In Which I Agree With Richard Dawkins on Intelligent Design

Mariano,

You are clearly very bright. You write very well. And you clearly find Richard Dawkins highly irritating.

However, you might stop to consider this: Why do you think Dawkins is such a avid dismanteler of religious beliefs? He's an evolutionary biologist by trade. That's where he started, not as a militant atheist. His early books, like the selfish gene, for example, barely even mention religion. Why should they? It has absolutely nothing to do with science. Yet some of his later books are focused entirely on religion. Why?

The answer, I believe, is simple. When intelligent, religious people read his compelling, early works, they realised his message, although scientific (and built on over 100 years of scientific papers, from dozens of hugely respected authors), disagreed with claims made by their religion(s).

The problem with such a challenge, these people realised, is that if a *part* of their religious dogma is proved false by science, then this casts doubt on the whole lot, potentially threatening their entire religious beliefs. Many people have much invested in religion of choice, and gain much from it: Friendships, their feeling of belonging to a group, the comforting feeling of life after death, the reassuring feeling of everything being part of a 'master plan'; all of this they stood to lose from the claims of an evolutionary biologist with a penchant for writing for the lay reader. And so they attacked him.

They through the book at him. They made every effort to show that all of the claims he made were false. 'Half an eye is no use, hence it cannot possibly evolve'. And what did Dawkins do? What any respectable academic does in the face of criticism: Studiously found evidence to refute all of the claims, and then wrote another book in which to publish it. And so he did. But he was still attacked by people with a vested interest in ensuring their religion was not challenged. They just ignored his refutations, and moved on to other arguments.

Dawkins refuted those, too. In fact, he didn't really refute them himself - much of the evidence required was already present in the huge scientific literature on evolution - he just included it in his books for the lay reader. but eventually, he became embroiled in a dirty fight with the religious lobby. He started as a mere evolutionary biologist, but after continuous bating, seems to have decided that he will not stop until religion is completely unmasked as superstition. Modern Dawkins is a product of religious attacks.

Most evolutionary scientists, myself included, don't usually bother trying to deconvert religious people, or use logic to dismantle their shaky beleifs: It's just too easy, and it's almost entirely pointless. One can win a logical argument ten times over with someone who has a huge emotional investment in religion, but it will make no difference. They are not interested in logic. They *choose* to believe, logic or no, because they have simply too much invested in it.

I guess my overall point is this: Early on, Dawkins, like any good scientist, didn't really care which theory was right - he only cared that whichever theory it was best fitted the available evidence. In this case, the theory that best fits the data (at present) is evolution (I have a masters degree from Oxford in Geology, and I'm mid way through a PhD in evolutionary biology, so I really have studied it in great detail), just like the theory for the shape of the world that best fits the data is that its roughly spherical. The important point is that scientists have nothing to gain by promoting one theory over another. If they discover some evidence, which leads to a theory, they will get the credit *regardless* of what the exact mechanism of the theory is. If the evidence had most strongly suggested that life came from a giant floating meatball, Darwin would have gone with that. Other scientists, as with any theory, would try to prove him wrong - so all the more reason to go with the theory that best fits the evidence, so that you're most likely to be right (and least likely to be proved wrong - every academic's worst nightmare).

So scientists have no prejudice as to which theory is right - they don't care - they get the credit if it stands up to rigorous analysis and comparison with the evidence, not for any other reason.

Religious people, on the other hand, do have a *massive* prejudice for believing one theory over another. They have nothing to gain by favouring the theory that best fits the evidence, as unlike scientific theories, their personal beliefs are not subject to peer review. But they stand to lose everything if they believe in any theory other than the one defined by their particular flavour of religion.

What would you expect someone in this position to do? Of course, you'd expect the to completely disregard the evidence, and stick with the belief that they have so much invested in. After all, they still get to benefit from technologies, medicine, transport... (the list goes on) that are all products of scientific inquiry, even if they shun the scientific method just this once. After all, they're not evolutionary biologists, so why should they care?

This is almost definitely what you will do whilst reading this article. Some part of your brain that processes logic will perhaps see some truth in the picture I have painted of the situation, but then the part that stands to loose so much from the rejection of religion will kick in and force you to reject logic instead. Which is perhaps a shame.

The difference then, between you and I, is that if tomorrow, new, scientifically indisputable evidence evidence came to light proving that god really did make Adam and Eve and the earth really is 6000 years old, I would be happy to accept it, because it would be the theory that best fitted the evidence - and that is science after all. On the other hand, if tomorrow new evidence came to light that instead proved beyond doubt that the biblical account of creation is wrong, you'd probably just ignore it and carry on believing regardless. After all, there is already plenty of evidence to show that this is the case, and you seem to have been happy to ignore it up until now.

Regards,
Adam