My Thoughts on Richard Dawkins' Lecture at Queens University of Charlotte
According to lore, P.T. Barnum often displayed the Fiji Mermaid as a sideshow attraction, which was really the torso of a Monkey stitched together with the tail of a fish. Yet, this curiosity attracted great crowds and many traveling entertainers have since duplicated the stunt. This is certainly a fitting illustration for describing Dawkins’ recent lecture hosted by the Center for Ethics and Religion at Queens University in Charlotte. The event certainly unveiled the grandeur of Darwin’s Rottweiler’s oratory skills; however, just as those who believed the Fiji Mermaid exhibit to be the carcass of an actual living creature reminds us that there may be some truth to the adage “there’s a sucker born every minute,” one is to be discerning with what Dawkins’ hocks as facts for evolution.
The evening’s lecture was divided into two parts: the first was Dawkins’ reading selections from his latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (Note the title hearkens to a tagline made famous by the Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey Circus). The second part was a short question/answer session.
Dawkins’ kept reiterating his own mantra, “evolution is a fact;” but offered no real defensible argument for the dogmatic assertion, and in the most fundamentalist way equivocated all those who even dare call into question his mantra to be “holocaust deniers.” The “holocaust,” as he would describe it is an alleged juggernaut of entrenched creationist who use political power plays to suppress the lowly primary and secondary school teachers from teaching children the “truth” of evolution. Dawkins fails to inform listeners that science teachers in America's public schools freely teach evolution, and it is intelligent design that's being kept out of the classroom. Moreover, when one considers the fact that there are teachers in our colleges and universities being denied tenure, and even censured for even suggesting the possibility of intelligent design, as presented in Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, one wonders whether or not Dawkins’ has simply gotten things backwards?
Reading from his chapter entitled “Missing Link? What Do You Mean Missing?” Dawkins used an analogy that in a court of law a butler can be still convicted of a crime based on circumstantial evidence, yet without eyewitnesses. As in the case of a murder mystery wherein a butler can be convicted of a murder on the basis of a fingerprint upon a gun and a video tape of the butler holding the gun with a look of murderous intent. Dawkins’ illustration is a double edged sword, since a murder accusation is based on the best evidence available, which person related to the conviction had the means, motive, and opportunity to commit the crime. The question is who is the butler in the analogy, Darwinian evolution or an intelligent designer? Where is the evidence pointing?
Dawkins did not provide an answer to the evolutionary critique of there being "gaps" in the fossil record, but navigated around the issue by simply mentioning we are lucky to have any fossils at all, and happily presumes the gaps in the fossil records are nothing to fret over, and recites his mantra “evolution is a fact.”
As for what proof could be offered to demonstrate evolution to be false, Dawkins indicated that would be finding one fossil of an animal discovered in the wrong strata of rock from that goes contrary to what paleontology observes as the time the animal came about (e.g. a rabbit in pre-cambrian rock strata). Yet Dawkins fails to see the contradiction in his own argument. If we are lucky to be only blessed with the fossils we do have, how do we know the fossils vindicating creationism just did not rest in a place conducive for fossilization? The sword swings both ways, Dawkins can use an argument from silence to suggest the intermediary fossils that support evolution did not survive, so can the creationist use an argument from silence to suggest the fossils that would disprove evolution did not survive either. Tit for tat.
The real evidence that lends credence to intelligent design is the complexity of genetic information in living organisms, particularly the genes that distinguish one species from another, and the astronomical impossibility of coming up with the necessary genetic information that would allow one species to evolve into another species by simple random mutation. Dawkins suggest human reproduction is proof of evolution—in the sense that the human conceptus goes from a single cell to a multi-celled complex organism—yet this is a false analogy. He must present a case where a couple reared a child that can be considered, or predictability will become after several generations, something other than human (like the “starchild” from 2001 A Space Odyssey). There is, of course, no scientific evidence for that, or anything similar! There are no records of couples rearing a child that was not human.
Dawkins also tooks some hefty amounts of shots at young earth creationist (e.g. animal distribution in the known world being far different than what one would expect if all animals migrated out from Mt. Ararat after Noah’s flood, and mocking the idea of human beings cohabiting the earth with dinosaurs, alluding to the Flintstones cartoon); however, these are just red herrings. These arguments might put the young earth creationists in a quandary, but they neither refute creation nor intelligent design. There would also be some old earth creationists who, without subscribing to Dawkins fractured idea of evolution, would still cast the same criticisms against young earth creationists.
Reading from a chapter entitled “Arms Races” Dawkins attempted to present a case against design, and an Intelligent Designer from the point of natural evil. He purposes if one were to consider the physiques of cheetahs and gazelles, how one is optimal for being a fast predatory hunter and the other being equipped with capabilities to escape with speed, it would leave one wonder just what side the designer is on. This, however, does not preclude that cheetahs and gazelles have evidence for an optimal design. As for whether or not a creator’s benevolence can be called into question simply on the basis of an ecological system with predators and prey cohabiting a region, just how does Dawkins’ know such is evil, and something that would call into question a benevolent creator? How does he know he’s not just over anthropomorphizing the cheetah and the gazelle? Is the cheetah really a malevolent taker who devours innocent gazelles? Does the gazelle experience victimized by cheetahs? Is this just not an illegitimate psychological transference of emotions, perhaps Dawkins’ own experience of being a victim, upon the cheetah and gazelle? Some might consider the animal death of this sort a great evil, many of them are vegans, yet this is solely based upon their personal system of morality, Whether or not they can prove their morals on that sort of animal death correspond to what is truly moral is debatable.
