In 2006, the magazine Edge published a series of articles with leading scientists and scholars on the question What's your dangerous idea?
Richard Dawkins was one of the "scholars" to whom such a question was asked. Let's copy here the entire article (in order to avoid misrepresentations of Dawkins' view). Please, read carefully the full article, specially the emphasis in blue added by me. (You can consult the original article in the Edge website here). I'll prove, with irrefutable evidence (in the context of Dawkins' excuses to avoid debating William Lane Craig) that Richard Dawkins is not only a COWARD but that, additionally, his refusal to debating Craig is based on reasons which Dawkins himself see as scientifically false.
People like Dawkins deserve to receive public intellectual punishment (i.e. sound refutations of his charlatanisms) and an evidence based debunking.
Richard Dawkins was one of the "scholars" to whom such a question was asked. Let's copy here the entire article (in order to avoid misrepresentations of Dawkins' view). Please, read carefully the full article, specially the emphasis in blue added by me. (You can consult the original article in the Edge website here). I'll prove, with irrefutable evidence (in the context of Dawkins' excuses to avoid debating William Lane Craig) that Richard Dawkins is not only a COWARD but that, additionally, his refusal to debating Craig is based on reasons which Dawkins himself see as scientifically false.
People like Dawkins deserve to receive public intellectual punishment (i.e. sound refutations of his charlatanisms) and an evidence based debunking.
Let's all stop beating Basil's car
by Richard Dawkins
Ask people why they support the death penalty or prolonged incarceration for serious crimes, and the reasons they give will usually involve retribution. There may be passing mention of deterrence or rehabilitation, but the surrounding rhetoric gives the game away. People want to kill a criminal as payback for the horrible things he did. Or they want to give "satisfaction' to the victims of the crime or their relatives. An especially warped and disgusting application of the flawed concept of retribution is Christian crucifixion as "atonement' for "sin'. Retribution as a moral principle is incompatible with a scientific view of human behaviour. As scientists, we believe that human brains, though they may not work in the same way as man-made computers, are as surely governed by the laws of physics. When a computer malfunctions, we do not punish it. We track down the problem and fix it, usually by replacing a damaged component, either in hardware or software. Basil Fawlty, British television's hotelier from hell created by the immortal John Cleese, was at the end of his tether when his car broke down and wouldn't start. He gave it fair warning, counted to three, gave it one more chance, and then acted. "Right! I warned you. You've had this coming to you!" He got out of the car, seized a tree branch and set about thrashing the car within an inch of its life. Of course we laugh at his irrationality. Instead of beating the car, we would investigate the problem. Is the carburettor flooded? Are the sparking plugs or distributor points damp? Has it simply run out of gas? Why do we not react in the same way to a defective man: a murderer, say, or a rapist? Why don't we laugh at a judge who punishes a criminal, just as heartily as we laugh at Basil Fawlty? Or at King Xerxes who, in 480 BC, sentenced the rough sea to 300 lashes for wrecking his bridge of ships? Isn't the murderer or the rapist just a machine with a defective component? Or a defective upbringing? Defective education? Defective genes? Concepts like blame and responsibility are bandied about freely where human wrongdoers are concerned. When a child robs an old lady, should we blame the child himself or his parents? Or his school? Negligent social workers? In a court of law, feeble-mindedness is an accepted defence, as is insanity. Diminished responsibility is argued by the defence lawyer, who may also try to absolve his client of blame by pointing to his unhappy childhood, abuse by his father, or even unpropitious genes (not, so far as I am aware, unpropitious planetary conjunctions, though it wouldn't surprise me). But doesn't a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment. Don't judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty car? Why is it that we humans find it almost impossible to accept such conclusions? Why do we vent such visceral hatred on child murderers, or on thuggish vandals, when we should simply regard them as faulty units that need fixing or replacing? Presumably because mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution. Assigning blame and responsibility is an aspect of the useful fiction of intentional agents that we construct in our brains as a means of short-cutting a truer analysis of what is going on in the world in which we have to live. My dangerous idea is that we shall eventually grow out of all this and even learn to laugh at it, just as we laugh at Basil Fawlty when he beats his car. But I fear it is unlikely that I shall ever reach that level of enlightenment.
