Richard Dawkins

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[Moved from General Autism Discussion to PPR]

I wanted a quote about him mocking the cosmological argument, not about the cosmological argument itself. It had nothing to do with 'arguments with authority', I would have just liked evidence for him being mocking about it since all I know he might have presented quite a rational and logical argument devoid of any patronizing tone but anyway, there you go. Well there is empirical evidence for the big bang occurring, is there evidence for how and why it occurred? No, you are right and in this sense it like the cosmological story you presented, however the difference is that science is looking and a mythology is not. As for the case about it being presumptuous. I do not see how it is being presumptuous. Science does not claim to understand the big bang fully, it is trying to but never does it admit that it has done so. The point is we don't know but personally for me the fact that I do not know does not mean that therefore I should label myself as a theist. There are lots of things that science did not think it would ever get its head around. We at one point did not think we would understand how got here biologically speaking and now we know- evolution and the structure of dna and the ability to replicate itself as a biological technology. In your view, before we understood this, that would have meant that a mythology, like god, had just as much validity as any scientific explanation and that it would never be discovered. However now we know how biologically speaking we got here. It seems arrogant therefore to assume that such a thing can never be discovered. It also implies that a god is one of ever-receding visibility. I am only trying to have a debate. I feel like there is some aspect of annoyance in what you are saying, I may be wrong though.

As far as Russell's book, I read it twenty-five years ago and I no longer own a copy of it. I would encourage you to read it for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

As for existence, as opposed to the Big Bang theory, certainly that is an empirical fact. I would call your attention to the fact that the Big Bang theory is just that--a theory, and not a law. And this theory tries to explain how existence came to be.

If you are truly curious about such things, I would strongly encourage you to read Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions". This book makes it painfully clear that science isn't nearly as objective as we would like it to be. Rather, all science is based upon paradigms. New paradigms, such as Einstein's theories of relativity replacing the Newtonian paradigm, are adopted because they can plausibly solve problems, not because they provide absolute answers.

Even Einstein had to admit that the study of physics is hardly an absolute. This is why he spent much of his life on uniform field theory, which is an attempt to reconcile quantum mechanics with macro-physics. To date, all attempts have been unsuccessful, which means that either quantum mechanics, macrophysics, or both are improperly understood. As an epistemologist, I would argue that they will always be imperfectly understood; it is simply the nature of human knowledge, which evolved for solving immediate problems rather than absolutes.

As far as how life came to be, we don't know that either; it's all conjecture. But since "something" was obviously already here when life came to be, it is a problem of a different kind than creatio ex nihilo.

I would also strongly encourage you to read about Kant's "great Copernican revolution" that awakened him from his "dogmatic slumbers". According to Kant, one of the problems with perception is that we can never really know things objectively, or things in themselves, but only our impressions of things.

What I'm getting at is that atheism isn't any more tenable a position logically than is theism. There is simply too much we don't know, and likely never will know. It is due to the structure of our minds.

As far as appearing "annoyed", I don't mean to be that way. In fact, I am impressed by your politeness; that is hardly always the case.

Last edited by Thelibrarian on 07 Oct 2013, 1:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.

No, not at all. I was just explaining on a very personal basis why I have no interest in reading Dawkins. He'd be preaching to the choir. Frankly I'd be more interested in reading Augustine, even knowing in advance that I will probably disagree with every word he says. But if you find value in Dawkins or any other fly-swatter -- I highly recommend the Smith book -- enjoy it with my compliments.

Only because he say the true about ''sensible'' subjects??

the greatest show on earth (about evolution) is a beautiful book. I want to be a science writer myself, i wish Dawkins could donate all of that amazing talent that he has to me instead of just throwing it away like he seems to have done.

How can you call him logical? he hasn't said anything scientific in years. He's reduced to a babbling shell of the intellect he used to be (and Im atheist)! He embarrasses me (but not as much as Krause or Shermer). How is saying pointlessly stupid things like, Anyone who believes in God is going to have to answer to me! logical?

point 1 - Agreed, I think modern organised religions smack of large scale cults, fundamentalist Christianity is only slightly less harmful than islam

point 2 - Just google Dawkins tweets on twitter, he has problems distinguishing ethnic groups and religion. I think he takes a blanket approach that he is unable to see that he is attacking people as well as their religion. He's made some pretty dumb comments such as **All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge.** He seems to think Nobel prizes equates to ethnic superiority?

Yes this is all I was alluding to. Science, universities and Occam's razor has it's place in our world no question there. Universities seem to be evolving into places that are degree factories rather than places that teach students how to think objectively.



