame religion just doesn’t go away.