Jime's conclusions:
1)Dawkins claims that according to science human brains "are as surely governed by the laws of physics" and hence the concept of "retribution" is unscientific. Therefore, "punishment" makes no sense at all (Dawkins: "When a computer malfunctions, we do not punish it.")
Such a view implies DETERMINISM (i.e. the view that human thinking and actions are wholly determined by physical laws, not freedom of the will is allowed).
True, naturalism implies such view on determinism, but wait a minute. Think about it: If determinism is true, then Dawkins' belief in determinism is ALSO determined by physical laws, not by reason or logic (which are no physical laws). Dawkins is a determinist because physical laws impose on him such a belief, not because such a belief is rationally justified over other non-jusitified beliefs.
So, as we never say that a computer is irrational when it malfunctions (because such computer is not guilty of the malfunctioning due to the deterministic physical laws which controls it), we cannot say that human beings (e.g. religious fundamentalists) are irrational when they have false beliefs or do dangerous actions. After all, like the computer, human beings are fully determined (by physical laws) in their functioning (reason and logic, not being physical laws, don't determine anything), and the concepts of rational or irrational makes no sense.
Moreover, on what grounds are you going to criticize religious people who believe in God, free will, the afterlife, spirits and indeterminism, if their beliefs are ALSO determined by the same physical laws which impose on Dawkins his deterministic view?
The same physical laws which makes Dawkins an automata without free will will be efficacious to make all the other people automata too. And the difference of beliefs of each person will be caused by physical laws, not by the person' fault, and hence you cannot complain that such people are irrational or guilty, since they have not responsability at all regarding the beliefs they hold.
2)Dawkins claims that "evil and good" are MENTAL CONSTRUCTS and USEFUL FICTIONS (i.e. they exist in our minds alone), and don't have any objective, mind-independent existence. In Dawkins word's: "Presumably because mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution. Assigning blame and responsibility is an aspect of the useful fiction of intentional agents that we construct in our brains as a means of short-cutting a truer analysis of what is going on in the world in which we have to live. My dangerous idea is that we shall eventually grow out of all this and even learn to laugh at it"
Note that Dawkins constrast such a mental constructs and fictions with the "truer analysis of what is going on in the world", which implies that such mental constructs and fictions are probably FALSE.
Again, this view is entailed by metaphysical naturalism and atheism, so Dawkins is (at least in this point) being consistent.
Now, if the "evil" is a mental construct which a scientific atheist should deny (on behalf of a more rational and true scientific analysis), then WHY THE HELL DID DAWKINS SAY THAT WLLIAM LANE CRAIG'S THEOLOGY IS EVIL? On that objective moral grounds is Dawkins going to criticize Craig if such a moral ground is a pure mental construct without any objective validity? Moreover, is Craig guilty of something "evil" when, according to Dawkins' beliefs, the evil doesn't exist and Craig is fully determined in his beliefs and actions by the same deterministic physical laws which determine Dawkins' beliefs and actions?
This is evidence which Dawkins doesn't take his worldview seriously. He denies the objective existence of the "evil", but then accusses others (specially religious believers) of being evil or of doing evil things.
He denies the justification of the concept of "retribution and punishment", but then castigates Craig when the latter defends a religious view that Dawkins finds unpalatable.
He criticizes (and uses as an excuse to refuse debating) Craig by his (alleged) justification of biblical genocide, but Dawkins himself claims that he is open to the persuasion that "killing people is right under certain circunstances" (so, supporting genocide).
Do you think the evidence mentioned here support the conclusion that Dawkins is a rational, logical and intellectually honest scholar?
I think the answer is obvious. As I said, in my opinion, people like Dawkins deserve to receive a public exposing and evidence-based intellectual punishment (=solid refutations of his views), and in this blog I'll contribute to this purpose.
