[MD] Dawkins a Materialist (is watching?)

Thu Jan 11 15:39:29 PST 2007

Hi Gav,

I think you'd find Dawkins hasn't changed much at all. He very much 
still stands as a poster-child for the O in SOM. But he did quote Pirsig 
on page 5 in the preface to 'The GOD Delusion':

"The dictionary provided with Microsoft Word defines a delusion as 'a 
persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory 
evidence, especially as a symptom of psychiatric disorder'. The first 
part captures religious faith perfectly. As to whether it is a symptom 
of a psychiatric disorder, I am inclined to follow Robert M. Pirsig, 
author of 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance', when he said, 
'When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When 
many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.' "

I think he's softened up a little, but his full-bore materialism and 
reduction of everything into biologist terms of Darwinian Evolution(tm!) 
made it challenging to finish the book. He raises some very valid points 
and insights on religion, but leaves many of his arguments wide-open to 
attack via a charge of materialism. With a co-writer or editor to touch 
up the materialist bits, it could be a very fine book.

Humorously, there's a part in the book where he tries to dispel the 
"fundamentalist" charge put against (materialist) science.. Pages 
282-286. He starts the second paragraph as follows:

"Philosophers, especially amateurs with a little philosophical learning, 
and even more especially those infected with a 'cultural relativism', 
may raise a tiresome red herring at this point: a scientist's belief in 
_evidence_ is itself a matter of fundamentalist faith. I have dealt with 
this elsewhere, and will only briefly repeat myself here. All of us 
believe in evidence in our own lives, whatever we may profess with our 
amateur philosophical hats on. If I am accused of murder, and 
prosecuting counsel sternly asks me whether it is true that I was in 
Chicago on the night of the crime, I cannot get away with a 
philosophical evasion: 'It depends what you mean by "true".' Nor with an 
anthopological, relativist plea: 'It is only in your Western scientific 
sense of "in" that I was in Chicago. The Bongolese have a completely 
different concept of "in", according to which you are only truly "in" a 
place if you are an anointed elder entitled to take snuff from the dried 
scrotum of a goat.'

"Maybe scientists are fundamentalist when it comes to defining in some 
abstract what what is meant by 'truth'. But so is everybody else. "

It goes on from there, but it's all downhill. You get the idea.

He does touch briefly on the fantastic life-inspiration of science in 
the last chapter (a section titled "THE MOTHER OF ALL BURKAS", 
pp362-374, the end), but that footnote (still materialistic) is the 
extent of his softening-up.

-Laird

gav wrote:
> has dawkins changed his tune since the selfish gene
> and blind watchmaker?
>
> he seemed pretty standard SOM to me back when i read
> them: he reifies the O in the SOM, a classic false
> monist position (ie the subject is imaginary; the
> object real, hence monism, but really a lopsided
> dualism).
>
> his genetic reductionism is naive, it seems to me
> anyway. we are just vessels for competing genes....?
> come on. does this mean that genes are de facto
> subjects?
>
> i found dawkins poor. he even made me swear in a
> philosophy class: i interrupted the lecturer, who was
> paraphrasing dawkins position, saying that i can't
> fucking stand anyone that trys to take the very
> livingness of life away. 
>
> dawkins seems to be a nihilistic materialist to me,
> but maybe he has had a change of heart lately?
>
>
>
>
>
>   
>> Quoting Jos Laycock <jos.laycock at virgin.net>:
>>
>>     
>>> Hi Platt 
>>>
>>> Funny thing is, Dawkins almost has me...
>>> He is not a SOMist by our definitions, frequently
>>>       
>> citing a tendency towards
>>     
>>> dualist attitudes in children as being a primary
>>>       
>> factor in susceptibility to
>>     
>>> the acceptance of religious ideals. He utterly
>>>       
>> rejects any mind/body split.
>>     
>>> In his view the more advanced or sophisticated*
>>>       
>> (and scientific) stance is
>>     
>>> monism. His only difference from the MOQ seems to
>>>       
>> be that his world is made
>>     
>>> of a substance (that he can't define) and ours is
>>>       
>> made of Values (that we
>>     
>>> can't define), the two may prove to be
>>>       
>> indistinguishable.
>>
>> Hi Jos,
>>
>> Since the MOQ does acknowledge substance (patterns
>> of static values) but Dawkins
>> doesn't acknowledge values, wouldn't it be fair to
>> say that the two monisms
>> are indeed "distinguishable," the former being more
>> inclusive of experience? 
>>
>>     
>>> There is even a
>>> lengthy section on theories of how cultural memes
>>>       
>> and belief systems evolve
>>     
>>> in a quasi Darwinian fashion, which could have
>>>       
>> plucked directly from Lila.
>>
>> One you put your faith in Darwinian evolution, you
>> can force fit almost anything
>> into its assumptions.
>>
>>     
>>> I'll dig out the quotes if anyone cares, but the
>>>       
>> book is if nothing else a
>>     
>>> good laugh so go read it!
>>>
>>> (*what an in8teresting connotation that word can
>>>       
>> have!)
>>
>> Indeed. "Sophisticated" is a great big balloon word
>> whose meaning is kept
>> deliberately obtuse by self-appointed elites to
>> intimidate the great unwashed.
>>
>> Platt
>>
>>
>>
>>
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