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Summary: Unlocking the Mistery of the Man of Piltdawkins
Review: Just recently scientists have celebrated the 50th year of the hoax of Man of Piltdown. BBC even came up with a documentary on the subject. It took a long time for evolutionists to notice the hoax. Was the Piltdown hoax a sign of the self-correcting power of evolutionary science, or was it a sign of its self-deceiving capacity? I am inclined to think that the second possibility is the correct one. In this book, Richard Dawkins keeps advancing what will certainly be known as the "Man of PiltDawkins" hoax, some decades from now: "man" as an evolutionary random collection of selfish genes. Even if Intelligent Design may have to struggle with some of Dawkins problens, biblical creationism has a clear and convincing answer for them all. Here are some problem with the Piltdawkins Man: 1) Piltdawkins left no traces in the fossil record. 2) Piltdawkins can not generate new sequences of DNA information through random mutations and natural selection. 3) Piltdawkins has no vestigial organs and no junk-DNA; 4) Piltdawkins' ontogenesis doesn't recapitulate phylogenesis; 5) Piltdawkins' mathematical probabilities are virtually zero; 6) Piltdawkins is not able to account for young civilizations; 7) Piltdawkins homology with chimps is a non starter and a non sequitur. What separates Man from chimps is what make Man unique in the Universe. 8) PiltDawkins "ancestors" were either man or apes. 9) Piltdawkins is selfcontradictory, since it is just a "meme" created randomly by some genes whose only purpose is to procriate, and not to produce real science. If the Piltdawkins meme is pure randomness, how can we be sure of our knowledge about Piltdawkins at all, or about anything else for that matter? If you are an evolutionary theorist, you cannot say that you have not been warned about the Piltdawkins hoax. You have no excuse. What is the mystery behind this hoax? Well, it is that many scientists have a subjective preference for evolution, without any convincing objective evidence thereof. Even if all actual evidence points toward special creation, fall, curse, flood, Babel, rapid dispersion and speciation, etc., most of the scientists will still prefer to believe in evolution. Richard Dawkins and Steven Jay Gold, among many other evolutionists, have cleary stated that they would readily accept evolution not because of the evidence, but in spite the lack of it. Is this really a mystery? No. The Bible is clear when it says that sinful men (we all are) will always try to ignore God, at their own peril, even if they cannot hide from Him.
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Summary: And he's my favorite author
Review: Occationally publishers come to an author and say, "You are popular now and we have to get some more material into the market. You know all those articles you wrote and forwards and all, we will just compile them into a collection and call it a book. It really doesn't need a coherant theme." Well my favorite author got talked into doing this with "A Devil's Chaplain". I can only hope he will hang his head in shame and pop that idiot publisher in the kisser. Not close to his best work.
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Summary: A revealing collection of essays by a passionate scientist
Review: One of the wonderful things about this book is the sense that one gets of a distinguished scientist letting his hair down, as it were, and discoursing informally on a number of interesting subjects including some outside his area of expertise. In the game of "Who would you invite to dinner if you could choose anybody?" Oxford University Professor Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, and other important works on evolution, would be near the top of my list. Not that I agree with everything he says. Indeed, that is part of the fun. Dawkins is adamant on some subjects, religion being one of them. A goodly portion of this book is devoted to letting us know exactly how he feels about the "God hypothesis," "liberal agnostics," and the so-called miracles recognized by especially the Catholic Church. The title of Chapter 3.3, "The Great Convergence" (of science and religion), for example, is used ironically. He sees no convergence; in fact, he calls such a notion "a shallow, empty, hollow, spin-doctored sham." (p. 151) Clearly Dawkins is not a man to mince words. But his insistence on a restrictive definition of "God" as "a hypothetical being who answers prayers; intervenes to save cancer patients...forgives sin," etc., is really the problem. He considers the "religion" attributed