Review of Richard Dawkins The God Delusion

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Review of Richard Dawkins The God Delusion

• by Doug Johnson

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Defining Terms

• Like Skinner and Wittgenstein, Dawkins wants to
  define terms as they are used
• God defined A supernatural creator that is
  appropriate for us to worship
• Avoids problems of idiosyncratic definitions such
  as God is the ultimate, God is energy, etc

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Defining Terms

• Dawkins claims to be an atheist in the sense of a
  philosophical naturalist, who believes in nothing
  beyond the natural physical world
• No supernatural creative intelligence
• No soul
• No miracles (besides natural occurrences we dont
  understand yet)

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Consciousness-Raising

• One of goals of books is to raise consciousness
  in the same way feminists did. Recognition of how
  language affects our world view (much like Whorf
  and Skinner)
• Example Herstory versus history. As silly as it
  was, it focused people on neglect of recognition
  for women. Now if using word such as man
  instead of human, impossible to not to think of
  feminism for both feminists and non-feminists
  alike

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Hypotheses

• Like many scientists, Dawkins invests heavily in
  Popperian ideas of hypothesis testing and
  falsification
• God Hypothesis There exists a superhuman,
  supernatural intelligence that deliberately
  designed and created the universe and everything
  in it, including us
• No God Hypothesis Any creative intelligence, of
  sufficient complexity to design anything, comes
  into existence only as the end product of an
  extended process of gradual evolution

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Belief Scale
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Belief Scale

• Dawkins at 6 on scale Agnostic only to extent
  agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the
  garden
• Tooth fairy, Mother Goose, unicorns, orbiting
  space teapots, Flying Spaghetti Monsters, Greek
  and Roman gods All are undisprovable, yet nobody
  thinks existence is just as likely as
  non-existence.
• Most of us tend to be around 6 for these things
  and consider ourselves atheists regarding them.
• No-one says I consider the probability of
  unicorns existing to be 50/50, so we should be
  agnostic
• Why not treat God the same?
• Burden of proof rests with believers
• Just because you cant disprove existence of
  unicorns doesnt mean you cant say they dont
  exist
• Just because you cant disprove existence of God
  doesnt mean you cant say he doesnt exist

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Cant absolutely disprove

• Unlike Popper, Dawkins does not think all
  conjectures should be held in equal regard until
  disproved
• Rather, some undisprovable things are judged less
  probable than other undisprovable things
• Cannot prove Gods non-existence, but only to the
  degree we cant prove the non-existence of
  anything

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Evidence

• Logical positivists said we dont prove or
  disprove theories, rather we support a theory
  because of evidence in favor of it
• God Hypothesis No evidence (elaborated next)
• No God Hypothesis Evidence in form of evolution
  and other natural processes. Provides explanation
  for existence of entities whose improbability
  would otherwise rule them out

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Popular Evidence for God Hypothesis Argument
from Design

• Nothing that we know of looks designed with being
  designed
• Hypothesis flaw Evolution counters this
  argument by providing excellent imitation of
  design

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Popular Evidence for God Hypothesis Argument
from Improbability

• Complicated things such as the human eye, zebras,
  etc could not have occurred by chance
• The probability of life originating on Earth is
  as likely as a hurricane going through a junk
  yard and by chance assembling a Boeing 747

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Popular Evidence for God Hypothesis Argument
from Improbability

• Hypothesis flaw However improbable human eyes
  and zebras being designed by chance, the
  existence of a even more complicated designer is
  even more improbable, Philosophers such as Hume
  pointed this out, although they could not imagine
  the alternative at the time
• Pragmatism would suggest our descriptions should
  be as economical as possible, thus something as
  complicated as a supernatural designer should be
  avoided
• There are alternatives besides either chance
  alone or design alone

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More parsimonious explanation for biological
improbability

• Large numbers It has been estimated that there
  are between 1 billion and 30 billion planets in
  galaxy. At least a billion billion planets
  throughout the universe. The chemical model
  necessary for life (spontaneous arising of
  something equivalent to DNA) need only happen
  once on one planet among a billion billion
  planets over billions of years. Chance occurrence
  is not improbable in this setup

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More parsimonious explanation for biological
improbability

• Although chance can explain beginnings of life,
  cannot explain diversity of life and persuasive
  illusion of design
• Evolution supplies a plausible mechanism for
  diversity and complexity
• Large numbers combined with evolution is a more
  probable explanation for life than a supernatural
  intelligent designer who creates laws of how the
  universe works and periodically violates his own
  laws. Incoming evidence continues to support the
  former and weaken the latter (probability of
  Gods existence certainly less than 50)

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Falsification

• Dawkins sees scientists as very willing to
  discard belief if evidence conflicts (more in
  common with Popper than Kuhn)
• Recognizes that, in practice, not all scientists
  would do this. However, all scientists at least
  pay lip service to it and hold it as an ideal
• Thinks it is a strength that evolution could be
  disproved with single disconfirmation such as
  fossil rabbits in the Precambrian

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Evidence

• Quote from Russell What would you say to God if
  he came demanding to know why you didnt believe
  in him. Not enough evidence, God, not enough
  evidence.
• Evidence supports No God Hypothesis
• God is dangerous idea in that it is unhelpful and
  misleading. Tends to bring inquiry to an end.
  Very problematic for the same reasons Skinner
  thought hypothetical intervening variables as
  explanatory fictions were a problem
• One of the truly bad effects of religion is that
  it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied
  with not understanding (no need to think about
  why something happens, just say God did it)

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If God did not exist, it would be necessary to
invent him

• Religion might have beneficial effects, but those
  effects in no way increases the likelihood of
  religions claims
• Religion might help people to be moral, but this
  in no way increases likelihood of religions
  claims
• Most people dont get their morals from scripture
  anyways. Moral code of scripture is very
  different from moral code of society

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Language and indoctrination

• Dawkins states it is form of child abuse to label
  children as possessors of beliefs they are too
  young to have thought about (Jewish child, Muslim
  child, Christian child, etc)
• More proper to say child of Jewish parents or
  child of Muslim parents
• No reasonable person would speak of Marxist
  child or Republican child

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• End