sethpayne wrote:But certainly, if Dawkins can demonstrate a strong command of both ancient and modern philosophy as it relates to science and theism -- and produce original work in the area -- I would absolutely reconsider my position.
Seth
You can wait until kingdom come to expect from him to appeal ancient & modern philosophy as it relates to science; what a pure garbage.... The guy talks about nonsense, elements of life that can be evaluated by Science, not philosophy. You need to look elsewhere to satisfy your philosophical needs. this guy is not for you.
"As I say, it never ceases to amaze me how gullible some of our Church members are" Harold B. Lee, "Admonitions for the Priesthood of God", Ensign, Jan 1973
Just returned from the University of Miami Lecture by Richard Dawkins. The auditorium where the lecture was to be given was filled to capacity about 90 minutes before the start time and the audience eventually filled six additional lecture halls on campus.
Dawkins spoke from his new book entitled "The Magic if Reality". He explained that the book was aimed mainly at young teenagers. Each chapter starts with several well-told stories, legends or myths. In each chapter, the author then goes on to explain why these mythes and commonly held "truths" amnong believers are not reality, but that reality is just a beautiful and just as interesting, once properly understood.
In this format, the book covers critical thinking, ethics, evolution (biology), astronomy, creation myths, geology, and so forth. The book is well illustrated and provides a few useful critical thinking tools for beginners.
Stak will no doubt be happy to know that Dawkins did pay homage to David Hume, and described in some detail Hume's treatment of the problem of miracles.
I was trying to take notes but finally decided to just sit back and enjoy the lecture, so to provide a flavor of Dawkins description of Hume's approach to miracles and the supernatural, I will shamelessly quote from the David Hume Wikipedia page:
In the context of miracles, this means that a miraculous event should be labeled a miracle only where it would be even more unbelievable (by principles of probability) for it not to be. Hume mostly discusses miracles as testimony, of which he writes that when a person reports a miraculous event we [need to] balance our belief in their veracity against our belief that such events do not occur. Following this rule, only where it is considered, as a result of experience, less likely that the testimony is false than that a miracle occur should we believe in miracles.
One of several possible translations: a reported event should be considered as a miracle only if it is even less probable that it did not occur as claimed.
Dawkins essentially continued along this line of thinking as it was originally developed by Hume:
• People often lie, and they have good reasons to lie about miracles occurring either because they believe they are doing so for the benefit of their religion or because of the fame that results. • People by nature enjoy relating miracles they have heard without caring for their veracity and thus miracles are easily transmitted even where false. • Hume notes that miracles seem to occur mostly in "ignorant" and "barbarous" nations and times, and the reason they don't occur in the "civilized" societies is such societies aren't awed by what they know to be natural events. • The miracles of each religion argue against all other religions and their miracles, and so even if a proportion of all reported miracles across the world fit Hume's requirement for belief, the miracles of each religion make the other less likely.
The audience clearly responded to Dawkins. He does a great job from the lectern and in person.
Probably will not be buying this book for my library, but will be buying it for my grandkids - as required reading.
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David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."
DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."
DrW wrote:Just returned from the University of Miami Lecture by Richard Dawkins. ........snip..........Probably will not be buying this book for my library, but will be buying it for my grandkids - as required reading.
Almost forgot: Dawkins' book, "The Magic of Reality", will also be available as a computer or mobile device application with full text and illustrations, as well as a number of animations and games. The computerized games include Newton's cannon (animated demonstration of what it takes to fire a projectile into orbit) and several others.
Don't know for sure how the digital version will be marketed. However from the short demonstration that was presented during the lecture, creationists, evolution deniers and the Discovery Institute should be afraid, very afraid. The digital version includes interesting and engaging interactive (real) science class lessons for grade, middle and high school teachers in abundance.
For those who are interested in genealogy (and who isn't) there is a fairly complete pedigree chart of humankind reaching back for 185 million generations.
An application that lets you pop in and see what your grandparents looked like every so often for 185 million generations is included - quite cool actually. Should send the Evangelical Fundamentalists, and many Mormons, screaming from the room.
As mentioned, one of the Chapters is on creation myths. The Tasmaniam creation myth, which I had never heard before, was compared to the Norse creation myth and both of these to the Garden of Eden creation myth. It was noted how the creation myths were similar in that there was often a friend and an enemy of mankind involved, and that body parts were sometimes exchanged (Adams rib in the Garden of Eden and the tail of a Kangaroo in Tasmania, for example.)
