Dick in the Dock Part. 6: “The Centerpiece” (babababom)

This chapter is supposed to be the centerpiece of Dawkins' book. So I would think Dawkins would at least make a serious attempt to justify the title here, right? Come on, I should know him better than that by now. He instead tries to convince use that God is "statistically unlikely", but if that is all he can do (if he could have even done that) then God cannot by his definition be a "delusion". In order for that there would have to be a probability of zero, and there would have to be "strong contradictory evidence" not, no evidence (and I am still not sure what Dawkins thinks such evidence would look like if there were some). But since this is Dawkins' "centerpiece", for the sake of augment I will pretend that the title was actually, "God is statistically unlikely, and I want to have more sex". 
First Dawkins tries to "raise our consciences" with Darwinism. He is apparently trying to free us from the design vs. random chance dialectic, with his supposed synthesis, natural selection. The problem with this Hegelian maneuver is, there is no distinguishable difference between design and natural selection. Design is natural selection, natural selection is design...the sleeper has awakened! Really, does Dawkins suppose that a nomadic hunter-gatherer in Sub-Saharan Africa went home one day and designed an electron microscope? All human technology and culture, is a product of evolution by natural selection. Some might want to distinguish this process as "artificial" selection, but that refers only to the initial criteria, not the process itself (and "inelegance" can really be seen simply as a measure of the process' efficiency) and any criteria must plug into some lager paradigm or else be, by definition, random. But since the whole point of this little exercise is supposedly raising our consciences, I suppose we should consider how consciences might effect the matter. It seems not at all. If we throw the proposition of "free will" in there we now get an effect, but it is wholly negative. Free will can only choose to follow the normal path or depart from it, it cannot improve upon it. Given this rather undesirable nature of free will, theologians have often questioned why God gave it to man in the first place? The stock answer is, of course, that God did not want a universe populated entirely with robots. As unsatisfying as this answer may be at times, it is at least viable given that there is a God Who has consciences and free will of His Own. However, purely mechanistic natural selection must see these things as benign anomalies at best, which are usually malignant, and if in fact they do have a degree of complexity, then they would surely drain resources from legitimate functions; so then, even at there best they would be somewhat malignant.Thus the "consciences" that Dawkins was attempting to raise, it turns out, is just a useless anomaly, possibly malignant, that natural selection has not yet corrected...there, feel better now?*

Then Dawkins has the audacity to compare the Darwinian hypothesis with sound science like general relativity. He probably thinks he can get away with this because most people do not seem to understand the difference between fact, theory and hypothesis. Many Darwinians like to tout that biological evolution is a fact, and so it is - a fact that was observed at least as far back as Moses the Hebrew. But facts are not what science is about. Science is about understanding the facts. Facts are the beginning of science they are not its end, and to this end there is a certain method. A hypothesis attempts to encompass all known phenomena in a coherent paradigm. However, many hypotheses might describe the same set of phenomena, so a good hypothesis is distinguished by its aptitude for becoming a theory. A theory makes definite predictions that can be tested and verified. Obviously the observed phenomena that went into the initial hypothesis have very limited value as theoretical predictions. The Darwinian Hypothesis does make a couple of predictions that could be theoretically useful, they are: that life can spontaneously come from none life, and that simple life forms may in time evolve into more complex ones. Admittedly, the life molecule experiment poses some significant challenges, and as some would point out that to properly conduct these experiments could take millions of years. So I am willing to acknowledge tentative theory status while the experiments are being conducted. But to take this tentative theory and compare it to good, solid science like general relativity, that can be truly tested any day of the week, is just absurd. 
Dawkins then tries to use the Darwinian hypothesis to explain the greater complexity in the overall universe. This is rather critical to him, for it is that complexity that begets the biological complexity. He does this by making some rather bizarre suggestions. One of which is that there is some sort of Aseitic quality to Euclidian geometry, if he has an argument for this proposal; he certainly fails to mention it. Then Dawkins suggests that the primordial nature of the universe is not really as complex as it seems, because there are possibly other combinations of fundamental factors that could lead to life. This is in fact plausible. However, it does nothing to decrease the complexity of the universe we are in. (would Dawkins think that the human genome is any less complex because there are other arrangements of DNA that can lead to life?) However, the numbers of fundamental universes that can lead to any sort of significant complexity (much less life) are almost certainly a tiny fraction of potential paradigms. But even given that the fundamental nature of the universe allows for the formation of complex elements and chemical compounds like DNA (which is a pretty enormous gift) there is still a lot of primordial complexity to account for. For example, matter itself. Why not anti-matter? Or more to the point, why any significant excess of either one? There could be an undetected reason why nature would prefer matter to anti-matter, but that would simply point to an even deeper, more primordial complexity. But possibly even more astounding, is the fabric of the dimensions themselves. Intricately and precisely formed at the most primordial level to produce galaxies, stars, planets etc. Had they strayed but a little, our universe would be filled only with enormous black holes or puffy clouds of helium floating in sea of hydrogen. In fact our universe is hemorrhaging complexity, and has it seems, almost from the beginning. At the one end particles (each one a victory over statistical improbability) decay, while at the other black holes gobble up vast amounts of untold complexity, lost forever to a singularity. Our universe gains localized areas of relatively high complexity only by sacrificing its overall complexity. Dawkins' crane goes up, only because an enormous counterbalance goes down.
Parallel universes are great fun, at least in fantasy novels like C. S. Lewis' Narnia Chronicles. However, until we actually locate Mr. Ketterly's rings or something of that nature, they do not really have anything to do with science. The only one that might come close would be Sagan's old favorite, the oscillating universe. It can at least to some existent be disproven, and it pretty much has been. However, at the moment, the cosmic cascade and " magaverse" smorgasbord have about as much to do with science as Prof. Lewis' Wood Between the Worlds.
Dawkins also appears to have difficulty conceptualizing. Of course when it comes to absolute nothing, most people do. But then most people do not write books demonstrating this difficulty to the world. Dawkins supposes that it is statistically more likely to get something simple form nothing then it is to get something complex from nothing. However, there does not seem to be much scientific data to back up this claim. Apparently there is not a lot of grant money earmarked for studying nothing (unless of course you are a modern art major). But even if unlimited resources were available, it would still be rather difficult to study nothing, being trapped as we are in this apparently impenetrable bubble of something. Perhaps the problem is best illustrated mathematically. Try getting from zero to one using only multiplication; it is exactly as easy to get to a hundred or a million or a sextillion or any number in-between. (Hint, it can’t be done.)

