Comments on: The Courtier’s Reply

By: Dale Campbell

Dale Campbell — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:43:54 +0000

Unfortunately, yes. Although even the wider context of the quote seems to (depending on how you interpret it) make the same point that Collins said it was making.

By: Damian

Damian — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:20:35 +0000

Sorry fella. I don’t know enough about this side of things and certainly not enough about E.O. Wilson’s stance to be able to do justice to the topic. I just thought it sounded like a pretty uncharacteristic quote from the little I’d heard from him so I looked it up and saw that it had been taken out of context (especially with the all-too-critical “If this interpretation is correct,” chopped off the beginning). Was that how he was quoted in the book you are reading?

By: Dale Campbell

Dale Campbell — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:07:34 +0000

Thanks Damian,
Very helpful of you to provide the (always enlightening and clarifying) context.

If you don’t mind, could you comment by way of distinguishing what you think this quote is saying and what it is not saying? He appears to want to ‘exclude’ ‘the divine spirit’ and other things from scientific responsibility, yet then goes on to say that scientific naturalism ‘explains’ traditional religion as ‘a wholly material phenomenon’??? Is he making a distinction between the (possibility) of a deity (i.e. ‘the divine spirit’) and the various acts of human thinking, writing, praying and worshipping it (i.e. ‘traditional religion’)???

By: Damian

Damian — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:44:20 +0000

Dale, here is E.O. Wilson’s quote in context:

“Every part of existence is considered to be obedient to physical law requiring no external control. The scientist’s devotion to parsimony in explanation excludes the divine spirit and other extraneous agents. Most importantly, we have come to the crucial state in the history of biology when religion itself is subject to the explanations of the natural sciences. As I have tried to show, sociobiology can account for the very origin of mythology by the principle of natural selection acting on the genetically evolving material structure of the human brain.

If this interpretation is correct, the final decisive edge enjoyed by the scientific naturalism will come from its capacity to explain traditional religion, its chief competition, as a wholly material phenomenon. Theology is not likely to survive as an independent intellectual discipline.” [emphasis added]

Wilson is renowned for for his work on sociobiology which very much overlaps with myths and religions and so on. He’s not some militant stepper-out-of-fields-of-expertise. If anything, E.O. Wilson is even more careful with his wording than Dawkins.

By: Dale Campbell

Dale Campbell — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:18:57 +0000

Dawkins seems to watch himself somewhat carefully - I’ve not seen any quotes where he flat-out ’says’ that science disproves God, but it’s implicit (explicit?) in much (all?) of what he says…
I’m reading ‘The Language of God’ by Francis Collins (Mr. human genome), and he points out a quote that likely lies behind the ’science disproves God’ mindset; from evolutionary biologist, E.O. Wilson:

“The final decisive edge enjoyed by scientific naturalism will come from its capacity to explain traditional religion, its chief competition, as a wholly material phenomenon. Theology is not likely to survive as an independent intellectual discipline.”

He should stick to biology…

By: Damian

Damian — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:04:21 +0000

I’ve read The God Delusion and from what I can remember I can’t think of anywhere that Dawkins even tried to disprove God. All I remember is that he pointed out many of the fallacies of various people’s beliefs about the Judeo-Christian God, asked for evidence and stated that he thinks it very very unlikely that there is such a being. Perhaps I missed something.

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:54:32 +0000

I actually agree that use of science to disprove a god (as in the books by Dawkins and Stenger) do come across as somewhat naive. It’s in the same class as the use of science to prove a god (as by Craig and many other Christian apologists). it is all just too naive and somewhat tacky.

One may actually propose a creator hypothesis (as in the science fiction book Cosm)- but if such a being was actually scientifically proved to have existed most theists would not recognise or accept it as their god.

To my mind there is not a real objectively existing god (which rules out physics, cosmology, etc. as investigative tools) - but there is certainly a god in some peoples’ minds and cultures. That is the interesting thing to study. Dawkins makes some attempt (not very convincing to me) but I think there is more of value in books by Dennett(Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon) and Pascal Boyer (Religion Explained).

No, I don’t think god is a part of the universe (local or wider). That is the wrong question. God is part of our mind - at least for some of us. That’s where we should be studying the phenomenon.

By: Dale Campbell

Dale Campbell — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:47:35 +0000

Thanks Ken,
I’m talking about what Dawkins is doing by stating that the ‘God hypothesis’ is ‘a question for science’ - as if God would be a part of the universe.
As I’ve said before, scientists (and I think you agree here) need not be troubled by either limits or impositions upon ‘reality’. Their work isn’t affected by the games played by some over whether or not reality has a supernatural dimension or not. They just get on with testing, observing and experimenting with those things that they test, observe and experiment with.
In this sense, working scientists don’t really need to use (let alone technically define) the word ‘reality’ at all. They just do what they do.
Again, my problem is with Dawkins trying to use science to disprove God - which seems obvious by his statement that the question of God’s existence is a question for science. Does he really think that God would be a part of the universe?

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:10:12 +0000

I don’t know where you get these definitions from, Dale. ‘Reality’ is surely a very acceptable and understandable term - that which exists. It’s not dependent on religious belief. I don’t understand it the way you claim.

Now, you can divide reality up any which way you want - but accept in doing so you are making huge assumptions not based on evidence.

I know some people want to impose a ‘natural’/’supernatural’ boundary - but where do you place it? It’s going to be, at least, a moving boundary (just think how many things formerly understood as ’supernatural’ are now ‘natural.’

In practice scientists today don’t make this distinction in their investigations. How scientific would it be to declare beforehand that “this phenomenon is ’supernatural’”?

We all accept that there may be parts of reality that humanity can never investigate or understand because of technological, cognitive or other limitations. Our attitude is surely that we will face this problem when we come to it. Any other would be a cop out.

By: Dale Campbell

Dale Campbell — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:41:44 +0000

Ken,
If you’re going to continue to use ‘reality’ to mean “that category of existence in which we know for durn sure there isn’t anything non-natural”, then we can’t really have much discussion. I understand why (as an atheist [or non-theist]) you want to do that, but I don’t think we should attach either atheism or theism to the word ‘reality’ - let’s just let it be what it is: the largest category for all ‘real’ things.