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Richard Dawkins Turns to God to Answer A Question on Evolution
In his book The God Delusion, leading atheist Richard Dawkins famously argued that belief in a supernatural creator is irrational and that believing in God qualifies as a delusion, or "a persistent false belief held in the face of strong, contradictory evidence." But the 70-year-old British biologist was singing a different tune Tuesday during an appearance on BBC radio 4, when he invoked God to help him remember the full title of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, of which Dawkins is a great champion.
It happened this way. Reverend Giles Fraser – former canon chancellor of St. Paul’s Cathedral – was arguing with Dawkins over the true definition of a Christian. People who identify as Christians don't really know what they're talking about, implied the biologist (True).
"A majority of them don't seem to be truly Christian in the sense that they don't believe what Christianity teaches," Dawkins said. "Many of them don't go to church, they don't read the Bible – an astonishing number couldn't identify the first book of the New Testament … they just tick the Christian box."
All of which made him sound like a strict Mother Superior telling off her novices. But it was then that Fraser pulled a fast one. "If I said to you what is the full title of the Origin of Species," he said, "I'm sure you could tell me that." Dawkins really did try – you could almost hear the wobbling jowl – but he simply couldn't. "On the Origin of Species… er… with, oh God … [laughter] … On the Origin of Species… um… there is, there is a subtitle… with respect to the preservation of favored races in the f-f-fight … in the struggle for life."
Dawkins was pretty close. The book's full title is On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. But his failure to summon the name on command has led a number of British media outlets to label the appearance as "deeply embarrassing" for Dawkins and claim "the High Priest of Darwinism doesn't know the title of his own secular bible."
Dawkins appeared on BBC Radio 4 Tuesday to discuss a poll on Christianity in Britain that was commissioned last year by his organization, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. The results of the poll reveal, among other data, that nearly two out of three people who consider themselves Christians cannot name the first book of the New Testament. (It is the Gospel According to St. Matthew)
Most of those who describe themselves as Christian (in Britain) – suggests the research – have only a low level of belief and practice of the religion. Half of those who say they are Christian rarely go to church while nearly 60% do not read the Bible. Dawkins told the Today program's Justin Webb that most people who call themselves Christian merely "tick the Christian box."
When asked whether the figures told us anything of use, Professor Dawkins insisted it "told us an awful lot" because it puts into doubt the place of Christian practices in society such as bishops in House of Lords and the presence of faith schools. However Reverend Fraser called the findings "extraordinary" and maintained that it was not fair to trump people's "self identification" as Christians. He said that "there are all sorts of ways to express Christianity" and that we should not be "purging religion from the public square."
Linda Woodhead, a professor of philosophy and religion at Lancaster University, wrote in the Guardian that Dawkin's poll shows Christianity in Britain is a difficult thing to define. She wrote:
“There's nothing new in Richard Dawkins's findings about the British way of being religious. But it's always good to be reminded of the findings of a poll commissioned by his Foundation for Reason and Science: that most of us are not "true believers" in either religion or in secularism and that Britain is neither a religious country nor a secular one, but an interesting mix of both. That doesn't make us muddled, or woolly, or confused – it just makes us British.”
The Complete Dialogue
Giles Fraser: Richard, if I said to you what is the full title of 'The Origin Of Species', I'm sure you could tell me that.
Richard Dawkins: Yes I could.
Giles Fraser: Go on then.
Richard Dawkins: 'On The Origin Of Species' ... Uh. With, Oh God. 'On The Origin Of Species.' There is a subtitle with respect to the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life.
Giles Fraser: You're the high pope of Darwinism … If you asked people who believed in evolution that question and you came back and said two percent got it right, it would be terribly easy for me to go 'they don't believe it after all.' It's just not fair to ask people these questions. They self-identify as Christians and I think you should respect that.
Tags: Britain, Christianity, Darwin, Dawkins
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Neal on -
Well of course he didn't, "turn to god," he was using language which is unfortunately filled with crazy stuff. And the Origin of Species is in no way comparable to the bible, it is one of many books on evolution. The bible is one, or two books depending on faith.
If you search for books dealing with evolution on Amazon, you will get over 70,000 results. If you are someone who has read thousands of article and documents on the subject, and in a moment forget a subtitle of one of them, no matter how important, how does that relate to someone who reads one book.
Church weekly, only one stupid fucking book to read, and people can't remember how it starts? All I can say is either they're extremely dense, or they care about the bible as much as I do.
I would bet riches that the vast majority of atheists could name genesis, unfortunately those who actually believe the tripe only do because they have no clue what the book says.
The high pope of darwinism? What a stupid fucking comparison. Atheism is not belief, no matter how many times fools wish to make it so.
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Permalink Reply by Adriana on -
And i should add that "Darwinism" is not a belief either, and it has no "popes."
Besides, Dawkins did actually remember the freaking title. This is what Dawkins said:
There is a subtitle with respect to the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life.
Here is the title of the first edition:
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Dawkins was pretty darn close. Plus, for the sixth edition of 1872, the short title was changed to The Origin of Species. Therefore, no need to even remember the original subtitle!
So, not only did Dawkins NOT invoke god (are we to believe that atheists who are in the throes of having an orgasm and say "oh, god" are all of a sudden religious?, what utter nonsense!), but he in fact remembered the original subtitle of The Origin of The Species. So Giles Fraser is a reverend cheat, just like so many of them, a distorter of words.
It gives me great pleasure to see the religious grasping for straws here. If they have to resort to such puerile distortions of the truth, it truly means they are seeing the demise of their grip on the public mind.