* Carl Sagan use to say "we are a way for the Cosmos to know itself" but why would the Cosmos want to know itself? (The answer is within the problem.)

Dick in the Dock Part. 5: Chapter 3

In this chapter Dawkins addresses some of the “classical” arguments for the existence of God. As I have never been particularly impressed by any of these arguments, I would probably make a poor apologist for them.
The exception, of course, is Pascal’s wager. Dawkins makes a hash out of it, supposing it is about existential cookies. How did princess Leia put it? “If money is all that you love, then that’s what you’ll receive.” Well, if existential cookies are what you love, then don’t make silly wagers with them. But if you happen to be interested in true absolutes, meaning, value, purpose, then God is the only game in town. That is what Pascal’s wager is all about.

Dick in the Dock Part. 4: Chapter 2

In this chapter Dawkins gets around to defining the other element in his title proposition "God". Basically his definition is, "There is a super human supernatural intelligence that deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us."
This definition if fine with me, but how exactly could such a proposition be a delusion?
The only meaningful difference between this God, and Einstein/Spinoza’s "God" (which Dawkins apparently does not have a problem with) is consciousness.
But like the color conundrum, consciousness is not something that can be scientifically examined. I suppose that trees might have consciousness, it is probably not exactly like my consciousness, but then I do not suppose that God's is either. In fact there is no reason to suppose that those entities I encounter in the proposition "external reality" that look a bit more like what I see in the mirror then trees do, have what I call consciousness. In fact there is no experiment I can perform that can determine whether anything besides myself is conscious or merely an anomaly within my own conscious. To do so I would have to become it (or it become me) in which case its consciousness would be mine.

This problem is further demonstrated in the great prayer experiment. Had the experiment yielded "positive" results (and subsequent experiments confirmed it) it would have indicated that "God" was just a force of nature, that humans could manipulate like any other, having no free will of "Its" own. In deed the very fact that one would attempt to experiment scientifically with something indicates that one supposes the thing operates in a consistent, indeed mechanistic, manner or else the experiment would be useless.

In this chapter Dawkins also attempts to explain why he is for SETI, but not apparently, the C of E. It's the old Drake Equation. The DE is a series of factors all multiplied together. Obviously if any of the elements is zero the result will be zero. And currently all evidence points to one of the factors (fl to be precise) being no greater than zero. So there is still really no reason for Dawkins chauvinism.

Dick in the Dock Part. 3: Chapter 1

Dawkins spends most of this chapter trying to convince us that Einstein was not a theist. I would have found this a lot less boring if I had ever thought Einstein was a theist, which I have not (at least not in Dawkins sense). But whether or not he was an atheist, if reports are accurate there is little doubt that he was a blasphemer. After the 1918 expedition to test the general theory of relativity yielded positive results Einstein is rumored to have said "If the results had been negative, I would have felt sorry for the Lord* but the theory is correct." Certainly it is difficult to reconcile such a statement with a genuine belief in God, it is also difficult to reconcile with a genuine belief in Science .
I do not know if there was a hand writing on the wall, or if Einstein was shown the unified field theory before he died, but he did not make any significant scientific discovery after his statement about general relativity…hum.


*Presumably “God”