Why can’t you be humble like me you bastard?!
Mark Vernon is annoying. Again.
But if you speak to people who believe literally in the six days of Genesis, they do so in part because they fear the moral nihilism they see as implicit in a Dawkins-style Darwinism. Dawkins’ approach is pretty nihilistic because he insists on the meaning-lite doctrine of ‘science as salvation’, as Mary Midgley put it. He will never win the Creationists over. Rather, he is likely to confirm them in their belief.
Notice the complete absence of substantiation for that silly accusation. Notice the failure even to say what it’s supposed to mean – notice the obnoxious combination of the emphatic verb ‘insists’ with the labeling via someone else’s unexplained epithet. Does Dawkins ‘insist’ on ‘the meaning-lite doctrine of “science as salvation”‘? Not that I know of – but then it’s hard to falsify Vernon there, because it’s hard to know what he means. No doubt that’s why he feels free to end with a flourish by recycling the very stale accusation of being an inadvertent ally of Creationism.
Rather than grappling with the possibility that there are areas of experience on which reason and experiment can throw no or little light, Dawkins marches blindly behind a banner calling blithely for more and more scientific, atheistic light.
Rather than grappling with the possibility that there are areas of experience on which reason and experiment can throw more light than he has the knowledge or imagination to realize, Mark Vernon marches blindly behind a banner calling blithely for closing down inquiry into areas of experience that he thinks should be immune from rational inquiry and experiment.
Vernon talks endlessly about uncertainty and humility, without ever demonstrating either one. He uses the words as sticks to beat atheists, arrogantly and assertively misrepresenting them in the process. He’s another Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, shouting at atheists for not being humble and uncertain.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear… is he seriously trying to hide behind the old “My deity is impervious to/immune to/outside the parameters of science/reason/your puny unimaginative skeptical minds…???
And the way he twists people’s words & repeats false accusations…
Almost makes ya want to HATE the guy, doesn’t it?
:-)
But how does he get this nonsense into something calling itself “philosophynow”?
Surely it should be “logicalfallaciesnow”, or “misrepresentationnow”??
ho hum.
Yes of course he is – and not very shyly at that.
I had the same evil thought about Philosophy Now…
Why should Dawkins care whether he confirms creationists in their beliefs? It’s not like creationists are going to change their minds. If God himself thundered from the heavens that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old and all creatures evolved by natural selection, the poor dears would probably rationalize it as a Satanic plot.
Why should he care?! Because of the election, of course! What election? The US presidential election in November 2008, of course! Why should that be Dawkins’s main concern? Because – because – ask Matthew Nisbet, he knows.
Now c’mon, let’s be fair. Mark Vernon published something in a similar vein in The Philosopher’s Magazine…in the last issue, wasn’t it? Not an attack on Dawkins, but a defense of agnosticism which makes a lot of similar points.
I don’t mind his whole thing about humility and not expecting every question to be answered by science. I just don’t think atheists have to disagree with him about these things. I don’t even think Dawkins does…as he explicitly says he’s not 100% certain of no gods. And he explicitly rejects “scientisim.”
Well anyway. It’s great fun that Dawkins upsets people so much. He must be enjoying himself.
“[T]here are areas of experience on which reason and experiment can throw no or little light…”
I’ve never understood why otherwise intelligent people keep repeating this disproven notion. No one knows what the limits of science are, and it’s feasible that given enough time, there are none. The obvious retort to this nonsensical idea is “maybe not so far, but progress continues.” This attitude is nothing but obscurantism. It’s the opposite of humility, where people are saying, “I’m part of a species so profoundly deep and complex that scientists diligently working away for millenia will never figure out.” I’m sure that people a thousand years ago were sure that the ocean floor would never be mapped. Now we’ve got the northernmost countries contending over mining rights of the North Pole.
Ooh, what a horrible little essay, with a very awkward construction.And containing within it a lovely little iece of hypocrisy: “It appears that Dawkins simply cannot be bothered to tackle the best arguments of those he opposes.”
