November 28, 2006

Richard Dawkins Goes Head to Head With Campus Critics of His Attack on Religion

Richard Dawkins, the University of Oxford biologist, powerful defender of Darwinian evolution, and vehement critic of religion, read from his new book, The God Delusion, last month at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. After the reading, he took questions from the audience. Many of those questions came from students at nearby Liberty University, the Christian institution that was founded by Jerry Falwell.

Some of the proceedings were captured on video by C-Span, and the footage is now available from the YouTube.com Web site:

It was a lively back-and-forth, with most of the audience cheering on Mr. Dawkins as he responds to questions about the origin of morality, the beginning of the universe, and so on. At one point he encourages the Liberty students to transfer to a “proper university.” Mr. Dawkins is also blogging about his book tour.

Comments

1. Quite interesting. So, Liberty University isn’t a “proper university”, as is Oxford University. Hmmm…let’s see…one of the most prominent 20th century proponents of Christianity was C. S. Lewis, a professor at Oxford University for 29 years until he went over to Cambridge in 1950.

   One of the colleges at Oxford is Jesus College. Dr. Dawkins presented a talk at Jesus College on November 17th. I wonder…did he tell the Oxford University students at Jesus College that they should resign and enroll in a “proper” university?

   — Floyd    Nov 29, 10:58 AM    #

2. Well, Floyd, no, I’m sure he didn’t tell Oxford University students to enroll in a “proper” university, but then again Oxford doesn’t display dinosaur fossils and claim they are only a few thousand years old. This was the context in which Dawkins (rightly) disparaged Liberty University.

   — Mike    Nov 29, 11:40 AM    #

3. Floyd, it’s interesting you would bring Lewis into this! Much of this particular conflict is really between “Biblical Inerrancy” and “Darwinian Evolution”, NOT Christianity and Science as many people on either side suppose. I am a Christian, but decline the trap of “Biblical Inerrancy”. I am an Empiricist, but suspect there are some things about evolution we don’t know yet.

   Faith and Science coexist nicely until one claims to have all the answers, so should always dominate the other. Sometimes, these squabbles between extreme views are interesting, but this one was already done to death a century ago.

   So far as the “Proper University” comment, my personal belief is that both sides are only half educated.

   — Bob    Nov 29, 01:02 PM    #

4. It really bothers me that anyone who reads the Chronicle would even remotely challenge Dawkins’ comment regarding Liberty. Labeling dinosaur fossils as being a few thousand years old is so beyond ridiculous that I can scarcely address it.

   — Dan    Nov 29, 04:49 PM    #

5. Just to get the facts straight, the statement that Liberty University claims to have a dinosaur bone only a few thousand years old is false. That point was raised by an audience member who was significantly misinformed. Liberty University did have a bone which evidence had suggested was from a prehistoric animal. The bone had traces of carbon-14 and so it was sent off to the University of Arizona radiometric lab and that lab dated it at less then 10,000 years old. Now you can reach any conclusion you want about the meaning of those results (it wasn’t really a prehistoric animal, the testing was faulty, whatever) but there was never at any time a dinosaur bone that Liberty University claimed was only a few thousand years old. That myth needs to be destroyed. Any extemporaneous comment about that myth by Dawkins should be judged in light of this misinformation.

   What surprises me is that anyone would automatically assume that the such a ridiculous charge against Liberty University is valid just because some stranger in the audience said so. While I can understand some misgivings against Jerry Falwell, I do not see why people automatically assume Liberty University is adademically untenable. It is a fully accredited university with SACS and all the science professors have doctoral degrees from established universities. While one might disagree with them on some issues, they are not ignorant faculty and would not make such a ridiculous claim. Yet it is amazing how quick so many were to jump on this myth and assume it was true.

   — Mark    Nov 29, 09:33 PM    #

6. You Americans are too easy on him. Even the athiests in the UK are slating this man. Thats why he is talking there and not here.

   For example when he says that an American is Christian by chance that he is born in America. The same argument can be said for atheists. The UK has become largely atheist and the Prime Minister here, who is Christian, has to play down his faith to stay elected. There are many atheists here who are atheist because they are born in an atheist society.