I entirely agree with atheist Oxford philosopher Daniel Came who says that Dawkins's refusal to debate Craig is cynical and anti-intellectualist, and that people like Dawkins "seek to replace one form of irrationality with another."
Such a view implies DETERMINISM (i.e. the view that human thinking and actions are wholly determined by physical laws, not freedom of the will is allowed).
True, naturalism implies such view on determinism, but wait a minute. Think about it: If determinism is true, then Dawkins' belief in determinism is ALSO determined by physical laws, not by reason or logic (which are no physical laws). Dawkins is a determinist because physical laws impose on him such a belief, not because such a belief is rationally justified over other non-jusitified beliefs.
So, as we never say that a computer is irrational when it malfunctions (because such computer is not guilty of the malfunctioning due to the deterministic physical laws which controls it), we cannot say that human beings (e.g. religious fundamentalists) are irrational when they have false beliefs or do dangerous actions. After all, like the computer, human beings are fully determined (by physical laws) in their functioning (reason and logic, not being physical laws, don't determine anything), and the concepts of rational or irrational makes no sense.
Moreover, on what grounds are you going to criticize religious people who believe in God, free will, the afterlife, spirits and indeterminism, if their beliefs are ALSO determined by the same physical laws which impose on Dawkins his deterministic view?
The same physical laws which makes Dawkins an automata without free will will be efficacious to make all the other people automata too. And the difference of beliefs of each person will be caused by physical laws, not by the person' fault, and hence you cannot complain that such people are irrational or guilty, since they have not responsability at all regarding the beliefs they hold.
2)Dawkins claims that "evil and good" are MENTAL CONSTRUCTS and USEFUL FICTIONS (i.e. they exist in our minds alone), and don't have any objective, mind-independent existence. In Dawkins word's: "Presumably because mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution. Assigning blame and responsibility is an aspect of the useful fiction of intentional agents that we construct in our brains as a means of short-cutting a truer analysis of what is going on in the world in which we have to live. My dangerous idea is that we shall eventually grow out of all this and even learn to laugh at it"
Note that Dawkins constrast such a mental constructs and fictions with the "truer analysis of what is going on in the world", which implies that such mental constructs and fictions are probably FALSE.
Again, this view is entailed by metaphysical naturalism and atheism, so Dawkins is (at least in this point) being consistent.
Now, if the "evil" is a mental construct which a scientific atheist should deny (on behalf of a more rational and true scientific analysis), then WHY THE HELL DID DAWKINS SAY THAT WLLIAM LANE CRAIG'S THEOLOGY IS EVIL? On that objective moral grounds is Dawkins going to criticize Craig if such a moral ground is a pure mental construct without any objective validity? Moreover, is Craig guilty of something "evil" when, according to Dawkins' beliefs, the evil doesn't exist and Craig is fully determined in his beliefs and actions by the same deterministic physical laws which determine Dawkins' beliefs and actions?
This is evidence which Dawkins doesn't take his worldview seriously. He denies the objective existence of the "evil", but then accusses others (specially religious believers) of being evil or of doing evil things.
He denies the justification of the concept of "retribution and punishment", but then castigates Craig when the latter defends a religious view that Dawkins finds unpalatable.
He criticizes (and uses as an excuse to refuse debating) Craig by his (alleged) justification of biblical genocide, but Dawkins himself claims that he is open to the persuasion that "killing people is right under certain circunstances" (so, supporting genocide).
Do you think the evidence mentioned here support the conclusion that Dawkins is a rational, logical and intellectually honest scholar?
I think the answer is obvious. As I said, in my opinion, people like Dawkins deserve to receive a public exposing and evidence-based intellectual punishment (=solid refutations of his views), and in this blog I'll contribute to this purpose.
I entirely agree with atheist Oxford philosopher Daniel Came who says that Dawkins's refusal to debate Craig is cynical and anti-intellectualist, and that people like Dawkins "seek to replace one form of irrationality with another."
0 comments:
Post a Comment