One Chapter I would have loved to have seen Dawkins write is one wherein his simple critical thinking skill tool kit, with its elementary criteria, was applied to Mormonism. Dawkins has stated from the lectern that the Joseph Smith story and the Mormon foundational truth claims are among the most obvious false belief sets in all of modern western religion. But alas, he didn't deem the Mormon silliness worthy of a chapter on his book or (as far as I know) even a mention.
David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."
DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."
Speaking of creation myths, here is the Japanese myth:
Before the heavens and the earth came into existence, all was a chaos, unimaginably limitless and without definite shape or form. Eon followed eon: then, lo! out of this boundless, shapeless mass something light and transparent rose up and formed the heaven. This was the Plain of High Heaven, in which materialized a deity called Ame-no-Minaka-Nushi-no-Mikoto (the Deity-of-the-August-Center-of-Heaven). Next the heavens gave birth to a deity named Takami-Musubi-no-Mikoto (the High-August-Producing-Wondrous-Deity), followed by a third called Kammi-Musubi-no-Mikoto (the Divine-Producing-Wondrous-Deity). These three divine beings are called the Three Creating Deities.
In the meantime what was heavy and opaque in the void gradually precipitated and became the earth, but it had taken an immeasurably long time before it condensed sufficiently to form solid ground. In its earliest stages, for millions and millions of years, the earth may be said to have resembled oil floating, medusa-like, upon the face of the waters. Suddenly like the sprouting up of a reed, a pair of immortals were born from its bosom. These were the Deity Umashi-Ashi-Kahibi-Hikoji-no-Mikoto (the Pleasant-Reed-Shoot-Prince-Elder-Deity) and the Deity Ame-no-Tokotachi-no-Mikoto (The Heavenly-Eternally-Standing-Deity). . . .
Many gods were thus born in succession, and so they increased in number, but as long as the world remained in a chaotic state, there was nothing for them to do. Whereupon, all the Heavenly deities summoned the two divine beings, Izanagi and Izanami, and bade them descend to the nebulous place, and by helping each other, to consolidate it into terra firma. "We bestow on you," they said, "this precious treasure, with which to rule the land, the creation of which we command you to perform." So saying they handed them a spear called Ama-no-Nuboko, embellished with costly gems. The divine couple received respectfully and ceremoniously the sacred weapon and then withdrew from the presence of the Deities, ready to perform their august commission. Proceeding forthwith to the Floating Bridge of Heaven, which lay between the heaven and the earth, they stood a while to gaze on that which lay below. What they beheld was a world not yet condensed, but looking like a sea of filmy fog floating to and fro in the air, exhaling the while an inexpressibly fragrant odor. They were, at first, perplexed just how and where to start, but at length Izanagi suggested to his companion that they should try the effect of stirring up the brine with their spear. So saying he pushed down the jeweled shaft and found that it touched something. Then drawing it up, he examined it and observed that the great drops which fell from it almost immediately coagulated into an island, which is, to this day, the Island of Onokoro. Delighted at the result, the two deities descended forthwith from the Floating Bridge to reach the miraculously created island. In this island they thenceforth dwelt and made it the basis of their subsequent task of creating a country. Then wishing to become espoused, they erected in the center oPound the island a pillar, the Heavenly August Pillar, and built around it a great palace called the Hall of Eight Fathoms. Thereupon the male Deity turning to the left and the female Deity to the right, each went round the pillar in opposite directions. When they again met each other on the further side of the pillar, Izanami, the female Deity, speaking first, exclaimed: "How delightful it is to meet so handsome a youth!" To which Izanagi, the male Deity, replied: "How delightful I am to have fallen in with such a lovely maiden!" After having spoken thus, the male Deity said that it was not in order that woman should anticipate man in a greeting. Nevertheless, they fell into connubial relationship, having been instructed by two wagtails which flew to the spot. Presently the Goddess bore her divine consort a son, but the baby was weak and boneless as a leech. Disgusted with it, they abandoned it on the waters, putting it in a boat made of reeds. Their second offspring was as disappointing as the first. The two Deities, now sorely disappointed at their failure and full of misgivings, ascended to Heaven to inquire of the Heavenly Deities the causes of their misfortunes. The latter performed the ceremony of divining and said to them: "It is the woman's fault. In turning round the Pillar, it was not right and proper that the female Deity should in speaking have taken precedence of the male. That is the reason." The two Deities saw the truth of this divine suggestion, and made up their minds to rectify the error. So, returning to the earth again, they went once more around the Heavenly Pillar. This time Izanagi spoke first saying: "How delightful to meet so beautiful a maiden!" "How happy I am," responded Izanami, "that I should meet such a handsom youth!" This process was more appropriate and in accordance with the law of nature. After this, all the children born to them left nothing to be desired. First, the island of Awaji was born, next, Shikoku, then, the island of Oki, followed by Kyushu; after that, the island Tsushima came into being, and lastly, Honshu, the main island of Japan. The name of Oyashi- ma-kuni (the Country of the Eight Great Islands) was given to these eight islands. After this, the two Deities became the parents of numerous smaller islands destined to surround the larger ones.