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Permalink Reply by Davy on -
Right on the button, Neal.
Because which god was he referring to?
Well it is better than using an expletive in the place of the word god.More so since he was in a public forum.
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Permalink Reply by Claudia Mercedes Mazzucco on -
Fraser’s question was a stroke of a genius. And he was right in point.
I wonder what would be the result if the Church of England decides to conduct a poll among 2,500 British well-educated citizens on the theory of relativity … how many lay men/women would be capable to explain Einstein’s theory? I would venture, “Zero” or, trying to be generous, one out of ... 10,000? And that one should have to be, at least, an amateur scientist.
It is true that ours is the age of science, that far more science is taught today than ever before, that popular expositions of science are on the increase; but it is also true, especially in physics and its companion studies, that while science speaks with more authority than ever, it speaks from mysterious heights and depths beyond the sight and understanding of the lay public.
It seems to appeal no longer to common sense, and now appears remote from our daily experience of the world in which science is firmly rooted. For example, Newton’s idea of absolute time flowing equably was soon part of the common thought, whereas after almost a century, and after countless books, papers, lectures, and so on all devoted to it, Einstein’s theory of relativity has never taken hold of the public mind.
Thus, not only Christian theology seems a mystery, remote and awe-inspiring, out of which certain dogmas appeared, like tablets of stone brought down from the shrouded mountain. So is Science for the layman.
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Permalink Reply by Michel on -
Well, for one thing, and thankfully, with science you can actually get to the people in the "mysterious heights and depths beyond the sight and understanding of the lay public." And with some effort from your part you can actually grasp some of what they are talking about.
It would also take hundreds if not thousands of pages to just name the myriad ways in which humanity has benefited and progressed with the results of scientific knowledge. A fact that most laymen can verify for themselves.
Can't say the same for religions.
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Permalink Reply by Claudia Mercedes Mazzucco on
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Michel,
Yet there is a great difference between “verifying facts” and “experiencing.” I wonder if the layman can experience the world in four-dimensions as Albert Einstein did. And travel by the power of imagination, at the speed of light as Einstein actually did.
Einstein showed, first in his Special Theory, that the time of an event was not absolute but dependent on its position in space, and, later in his General Theory that time was also relative to mass. He took as from a three-dimensional world existing in Absolute Time to a four-dimensional world and a space-time continuum, which didn’t make us happy, because the world still appears three-dimensional to our consciousness.
How can one bring this appearance into the four-dimensional picture that Einstein requires the physicist to have? And what about Quantum theory? We arrive into an unimaginably microscopic world of the atom and the subatomic particles, the protons, electrons, positrons, neutrons, and whatever else is turning up in that strange world. There, everything is bewildering to the layman, and by no means clear and determined for the nuclear physicist.
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Permalink Reply by Neal on
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We see science everyday without having to understand. It works. It accomplishes physical feats. We see nothing of god in everyday life, unless death and suffering are clues to his existence.
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Permalink Reply by Adriana on
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Bingo, Neal. Science works because we can make predictions about how the world works. We do not know everything about the world, but we start from the premise that the workings of the universe are knowable. Hypothesis can be formulated and put to the test, and discarded or revised according to the results and increasing amounts of data.
With theology, the starting point is the opposite: that god is not really knowable or understandable. The subject of theology is mysterious, because it was created by man to be mysterious by design. While it remains mysterious, believers will not need to do any thinking or discovering, all they have to do is remain in awe of the ruling class of priests who tell them they can interpret the word of god and tell the common people what's right. No evidence, no confirmation of prediction required.
The theory of relativity may be mysterious to people with an adequate math or physics background. But practical consequences of Einstein's work are nuclear energy (very real) and GPS. These technologies exist and are based on predictions from Einstein's work.
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Permalink Reply by Neal on
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Actually, grab a key and sit in a box. Pray and turn the key. If a motor starts thank god. If it doesn't, sit in your car and turn the key. When it starts thank science. =)
You miss the point entirely I think. A layman doesn't have to know how a refrigerator works, unless he wants to. What he does get is food that lasts longer because of being preserved. Again, stick a hunk of meat in a box for a week, pray, eat.
You bring up the most intricate examples of theory, but there are many that are easy to understand. Germ theory, don't sit next to the sick fool you'll be alright. You even know why.
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Permalink Reply by Joe C on -
Wasn't that also Fraser's point?
That's how i interpreted his question/remark: that many people believe in science without knowing all the details -- we don't always know the studies we can cite for our scientific beliefs, we haven't always explored all the evidence in thorough detail unless a particular subject catches our fancy.
That doesn't mean we don't *really* believe in science, or aren't scientists (for those of us who are). It doesn't even mean we don't really believe those particular theories we haven't explored in depth. I think most people would agree with that.
And in the same way, i think Fraser means to say, there is no reason to hold Christians to that standard either. If they generally believe these books hold truths, even though they might turn to friends or clergy for the cliff-notes version, they're still Christian.
They don't have to know all of how God works to know how to get into Heaven.
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Permalink Reply by Neal on
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Wow, that's out there. I don't believe in science, I have observed that it works in a material way. I know that results are seen without having to know all of science. That's not belief, it's a fact.
Christians definitely do not need to know all of how god works except to notice that any perceived benefit is only an illusion. Then they could use their intellects for something useful.
More bourbon.
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Permalink Reply by Bill on -
Pass the bourbon, brother! That's one thing I don't have to know how it works in order to get the benefit. (but thanks to science, I do in fact know how it works). It's sad that Christians aren't going to Heaven, no matter how much they know about how God works, no matter how fervently they believe.
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