This interview caught my attention on the radio this morning: Richard Dawkins was pitted against David Quinn, a leading Irish Catholic writer. Dawkins has just written a new book called the “God Delusion” (definitely on my reading list).
It didn’t seem however as if Dawkins was terribly prepared for Quinn’s onslaught.
The main arguments coming from Quinn were that physical matter was evidence of God; that atheists could not explain free will (which was also evidence of God); and that atheists were just as responsible for fundamentalism and violence as religious people.
On the question of the existence of matter, just because scientists don’t know everything about the world, it doesn’t mean that “God” is immediately the answer. Quinn, quite unashamedly, invoked a false dilemma, and Dawkins didn’t pick him up on it.
Dawkins completely avoided the question of free will – which was curious because Quinn’s argument seems to be that atheists believe that we humans are completely controlled by our genes, and that we are therefore somehow mechanical in nature. I think he needs to read up on quantum theory, complexity theory, and the unpredictability and emergent effects that arise out of systems as complex as the human brain. It’s not necessary, in my mind, to invoke outside agencies to bring about decisions of free will – the billions of neurons in our brain are well able to yield complex and unpredictable effects when working in concert with each other. Another point about free will is that it appears to me to be a theological concept mainly – it’s never discussed by scientists terribly much. Maybe talking about free will is the equivalent to talking about the colour of the Angel Gabriel’s wings – i.e. a rather meaningless discussion in the first place. In any case, I was a bit surprised that Dawkins steered completely around the question, saying he wasn’t interested in talking about it. In doing so he dug a hole for himself that Quinn was quite happy to shove him in during the final seconds of the interview.
The last piece, on the subject of atheistic morality, Quinn made some good points – particularly regarding atheists who cherry-pick the worst that religion has to offer without balancing this against it’s more benign effects. However, Quinn tried to lump atheists in with some of the worst 20th Century dictators and their followers. He implied that, because atheists do not believe in God, that they often believe in some other weird or cruel world theory that is even more invalid. Shouldn’t a true atheist should be skeptical of everything unless there is proper evidence for it? So, just as an atheist would have problems with Islam or Christiantity, so too should he have problems with eugenics or extreme nationalism or Communist utopianism.
Maybe Dawkins was somewhat unprepared for Quinn’s rather aggressive stance, but he didn’t manage to get his point across very well in the short time allotted. I would have loved to have heard a longer debate on the subject.
It starts from about 8 minutes into the program, and you need Real Player to listen to it.
Passive Impressions 
This is my big beef with Dawkins. He’s not sufficiently fundamentalist! He’s quite hapy to attack the easy targets of blatant religious idiocy without bothering to investigate what arguments are being made by the more subtle and devious religious thinkers. Karl Popper wrote much about how, in order to defeat an argument, one has to strengthen it first. Dawkisn should prepare himself for the best that the religious can throw at him, not the everyday, run-of-the-mil folk-religion stuff. And it can be done! Free will: the universe works statistically. Bad done by atheists: Of course. But atheism isn’t a moral position. Secular humanists – who are also, necessarily, atheists – don’t commit mass murder, though. Etc. etc.
He needs to meet a few more Jesuits!
Ed, “This is my big beef with Dawkins. He’s not sufficiently fundamentalist!” – you must surely be saying that knowing that I will come along and be wound up by it? 😉
I am surprised that Dawkins was so unprepared for these arguments. They’re not exactly unusual after all. Maybe he was just having a bad day – it’s colds and flu season after all.
Ed, I’m interested in your view on statistics and it’s relation to free-will. Can you provide more details?
Free will is an incredibly important question for all fields of knowledge–broadly for epistemology itself. All of science is fundamentally grounded on the question, is the human mind efficacious? Or is it at the mercy of uncontrollable causes?
Free will, in fact, is self-evident because all attempts at denying free will requires a conscious and volitional focus of mind, i.e., freely choosing, to embark upon an argument to deny itself. Thus, one can say free will does not exist, but one has precisely made the choice to summon all the mental abstractions and connections required to posit that negation and support it with argumentation and put it in verbal words. This is his choice. He could choose to not speak. Or not think. Or not consider the question. Or he could choose to ignore it. Therefore, all denials of free will is self-defeating.
