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Ch. 1: Science and Sensibility (A Devil's Chaplain)

#96: May - July 2011 (Non-Fiction)
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Ch. 1: Science and Sensibility (A Devil's Chaplain)

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DWill wrote:
Robert Tulip wrote:Dawkins then quotes TH's grandson Julian Huxley
The Universe can live and work and plan, At last made God within the mind of man.
Dawkins prefaced his quotation of the poem by saying that it said some things he didn't want to say, and I'm pretty sure this would be one.
No. As I subsequently said, Dawkins presents a favorable analysis of this idea with his statement "We are blessed with brains which, if educated and allowed free rein, are capable of modelling the universe, with its physical laws in which the Darwinian algorithm is embedded." Huxley is using the term God in the same way as Einstein, which Dawkins accepts as a euphemism for nature. For Einstein (and Huxley) the idea of 'God within the mind of man' is precisely what Dawkins discusses as the human ability to model the Darwinian algorithm.
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Re: Ch. 1: Science and Sensibility (A Devil's Chaplain)

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Robert Tulip wrote: No. As I subsequently said, Dawkins presents a favorable analysis of this idea with his statement "We are blessed with brains which, if educated and allowed free rein, are capable of modelling the universe, with its physical laws in which the Darwinian algorithm is embedded." Huxley is using the term God in the same way as Einstein, which Dawkins accepts as a euphemism for nature. For Einstein (and Huxley) the idea of 'God within the mind of man' is precisely what Dawkins discusses as the human ability to model the Darwinian algorithm.
You may be right about Dawkins not objecting to the line quoted. There is something about the poem, though, that he doesn't endorse.

Robert, regarding your reply to Dexter, if you look at what Dawkins does to explain science, analogy is a main tool. He doesn't mean in any way natural selection of genes has a moral (or economic, same thing) significance for us--except that in his opinion natural selection should be a negative example for morality.
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Re: Ch. 1: Science and Sensibility (A Devil's Chaplain)

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DWill wrote: in his opinion natural selection should be a negative example for morality.
I really think you are distorting what Dawkins writes, and you have no real evidence for this comment. You cannot take the critique of simplistic readings of 'survival of the fittest' as a suggestion that humanity has evolved beyond nature. His comment in The Selfish Gene about humans having the capacity to transcend our biology is a recognition that we have evolved to require rational morality as a key tool of adaptation to our global environment. We can read this to say that traditional religion is mired in emotion, whereas science gives us the capacity to evolve into reason as a basis for life.

What about all his discussion of how altruism is grounded in kin selection? There is abundant evidence that morality has a basis in biology, that we have evolved to be moral, as seen in the moral attitudes of apes. The key question now for our planet is human capacity for moral evolution.
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Re: Ch. 1: Science and Sensibility (A Devil's Chaplain)

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Robert Tulip wrote:
DWill wrote: in his opinion natural selection should be a negative example for morality.
I really think you are distorting what Dawkins writes, and you have no real evidence for this comment. You cannot take the critique of simplistic readings of 'survival of the fittest' as a suggestion that humanity has evolved beyond nature. His comment in The Selfish Gene about humans having the capacity to transcend our biology is a recognition that we have evolved to require rational morality as a key tool of adaptation to our global environment. We can read this to say that traditional religion is mired in emotion, whereas science gives us the capacity to evolve into reason as a basis for life.

What about all his discussion of how altruism is grounded in kin selection? There is abundant evidence that morality has a basis in biology, that we have evolved to be moral, as seen in the moral attitudes of apes. The key question now for our planet is human capacity for moral evolution.
Dexter has already quoted Dawkins:
I am a passionate anti-Darwinian when it comes to politics and how we should conduct our human affairs.
To be clear, Dawinism equals natural selection in Dawkins' statement. I think to get out of the bind we're in we'd have to define terms, because we're really not talking about the same things. Maybe we could start with what Dawkins means by natural selection and whether you mean the same thing he does.
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Re: Ch. 1: Science and Sensibility (A Devil's Chaplain)

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DWill wrote:Dexter has already quoted Dawkins:
I am a passionate anti-Darwinian when it comes to politics and how we should conduct our human affairs.
To be clear, Dawinism equals natural selection in Dawkins' statement. I think to get out of the bind we're in we'd have to define terms, because we're really not talking about the same things. Maybe we could start with what Dawkins means by natural selection and whether you mean the same thing he does.
I agree, there must be some basic misunderstanding here. I'm perplexed as to what Robert is trying to say. Dawkins makes it abundantly clear that evolution cannot be used as a basis in which to conduct human affairs. In essay 1.4 he discusses ethics and is very clear that science cannot help us decide what is ethical behavior.

