Richard Dawkins - Children in the Atheist’s Den, part 6 of 8

This is part 6 of my review of Professor Richard Dawkins’ “Royal Institution Christmas Lectures” aka “The Royal Institution Lectures for Children” Episode 1, “Waking up in the Universe” (transcript / video). When all parts have been posted I will provide a PDF format version of the entire essay.

This segment introduces us to Never Mind the Evidence

This series will consist of the following segments:

Part 1: The “Child Abuser”
Part 2: Grow Up, To Be Like Me
Part 3: When Artful Renditions Suffice
Part 4: Evolutionary Tree Rot
Part 5: Creation Myths
Part 6: Never Mind the Evidence
Part 7: “Faith,” Saith the Atheist
Part 8: The Atheist Extra Terrestrial
[eventually these will become hyperlinks]

Never Mind the Evidence
Prof. Richard Dawkins asks the children to imagine what it would be like if scientists held scientific views as religious people hold to their beliefs. He states:

“Imagine the scene: two scientists arguing, and one of them says, ‘I believe the dinosaurs went extinct because a comet hit the Earth. Why do I believe that? Because that is what my father and grandfather believed, and that's what people in my country have always believed.’ ‘But I believe that it was a virus that drove the dinosaurs extinct. Why do I believe that? Because my father and grandfather believed it, and that's what people in my country have always believed.’ Or, suppose the conversation went like this: ‘nevermind the evidence, I just know that a comet struck the Earth because it was privately revealed to me that a comet struck the Earth.’ ‘And I just know that it was a virus because I just know it, because I just know it, because I have faith that it was a virus.’ If you overheard conversation like that you would think they were pretty odd scientists, wouldn't you? You’d have seen no reason to believe any of them.”

Via a visual aid, a colored map, Prof. Richard Dawkins shows how different language groups are dispersed throughout the earth. He also shows how different religions are dispersed, although in a very generalized way. He then points out how odd it would be if scientists would likewise be dispersed. That is to say, what if scientists were to base their scientific views based on the particular region in which they live: the that is what my father and grandfather believed, and that's what people in my country have always believed factor.


As it turns out, Prof. Richard Dawkins is very well aware that this does, in fact, occur in science. We may cite Chinese acupuncture, Indian Ayurveda medicine and various other culturally relevant “alternative” medicinal practices. Yet, surely Prof. Richard Dawkins’ western mindset would simply dismiss them form the realm of science.

Yet, I still maintain that he is very well aware that this does, in fact, occur in science. At least, he was well aware of it in 1998 when he wrote about such matters and, coincidentally or not, bases his statement on the issue of the extinction of the dinosaurs:

“After giving lectures in the United States, I have often been puzzled by a certain pattern of questioning from the audience. The questioner calls my attention to the phenomenon of mass extinction, say, the catastrophic end of the dinosaurs and their succession by the mammals. This interests me greatly and I warm to what promises to be a stimulating question. Then I realize that the tome of the question is unmistakably challenging. It is almost as though the questioner expects me to be surprised, or discomfited, by the fact that evolution is periodically interrupted by catastrophic mass extinctions.
I was baffled by this until the truth suddenly hit me. Of course! The questioner, like many people in North America, has learned his evolution from Gould, and I have been billed as one of those ‘ultra-Darwinian’ gradualists! Doesn't the comet that killed the dinosaurs also blow my gradualistic view of evolution out of the water? No, of course it doesn't. There is not the smallest connection. I am a gradualist in the sense that I don't think macromutations have played an important role in evolution.
More determinedly, I am a gradualist when it comes to explaining the evolution of complex adaptations like eyes (so is any sane person, including Gould). But what on earth have such matters got to do with mass extinctions? Nothing at all. Unless, that is, your mind has been filled up with bad poetry. For the record, I believe, and have believed for the whole of my career, that mass extinctions exert a profound and dramatic influence on the subsequent course of evolutionary history. How could they not? But mass extinctions are not a part of the Darwinian process, except in so far as they clear the decks for new Darwinian beginnings.”[1]

The minutia of the argument aside, he recognized that upon coming across the pond from jolly ol′ England he finds that certain theories differ in the USA. He finds that it is because many people in North America learn evolution from Stephen Jay Gould. He finds that people, even those interested enough to attend science lectures, recognize that this foreigner, Prof. Richard Dawkins, holds to different theories. He sees that they even compose unmistakably challenging questions with which to challenge him and his foreign theories. Besides geography scientists also hold to different theories due to philosophy, schools of thought, professional rivalries, et al (find many examples here).

[1] Richard Dawkins, Unweaving The Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (New York: Houghton Mifflin Books, 1998)