to scientists like Einstein, Carl Sagan, Paul Davies and others (and even himself!) to involve a misuse of the term, calling such a definition "flabbily elastic" and not religion as experienced by "the ordinary person in the pew." (p. 147) But what Dawkins is really railing against is the illegitimacy of believing in the supernatural and science at the same time. While I think Dawkins makes a good point with this argument, I think it would be better to make a distinction between fundamentalist religion, which has been, and continues to be, the root cause of much of the horror in the world, and the more progressive varieties which recognize the limitations of the barbaric "Bronze-Age God of Battles." See Chapter 3.5 "Time to Stand Up" in which Dawkins rightly condemns the hatreds and violent history of the three middle eastern religions. At the same time I think he needs to realize that it is legitimate to define "God" as God is defined in, for example, the Vedas; that is, as The Ineffable, which has no attributes, about which nothing can be said. However it is exactly his point that there is no evidence for the God hypothesis and that to partially accept such a notion, or even to be "agnostic" is to depart from a purely scientific viewpoint. In this I think the atheistic Dawkins is mistaken. Absence of proof is not proof of absence, period. And as far as religion, per se, goes, I would add that not only is religion part of human culture (for better or for worse), but is also part of the so-called "extended phenotype" of human beings, and not something that is going to be argued away. I also have some reservations about his reasons for not debating with creationists. He believes that to debate with them gives them a legitimacy they don't deserve. In Chapter 5.5, he reveals a letter he wrote to Steven Jay Gould expressing such a view. I don't debate creationists either, but my reason is that creationists don't really debate. They have already made up their minds and are not capable of being influenced by evidence. Theirs is purely an exercise in propaganda. Furthermore, as Dawkins discovered himself (in Chapter 2.3 on the Australian film crew that he allowed into his house for an interview), it is often the case that creationists don't play fair. In Chapter 1.5 "Trial by Jury" Dawkins presents his reservations about "one of the most conspicuously bad good ideas anyone ever had." I understand his demurral, but would like to point out that juries dispense a social justice; that the tribe makes its decisions based on what it perceives as good for the tribe now, not necessarily what's true in an objective or scientific sense. Interesting enough, Dawkins demonstrates his knowledge of other scientific subjects, including physics, and he does it very well. I was particularly impressed with his explanation of entropy and how it effects the evolutionary process in Chapter 2.2. (See especially page 85.) He also does a fine job of elucidating why Lamarckism cannot work without a "Darwinian underpinning" since there must be a mechanism for selecting between the acquired characteristics that are improvements and those that are not. (p. 90) Good too is his characterization of genes as constituting "a kind of description of the ancestral environments through which those genes have survived." (p. 113) On his tiff with Gould, Dawkins attempts to make amends by reprinting some semi-gracious and mostly positive reviews of some of Gould's books; however it is obvious that his professional and emotional differences with Gould remain. One of the most important points that Dawkins reaffirms here is his belief that we humans, because of our unique insight into ourselves and our predicament, "can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators." (p. 11) What Dawkins means is that we do not have to take biology as destiny or to take Darwinism as a template for our morality--a point often missed by his critics. There is much, much more of interest in this refreshingly personal collection of essays by one of our most original evolutionary thinkers, some of it first rate, and some of it rather ordinary; yet taken in total reveals a lot about Richard Dawkins, scientist, science writer, teacher, and human being that I was pleased to learn. Incidentally, the title is from Charles Darwin who speculated on how such a personage might regard "the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature." (p. 8) That "devil's chaplain" here is Richard Dawkins himself who mostly directs his ire toward the stupidities of human beings.
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Summary: Richard Dawkins: "blessed with brains."