"I have already touched on some ethical issues. Science has no methods for deciding what is ethical. That is a matter for individuals and for society. But science can clarify the questions being asked, and can clear up obfuscating misunderstandings." (p.34)
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Re: Ch. 1: Science and Sensibility (A Devil's Chaplain)

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In his essay on Science, Genetics and Ethics, Dawkins comments on the cultural and aesthetic value of science, saying "Science can be spiritual, even religious in a nonsupernatural sense of the word." My reading of Dawkins has focused on his impact as an ethical philosopher, with the strong subtext throughout his work that our values should be based on facts. Dawkins' main theme is that supernatural thinking is unethical because it is based on error.

Dawkins makes the point that all replicators are evolutionary. A gene is just a mathematical operator, like a square root - "genes really are watertight subroutines of digital software". In quoting Carl Sagan "I try not to think with my gut", Dawkins argues for values based on reason rather than emotion.

For example, science cannot define murder, which is a question of human values, but it can provide an evidentiary basis so that our values about murder are logically consistent. The ethical debate can take place on a factual platform. This raises the problem of 'scientists playing God' for example with genetic testing. I confess to a gut reaction here, that I am not sure Dawkins is sufficiently precautionary in his claim that a gene is just a gene (when moved from a fish to a tomato), or that a clone is exactly the same as the original.

Dawkins comments on the ethical treatment of scientific truth that evidence is essential for public claims. Deliberate falsifications and misrepresentations of scientific truth are unethical, so the converse argument is that rigorous scientific approaches are foundational to ethics.

Dawkins warns about how his comments are taken out of context. His statement "I am a passionate anti-Darwinian when it comes to politics" is a critique of immoral Nazi theories such as eugenics, and a refusal to be co-opted into a party political position. In no way does his comment extend to the claim that a morality that is compatible with evidence from natural selection may be inferior to a morality that is not compatible with evidence. His point is that evolution has made us into complex organisms who are only partly ethical, because our reason is in conflict with our instinct, especially regarding sexuality. His call for rebellion "against the tyranny of the selfish replicators" is precisely a call for the ethical evolution of humanity to base our moral sentiments on facts rather than fantasy and desire.
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Re: Ch. 1: Science and Sensibility (A Devil's Chaplain)

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Surely if Dawkins were really talking about a group of social views that were labeled at one point as social Darwinism, he would make it clear that he was. But he's talking about the very theory of natural selection that he himself is so devoted to explaining to us laymen. It's just that we don't want to apply it to our ideas of how we should treat others and what we should most value. You, Robert, see in evolution something that encompasses us in its push toward a destined future for our species. I think Dawkins sees evolution as a description of the billions of life events that have resulted in the planetary history of life as we are able to observe it; but there is no overall meaning to evolution, or at least--and this is the main point--none that science could determine.

I recall your saying that you have difficulty with existentialism. While Dawkins doesn't put himself in any school of philosophy (I don't think he cares about philosophy, do you?), for me he fits well with existentialism. Neither God nor any notion such as evolutionary destiny determines humans essence. We are in charge of conceiving and determining our ethics and morality.
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Re: Ch. 1: Science and Sensibility (A Devil's Chaplain)

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Our world has been transformed into a strange and unintuitive landscape, far afield from the savannas of Africa where our brains did much of their evolving. In many ways we are not well adapted to this modern labyrinth where intuition and instinct can no longer provide much guidance and, in fact, can often lead us astray. So by understanding the way our brains work and by developing critical thinking skills to address cognitive bias and other shortcomings, we can actually rise above our own primitive hardwiring. Similarly, Dawkins has argued that by understanding the nature of gene-centric evolution, we can rise above our selfish genes' relentless drive to replicate and survive across the generations. In other words, we can reassert the individual's power and perhaps influence our own destiny. He has mentioned our use of birth control as one example of asserting our will over our genes. I believe this is where Dawkins' passion for science (and dislike for organized religion) comes in because this self knowledge is very empowering to the individual. How better to know ourselves than to understand our basic animal (actually very human) impulses that drive our behavior?
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Re: Ch. 1: Science and Sensibility (A Devil's Chaplain)

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DWill wrote:Surely if Dawkins were really talking about a group of social views that were labeled at one point as social Darwinism, he would make it clear that he was. But he's talking about the very theory of natural selection that he himself is so devoted to explaining to us laymen. It's just that we don't want to apply it to our ideas of how we should treat others and what we should most value. You, Robert, see in evolution something that encompasses us in its push toward a destined future for our species. I think Dawkins sees evolution as a description of the billions of life events that have resulted in the planetary history of life as we are able to observe it; but there is no overall meaning to evolution, or at least--and this is the main point--none that science could determine.