Attempting to salvage free will by resorting to as-yet-undecided-and-unconfirmed theories in quantum physics inverts the hierarchical nature of knowledge. New discoveries should only conform and confirm old certainties. While what were originally considered “laws” may need revision, certain fundamental axioms are unchangeable, irreversible, and undeniable, such as consciousness exists. To deny that the axiom “consciousness exists” is always true is to admit that a consciousness does exist that is attempting to deny the axiom.
Similarly, free will should be traced back to its fundamental premises, check its axiomatic foundations… not support it through new discoveries or unconfirmed hypotheses.
Finally, and more importantly, free will and determinism are not contradictory. What opposes free will is not determinism but randomness, chaos. Free will and determinism function complementarily to facilitate the use of our volitional faculty, i.e., to help us make choices.
Humans are fundamentally causal agents, volitional beings. Which is why morality and concepts subsumed under morality is applicable only to a human consciousness, not to animal consciousness.
All I mean is that free will is an illusion caused by the variability of the universe. In the world of natural phenomena, most of the time we can’t say that Z will follow Y will follow X. What we can say is “If X, then there is an n chance of Y (where nthat problem, circa 300BCE. It’s an Augustinian casuistry, designed to prop up the Christian edifice.
Actually – the second para is a better answer. One should refuse to allow the Christians to limit the parameters of the debate.
But I think the statistical issue solves Ergo’s problem. The universe is complex and human consciousness unreliable. Big deal!
I spoke to Richard Dawkins that evening at a book signing. He mentioned that he had got ‘a hard time’ on RTE that morning. He said he “gave as good as I got”. To be honest I’m not sure he did really. He seemed to be caught off balance. It was a pity because there is no doubt that he would blow David Quinn away with his logical arguments on any normal day.
I disagree with Micfur – Dawkins is not a good, logical thinker; I find him woolly-minded. I saw his interview with Jeremy Paxman in which he contradicted himself at every turn and ended up with “I don’t believe we were put here to be comfortable”!!
I was glad to see David Quinn presenting strong arguments against Dawkins – there’s nobody in the UK who seems capable of doing that.
“Maybe Dawkins was somewhat unprepared for Quinn’s rather aggressive stance, but he didn’t manage to get his point across very well in the short time allotted.”
Boo hoo. You thin Quinn’s stance was aggressive? It’s not Quinn’s fault that Dawkins gets frazzled so easily. Quinn only seemed aggressive because he tried to get Dawkins to address issues that he usually evades; or to call him on his inconsistent statements (saying it’s not important to find some bad folk here and there with their respective beliefs -atheism/theism; when Dawkins does the exact same thing.)
“On the question of the existence of matter, just because scientists don’t know everything about the world, it doesn’t mean that “God” is immediately the answer.”
Wait a moment. What about the whole thing about ‘follow the evidence’? Are you concerned about the actual evidence? The laws of science (which came into existence with the universe) will never be able to explain the inception of the universe and/or matter/energy (or time). Something clearly did create the universe; and with a degree of precision that allowed for biological life and sentient capabilities. Something that ‘transcends’ the created order. You either ascribe that to a Something or a nothing, it’s your choice. I believe it to be clear which choice is more plausible.
Aside from all of this though we are relying on our cognitive capabilities to formulate abstract ideas, and to disseminate these ideas to others…. with the assumption that the ‘others’ are active agents that have similar cognitive capabilities that allow them to comprehend our abstract assertions. You are arguing one thing, but you’re relying on the tool set and epistemic foundation that should be attributed to those who argue the opposite (the existence of God). If there is no God then we all are the products of nonrational forces; cognitive faculties are not exempt from these forces. The belief that our cognitive faculties can provide us with rational information about the ‘created’ order and that these faculties can also aid us in spreading our beliefs to others becomes incoherent against the backdrop of an atheistic/materialistic worldview.
Take care and God bless.
” One should refuse to allow the Christians to limit the parameters of the debate.”
I’m going to make the guess that you don’t regularly listen to atheists debate. Either you are uninformed of their tactics…. or you are being disingenuous and blaming one side for a particular tactic and not the other. This would be arbitrary and not fair.
“The laws of science (which came into existence with the universe) will never be able to explain the inception of the universe and/or matter/energy (or time).”
Correct. Neither can theology. Quinn’s arguement of Origin of Matter is irrational and he started to sound eccentric to me. It is analogous to Decreasing number of pirates to Rising global temperatures. Same for the “No God = No Morality” arguement.