I’ve noticed that this particular breed of smug, often media, anti-atheist (or anti-‘fundamentalist atheist’) takes a very particular approach to Dawkins. I think it is pretty clear from both his books and general trajectory that Dawkins’s fundamental position is that there is no evidence for the existence of a god, and evidence against the existence of any particular god – i.e. atheism. Everything flows from that. So our smug anti-atheists will pretty much refuse to engage with that point at all – I won’t speculate as to why but I think we can probably guess – perhaps obliquely approaching it from a position of weakness with arguments about the metaphorical nature of religion, or broad platitudes of the “…more things in heaven and Earth…” variety.
But what they will engage with, with gusto in fact, is Dawkins’s argument about the damage and dangers of religion in particular and faith in the face of reason in general. They will naturally try and paint this as an attack on all religious believers as being evil, and the less sophisticated will probably try and throw in a Hitler/Stalin comparison in order to give up and moral high ground they may have occupied. This argument will be broadened out to talk about fundamentalist atheists trying to oppress poor little religious believers, in Cornwell’s case going to the extent of accusing Dawkins of initiating some kind of proto-Holocaust rhetoric against them – perhaps a little hyperbolic given Dawkins is simply trying to question the special status and privilege given the religion.
They’ll likely finish off with an argument that Dawkins is arrogant or somesuch, and that, as above, he has failed to engage with the oh-so-convincing and clever arguments that totally disprove his position that we just don’t seem to have room for here. Perhaps a nod to Aliser McGrath, or now Cornwell will serve as placemarkers.
I agree with Ophelia on this one. The essay is really quite startlingly bad. The 7 deadly sins thing is a silly gimmick which actually means he has to distort his arguments to fit (look at avarice and envy), which is unforgiveable in a philosophy magazine (well, actually, in a newspaper too, but we’re used to that).
And how dodgy is this, as a rhetorical trick? Incidentally, Dawkins’ chapter on these two tyrants ends by quoting the philosopher Sam Harris in glowing terms. What is less often cited from Harris’ book The End of Faith is his contemplation of the possibility of nuking Muslims, which though it would kill millions of innocents, might be the only option ‘we’ have, in the face of the threat ‘they’ represent to us, apparently. I looked up the Dawkins part, and needless to say, the bit he is quoting is nothing to do with nuking anyone (ie Vernon is just using a debating move which probably has a name). Then I looked up Sam Harris. It’s true, he does, literally “contemplate” the possibility, in a section about why the desire for martyrdom makes the logic of cold war inapplicable. He says that if Islamic state acquire long-range nuclear weaponry, at some stage “a first strike…would be an unthinkable crime….but it may be the only course of action avaiable to us, given what Islamists believe”. I don’t agree with him, but Vernon is implying that even to contemplate the argument is beyond the pale. Oh, but of course he has made this deniable, hasn’t he? by merely pointing out that SH has contemplated the issue without commenting further.
Yuck and double yuck.
The sloth bit is just as irritating. It’s the usual “Dawkins has not addressed the best theology” point, but with the added crappy rhetorical twist (a) of saying that that’s because D is lazy (as opposed to the fact that it’s because he is writing a popular book and (b) not even bothering with the usual string of dropped names of supposedly-super-subtle theologians, but instead merely quoting a couple of one-liners from other reviews. So I should believe that Dawkins has failed to address some important point because Vernon sez that Terry Eagleton sez so? Puh-lease.
Someone should call Vernon (or any of the others adopting the Courtier’s Reply. They need to set out somewhere a summary of the best theological arguments that they don’t think Dawkins has addressed. That is, they actually have summarise the arguments, not just make a reading list.
The thing that drives me berserk about this ‘sophisitcated arguments’ trope is that they aren’t. They may be clever-clever but in the end they are the base of an inverted pyramid whose point is a simplistic myth.
After all, some terribly clever books have been written about astrology, but nobody seems to be calling Dawkins on not having treated them seriously enough. To me it’s a bit like the Judith Butler schtick suggesting that her writing must be deep and true because its impposible to understand.
Re: alpha – they also use cult-like groupthink brain washing-lite techniques but I don’t think that is deliberate.
