Literature

One of the lessons we can learn from Richard Dawkins is that science is a very human activity. This, of course, comes from looking at what he does and not by listening to what he has to say! Scientists are not the objective analysts that they are often portrayed to be. Like you and I, they are people with passions, hopes and fears, and products of the society which nurtured them. Some scientists claim that science leads us to adopt atheism and Dawkins is providing leadership for this stance. Michael Ruse's review of The God Delusion in the current issue of ISIS reveals deep concerns about the direction in which Dawkins is heading. These are of wider interest and are highlighted below.

"The God Delusion" under the microscope

Ruse recognises that Dawkins is a "brilliant science writer" and refers to his first book as "a work of genius". But in The God Delusion, Dawkins moves into areas where Ruse has particular expertise. And Ruse is not impressed by Dawkins or any of the other scientific atheists who have caught the headlines recently.

"It is not that the atheists are having a field day because of the brilliance and novelty of their thinking. Frankly - and I speak here as a nonbeliever myself, pretty atheistic about Christianity and skeptical about all theological claims - the material being churned out is second rate. And that is a euphemism for "downright awful." [. . .] It is simply that it (and the other works, some of which I have gone after elsewhere) is not very good. For a start, Dawkins is brazen in his ignorance of philosophy and theology (not to mention the history of science). [. . .] Dawkins misunderstands the place of the proofs, but this is nothing to his treatment of the proofs themselves. This is a man truly out of his depth."

Dawkins has confidence in the findings of science, and he communicates the same sense of certainty in his rejection of theism. Ruse realises that there is a fundamental problem here: how can we be so sure of the robustness of our reasoning? If Darwinism is true, then we cannot get beyond pragmatism - 'this approach works for me'. It is rather presumptuous for genetic survival machines to discourse about ultimate realities.

"The paradox is that Dawkins should be more modest. He stresses that we are the product of Darwinian evolution, and hence there is no good reason to think we have the power to penetrate into the mysteries of the universe. Our abilities are to get out of the jungle and live on the plains. In a way, the Darwinian is back-to-back with Saint Paul: we peer through a glass darkly."

This is worth further comment here. How did realism become embedded in the scientific mind? It goes back to the pioneers of science, who were Christian theists with a worldview that considered the creation objective, real and rationally understood. Realism has solid Christian roots. The second phase of science came at the Enlightenment, when Theism gave way to Deism and the adoption of methodological empiricism. God's providential control of his creation was replaced by the mechanistic worldview, with God as the original, but now distant, Creator. Realism was carried over from Theism. Then came the rise of naturalism and positivism. This swept away Deism and secularised science completely. Naturalism and the mechanistic universe went together well, but the rationale for both realism and rationality was lacking. Apart from the few philosophers of science who realised there was a problem, the scientific naturalists just grabbed what they wanted from their scientific heritage and avoided the challenge of thinking through their epistemology. We are today in a fourth phase: postmodernism. Many try to portray this intellectual movement as anti-science, but it is actually the inevitable consequence of scientific naturalism. Postmodernists realise that there is no rationale for realism - and all our perceptions are socially constructed. They realise that the scientific enterprise is no exception to their relativistic worldview, and science must be studied as a social phenomenon. If this four-phase analysis is valid, the only route back to realism is via a revival of theistic science.

Ruse's last point is of great interest to educationalists.

"A major part of the atheist attack is that science has shown that the God hypothesis is silly. Suppose this is true - that if you are a Darwinian, then you cannot be a Christian. How then does one answer the creationist who objects to the teaching of Darwinism in schools? Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If theism cannot be taught in schools (in America) because it violates the separation of church and state, why then should Darwinism be permitted? If Darwinism leads to atheism, does this not also violate the separation of church and state? At the very least, Dawkins and company should be showing more responsibility. If they are right, then so be it. I would not want to conceal the fact. But let us face the consequences of the arguments. Explain to us on what grounds one can now legitimately teach evolution in schools. I think one can because I don't see the link between Darwinism and atheism. Those who do see such a link should tell us why Darwinism can be taught or accept that perhaps, given the U.S. Constitution, the creationists are right and Darwinism should be excluded."

If Dawkins replies that Darwinism and atheism should be taught because these things are true, then this is no different to creationists wanting creation taught because it is true. Ruse's point is not about truth, but about the legal implications of linking atheism to Darwinism in education - this violates the principle of church-state separation enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. This is not a new point, but it is the first time it has expressed within a scholarly forum. Perhaps now the scientific atheists will realise that they need to address the challenge.

Book Review: Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion
Michael Ruse
Isis, December 2007, 98(4), 814-816 | DOI: 10.1086/529280

First paragraph: God is getting a bit of a bashing these days. First there was the graduate student Sam Harris, with his powerful polemics against the deity (The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason [Norton, 2004]; Letter to a Christian Nation [Knopf, 2006]). Then there was the philosopher Daniel Dennett, telling us all that religion is like the liver fluke, a dreadful parasite that should be sought out and eradicated (Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon [Viking, 2005]). The journalist Christopher Hitchens has taken time out from bashing the Clintons and supporting the Iraq war to tell us that God's time is up (God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything [Twelve/Warner, 2007]). And above all, there is the smash-hit best seller The God Delusion, by the brilliant science writer Richard Dawkins.