Review: Richard Dawkins (THE SELFISH GENE, UNWEAVING THE RAINBOW) is an evolutionary biologist at Oxford and a self-proclaimed "passionate Darwinian" (p. 10). In fact, it was Charles Darwin who first coined the phrase "Devil's Chaplain" in 1856. For Darwin, a Devil's Chaplain recognizes the "clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel" forces of nature at work in the process of natural selection. In his brilliant collection of articles, lectures, tirades, book reviews, essays and eulogies, Dawkins reveals that while Darwin's theory of evolution may be "bleak and cold," natural selection has also given us humans the biggest gifts of all: "the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence; the gift of revulsion against its implications; the gift of foresight--something utterly foreign to the blundering short-term ways of natural selection--and the gift of internalizing the very cosmos" (p. 12). Stated differently, while sharks may outswim us, cheetahs may outrun us, elephants may outpower us, and redwoods may outlive us, we are bipedal apes "blessed with brains" capable of understanding our precious existence (pp. 12-13). When it comes to understanding the nature of our existence, Dawkins' book reveals that he is more highly evolved than most humans. His book may be read as a collection of brilliant love letters to science and rationality, in which he insightfully examines a variety of subjects through the eyes of an evolutionary scientist: Darwinism, morality, jury trials, religion (which he compares to computer viruses), education, genetically modified foods, Africa, genetics, the New-Age fascination with crystals, September 11th, and infant indoctrination. As a lover of truth, Dawkins not only reveals his suspicions of strongly-held beliefs that are unsupported by evidence (p. 117), but he never ceases to revel in science as a source of poetry and wonder. Never afraid to confront a good controversy, Dawkins' collection is sure to antagonize creationists, Roman Catholics, fundamentalists, New Age gurus and paranormal preachers alike. Intellectually stimulating and highly recommended. G. Merritt
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Summary: A personal Richard Dawkins
Review: Richard Dawkins is among the best writers in popular science, certainly one of the best writing today. This is a collection of essays on a number of subjects; American readers might be surprised to hear his views on politics and social issues, heard more in the UK than here. When he writes about his friends and family, he is gracious. When he writes about science, he is fascinating and persuasive without having to try too hard. In both cases, his penmanship is extraordinary by anyone's standards. This particular book might be more suited to the taste of an existing Dawkins fan; others might wonder what common thread runs through these essays. Those who have familiarized himself with his personality as it comes across in his books will find an old friend in these pages. P.S. I have to reflect on a criticism by a previous reviewer. They write, But how did nothing "evolve" to become something? Through random mutations and natural selection? Mutations of what? Selection of what? What was the cause? What was the mechanism? Has anyone seen it? Does anyone know? What exactly is the purpose of such an inquiry? Certainly not acquisition of knowledge. "Mutations of what? Selections of what?" - is this not explained thoroughly in thousands of pages Dawkins has written? "Has anyone seen it?" is the grandest insult to human knowledge - to suppose that we have to observe something visually in order to know it sends us straight back to the Dark Ages. You can ask questions of this kind all you want and nothing will ever constitute a sufficient answer if you have already supposed that the answer must be mystical in some way.
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Summary: Devil's Pope? Dawkins locuta, causa finita?
Review: Richard Dawkins proceeds in his neo-darwinistic naturalistic crusade, after works such as The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improblable, among others. He is a bright man, no doubt about it, but he will never make it, because he is running in the wrong direction. Let me just point out some real structural deficits of his work, not necessarily confined to this book. If you think Dawkins has come close to solving the problems he deals with, think again: 1) The origin of the universe out of nothing remains a mistery. The two laws of thermodynamics postulate that the universe had a beginning. So does big bang cosmology.But how did nothing "evolve" to become something? Through random mutations and natural selection? Mutations of what? Selection of what? What was the cause? What was the mechanism? Has anyone seen it? Does anyone know? Notice that when I mean nothing, I don't mean any sort quantum oscilation or fluctuation, dark matter or anti-matter (that is already something!), but the total absence of matter, energy, space and time. That's the nothing I am talking about. Try to think of it. Good luck! 2) How did life come about? Can Dawkins give us more than a just so story here? He, or any one else, for that matter? Even Miller and Urey have come to realize that synthesizing two bases of nucleotides and two aminoacids is not to create life. Life is way too much complex. They have confessed that the origin of life problem