“They need to set out somewhere a summary of the best theological arguments that they don’t think Dawkins has addressed.”
I’ve just been thinking that. It’s so odd that they love to refer to them, yet they never actually make any ‘sophisticated’ subtle convincing arguments. Why is that? Are these arguments so sophisticated that they can’t be made in under twenty thousand words? But surely they can be summarized? It really is striking that there are so many really bad (badly argued, badly reasoned, badly [i.e. not at all] supported by evidence) attacks on Dawkins and/or ‘New atheism’ out there that merely refer to sophisticated arguments for the existence of God without ever actually making any such arguments. If the arguments are so dang good, why don’t any of these flailers make them?
I can think of three unfavorable but reasonable review of Dawkins – Nagel, Derbyshire, Jim Holt. There must be others – if anyone knows of any, let me know. I want to do a comparative list.
“Now c’mon, let’s be fair. Mark Vernon published something in a similar vein in The Philosopher’s Magazine…in the last issue, wasn’t it? Not an attack on Dawkins, but a defense of agnosticism which makes a lot of similar points.”
Yes, but I’ve been (quietly, obscurely, if not exactly humbly) disagreeing with him about this stuff for a long time – I think he consistently exaggerates the certainty of atheists and atheism (and science) while at least implicitly letting theism off the hook.
Derbyshire? I can cope with “religion has done good stuff as well as bad stuff and Dawkins doesn’t acknowledge that”. But he then appears to be arguing that we need religion for morals, which is tripe (it is certainly true that TGD would be improved by an explanation of why it is tripe, but that’s not the point Derbyshire makes).
Damn. I meant to check the Derbyshire review before I made that claim (I already had a post on this comparative reviews subject in mind before I got on the computer, before I saw Mark’s reply) – but I was in a hurry, so I didn’t check it.
I’ve found the Vernon article in TPM. Again, I think it claims too much; quite a lot too much.
Oh yes, I remember that bit now. He doesn’t exactly argue that we need religion for morals, but he does argue that Dawkins is “altogether more confident than most moral philosophers are that secular sense can easily be made of the idea that every individual human being is precious.” That’s a much narrower point though, and not obviously silly in the way the really bad reviews are. It’s quite reasonable to say that it’s not easy to make secular sense of the idea that every human is precious. So that one still gets to stay in the reasonable group. The point about the ones in the unreasonable group is that they’re so wildly, blatantly, unmistakably bad.
Yes, agreed, I wasn’t really making a point about the piece qua book review, which is what you were talking about. (My complaint about it qua book review is that it’s very short, but maybe that’s due to word constraints in cotland on Sunday).
Jim Holt rocks, though – thank-you for pointing me to him (a reason to read Slate!). Nagel starts OK but I can only read half without subscribing to New Republic.
I’m not being very helpful, am I? Kenan Malik in the Telegraph might be a candidate for your list.
Ah, Kenan Malik – I’ll find that. I can’t remember if I linked to it at the time or not.
Very helpful!
I’ll send you the Nagel review.
Well, he lost me when he cited Immanuel -space is necessarily non-eclidian- Kant as example of the attempt to map the limits reason and science. What is surely, interesting about that attempt is that it failed (or possibly how it failed).
The taxpayers, students and potential students do not support academia so lazy doofuses can say whatever tripe passes through their heads with the authority of a Ph.D.
Presumably Mark Vernon has sufficient academic credentials to be published in Philosophy Now.
I understand the need for diversity of opinion, but as a taxpayer, I’m not interested in supporting an institution that has so deeply abandoned the most basic standards of rationality and intellectual integrity that it has credentialed Vernon.
I think he has degrees in Physics, Theology, and Philosophy.
Well, that’s OK BB, since the none of Philosophy Now or the universities of Durham, Oxford or Warwick are supported by the US taxpayer.
Alvin Plantinga’s review of TGD had the small merit of actually addressing something Dawkins said – in contrast to so many others. But IMHO was it also condescending, irrelevant and falacious. Which hasn’t stopped it being widely reported on the Web as a trashing of Dawkins.