Under the Microscope / Prof William Reville:The proselytising atheist and scientist Richard Dawkins summarises his attack on religion in his latest book The God Delusion(Bantam Press, 2006). As we know from previous books, Dawkins can brilliantly explain complex scientific concepts to a general audience. He displays this ability in patches in this latest book, but all too often he lapses into cynical rhetorical dismissal of his adversary. I believe in time he will regret writing this book.
Dawkins is Oxford University Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. One might therefore think that his opposition to religion is the official stance of science on this matter. This is not so. When Dawkins writes on religion he represents his personal opinion. There is nothing wrong with this but other scientists, as eminent as Richard Dawkins, have opposite opinions.
For example Stephen Jay Gould the eminent science writer and Harvard evolutionary biologist held that science and religion operate out of "non overlapping magisteria" and that science has nothing to say about religion. Francis Collins, leader of the public venture to sequence the human genome, is a devout Christian and has just published a book, The Language of God(Free Press, 2006), explaining how religion and science can be entirely compatible.
Dawkins debunks the "exaggerated respect" society affords to religious beliefs, no matter how ridiculous some of these beliefs seem to be. He has a point here, but exaggerated respect is no worse than complete lack of respect. In more than 400 pages I could scarcely find one instance where Dawkins admits that any aspect of religion might have done any good at any stage.
About 40 per cent of scientists believe in God. Some of these scientists are the most famous who ever lived, which naturally irritates the hell out of Dawkins. Albert Einstein believed that the physical laws that govern nature were formulated by an impersonal Grand Designer. Dawkins goes to considerable lengths to convince us that Einstein was really an atheist who used poetic language. But Einstein vehemently denied being an atheist and his position seemed to hover between deism and pantheism.
Dawkins is at his worst when dealing with the traditional proofs of the existence of God. He is ignorantly contemptuous of St Thomas Aquinas and St Anselm. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) lived in a pre-scientific age but used reason to formulate arguments for the existence of God. Aquinas conceived of a God who created a world with its own ordering and processes. This prepared the ground for the development of the natural sciences in the later Middle Ages.
St Anselm (1033-1109) of Canterbury made a famous ontological argument for the existence of God in 1078. It states that it is possible to conceive of a being greater than whom nothing can be conceived. Such a being must therefore exist since existence is greater than non-existence. This argument has challenged philosophers for centuries. Dawkins dismisses Anselm's argument with a sneer.
There is dilute scientific evidence in favour of God. Principally this amounts to the fact that if the values of many physical constants (eg the strong nuclear force) in the universe differed ever so slightly from the values they have, life would never have arisen. One explanation for this striking coincidence is that the basic properties of matter and energy were chosen by God to allow a universe to evolve under its own steam. Dawkins, of course, doesn't agree, opting instead for the "many worlds" hypothesis. This proposes that our world is just one of an infinite number of worlds, established at the beginning, each with its own unique physical constants and laws. In this infinite variety it would be inevitable that some worlds, such as ours, would be hospitable to life. But, the "many worlds" hypothesis is little more than speculation compared to the conventional picture that we live in the only world that exists.
Dawkins rails against the excesses of fundamentalist religion, ranging from creationism to suicide bombers. All moderate religious people would agree with him here. But he goes on to call for the rejection of all religion, the thoughtful moderate kind along with fundamentalism. He reasons that moderate religion makes the world "safe" for extreme religion by endorsing faith.
Dawkins' reasoning is wrong. If we applied it generally we would get rid of many good things because of the extreme behaviour of the few. For example science "made the world safe" for the development of eugenics, nuclear and biological weapons, and so on. Therefore, the only way to ensure we have no monstrous developments in future is to abolish science!
Fundamentalists are not impressed by the arguments of atheists. The best weapon to use against fundamentalism is moderate religion. Dawkins only distracts moderate religion from its task. Why doesn't he take on the new secular religion of political correctness (PC) which has silently taken over public life in recent decades? PC is anti-scientific, makes people afraid to think certain thoughts, closes down whole areas of debate, publicly vilifies people who diverge from accepted beliefs, and is rife on university campuses. Dawkins sharp tongue could make a real difference here.
William Reville is associate professor of biochemistry and public awareness of science officer at UCC
Correction: There were two errors in last week's article on radioactivity. One microgram of Po-210 would have been sufficient to kill Alexander Litvinenko, not one milligram. Also, the end product of the Uranium-238 radioactive decay scheme is Lead-206, not Lead-94.