[MD] Dawkins a Materialist (is watching?)

[Jos Laycock]

Hi David 

I don't directly disagree with the initial statements either, just picking
up on the resonances.
The style of writing throughout Dawkins book is to state things that will be
acceptable to a broad audience and gradually lead the reader towards a point
where their original accepted position is no longer tenable, but just
because the intermediate steps are small and apparently innocuous doesn't
mean that they necessarily are. 

I don't choose to offer a position one way or the other, just to make clear
that Dawkins' arguments do not in fact entirely bypass MOQ type concepts and
that he is aware of this paradigm. In my view he doesn't address it
particularly effectively in this latest book, but of course make up your own
mind.

On the "obviously wrong" tack we should all bear in mind that much of the
MOQ is based on the presumption that we "obviously know" what quality is. If
we are not required to define how or what we know, then why should we expect
mr Dawkins or anybody else to define why certain concepts are asserted to be
"obviously true".

I'll copy out the interesting paragraphs shortly when I get time.

Jos

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of david buchanan
Sent: 10 January 2007 17:26
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Dawkins a Materialist (is watching?)

Jos Laycock quoted Dawkins' "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."

dmb says:
I agree with Dawkins on this point. Ken Wilber expresses the same sentiment 
and Pirsig has stated that scientific assumptions are not the same as faith.

It seems to me that there has been a cadre of MOQers who are infected with 
this sort of relativism. It probably wouldn't help to name names, but 
anybody who's paid attention already knows anyway.

Jos Quoted Dawkins:
"All of us believe in evidence in our own lives, whatever we may profess 
with our amateur philosophical hats on."

dmb says:
In the absence of any context, I'll just have to assume Dawkins is not being

sarcastic or ironic and offer an interpretation tentatively. It seems to me 
that there is no way to discount the importance of evidence. I mean, the 
belief that beiefs ought to be based on some evidence is, well... evident. 
It might be an assumption in some sense of the word but the value of the 
assumption is proven all the time. We have evidence for the value of 
evidence. We've found that it works in so many different situations, every 
day, all the time that doubting its value in our culture constitutes some 
kind of insanity. Its a matter of simple pragmatism. The smell of rotten 
eggs in put into natural gas so that when there is a leak we can have some 
evidence of that fact and the failure to act upon that evidence will kill 
you and your dog. I mean, of course we believe in evidence. How can you not?

How is can such an obvious thing be discounted? I never understood that 
attitude, even if this is not Dawkins point.

Jos quoted Dawkins:
"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."

Jos commented on this quote:
...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?

dmb says:
Tautologous? Yes, it seems to me that "new zealand" and "the southern 
hemisphere" have meaning and definition by virtue of our cultural patterns. 
But this is also true of things like "evolution", "Truth" evidence" and any 
other word you can think of. This is partly what I was getting at in saying 
that the refusal to see the value of evidence is some kind of crazy. In our 
world, in our culture, these terms have a definition and meaning and 
represent some of the most evolved values in our culture. Words like truth, 
reason and evidence are intimately connected with words openness, honesty, 
fairness, sincerity and validity. These are not small things.

Jos said:
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.

dmb says:
I'd like to hear the details of this part of his argument. I'd agree that 
these fragments make it appear that he is just making bald assertions 
without any real argument, but I can sympathize with the attitude. Like I 
tried to explain above, some moves do strike me as obviously wrong, so wrong

that its almost difficult to think of any arguments that aren't already 
completely obvious. Its like trying to explain to somebody why murder is 
wrong. You just scratch your head and say, "but isn't it obvious?". Same 
with reason, evidence and logic. Its obviously better that irrationality, 
faith and illogic, isn't it?

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