[MD] Dawkins a Materialist (is watching?)

[Jos Laycock]

Mr Dawkins is not unaware of these issues.

Anyone see these nice bits beginning on page 282 of "The God Delusion":

"Philosophers, especially amateurs a little philosophical learning, and even
more especially those infected with "cultural relativism" may raise a
tiresome red herring at this point: a scientists belief in evidence is
itself a matter of fundamentalist faith." 
(Snip)
"All of us believe in evidence in our own lives, whatever we may profess
with our amateur philosophical hats on."
(snip) 
"I cannot get away with the philosophical evasion :"it depends what you mean
by "true"."
(snip)
"Maybe scientists are fundamentalists when it comes to defining in some
abstract way what is meant by "truth", but so is everybody else, I am no
more fundamentalist when I say that evolution is true  than when I say it is
true that New Zealand is in the Southern Hemisphere"

Are these specifically directed at people on this site? Has anyone here
corresponded with el Dawko? If so then he seems to have misunderstood.

Of course the cultural pattern that defines what the "southern" hemisphere
is, includes an understanding of the geographical position of new Zealand,
his statement of "truth" is tautologous. What's weird though is that in
another section on "consciousness raising" he himself extols the benefits of
globes showing the south pole at the top being given to children in order to
break down unthinking acceptance of accepted conventional ideas??

He never actually gives a proper rebuttal other than that "its obviously
wrong" or "your just playing at silly buggers" or "you can't really believe
this" etc etc. Earier in the book during his dismissal of Thomas Aquinas
proofs (no4 argument from degree) follows the same non-argument, which by
his own standards is a matter of belief not proof.


-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of David M
Sent: 07 January 2007 20:14
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Dawkins a Materialist

So DMB tells me I am looking for certainty when I am not,
that we can trust the scientific process that he seems to have no
understanding of, that conclusions can be drawn from evidence
without having to make assumptions on which to ground our
interpretation of evidence, that he does not want to discuss the
philosophy of science (as he appears to have almost no knowledge
about it) but that he wants to wave his hand at the power of technology,
that he has reasons to trust science even if he has not critically examined
its presuppositons and methods, that he is impressed by some metaphor
about mountains, that he has never heard that evidence is theory-laden,
that eveidence can be taken on trust (why? are scientists nothing like
politicians? is this due to magic?), that the sort of knowledge we get from
science is pure and undirected by social interests. The below is very silly
and you should go and do some reading on this subject because you are
seriously empty headed on this one.

David M


 dmb says:
> Sigh. This is the sort of nonsense I was complaining about when I said my
> detractors seem to be amaking the bogus assumption that faith-based 
> beleifs
> include any view that is held in the absence of absolute certainty. I 
> mean,
> we can trust the sceintific process without resorting to faith. We can
> accept the conclusions of science and believe them with resorting to 
> faith.
> We can see that science works, that it produces useful knowlege, that it 
> is
> valuable and gets things done. We have lots and lots of REASONS to trust
> science. Nobody is saying that scientific knowledge is absolute, perfect,
> above criticism, beyond improvement or anything like that, but there is a
> mountain of evidence that has been building for hundreds of years. Reason,
> experience and evidence is the basis of our trust, not faith. We certainly
> don't have to personally observe every experiment or read every article to
> think that science works, to believe its assertions or to put trust in the
> process.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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