I recall your saying that you have difficulty with existentialism. While Dawkins doesn't put himself in any school of philosophy (I don't think he cares about philosophy, do you?), for me he fits well with existentialism. Neither God nor any notion such as evolutionary destiny determines humans essence. We are in charge of conceiving and determining our ethics and morality.
Dawkin's point, in his quote from Darwin that gives the title A Devil's Chaplain, is that "natural selection can be expected to be clumsy, wasteful and blundering", but this universal algorithm of life is "certainly the only known force capable of producing the illusion of purpose", giving rise to all the elegance of nature.

Dawkins says "For good Darwinian reasons, evolution gave us a brain whose size increased to the point where it became capable of understanding its own provenance, of deploring the moral implications and of fighting against them." This invites us to ask how natural selection manifests in the modern world, seeing reason as just as natural as instinct. Humans have become dominant just because of our brains, which evolved by natural selection. So it does not make sense to say that rational action using our brains to ensure our survival is contrary to natural selection, rather, the human capacity for understanding and rational cooperation is just another stage of evolution.

Our brains enable us to evolve in far more efficient ways than life that lacks human intelligence, and have taken evolution to a new level, a difference of kind rather than degree. The difference is as significant as the Cambrian evolution of macrobial life, but no one says evolution stopped when things other than microbes first appeared 600 million years ago. To say otherwise is almost like suggesting that birds' use of wings to fly more efficiently is arbitrarily excluded from natural selection.

Thought has transformed the context of nature, but the optimal path for human life is still to adapt to our natural circumstances. Suggesting that evolutionary destiny is irrelevant to human essence falsely implies that humans are above nature. As Dawkins says, "the clumsy and cruel algorithm of natural selection has generated a machine capable of internalizing the algorithm, setting up a model of itself - and much more - in microcosm inside the human skull." Thought models nature. It is precisely this capacity that enables us to adapt to our circumstances. Ignoring natural consequences of actions is a recipe for disaster, for suffering the clumsy fate that nature dishes out to species that are no longer adaptive.

Dawkins' brilliance is his capacity to use zoology to articulate a coherent worldview. This is very much a philosophical and ethical agenda, a polemic against worldviews that are not compatible with zoology. Seeing humans as within nature, as Dawkins emphasises in his essay on our kinship with apes, does not give a licence for blundering waste, but rather suggests that we should use our main evolutionary resource, our brains, to ensure human survival and prosperity by understanding nature and adapting to it.

The apparent dichotomy between culture and nature is resolved by the recognition that culture is part of nature, that intelligence has evolved and will remain determinant for human prosperity within an evolving global ecosphere.

As a philosopher, Dawkins stands in the skeptical empirical tradition of David Hume and Karl Popper, emphasising observation and evidence as the basis of correct thought. This is why he is so caustic about wrong philosophy that ignores observation, such as postmodernism.

I didn't say I have difficulty with existentialism, in the sense that I disagree with it, but I did say I find it puzzling. I talked about this in relation to Dostoyevsky, saying that existentialism is a standing forth into ultimate reality, unwilling to accept lies, replacing delusory traditions with a faith in human reality. Where Dawkins differs from the existential tradition is his refusal to see human relation to an ultimate reality as an integrating theme for thought that opens new meaning in traditional ideas. Instead he stands with the liberal scientific view, the positivist tradition, that sees abstract ethical ideas as meaningless and dangerous. It would be nice to see more existential urgency in Dawkins, as his rejection of faith makes it hard for him to evangelise effectively for his message of reason.
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Re: Ch. 1: Science and Sensibility (A Devil's Chaplain)

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Dawkins main theme in his public role as educator in science isn't really how right science is, but how much more satisfying, intriguing, surprising, and strange it is than the religious view of creation or of pseudo-scientific beliefs such as the power of crystals. Reading him, I admit to regret that my own education in science was not that good. Purely my own fault, by the way.

The last two essays in the section were rousing in different ways. The one on postmodern bullcrap was a great send-up of the worst aspect of academia. I didn't attend a graduate school that was very into the hot literary theories and ideologies of the time (thankfully, we still were forced to take courses in Chaucer and Milton), but I had some exposure to the fashionable "theories" of phenomenolgy, structuralism, and deconstructionism--enough to convince me I'd never utter a word of them to students of my own. In his introduction, Dawkins has a neat thing to say about the creation of needless difficulty to satisfy academic ambitions. "Dawkins' Law of the Conservation of difficulty states that obscurantism in an academic subject expands to fill the vacuum of its intrinsic simplicity" (p. 6). Perfect.

His essay on education attacks the equation of education with succeeding on standardized tests. The goal of school systems becomes to obtain numerical test data on students and to strive to make that data reflect increasing student achievement. In the U. S., we have No Child Left Behind (in case of rapture?) on the national level, and state standards such as Standards of Learning in Virginia. Both emphasize "rigorous testing" and force teachers to teach to tests. Dawkins' school, Oundle, sneered at that soul-sapping edu-cratese and still does. Dawkins makes it sound like a wonderful place of learning.
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