Free will is very nicely explained by some of the contributors here so I shall not contaminate further with my immature thinking.
As for morality, I was surprised Dawkins did not fall back on the ideas in his first book “The Selfish Gene”. Morality is probably just a Evolutionary Stable Strategy that only manifested in human beings, in the most obvious form. “Morality” can be seen in other animals, such as Bees working together as a hive, chimps living in family units. In my opinion, morality is just a social behaviour that enhanced the survival of the gene. A gene that codes for altruistic behaviour is likely to be passed on because other individuals have that gene as well.
“Something clearly did create the universe; and with a degree of precision that allowed for biological life and sentient capabilities.”
There is probably no beginning to begin with. The universe might be in a constant motion of Big Bang and Big Crush. So as an atheist, that’s not the main concern, the Origin of Universe, at least at the moment. In fact, I’m looking forward to 5 billion years later when the Sun becomes a Red Giant and Earth either 1) Spins away due to the weakened gravity of the less massive Sun or 2) Gets engulfed in the Sun. Probably the New^5283 Testament and the 5283rd Prophet would have predicted that. Bah.
I forgot who’s idea it was but we are just Middle World beings. There are some things, like Life, which seemed so unlikely to occur on any one planet. However, in a scale as big as the Universe, it is almost certain that the conditions required for Life is met in many places. Many islands of life probably exist but we are either too far spaced out or we (humans) are simply just too primitive to be of any significance to advanced space travellers…
Anyway, after listening to the mini-debate, I must say Dawkins is talking too much like a scientist, qualifying all the parameters and “with-all-else-being-equal” and admitting the shortfalls of science. Quinns is just bulldozing through Dawkins with fallacious arguements exactly like a fundamentalist. It’s scary.
The discussion has a nice progression to it – first, the nature of the material world, then freewill, then ethics and morality, as (analytically) each builds on the one before it.
The great philosophers have almost always been motivated by the third, but to set their thoughts in order found themselves pushed back through the second to the first.
So with this in mind, I’m going to address Fred’s comment no 9 in some depth.
“The laws of science (which came into existence with the universe) will never be able to explain the inception of the universe and/or matter/energy (or time).”
So far, so good. I don’t think any reputable scientist has ever claimed that they could. Beyond the point where the laws “run out” we have no means of making deductions. Nevertheless Fred goes on to say, with some confidence “Something clearly did create the universe; and with a degree of precision that allowed for biological life and sentient capabilities. Something that ‘transcends’ the created order.” I am baffled as to how this could be *known* as opposed to merely speculated. What rules, outside of those that apply within the universe, are being used to make this deduction? How did you come to know about them?
“Aside from all of this though we are relying on our cognitive capabilities to formulate abstract ideas, and to disseminate these ideas to others…. with the assumption that the ‘others’ are active agents that have similar cognitive capabilities that allow them to comprehend our abstract assertions.” Indeed yes, although arguably it is something more than an assumption, being based on my empirical experience of other active agents (ie people).
“If there is no God then we all are the products of nonrational forces; cognitive faculties are not exempt from these forces. The belief that our cognitive faculties can provide us with rational information about the ‘created’ order and that these faculties can also aid us in spreading our beliefs to others becomes incoherent against the backdrop of an atheistic/materialistic worldview.”
My big problem here is the use of the word rational. By ‘rational information’ do you mean something more than ‘organised information’, and if so, what precisely? The forces may be nonrational, being simply ‘what they are’, but as far as we can tell they form a consistent set (and again, ‘consistent’ is a human concept), and I can’t see what prevents them being the basis of a rational cognitive faculty. What else is it that’s needed that’s provided by the ‘concept’ of God (yet another human concept, regardless of whether there is, or isn’t, anything ‘out there’ that corresponds to it). Does it provide additional observable rules about the functioning of the universe that enable rationality(if so, what are they?), or is it something that has no rules? How would that work? (“What opposes free will is not determinism but randomness, chaos.” Ergo, post 4)
Fred,
You are interesting.
‘I’m going to make the guess that you don’t regularly listen to atheists debate. Either you are uninformed of their tactics…. or you are being disingenuous and blaming one side for a particular tactic and not the other. This would be arbitrary and not fair’
‘Atheists’ tactics? Just provide evidence as you would in any other endeavor. They have no tactics but honesty.