The Dude wrote:Why would anyone recommend Dawkins to atheists? Better to recommend him to fence sitters, especially late high school and college-aged fence sitters. That's when I encountered him, and all for the better.
Yes and he points out in the preface, the book is for "fencesitters" not the word he uses though.
" I suspect–well, I am sure–that there were lots of people out there who have been brought up in some religion or other, are unhappy in it, don't believe it, or are worried about the evils that are done in its name; people who feel vague yearnings to leave their parents’ religion and wish they could, but just don't realize that leaving is an option. If you are one of them, this book is for you. It is intended to raise consciousness–raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one. You can be an atheist who is happy, balanced, moral and intellectually fulfilled. That is the 1st of my consciousness–raising messages. I want to raise consciousness in 3 other ways which I’ll come on to."
Dawkins does have a number of comments to make about Swinburne who he obviously in not impressed with and has little respect for.
The God Delusion 2008 softcover edition
page 176
Some physicists are known to be religious [Russell Stannard and the Rev. John Polkinghorne are the 2 British examples I have mentioned]. Predictably, they seize upon the improbability of the physical constants all being tuned in their more or less narrow Goldilocks zones, and suggests that these must be a cosmic intelligence who deliberately did the tuning. I have already dismissed all such suggestions as raising bigger problems than they solve. But what attempts have theists made to apply? How do they cope with the argument that any God capable of designing a universe, carefully and foresightfully tuned to lead to our evolution, must be a supremely complex and improbable entity who needs an even bigger explanation than the one he is supposed to provide?
The theologian Richard Swinburne, as we have learned to expect, thinks he has an answer to this problem, and he expounds it in his book “Is there a God”?. He begins by showing that his heart is in the right place by convincingly demonstrating why we should always prefer the simplest hypothesis that fits the facts. Science explains complex things in terms of the interactions of simpler things, ultimately the interactions of fundamental particles. I (and I daresay you) think it is a beautifully simple idea that all things are made of fundamental particles which, although exceedingly numerous, are drawn from the small, finite set of types of particles. If we are skeptical, it is likely to be because we think the idea too simple. But for Swinburne it is not simple at all, quite the reverse.
Given that the number of particles of any one type, say electrons, is large, Swinburne thinks it's too much of a coincidence that so many should have the same properties. One electron, he could stomach. But billions and billions of electrons, all with the same properties, that is what really excites his incredulity. For him it would be simpler, more natural, less demanding of explanation, if all electrons were different from each other. Worse, no one electron should naturally retain its properties for more than an instant at a time; each should change capriciously, haphazardly and fleetingly from moment to moment. This is Swinburne's view of the simple, native state of affairs. Anything more uniform (what you are I would call more simple) requires a special explanation. ‘It is only because electrons and bits of copper and all other material objects have the same powers in the 25th century as they did in the 19th century that things are as they are now’.
Enter God. God comes to the rescue by deliberately and continuously sustaining the properties of all those billions of electrons and bits of copper, and neutralizing their otherwise ingrained inclination to wild and erratic fluctuation. That is why when you've seen one electron you’ve seen them all; that is why bits of copper all behave like bits of copper, and that is why each electron and each bit of copper stays the same as itself from microsecond to microsecond and from century to century. It is because God constantly keeps a finger on each and every particle, curbing its reckless excesses and whipping it into line with its colleagues to keep them all the same.