Like the ringleader in the circus entertaining crowds with curiosities like Fiji Mermaid, Dawkins dazzles audiences with his well polished rhetoric for evolution, but at the end of the day, both are simply well designed fabrications.
The evening’s lecture was divided into two parts: the first was Dawkins’ reading selections from his latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (Note the title hearkens to a tagline made famous by the Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey Circus). The second part was a short question/answer session.
Dawkins’ kept reiterating his own mantra, “evolution is a fact;” but offered no real defensible argument for the dogmatic assertion, and in the most fundamentalist way equivocated all those who even dare call into question his mantra to be “holocaust deniers.” The “holocaust,” as he would describe it is an alleged juggernaut of entrenched creationist who use political power plays to suppress the lowly primary and secondary school teachers from teaching children the “truth” of evolution. Dawkins fails to inform listeners that science teachers in America's public schools freely teach evolution, and it is intelligent design that's being kept out of the classroom. Moreover, when one considers the fact that there are teachers in our colleges and universities being denied tenure, and even censured for even suggesting the possibility of intelligent design, as presented in Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, one wonders whether or not Dawkins’ has simply gotten things backwards?
Reading from his chapter entitled “Missing Link? What Do You Mean Missing?” Dawkins used an analogy that in a court of law a butler can be still convicted of a crime based on circumstantial evidence, yet without eyewitnesses. As in the case of a murder mystery wherein a butler can be convicted of a murder on the basis of a fingerprint upon a gun and a video tape of the butler holding the gun with a look of murderous intent. Dawkins’ illustration is a double edged sword, since a murder accusation is based on the best evidence available, which person related to the conviction had the means, motive, and opportunity to commit the crime. The question is who is the butler in the analogy, Darwinian evolution or an intelligent designer? Where is the evidence pointing?
Dawkins did not provide an answer to the evolutionary critique of there being "gaps" in the fossil record, but navigated around the issue by simply mentioning we are lucky to have any fossils at all, and happily presumes the gaps in the fossil records are nothing to fret over, and recites his mantra “evolution is a fact.”
As for what proof could be offered to demonstrate evolution to be false, Dawkins indicated that would be finding one fossil of an animal discovered in the wrong strata of rock from that goes contrary to what paleontology observes as the time the animal came about (e.g. a rabbit in pre-cambrian rock strata). Yet Dawkins fails to see the contradiction in his own argument. If we are lucky to be only blessed with the fossils we do have, how do we know the fossils vindicating creationism just did not rest in a place conducive for fossilization? The sword swings both ways, Dawkins can use an argument from silence to suggest the intermediary fossils that support evolution did not survive, so can the creationist use an argument from silence to suggest the fossils that would disprove evolution did not survive either. Tit for tat.
The real evidence that lends credence to intelligent design is the complexity of genetic information in living organisms, particularly the genes that distinguish one species from another, and the astronomical impossibility of coming up with the necessary genetic information that would allow one species to evolve into another species by simple random mutation. Dawkins suggest human reproduction is proof of evolution—in the sense that the human conceptus goes from a single cell to a multi-celled complex organism—yet this is a false analogy. He must present a case where a couple reared a child that can be considered, or predictability will become after several generations, something other than human (like the “starchild” from 2001 A Space Odyssey). There is, of course, no scientific evidence for that, or anything similar! There are no records of couples rearing a child that was not human.
Dawkins also tooks some hefty amounts of shots at young earth creationist (e.g. animal distribution in the known world being far different than what one would expect if all animals migrated out from Mt. Ararat after Noah’s flood, and mocking the idea of human beings cohabiting the earth with dinosaurs, alluding to the Flintstones cartoon); however, these are just red herrings. These arguments might put the young earth creationists in a quandary, but they neither refute creation nor intelligent design. There would also be some old earth creationists who, without subscribing to Dawkins fractured idea of evolution, would still cast the same criticisms against young earth creationists.
Reading from a chapter entitled “Arms Races” Dawkins attempted to present a case against design, and an Intelligent Designer from the point of natural evil. He purposes if one were to consider the physiques of cheetahs and gazelles, how one is optimal for being a fast predatory hunter and the other being equipped with capabilities to escape with speed, it would leave one wonder just what side the designer is on. This, however, does not preclude that cheetahs and gazelles have evidence for an optimal design. As for whether or not a creator’s benevolence can be called into question simply on the basis of an ecological system with predators and prey cohabiting a region, just how does Dawkins’ know such is evil, and something that would call into question a benevolent creator? How does he know he’s not just over anthropomorphizing the cheetah and the gazelle? Is the cheetah really a malevolent taker who devours innocent gazelles? Does the gazelle experience victimized by cheetahs? Is this just not an illegitimate psychological transference of emotions, perhaps Dawkins’ own experience of being a victim, upon the cheetah and gazelle? Some might consider the animal death of this sort a great evil, many of them are vegans, yet this is solely based upon their personal system of morality, Whether or not they can prove their morals on that sort of animal death correspond to what is truly moral is debatable.
Like the ringleader in the circus entertaining crowds with curiosities like Fiji Mermaid, Dawkins dazzles audiences with his well polished rhetoric for evolution, but at the end of the day, both are simply well designed fabrications.
Hmmm, I was there and I think you really missed the point. And I suggest you actually read the book and not just go by the highlights that he hit on during the lecture.
ReplyDeleteIt's chock full of science and your charge that it's all rhetoric strikes me as a little silly given that it was a lecture not a labratory demonstration.
Hey Keippernicus, I've got the book, but I am still wondering how the book actually vindicates the assertions made by Dawkins at the lecture? Please explain?
ReplyDelete...sorry for the delayed reaction.