   Don’t be taken in by his accent – think through what he is saying. Outside biology he hasn’t got a clue.

   Have a look at how his book was reviewed:

   http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/reviews/article2016604.ece

   You will find all the main UK papers have criticized him and most of the reviewers were atheists themselves.

   — wils    Nov 30, 09:58 AM    #

7. Floyd

   He said ‘IF it is true…then…”

   So, he did not necessarily suggest there was truth to the claim by the questioner. He simply expressed that if in fact this museum makes such a suggestion (which apparently it does not), then it’s debauching the educational process.

   He said nothing controversial.

   I think it’s best if you listen to his statement again. It’s right there on YouTube.

   — Nathan    Nov 30, 04:45 PM    #

8. Mark,

   Thak you. You made my point much better than I did.

   — Floyd    Nov 30, 04:51 PM    #

9. This is such an interesting debate. What I wonder is why we all remain so polarized after hearing Mr. Dawkins speak. I understand him to be saying that there is no evidence that a god exists, (I think that a person of faith should accept that as true – after all, isn’t that what faith is, acceptance of a belief with no empirical evidence to support it?) and at the same time there is evidence to suggest that the theory of evolution may be correct. These are simply statements of the facts. The point that we all seem to be missing lately is that these two ideas are not at odds with each other. They can coexist, and peacefully, because science and faith are two very different paradigms that don’t, and shouldn’t be forced to overlap. To attempt to mix the two, or assert the superiority of one over the other is to miss the point. They have different functions.

   I do agree with Mr. Dawkins regarding the need for Athiests to become more vocal in American society. There is danger in our current position of having only one religion become the dominant voice involved in policy making. Our democracy was founded in such a way as to protect the minority and avoid mob rule. Laws governing the rights and protections that citizens enjoy, or the organizations which are eligible to receive federal moneys, should not be made on the basis of one man’s religious beliefs. Everyone’s beliefs should be protected by our laws, and citizens should be demanding this. Bravo Mr. Dawkins.

   — Anna    Dec 1, 01:26 PM    #

10. No, Anna, “faith” doesn’t mean “no evidence,” unless by “faith” you mean fideistic faith, believing what you know ain’t so, intellectually irresponsible faith, and no thoughtful theist has any such thing. Faith might at some point and in certain ways transcend the evidence (even as trust in a friend may do so during a trial), but such faith doesn’t go contrary to the evidence, and isn’t without its own kind of evidential support, even if a step of faith a bit beyond the available evidence is required. Construing faith in terms of mindless fideism is hardly in the tradition of such great Christian thinkers as Augustine or Aquinas or Anselm. Let’s hope that fideistic faith declines and careful, critical faith takes its place. Dogmatism, either theistic or atheistic, should be discouraged, and Dawkins, sadly, is one of the more dogmatic voices out there right now, dismissing, for example, in a few superficial pages the entirety of the tradition of natural theology. He may be good at science, but he’s an amateur as a philosopher. And Anna, why on earth should theists accept there’s no evidence for God? That assumes that none of the arguments for, say, theism generally or, say, Christianity particularly works. Christians whose faith can be shown to be exempt from the charge of irrationality by being solidly rooted in various arguments, from design to moral to historical to cosmological ones, don’t have less faith as a result. They just have an intellectually defensible and honest faith, rather than mindless, thoughtless belief or opinion. Incidentally, this notion of faith as fideistic faith is largely (with some notable exceptions) a recent development in the history of thought. Biblical faith involves affirmation of certain propositions as true, based on the sort of evidence that’s available to show such a thing, plus it involves trust in God’s faithfulness. Faith understood in Anna’s sense of exhibiting epistemic deficiency and involving a blind leap is an understanding of faith that no thoughtful theist should accept. Not even Kierkegaard would have done so, who saw limitations in reason alright, but did not see faith as license to abandon reason altogether.

    — Dave    Dec 2, 12:13 AM    #

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