But how can Swinburne possibly maintain that this hypothesis of God simultaneously keeping a gazillion fingers on wayward electrons is a simple hypothesis? It is of coarse, precisely the opposite of simple. Swinburne pulls off the trick to his own satisfaction by a breathtaking piece of intellectual chutzpah. He asserts, without justification, that God is only a single substance. With brilliant economy of explanatory causes, compared with all those gigazillions of independent electrons all just happening to be the same!
Theism claims that every other object which exists is caused to exist and kept in existence by just one substance, God. And it claims that every property which every substance has is due to God causing or permitting it to exist. It is a hallmark of a simple explanation to postulate few causes. There could in this respect be no simpler explanation and one which postulated only one cause. Theism is simpler than polytheism. And theism postulates for its one cause, a person [with] infinite power [God can do anything logically possible], infinite knowledge [God knows everything logically possible to know], and infinite freedom.
Swinburne generously concedes that God cannot accomplish feats that are logically impossible, someone feels grateful for this forbearance. Having said that, there is no limit to the explanatory purposes to which God's infinite power is put. Is science having a little difficulty explaining X? No problem. Don't give X another glance. God's infinite power is effortlessly wheeled in to explain X (along with everything else), and it is always a supremely simple explanation because, after all, there is only one God. What could be simpler than that?
Well, actually almost everything. A God capable of continuously monitoring and controlling the individual status of every particle in the universe cannot be simple. His existence is going to need a mammoth explanation in its own right. Worse (from the point of view of simplicity), other corners of God's giant consciousness are simultaneously preoccupied with the doings and emotions and prayers of every single human being–and whatever intelligent aliens there might be on other planets in this and 100 billion other galaxies. He even, according to Swinburne, has to decide continuously not to intervene miraculously to save us when we get cancer. That would never do, for, ‘If God answered most prayers for a relative to recover from cancer, then cancer would no longer be a problem for humans to solve’. And then what would be find to do with our time?
Not all theologians go as far as Swinburne. Nevertheless, the remarkable suggestion that the God Hypothesis is simple can be found in other modern theological writings. Keith Ward, then Regius Prof. of Divinity at Oxford, was very clear on the matter in his 1996 book “God, Chance and Necessity”:
As a matter of fact, the theist would claim that God is a very elegant, economical and fruitful explanation for the existence of the universe. It is economical because it attributes the existence and nature of absolutely everything in the universe to just one being, an ultimate cause which assigns a reason for the existence of everything, including itself. It is elegant because from one key idea–the idea of the most perfect possible being–the whole nature of God and the existence of the universe can be intelligibly explicated.
Like Swinburne, Ward mistakes what it means to explain something and he also seems not to understand what it means to say of something that it is to be simple. I am not clear whether Ward really thinks God is simple, a whether the above passage represents a temporary ‘for the sake of argument’ exercise.
-------------- page 87 The results, reported in the American Heart Journal of April 2006, were clear-cut. There was no difference between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not. What a surprise. There was a difference between those who knew they had been prayed for and those who did not know one way or the other; but it went in the wrong direction. Those who knew they had been the beneficiaries of prayer suffered significantly more complications than those who did not. Was God doing a bit of smiting to show his disapproval of the whole barmy enterprise? It seems more probable that those patients who knew they were being prayed for suffered additional stress in consequence: ‘performance anxiety’, as the experimenters put it. Dr. Charles Bethea, one of the researchers, said “it may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call him in their prayer team?” In today's litigious society, it is too much to hope that those patients suffering heart complications, as a consequence of knowing they were receiving experimental prayers, might put together class-action lawsuit against the Templeton Foundation?
It will be no surprise that this study was opposed by theologians, perhaps anxious about its capacity to bring ridicule upon religion. The Oxford theologian Richard Swinburne, writing after the study failed, objected to it on the grounds that God answers prayers only if they are offered up for good reasons. Praying for somebody rather than somebody else, simply because of the fall of the dice in the design of a double-blind experiment, does not constitute a good reason. God would see through it. That, indeed was a point of my Bob Newhart satire, and Swinburne is right to make it to. But in other parts of this paper Swinburne himself is beyond satire. Not for the 1st time, he seeks to justify suffering in a world run by God:
My suffering provides me with the opportunity to show courage and patience. It provides you with the opportunity to show sympathy and to help alleviate my suffering. And it provide society with the opportunity to choose whether or not to invest a lot of money in trying to find a cure for this or that to the kind of suffering… Although a good God regrets are suffering, his greatest concern is surely that each of us shall show patience, sympathy and generosity and thereby, form a holy character. Some people badly need to be ill for their own sake, and some people badly need to be ill to provide important choices for others. Only in that way can some people be encouraged to make serious choices about the sort of person they are to be. For other people, the illness is not so valuable.
