We have evolutionary schemes for history, psychology, culture, economics, political structures, and languages. The result has been that the telling of a plausible evolutionary story without any possibility of critical and empirical verification has become an accepted mode of intellectual work even in natural science.
Richard Lewontin: Not So Natural Selection
I happened to re-read this essay last night and decided to post this to show that an honest atheist like Lewontin is able to admit what few others do, that the culture of science has fallen to the point that lore can replace scientific method, the result being accepted as scientifically valid. You can remember this the next time someone pulls the "empirical evidence" line on you. Science isn't supposed to work the way it does in this area and the great irony is that it is largely atheists such as Dawkins and Dennett who have promoted this kind of "science". And that didn't prevent Dawkins from being given that Oxford chair from which he was supposed to improve "the public understanding of science". He seemed to spend most of it on promoting his career in pop-atheism instead.
I haven't researched Dawkins' work, but more and more I question his contributions to science. The man is pretty much a twit, as far as I can see.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty amazing when you look at what he's written and how influential it is how bad so much of it is. I'm still astounded that I never read anyone point out that his basic scenario about "altruism" is mathematically impossible, requiring that decreasing numbers of a sub population has to result in a higher percentage of it in the general population. I've asked several of his admirers to explain how that works, some of them mathematicians, and no one has been able to tell me how it does. Neither have they repudiated the idea. Which is interesting in regard to their atheist polemics about the virtues of self-correcting science as opposed to their assertions about religion.
ReplyDeleteI remember encountering the idea of a "selfish gene" in a magazine article, and already realizing how ridiculous it was. Later I was told by his acolytes the term was not his, except,of course, it's the title of his book.
ReplyDeleteThe man is what passes for an intellectual, but as far as I can see he's a clown with a British accent, which always makes him sound smarter than the average English speaker. I still don't think his "selfish gene" idea is the least bit tenable. Even without any background in biology or evolutionary science, I find the reasoning behind it preposterous.
Being Irish, not necessarily.
DeleteAfter watching and hearing the "giant brain" that is Stephen Fry gassing on theatrically like some ham actor playing Thomas Huxley against Bishop Wilberforce, there is a sort of commedia dell'arte quality to it. All of them are playing a role for a public that rearranges a limited number of thought blocks instead of thinking. The lower mid-brow aspects of the atheism fad make me pretty sure it won't last. But, then, the previous dark ages took a while to get through, as well.