dawkins

[unbibium]

I listened to Dawkins tonight. Most of his talk was derived from The God Delusion, which I'd already read, so my mind wasn't blown as much as I thought it would be. There was a large video screen behind him, and I spent a lot of time thinking up what picture would be funniest to bring up. And there was closed captioning on another video screen, and the captioner had trouble spelling "Anglican" and probably some other words, to the audible amusement of the audience.

Q&A was my favorite part, as Dawkins is excellent in debate, though as a scientist he has the luxury of conceding the giant swaths of questions for which he is not qualified to answer. He wouldn't comment much on the nature of far Eastern religions, except to say that he was hoping a British law that funded only monotheistic organizations would be challenged by a polytheistic hindu organization. And when someone asked him how he might win a receptive Mormon friend to atheism, he admitted that diplomacy was not his bag. There was also one guy who didn't have so much a question as a five-minute ramble. Three minutes into it, the audience started murmuring, and four minutes in, when he got to the "Matrix-like simulation" part, people started laughing out loud. Dawkins said he would accept it as a comment instead of answering it, recognizing a tough act to follow when he saw one.

Unlike Lynchburg, there wasn't a long line of fundamentalist plants asking questions. There were a few pro-religion questions, and they were answered. Near the end of the lecture, Dawkins defended an accusation that religion's connection with terrorism was the same as atheism's connection with fascism. One person challenged that defense, and asked if there was any statistical comparison between atheists and believers in how likely they were to become criminals, terrorists, and so on. The questioner also asserted that religious people were more likely to be charitable, let people cut in line, etc, though who knows what his source is on that. Dawkins said he didn't have statistics on hand, and his only point was that religion provides certain cause-effect relationships that atheism does not. And he added that he'd like to see some good statistical studies, such as of the religious makeup of people in prisons.

Big duh moment of the evening: I didn't bring a book for him to sign.

Comments

[trenchkamen.livejournal.com]

I was disappointed there weren't any fundamentalist plants. I wanted Brother Jed to show up just because he's such a hoot.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

Someone did open their question with "I started the day watching a street preacher spew nonsense..." huge applause.

I'd like to see someone preaching from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with a megaphone one day.

...

[lautreamontg.livejournal.com]

There's actually been tons of fairly rigorous sociological studies of religious affiliation in correctional facilities. I can't dig up the sources right now, so I'm going to shoot from the hip about some main points.

Actual atheists are a fairly small portion of the prison population, under one percent, but stated atheists are actually not a large portion of the population in most Western countries, even highly secular ones (one musn't conflate "nonreligious" here with atheism or agnosticism, as the catagories are distinct in most accountings). There's also a lower than average percentage of religious affiliation with certain other religions such as Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Many of those in prison take up religion after they get there, i.e. high conversion/reversion rates. I can't recall the proportions of fundamentalism or revivalism. There's lots of other data in other studies, frex prison populations have a lower per average IQ than the general population.

Really though, my beef with Dawkins, Dennett and Samuelson more comes from the fact that they conflate their necessary creating of an intellectual atheist tradition with a statement of evo-devo facts. I highly suggest you read Pascal Boyer on finding out why religion is not going to go away any time in humanity's future. In other words there exists a evolutionarily derived neurological framework for why religion exists that even the most well thought out arguments against it won't dispell. In other words unless the majority of humanity gets a magic lobotomy, it's going to be there in some way or form.

Re: ...

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

Dawkins is explicitly more interested in whether religion is true than whether it is useful, promotes morals, or even necessary. In the "religion" of science, in which Dawkins is very religious if it counts, truth is a virtue over all else.

Re: ...

[lautreamontg.livejournal.com]

If that's the case, then he's standing on the shoulders of giants. Frankly I'm a bit disturbed by the whole ontologizing of science anyways. Science is a means to understanding the functions and origins of the world around us. To equate it with an essentialist truth is creepy. Above all else it's a very effective methodology, and the only methodology the works for empirical results. Just because one is tired of the idols of ancient mythology there is no reason for the equally irrational creation of a metaphysics based on a very functionalist idea. If anything it proves one can't really run away from the god part of the brain. As for myself I've mostly substituted art in it.

[templeemc.livejournal.com]

Sounds like the time and place to see him is somewhere folks have planned on trying to stir him up.
I'd like to read some more of his stuff (I've read 'The God Delusion' too), but I wonder if I've already heard most of what he'd have to say.
He IS a great debater.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

I confess to not having read Selfish Gene yet. I bought Extende Phenotype, which is sort of a more technical sequel that promised much more interesting ideas, and didn't get very far in it.