This grotesque piece of reasoning, so damningly typical of the theological mind, reminds me of an occasion when I was on a television panel with Swinburne and also with our Oxford colleague Prof. Peter Atkins. Swinburne at one point attempted to justify the Holocaust on the grounds that it gave the Jews a wonderful opportunity to be courageous and noble. Peter Atkins splendidly growled, ‘May you rot in hell’.
Another piece of theological reasoning occurs further along in Swinburne's article. He rightly suggests that if God wanted to demonstrate his own existence he would find better ways to do it than slightly biasing the recovery statistics of experimental versus control groups of heart patients. If God existed and wanted to convince us of it. He could ‘fill the world with super miracles’. But then Swinburne lets fall his gem: “There is quite a lot of evidence anyway of God's existence, and too much might not be good for us”. Too much evidence might not be good for us. Richard Swinburne is the recently retired holder of one of Britain's most prestigious professorships of theology, and is a fellow of the British Academy. If it's a theologian you want, they don’t come much more distinguished. Perhaps you don’t want a theologian.
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marg wrote:Dawkins does have a number of comments to make about Swinburne who he obviously in not impressed with and has little respect for.
And he does a terrible job of it. Swinburne’s book “ Is there a God?” is a reader’s digest version of his fuller argument that stretches across 3 books and 50 plus journal articles. If you actually want to present a relevant and undercutting defeat of what Swinburne says, you go where his arguments are best constructed, not a version that’s written at the popular level.
Look at what you quoted:
Dawkins via marg wrote:But how can Swinburne possibly maintain that this hypothesis of God simultaneously keeping a gazillion fingers on wayward electrons is a simple hypothesis? It is of coarse, precisely the opposite of simple. Swinburne pulls off the trick to his own satisfaction by a breathtaking piece of intellectual chutzpah. He asserts, without justification, that God is only a single substance. With brilliant economy of explanatory causes, compared with all those gigazillions of independent electrons all just happening to be the same!
That doesn’t even deal with the doctrine of divine simplicity, I don’t even think that objection even gets off the ground, nor is it even fair to Swinburne. You are going to hand wave an idea away that takes pages to explain in just one or two paragraphs?
This does a disservice to both Atheists and Theists, and does nothing to advance the discussion.
The Dude wrote:Why would anyone recommend Dawkins to atheists? Better to recommend him to fence sitters, especially late high school and college-aged fence sitters. That's when I encountered him, and all for the better.
I think that is the worst group to give it to. It would be starting them out disadvantaged.
In his criticism of The God Delusion on his blog, Stak goes after Dawkins for claiming that the arguments for God's existence are "spectacularly weak", and then not paying more attention to the work of the theist Richard Swinburne.
Stak claims that Dawkins was somehow avoiding the best arguments for the existence of God by going after an easier target such as Steve Unwin, who claims to be able to calculate the probability of God and come up with, If I recall correctly, 67.5% (note the 3 place precision) using a "modified Bayesian theorem". Unwin is quite a self-promoter and his earth shattering (and no doubt absolutely accurate and reliable) calculation made quite a splash in the world of popular Christian literature, ending up all over the internet and even garnering a Wikipedia page.
Richard Swinburne, on the other hand (as Stak points out) is a serious and recognized British academic. While he also has a Wikipedia page, I doubt that the average American Christian has ever heard of him.
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science has, as one of its objectives, the daunting task of bringing reason and science to the populace of the nation with strongest economy and military force on the planet - a country in which more than 60% of the citizens believe that humankind descended from two people who magically appeared in a garden less than 10,000 years ago, and that the God who put them there will come back to take those who believe in him to heaven while those who do not believe in him burn here on Earth.
When taking on such a task, one uses the limited resources available to show the fallacies in the claims of those to whom the religious look for affirmation of their unfounded belief (such as Unwin), rather than serious academics (such as Swinburne) who few in America would even recognize.
Stak apparently assumes that The God Delusion was written for atheists. In fact, if he were to learn more about Dawkins and the Dawkins Foundation, he would realize that Dawkins is writing for misguided believers. I hope Stak will understand the pragmatism in play here and cut Prof. Dawkins some slack.
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David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."
DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."