I attended a debate organised in a local university back in 2001 on whether alien abduction and UFOs were a real phenomena, The affirmative speakers included a UFO researcher and a counselor who works with alien abductees - both non-graduates. The university academics laid into them to uproars of laughter from the student body. I'd never seen such academic arrogance in all my life. The counselor was actually quite hen pecked by the end of the night and was quite reluctant to engage in debate. The UFO researcher gave back as good as he got. Where the academics stumbled was in relation to evidence. They kept demanding empirical evidence. The UFO guy (his name escapes me?) asked them if they had read the US government published Condon report or Project Blue Book? were they familiar with the details of the Roswell crash or the 1952 Washington UFo invasion etc none of the academics were familiar with any of it. So how do you debate a topic when you are too arrogant to look at the evidence??

The only place I can find that quote is here. Could you please add a link (or book reference, etc)?

Yes, that is highly arrogant. At least if they disagreed with the person, they should have sought to have a rational debate rather than laughing at them. I'm sure the academics would have felt awful if someone had equally done that to their work. I suppose one could say that if you are aware that universities are not that open-minded, perhaps having a discussion about such alternative theories should be done in another environment. It is a difficult one with ufos though, I'm in two minds. Of course I would listen to the evidence but even so, I think all it demonstrates is the fact that unidentified objects exist and not aliens. Ufos are an extremely common phenomenon and if no-one has seen one in their life, then I would be surprised or say you are not looking hard enough. If I gaze into the sky for long enough, I am sure to see some hovering orb that I cannot categorize. Thus, the existence of such a thing is indisputable to me but when that is equated with aliens, that is different and I see no evidence that such things exist. Abduction stories? Yes, perhaps although eye witness testimonies can be highly dubious and there are phenomenon like lucid dreams and sleep paralysis in which people hallucinate all kinds of strange creatures because their mind is vibrating at an alternative frequency. In regards to Roswell? The alien in that video seems to human to me. I'm not attacking, those academics were rude and the topic is fascinating. I hope you can appreciate my view though.

The academics were right that there is no evidence. And yes, I'm familiar with both the Roswell incident and "Project Blue Book". With regards to the Roswell incident, all the military documents have been declassified and it turns out that the story was completely distorted (there were no aliens or crashed spacecraft, just an experimental balloon and injured fighter pilots). With regards to "Project Blue Book", it only concluded that 1% of the objects they were looking were still unidentified but unidentified does not equal extraterrestrial spacecraft. So no, there is still no evidence.

I'm not that familiar with Roswell but I have managed to procure a printed copy of Project Blue Book Special Report 14. The report is the largest scientific investigation of UFOs by the US government contracted to the Batelle Memorial Institute (BMI is a foreign technology division of the US airforce stationed in Wright Patterson Air force base, Dayton Ohio. BMI reviewed a total of 3201 cases spanning from 1948-1953.
According to the report
The percentage of sightings with insufficient information = 9.3%
The percentage of unknowns = 21.5%
What's interesting about the report is it highlights the quality of the observations based on the duration of the sighting, the clarity of the sky and reliability of the witnesses. According to the report > 50% of the unknown sightings involved reliable witnesses (police, military or professionals) who witnessed unknown objects > 1 minute duration and in clear unambiguous conditions.

As members of the public in the mid 1950s weren't privy to the details of the report it was up to the news media to report what was published through the relevant channels (i.e. the USAF). The USAF appear to have glossed over the details of the report to present a somewhat skewed version where only 3% were considered unknown due to insufficient information? In addition the BMI seemed to have mysteriously ignored the most compelling UFO case, the 1952 Washington incident which was witnessed by hundreds of thousands of people in clear skies of objects that were (according to most witnesses including radar operators who scrambled jet planes to intercept the UFOs) appeared to be under intelligent control.

I don't dispute this data will support aliens, but it beggars the question what was the government trying to hide with it's own investigation? The data is now in the public domain but as so much time has elapsed and considerable effort in discrediting UFOs has been successfully achieved by the USAF that there is little willingness to reinvestigate many of these cases. Let alone look at the countless thousands of cases in the modern era.

Agreed and this is largely the angle skeptics take - no empirical evidence = no aliens



One of the founders of the Harvard school of Psychiatry - Professor John Mack who was also a Pulitzer prize winning author and head of Psychiatry at Harvard published a number of books on patients he had who experienced alien abduction. It was his academic view that his patients were not confabulating their experiences with personal traumas, psychiatric conditions or other factors. His conclusion was the patients were abducted by unknown beings, either interstellar or interdimensional based on the relevant details of their cases which seemed to be remarkably similar across cultures. Mack was a specialist with child psychiatry and so his records of children who experience alien abduction are to him compelling evidence that the experiences are quite real.

Dawkins is neither sexist nor racist. There was furor after he tweeted something that was just plain fact:

http://www.richarddawkins.net/foundation_articles/2013/8/9/calm-reflections-after-a-storm-in-a-teacup

Last time I checked, 10 is a lower number than 32.