Dawkins Craftier Then Dennett

So Richard Dawkins, Oxford Village Atheist, got interviewed by Beliefnet. (Heh. How he must have cringed and curled his lip at their name.) The result is all pretty much standard Dawkins' stuff: since I am a scientist, I have the priestly authority to say that you are an idiot for being religious, blah, blah. Also much use of the argumentum ad Herculeum, ie., "I'm tougher and stronger than you, wimp, because I can deal with the universe as it is." Standard stuff.

But I thought this was rather clever of the old rogue:

Is atheism the logical extension of believing in evolution?

They clearly can’t be irrevocably linked because a very large number of theologians believe in evolution. In fact, any respectable theologian of the Catholic or Anglican or any other sensible church believes in evolution. Similarly, a very large number of evolutionary scientists are also religious. My personal feeling is that understanding evolution led me to atheism.

Why is this clever? Because of this chortle-inducing episode recounted on the excellent First Things blog by Stephen Barr, professor of physics at the University of Delaware.

The philosopher Daniel Dennett visited us at the University of Delaware a few weeks ago and gave a public lecture entitled “Darwin, Meaning, Truth, and Morality"... Dennett claimed that Darwin had shredded the credibility of religion and was, indeed, the very “destroyer” of God. In the question session, philosophy professor Jeff Jordan made the following observation to Dennett, “If Darwinism is inherently atheistic, as you say, then obviously it can’t be taught in public schools.” “And why is that?” inquired Dennett, incredulous. “Because,” said Jordan, “the Supreme Court has held that the Constitution guarantees government neutrality between religion and irreligion.” Dennett, looking as if he’d been sucker-punched, leaned back against the wall, and said, after a few moments of silence, “clever.” After another silence, he came up with a reply: He had not meant to say that evolution logically entails atheism, merely that it undercuts religion.

Jeff Jordan’s question underlines how the self-appointed defenders of the scientific method are trying to have it both ways. Don’t allow religious philosophy to intrude into biology classrooms and texts, they say, for that is to soil the sacred precincts of science, which must be reserved for hypotheses that can be rigorously tested and confronted with data. The next minute they are going around claiming that anti-religious philosophy is part and parcel of the scientific viewpoint.

You see? Dawkins' doesn't let himself fall into the trap that Dennett does; but, as Barr points out, both Dawkins and Dennett want to have it both ways. Dawkins is just cleverer about it.

Barr also makes the very useful comment about the real world of academia, rather than the caricature that Dawkins and Dennett and bad journalism have created:

One of the glories of science is that people come together to do it who have all sorts of religious beliefs, philosophical views, cultural backgrounds, and political opinions. But as scientists they speak the same language. It is a wonderful fellowship. I have written research papers with colleagues (and friends) who are fierce atheists and think my Catholic beliefs are for the birds, and they know that I think their atheism is for the birds. Yet we respect each other as scientists. People like Dennett who wish to equate science with their own philosophical views (presumably out of vanity) risk doing immeasurable harm both to science itself and to its prestige. He is entitled to his philosophical opinions, but he is not entitled to claim them as the utterances of Science.