Dick in the Dock Part 11: Dawkins loves the little children…

Once an organism (and perhaps especially one of Homo sapien parents) reaches a certain, apparently arbitrary, level of development Dawkins apparently ceases to think it is expendable and thinks its well being very important. At least he thinks it is important to protect them from religion. Thus his notorious statement about religion being child abuse. I do have to agree with him to a certain extent; that is, I do think that man-made religious systems are child abuse. But then I believe there really is a God, which such systems would be an abomination to. However, since Dawkins does not, what is he fussing about?
In order for something to be abused, it must presumably have some proper use. So we must ask, what is the proper use of children, that is, what are they for? Well, according to natural selection, the purpose of children is to propagate their parent’s genes. So then anything which interfered with this purpose would be abuse. Now Dawkins complains that Roman Catholics fill their children’s heads full of a bunch of nonsense. Be that as it may, it is tough to argue with results. There may not really be a nasty place called purgatory where you will have to go if you engage in homosexual acts or use birth control, but you know what? Catholics have a lot more kids than atheists do.
After blathering on about children for most of the chapter (and making very little if any sense) Dawkins abruptly switches gears, and starts talking about how important the Bible is as a cultural basis and literary work. That it certainly is, but it is that only if one excepts its truth claims. Here I must pause to make a distinction, many people confuse “truth” with “reality”. Truth is that which deals with the immaterial, the rational, the metaphysical. Reality is that which deals with the material, the empirical, the physical. Now I can read J.R.R. Tolkien’s works without having to lend too much credence to the “reality” of the events being related, but I have to give at least some credence to the Truth of the paradigm, or it becomes pure gibberish. The Bible is like this but even in a more profound way. The Bible claims both supreme Truth, and that the Word was made flesh, Truth and Reality where fused. This proposition must either be regarded as true or false, if it is true it is True, and if it is false, then it is worthless as literature or any thing else.

Dick in the Dock Part 10: No species is an island, well actually every spicics is.

Dawkins spends yet another chapter demonstrating why atheists cannot be moral. And as usual it gets back to the lack of moral absolutes. For example, Dawkins does not think there is anything wrong with abortion. This is because he supposes it is all about developed central nervous systems. And after all numerous vertebrates with as developed a central nervous system as a six week old human fetus are killed every day by humans for more or less uncritical reasons*. Of course if we were to take this central nervous system argument seriously, it could be argued either way. One could just as easily say that these animals have as developed a central nerves system as a six-week-old human fetus and should therefor be protected. But the point is that arguing from something analog such as central nervous system development can never bring one to a meaningful moral determination. A newly conceived zygote may be no more biologically sophisticated than a carrot, which just about every body concedes would be acceptable for me to eat. Yet Prof. Dawkins would no doubt take offence if I regarded him in the same manner. But can he give any definite point that distinguishes “us” from “them”? Many of his ilk like to use natural birth, but if he is using central nervous system development as his distinguishing principle, this event is inconsequential.
What then does separate us from our lunch? Well if we are to be moral about it, we must have a definite principle to apply, that is to say, an absolute. And the only real absolute available to us in this matter is the species. Either an organism is able to mate and produce fertile offspring with me or they are not. Some may argue that this is actually not as absolute a standard as it appears, on account of so called “link specimens” (linking two otherwise separate groups by being able to mate with both) but if such specimens exist then the so-called “linked” species would in fact be one species. And there would still be a definite point where the links became extinct and the groups became separate species. However, nature does not seem to be much in favor of such links. Most organisms live in well contained yet internally integrated species, particularly of importance to us – our own, since all organisms out side our species are equally not us. Lest there be any objections from the LGM, this is not to say that we should necessarily view all organisms outside our species as lunch, but rather that we should view no member of our own species as expendable.


*One could consider eating critical, but sense other food sources are often available; I would have to consider it not quite.

Dick in the Dock Part 9: It is written.

Dawkins does not think much of the Bible, but that is supposedly not his point in this chapter. His point is supposedly that nobody actually uses the Bible as there moral absolute anyway. Well I don’t know about that, I practice every day (except on Shabbat) so that when I see an Amalekite I can smite him!
But what Dawkins really dislikes is moral absolutes of any kind, regardless of where they come from. He prefers to think of morality as evolving. Again, this is simply behavior patterns, not morality. In order for there to be morality there must be a free moral agent and a moral ought. One could base their morality on natural selection, but that would simply make natural selection the moral absolute.
Dawkins tries to get his “morality” from the Zeitgeist. But what does it mean to be filed with the Zeitgeist? It means simply to blow with the wind, or rather to chase it. For one’s own arbitrary opinions, prejudices and inclinations would be part of it, with no principle by which to know which to cultivate which to eliminate, just a statistical average which is always changing. Eventually, of course, natural selection will weigh in on such matters, but that is still not making any moral pronouncements (unless you think we “ought” to survive, but then that still requires a moral absolute external to the Zeitgeist).
Dawkins did say something I agree with though - “If there are moral absolutes…they are available to every one, even without scripture.”
Well, as someone who does believe in moral absolutes, I think that is true. I think the source of such absolutes must be God, Who is accessible to all, and is manifest in the things that are made.