Therest of your longer screed from above shows you have no understanding of what is rational or scientific. So please refrain from using either until you become more educated.
Before the universe there was “nothing”. Of course you can’t have “nothing”, by the mere mental exercise of codifing it, it becomes “something”. Trouble is, you can’t observe or analyse “nothing”.
What were we before we were born? “nothing”.
Where do we become after we die?
God is of course “nothing” – try substituting the words…
None of the above, of course has any bearing on theist beliefs, which IMO are irrelevant to the argument. There is no point in getting hot under the collar about the reasons for rules; the universe worked perfectly well acording to the laws of physics before H. Sapiens evolved and will presumably do equally well after our extinction in 5-10MA (or sooner if we keep trying as hard).
“Atheists’ tactics? Just provide evidence as you would in any other endeavor. They have no tactics but honesty.
Therest of your longer screed from above shows you have no understanding of what is rational or scientific. So please refrain from using either until you become more educated.”
No tactics but honesty? All of them? You don’t sound very unbiased here. I’m just saying that those tactics are used by both sides. You disagree? How…. fundamentalist of you.
I have no understanding of what is rational or scientific. Is this how atheists show their ‘honesty’ in debates?
Whether theist, deist, atheist or agnostic…. I hope all can see that the only way GH handles my comments is by claiming I’m too uneducated to be rational or scientific in the 1st place so what argument would I have anyway? I hope there aren’t many who are amazed with her/his tactic.
GH claims, in quite a fundamental/dogmatic way, that I am uneducated – not rational & not scientific (whatever that means… considering that we are only having a debate) to invalidate anything I say.
While conveniently not addressing any of my points.
I think Dawkins met his match in Quinn. In fact I was obvious that he did no know how to respond to the arguments Quinn gave. It is importance to judge this argumentation right – i have seen people judge it on Quinn’s success in proving the existence of God – but that was not what was at stake here: He had to prove that the belief in God is more rational than belief in fairies. I have made a rather lengthy comment on it here:
http://www.apologetik.dk/?p=322
“There is no point in getting hot under the collar about the reasons for rules.”
This is precisely what needs to be investigated. The most fundamental question humans ask is, “why is there something rather than nothing?” Which is proceeded by, “Why are things the way that they are?” These are the questions about which Dawkins wants to bury his head in the sand.
Also, Quinn was not proposing a false dilemma. If you read the whole interview, the argument he was using is the very scientific argument: everything must have a cause. All causes must be proportionate to their effects (that is, capable o causing them). Nothing is not capable of causing something. If matter exists, something must have preexisted to cause it (using the prefix “pre” in an ontological, not chronological manner).
That a thing must have a cause must be true for everything in a causal chain. This is what Dawkins referred to when he accused Quinn of merely backing the question of causes back a step by telling Quinn he still needed to account for the existence of God. Quinn said that there must be an uncaused cause that grounds all other contingent being (that is, anything that exists in a causal chain). That unaused cause must be outside, or transcendent of, the causal chain (hence, uncaused).
Basically, Dawkins’ resort to infinite regress is irrational. There can be no infinite causal chain in reality, only in the world of abstract mathematics. Dawkins’ claim here is a red herring.
It is indeed surprising that Dawkins was not better armed for these points, given that they have a long pedigree, from Plato through to the present day.
“Quinn tried to lump atheists in with some of the worst 20th Century dictators and their followers. He implied that, because atheists do not believe in God, that they often believe in some other weird or cruel world theory that is even more invalid…”
I don’t think that the evidence of what David Quinn actually said supports this – at no point did he lump in atheists with the worst of 20th Century dictators, rather he pointed out that in several of such cases there was a strong atheistic and hatred of religion motivation for some of those dictator’s most brutal inhumanities and that Dawkins is being dishonest when he claims that militant atheism had no role in these events.
It might be nice to believe that on another day Dawkins would have tossed up David Quinn and had him for elevenses but Richard is very rarely challenged in fact he is generally fawned over by interviewers who probably for the most part share his belief system and have no great desire to challenge him and have probably never been exposed to the cut and thrust of intelligent people teasing out the possibilities of what it is to exist.
There are oodles of things accepted on “faith” by people on all sides of these questions, and for many Dawkins is as infallible as the Pope they probably despise, and on questions in which Dawkins’ science is taking a back seat to his suspicions, best guesses and maybe even be his wishful thinking.
