Book Review – The God Delusion
Critics of Richard Dawkins’ new book The God Delusion ultimately characterize his work as both angry and vitriolic, or more tamely, polemic. These are unhelpful descriptions as each fails to ask the question whether Dawkins has something to be angry, vitriolic or polemic about. Too many cultural commentators want to engender what they claim to be a thought process, but is in all actuality a feeling, that we should find a middle road between the mandates of science and the insights of spirituality. The bargain such people strike to make has value, but only where we can manage to clearly differentiate between those areas of life which science can and has spoken to, and those where it has not.
A number of reviewers from prestigious newspapers, periodicals and journals have already commented on what they see as the merits and missteps of Dawkins’ book; however, many of them have not wrestled with several of the critical insights in his work. To resort to the ambiguous but doubtlessly effective (at least as measured by persuading people not to be bothered with Dawkins) charge that his analysis is angry, is to be unwilling to meet Dawkins on the grounds of his arguments. It should be said that, in the interests of fairness, Dawkins is surprisingly willing not to resort to similar vagaries. While a portion of his book does deal with fundamentalism and its various confused pulpiteers such as Dobson, Falwell and their ilk, this is only a small section of his book. That he is willing to bear the responsibility for pointing out what these people actually believe, their hopes for reshaping American culture, and how their beliefs impact hard science should not mean that we relegate Dawkins to the same heap of exasperation we do fundamentalists.
Perhaps it is the biologist within Dawkins that leads him to believe a parallel exists between biological cancer and similarly suspicious malignant ideological growths. While many of us wish to overlook fundamentalists with the hope they will simply go away, Dawkins fears this might not only be naďve, but irresponsible. History is full of moments when society has regressed, labeling dissent the path to eternal damnation instead of earthly wisdom. While it might be that the inherent practical nature of the American people will be offended by the objectives of religious fundamentalism, rebel and find our historical balance, we easily forget that this balance is many times found only because of the clarion call from those who see the creeping influence and suspicious agendas of fundamentalists and require that we respond. A certain shame should be accorded to those who view with equal exasperation the fundamentalist and those who believe they can not be dismissed, but must be responded to.
As a scientist, Dawkins is privy to a particular question which contemporary culture largely believes remains unanswered, but science does not. This question is the hot-button issue of evolution. For many, belief in evolution is somehow inter-related with issues like abortion and homosexuality. No doubt, within the realm of ideological inquiry, we may successfully frame almost any issue in majestic terms that invoke non-quantitative words which have, at their core, the ability to project and then protect the idea that certain questions are unanswerable through rigorous scientific inquiry.
At its base, the question of evolution echoing in the head of the average person probably has less to do with science and more to do with the implications from scientific inquiry and theory in general. People’s intuition subconsciously registers the threat that evolution presents; namely, that naturalism may be a task master no less demanding than certain religious systems. The idea that we may have only one opportunity to experience life adds a certain intensity within it which many currently avoid by pushing their hopes, aspirations and expectations (of themselves and others) into an afterlife. Additionally, among profound thoughts, few exceed the evolutionary realization that life on this planet is precious, inter-related, and that the environment must be viewed as a holistic organism within which we individually and collectively play an important role.
What scares Dawkins is probably the realization that for many people, the insights of evolutionary theory are believed to be inseparable from a descent into animalistic hedonism. Never mind that ideas like morality have equivalents in the animal kingdom, as do love, nurturing and protecting life. If one of the fundamental truths of the natural universe is Darwinism, we should share a certain amount of alarm with Dawkins that the implications to evolutionary science are being so poorly received. Man owes no duty to myth or to tradition, and finds progress only in those moments in time when verifiable truth is allowed to dictate how we engage reality. In this sense, Dawkins bears the vanguard of members of the natural sciences like Galileo who believed that any supposedly spiritual truth which could not bear the light of modernity was not worth protecting in the first place.
For those who wish to somehow tiptoe around the theory of evolution, Dawkins is perceived as hostile. To those who believe something important might actually be at stake by understanding where life comes from and how it develops, Dawkins is fighting for a solitary focus on what we know, not what we wish to believe is true. This latter point has not only important philosophical, scientific and theological outcomes, it has immense practical value by freeing the abused spouse or child to realize that what they wish to be true – that the abuser loves them, but is unaware of how to show it – is simply a prison from which they can only escape by separating what they wish was true from what can be verified as loving.
To his credit, Dawkins takes his scientific and philosophical critics seriously and responds assertively. Those who see his book as bracing are not being fair – if scientific inquiry is to mean anything it must not blanch at challenges which attempt and endlessly find some open hole through which they can see the shortcomings to a particular theory. Dawkins is never better than when defending the difference between science and theology, where one sees ignorance as limits to inquiry and knowledge versus the other as the gap only a creator god can fill. In a successful effort to be intellectually serious, Dawkins carefully uses examples of fundamentalists within hard science. This is probably because they are a rare species (perhaps his critics wish his biologist’s sense of the need to protect endangered life was more acutely directed towards them), but more likely because he knows well they can create straw men which he does not appreciate being used on him. Dawkins’ treatment of the classical arguments for intelligent design, Anselm and Aquinas’ postulates for the proof of God are treated similarly respectfully, which is not to say they fare well in his hands.
It would surprise me if this book did more than add fuel to the fire; however, if we wish to employ a literary euphemism such as this, it would be appropriate to state that sometimes fire is nature’s way of regulating itself (as the blow-down effect in the northern woods suggests). If so, the fire Dawkins is building may be an important part of our growth in consciousness. People who look to Dawkins with a critical eye towards what he suggests about internal spirituality should be careful as this was not the primary, or even secondary, thrust of his analysis. The purpose of this book was to deal with a particular set of concerns which Dawkins believes represents a bulwark to the progress of humanity. In a hat-tip to this inevitable criticism, towards the end of his book Dawkins does present a middle way which suggests a vehicle for transitioning between where most humanity is and the implications of evolutionary biology. While well-intentioned and certainly not without its merits, I much prefer writers who consider evolution’s insights fixed and have moved on to wrestle with how we reshape religion into conscious personal enlightenment.
To be a spry debater is not to be mean. Many who mistake Dawkins’ assertive and direct style for vitriol do so less because they believe his attitude prevents civil discourse, and more in the hopes that society can advance without calling ineptness for its inadequacies, and confusing current limits of human knowledge with the inevitability of supernatural explanations. At his base, Dawkins does not feel compelled to believe without proof, an attitude which some believe has value only within the sciences. Among the many insights to this book, perhaps the one which will stick with most is the simple realization that we have no need of beliefs which can not be tested or of ideas which give solace but wither under scrutiny. What we may hope for should not be what we believe, lest we give in to any number of delusions, only one of which is, as Dawkins describes, The God Delusion.
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“If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.”
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January 18th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
[…] e heap of exasperation we do fundamentalists. My full review of Dawkins’ book can be read here. The Iraq Study Group Report: the Way Forward – A New Approach by […]
January 18th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
[…] me heap of exasperation we do fundamentalists. My full review of Dawkins’ book can be read here. previous post: Updated End-of-Year 2006 Bookshelf ne […]