Dick in the Dock Part. 8: Moral Fortitude

In this chapter Dawkins talks about morality and how it evolved. Or rather behavior patters and social “norms”. Morality as morality is somewhat more elusive. If we were to take natural selection seriously (and it seems apparent Dawkins does not) it offers us a fairly stark morality: self-preservation and procreation, and a concentric chauvinism to one’s self, one’s clan, one’s race and one’s species. Any thing outside this is by natural selection, “immoral”.
Dawkins does attempt to demonstrate that much of what we consider to be “moral” at least at some point was connected to this principle but may now be a “misfiring”. But this is precisely what he thinks religion is aswell. Yet for some reason (or perhaps more likely no reason) he thinks that some of the misfires are good and some are bad, why? If he has an explanation, he certainly does not bother to share it with us.
Of course the very concept of a “misfiring”, assumes on some level an absolute standard. And any absolute standard in the realm of what is traditionally thought of, as “morality” must come from God. I must admit, I thought Dawkins would come up with some lame argument as to why this is not the case, but in fact he essentially capitulated. That is probably because Dawkins is not much of a fan of moral absolutes any way. He instead prefers what he calls “utilitarianism”.

Al: Mummsy, can I shoot Prof. Dawkins now?
Mummsy: No dear that would be wrong.
Al: But we can use his meat to feed these starving children.
Mummsy: Well, I guess it is all right then.

The problem of course is that utilitarianism is hogwash (that's American for “rubbish”). It is simply a shell game with ends and means. But if the end does not have an absolute backing up its validity it is no more a grounds for morality then anything else.

Dick in the Dock Part. 7: Don’t get Cocky!

In this chapter Dawkins attempts to give a Darwinian explanation for the origin of religion. This probably would have gone better if Dawkins had not demonstrated a complete ineptitude regarding biological evolution by natural selection on the first page. First he tries to tell us that every thing in the biological world is there for a "reason" because nature "selected" it for survival. But this could only be the case if evolution were "finished", which by definition it cannot be. (I bet T. Rex thought he was the last word in evolution, until that asteroid hit.) According to Darwinism, there will always be "random" mutations, and it will take nature time to cull them. But even under the reasonable presumption, that every widely disseminated characteristic within a species is useful, Dawkins analogy of peacocks and bowerbirds is ridiculous . Does Dawkins really think the peacock's tail is there to attract peahens? Maybe he is old school, and thinks females are just silly things, and there is nothing even "natural selection all mighty" can do about it*. But those of us that do not live in Dawkins fantasyland realize that if the peacock's tails served no real purpose, nature would have long ago selected the peahens that chose the more sensible less extravagant mates.
Unfortunately Dawkins “meme” theory does not go much better than his pea theory. This really is too bad, because I for one would really like a good explanation as to why people seem so universally eager to chase after superstitious nonsense. Like Saul of Tarsus, I am simply baffled, does not nature teach? Is not it manifest in the things that are made? Cannot it be accessed through simple philosophy? Yes, yes and yes, but still people seem to prefer silly lies to the simple and elegant Truth.
Dawkins proposes that children just believe every thing their parents tell them, don’t swim in crocodile infested waters, sacrifice a goat to bring the rains, it is all good to the mind of a child. I do not necessarily agree with this premise, but even if we except it, for argument sake, I still don’t see how the whole sacrifice a goat thing got started in the first place? Even if we can chalk it up to a random meme mutation, certainly this would seem to be one that nature would select against, in favor of more scientific tribes, who realize that sacrificing a goat don’t got didly to do with bringing the rains, and thus have a little extra chow on hand when the dry spell does come.

* Obviously I do not think even Dawkins is silly enough to actually think a peacock’s tail is there to attract mates, but if he is going to treat us as if we were, then turnabout is fair play.

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”

Dick in the Dock Part. 2: The preface.

The preface is pretty bad, but then, my hopes were not high. I would recommend that if Prof. Dawkins wishes the 95% of Americans, whose acceptance he seems to covet so, to think he is anything but a pompous bag of fish and chips, he should avoid fraises like "intellectual elite". However, he does make one important statement in the preface, he defines one of the key elements in his title proposition. He defines delusion as "a false belief, held in the presence of contrary evidence." So if Prof. Dawkins is to earn his title, he must in this book demonstrate that "God" (yet to be defined) falls into this category, we will see.

Dick in the Dock. Part 1

Last Friday our old friend Richard Dawkins was on the Alan Colmes show, and of course it featured the usual drivel. One caller did get the better of Prof. Dawkins, actually getting him to curse. Good o'l Alan caught it before it polluted the otherwise pristine airways of New York. But I must say I am rather disappointed in Prof. Dawkins. I mean really, when we fly a professor all the way from Oxford, we do not expect to hear curse words we can here from any NJ Gangster, we expect to hear rubbish! And when Prof. Dawkins is talking that is usually precisely what we hear. He did make a few snide attempts at irony, but I am afraid it went over most Americans' heads. I am afraid the American callers did not do much better than the British ones, but at least they were not much worse. However, the American call screeners were obviously not as well trained; they actually let some calls that bordered on legitimate questions through. Of course without proper follow-up even the best question is worthless; Dawkins will simply spew his mindless drivel, in response, unchallenged. As of course he did. He also kept making vague references to his book (the one with “God” in the title). He seems to think that the answers to all the questions he fails so miserably with on the air are somehow in there. Well, I doubt it, but to be fair I suppose I should checkout a copy from my local library and give it a look-see. Perhaps a full report will be forthcoming.