When it comes to the God stuff he sounds just as authorative (and sometimes, yes, aggressive, though I think both men were being passionately assertive here) as when he is talking about Natural Selection and yet listen out for the “probably”s and the “I suspect”s in his dismissals of God – are they not little acts of faith?
By the way how can science prove the notion that empirical evidence is the only type of evidence that is valuable for human beings to take cognisance of?
Who or what would act as the independent arbitrer to test that notion?
It’s good to talk. Brendan
This guy made no point whatsoever. He simply presented complex questions that he himself has no answers to and pointed to the fact that Dawkins doesnt either.
I will tell you one thing. Religion has never solved one scientific mystery the world has faced so Dawkins in saying that science is working on it is saying the only hope of having it solved are men of science.
Whn a man says I see no more proof for god than for dragons or fairies then the only retort from the believer should be evidence or simply not talking because it only gets more stupid from there.
BTW atheism is not hatred of religion it is disbelief of god. At least no more than theism is belief in speaking in tounges and snake handling.
I would have thought that posing some complex questions that every honest person struggles with constituted making a point. Not to mention suggesting that Richard makes quite a few acts of faith himself and in some quarters everything he says is accepted as if he never comes to conclusions that cannot be supported by his science as opposed to what he passionately believes to be the truth about the universe. But that too is faith not science.
One of the problems with people who believe that scientifically measurable events are the only things that constitute reality is that anything that falls outside of those boundaries is immediately dismissed as meaningless or as many like to put it about as valid as believing in faries or a teapot that orbits around the sun. The difficulty here is that the test being used to pass this ‘invalidity” verdict on ANY non empirical evidence CANNOT come up with any other verdict. The test assumes that scientific evidence is the only valid evidence. So if you ask me for proof of something and I tell you that I have no scientific evidence to back up my claim and then you say that my claim is therefore bogus what you are actually saying is that you BELIEVE that scientific evidence is the only valid evidence there is and because I can NEVER provide scientific evidence for something that science cannot measure you will choose not to accept my claim. But you have NOT proved scientifically that my claim is false – you can certainly say that my claim cannot be judged using the scientific method – and I am just wondering, might not reality actually require more than one set of tools ie the scientific ones to plumb its depths. I certainly haven’t proved that it does but it is at least conceivable that it might. And it is good to share points of view even if some of us are not as eloquent or as certain as others. Brendan
i’ve read from people who think that Quinn mopped the floor with Dawkins when really for the most part if you check the transcripts again at best all Quinn could do was make unprovable claims and attack Dawkins personally.
This debate was a good start, but I agree that it was not long enough for either side.
If we haven’t scientifically concluded the basis of the origin of matter, then we haven’t eliminated the possibility of the existence of God (a Creator). There are many things in this world that are scientifically unexplained…this neither proves or disproves anything, but it does leave one to continue questioning those things mentioned by Tom (above). So, if we haven’t eliminated the possibility of the existence of a Creator, then what makes us so certain that there isn’t one? Nothing we’ve been able to prove is proof that there is no God (and I haven’t read anything in these posts or anywhere else to the contrary – at least, nothing that actually works). I’m just saying there’s a lot of mumbo jumbo (that ought to excite all you “educated” folk) here and elsewhere that’s completely void of any substance.
What about all of the reasons Christians believe in Jesus – there are vast encounters with angels, demons, heaven, hell, etc. that aren’t definitively explained by science (including people who didn’t even know about Christianity until these experiences). There are healings of “incurable” diseases occurring every minute which also defy scientific explanation. Perhaps it is not one thing that causes Christians to believe. Perhaps it is a combination of so many things that are not explained by science…but are explained by the Bible. True, it doesn’t explain everything…but perhaps there are just some things people can live without knowing.
This interview has caused a big stur and non-atheists think Dawkins was somehow ripped to pieces. Dawkins did find it difficult debating with someone who thinks he has a strong argument which Dawkins immediately rebukes but Quinn keeps going on it. Dawkins said he couldn’t explain matter but neither could Quinn. Quinn postulating that because science had no answer yet that God must exist just isn’t logical. One could call the phenomenon that did create matter “god”, however one can invent names for anything yet they don’t imply anything about their subject’s nature.