Dawkins on The Hour
8 May 2007 by Gil
Since I’ve had a bit of a fascination with Richard Dawkins’ rise to prominence, I was interested to see him pop up on ‘The Hour’ last night (watch it here). George Stroumboulopoulos asks him the obvious first question: What’s wrong with religious belief? to which Dawkins replies:
“It’s a tragedy to base your life on something for which there is no evidence and never was any evidence, when the real truth is so wonderful.”
One might hope that George might push him a bit on this point. Is there really no evidence? What counts as evidence? How do you respond to things that people of all faiths have historically pointed to as justification for belief? Instead George muses about the possibility of religion simply being ‘what gets us through the night’ and wonders whether or not Dawkins is just being too forceful in his particular view of things.
I liked Dawkins’ response to this idea. He says, “Well no, for me, what matters is the truth,” and later, “I think there’s something more absolute about truth and I care about truth.” I appreciated the recognition that the proper response to questions of this magnitude is not some kind of bland tolerance (which, at its worst, is a trivialization of all perspectives) but an actual effort to understand the way things really are.
In a curious little aside Dawkins actually admits there might be such a thing as ‘moral truth’ that would be somehow distinct from ’scientific truth’ (although he seems to want to take the words back as soon as they escape). This would be a significant thing for someone like Dawkins to admit because it would beg some important questions about where ‘truth’ in the area of morality could come from in a worldview explicitly devoted to evolutionary naturalism.
At the end of the day the interview is an interesting snapshot into the way we talk about religion. On the subject of God, Dawkins wants to talk about truth while Stroumboloupoulos wants to talk about meaning. Obviously 12 minutes is not enough time to get into anything substantial but it would seem to me that the astounding claim that ‘there has never been any evidence for God’s existence’ should at least take up the majority of the time. The fact that it is passed by without question is disappointing.
I really enjoyed that interview (but yes, too short) and I like your reading of it.
But I’m left wondering what evidence you are referring to. RD is referring to scientific evidence; for the existence of God. There isn’t any. It made sense to me to pass that statement by as quickly as they did.
I agree with you about Strom’s lackadaisacal statement to the effect of, “why don’t we just chill?” was lame, and RD answered to that nicely.
I was curious as to RD’s allowance that there are “moral truths.” Where, specifically, does he believe these moral truths come from, if not from God? Moral truth isn’t really scientfically demonstrable, is it?
Maybe he goes into it better in another place.
I, too, was somewhat surprised by Dawkins’ admission that there might be such a thing as non-scientific moral truths - especially when you consider that his main arguments against God and religion in “The God Delusion” are moral ones.
Anon,
You’re right in saying that the existence of God cannot be empirically demonstrated. By this standard of ‘evidence’ Dawkins is right. I suppose I was reacting to his implied argument that the scientists are the ones who have the pure light of objective reason while religious believers are the ones exercising blind faith in silly falsehoods. I think that there are good reasons or warrants for belief in God’s existence that Dawkins dismisses far too easily (although they could not properly be called ’scientific evidence’).
But if we restricted our ‘knowledge’ to the things that could be empirically proven we would have a difficult time explaining things like morality, love, beauty or any of the other metaphysical ‘realities’ that most of us consider to be a significant part of human existence.
As far as proving things emprically, if one really looks at the facts that support evolution, evolution (or the fact that God does not exist for that matter) is as empirically provable as creation. I know I’m repeating tonnes of people when I say that to believe there is no God takes as much faith as belief in God.
One of the presuppositions of science is that if we understand the parts of the universe we will understand the whole (reductionism), and this is simply not the case. We can prove and see that parts ‘a,’ ‘b,’ and ‘c’ exist. But a theory as too how ‘a’ combined with ‘b’ to create ‘c’ is speculation. Just like a theory that God created ‘a’, ‘b’, and ‘c’ is also speculation.
It’s sad to see Dawkins claim that there is no evidence for God, when there is at the very least the same amount of evidence to prove that God exists as the evidence that he doesn’t exist
This interview certainly confirms one thing for me: George Stroumboulopoulos is a poor excuse for a journalist and continues to be as annoying as ever. Honestly!
you’re both right and wrong about the ‘12 minutes’ being capable of holding something substantial.
you’re right that 45 minutes or a series of 1 1/2 hour lectures spread over three days would be more substantial (if only in sheer volume of material). 12 minutes does seem to be somewhat dismissive of a grand topic such as this…
Yet…
For as helpful as an exascerbated discussion on this subject would be, the paradigm that was used (and exists in prevalence in our culture) offered 12 minutes. the reality is that our world lives inside this frenetic culture quite well (seemingly).
we can bemoan what we like of this hectic pace but unless we learn how to speak and listen inside this paradigm we will never be able to suggest a different one with any authenticity.
I realize that takes you post in a different direction.
I am as perturbed as the next person at the vitamin sizes we consume truth in our culture. And that is precisely why our expectation should be high with these little morsels and snippets. I guess i am sorta with jessica on this - in the lack of credible journalism on George’s part. I am with you on hoping and demanding more.
It is bothersome that Dawkins gets to flounce around to all these 5 minute interviews and get ‘peppered’ with drivel like we saw from George.
If i had a chance to sit down with mr. dawkins I would ask him this…
“How do you get back to nothing? And if you can’t or won’t (as most darwinian evolutionists won’t) are you not admitting that you must actually be taking a step of faith?”
Strombo was embarrassing. A stereotypical male high school hedonist in demeanor and about as studiously well prepared…in his defense I’m told the weed is a whole lot stronger these days…
Someone ought to approach this problem better than it is presently being dealt with. A quick account of the logical lapses (empherical gaps) regarding evolution, in simple lanquage, is neccessary. Your question is a great place to start, Gil. In our answer to it, we can argue persuasively, in mostly scientific language that as a first principal “God is the first cause of all that exists.” Mr. Dawkins inability to “get back to nothing” becomes logically embarrassing, in a hurry. To my mind he is either left to conclude as we do that there is a pre-existent energy/being, (he is free to call it what he likes), or he is left defending the irrational proposition of somekind of “infinite beginnings” theory.
I’m pretty much a scientific luddite, (with faint Bill Nye, science guy tendencies), but while I can grasp a rudimentary understanding of infinite conclusions, in the vernacular of the streetwise prophet, “don’t mess with my head G, all this sh.. gotta start from somewhere”.
Also I’m told that,(Bill Nye or otherwise, I’m not sure) even though we have literally millions of fossilized samples over periods reflecting millions of years of life on our planet, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot, if anything, that supports the “species in transition” concept upon which evolution depends. I’d also be curious to know if Mr.Dawkins could point out to us what species, if any, could be demonstrably shown to be in the process of evolving. I mean it has been long enough since Darwin and there are an awful lot of life forms, surely there ought to have been one significant set of changes somewhere!!…ok “ludditeman” realizes at this point that there might be some good evidence for Mr. Dawkins out there but in my mind if he is genuinely serious about his case and not just exploiting the trappings of fame and fortune he ought to try making his case a lot more scientificly than I have seen him do to date.
To me I see very little of substance and lot’s of cheap theatre. Which brings me to my final point.
I am “so” the king of little substance and lots of cheap theatre. Give me 5 minutes on the set with Mr. Dawkins and I’ll have him running backstage; burning blunt with Strombo while tearfully blaming the whole darn mess on a nasty daddy who never loved him right.
Oh yeah! cheers to bran flakes and a working keyboard; the great laxatives of creation.
Sorry Dale I owe you thanksmuse and not Gil, for the “back to nothing” question…say has anybody seen the “Neverending story” recently? Artreyu Rocks!!