is really much more difficult than they have imagined. How can Dawkins go around bragging about random naturalistic evolution if he cannot pass the first obstacle of that process? (the spontaneous origin of life) 3) Dawkins goes around saying that he has proven that gradual evolution based on random mutations and natural selection can explain the all the complexity existing around. Give me a break! Information theory has shown that there is no such thing as random generation of complex specified information (Dembski; Gitt). Molecular biology has shown many instances of irreducible complexity with no imaginable gradualistic intermediates (Denton; Behe). It has also been demonstrated that there is not one single mutation able to generate new DNA sequences of information that codes for totally new structures and functions (Spetner). The METHINKSITISAWEASEL argument is simply one of the childiest constructs I have come accross in my life time. Can anyone tell me how this argument can account for the generation of new complex specified information out of nothing? 4) Dawkins keeps saying that intelligent design also has to account for the information generation and that it refuses to explain exactly when and how this information was generated. That may be a pertinent question to direct at the intelligent design movement, but scientific creationism (starting from the Bible) has a very good answer for it. 5) Dawkins keeps putting forward the "God's utility function" argument. As a creationism I have to agree with his point. Evolution is the most cruel, inefficient and irrational method God could have used to create man. The point is, He didn't use this method! "The so-called Bad design", when it really exists, is simply a deterioration of the created world, caused by sin and the following curse. 6) Dawkins insists on the notion of gradualistic evolution. The problem, though, is that we don't see any signs of if in molecular biology (Denton; Behe) nor in the fossil record, as Steven Jay Gould has many times pointed out. The fossil record points to abruptness, diversity and stasis, exactly the opposite of what we should expect by evolutionary predictions. On the other hand, the number of "living fossils" and "polystratic" just keeps growing, not to speak of findings of non-fossilized bones of dinausors! But the main point is that the links are still missing after all these years. In fact, there is less "evidence" today than in Darwin's lifetime. There are a few debatable "links", I know, but we shoud expect trillions by evolutionary predicions. A whole bunch have been proven to be fake (v.g. Piltdown Man, Nebraka Man, Archeoraptor; Haeckel's "recapitulative" embrios) There is not one single "link" that is consensual among evolutionists themselves. On the contrary, evidence of design and fine-tuning is simply overwhelming, by the trillions, altough naturalistic biased scientists like Richard Dawkins simply exmplain it away mockingly using terms such as "designoids" "appearence of design", etc. So much for scientific integrity and intellectual honesty! 7) I have to agree with Dawkins, though, one he says that saltationism, punctuated equilibrium and hopeful monsters are scientific nonsense from a biological point of view. Steven Jay Gold was simply being "a nasty boy". 8) There are more problems with evolution. The vestigial organs are not vestigial organs after all. They have turned out to have a design function after all. The same is true with much of the so called "junk-DNA". What's more, speciation has nothing to to with particles-to-people-evolution, since speciation reshuffles, sorts, exchanges or eliminates pre-existing information but it never generates new information. Evolution requires the generation of new information. Speciation has simply nothing to do with it. As to homology arguments, they don't prove evolution, since they also are arguments creationists like to use to talk about a common designer. 9) Natural selection, by definition selects some information and removes other information, but it never generates new information. That being the case, natural selection has nothing to do with evolution. Creationists don't deny natural selection. That, they can see. Creationists just don't see the point in talking about natural selection when discussing evolution. 10) Richard Dawkins has an open agenda. He wants to be a self-fulfilled atheist. If that's what he wants, so be it. Everybody wants to be a self-fulfilled something. That's OK. It is his choice (or perhaps he is being a victim of an illusion imposed on him by his selfish genes, as evolutinist phylosopher Michael Ruse would put it). There is one danger, however: becomming a self-fulfilled autist, by constantly avoiding and evading the (bio-;paleo-;geo-;theo-)logical implications overwhelming evidence of design and fine-tuning. If Richard Dawkins can say that the evidence shows a world without design is everybody expected to accept that statement without criticism and cross-examination? Is Dawkins the New Devil's Pope? Are we supposed to live by the Dogma "Dawkins locuta, causa finita"? Has science reached so low a point that all arguments in favor of chance are accepted as scientific and all arguments against chance are sumarily dismissed as non-scientific? To me this sounds as absurd as a judge accepting as "legal" only those arguments that point to the guilt of the defendent, and dismissing as "non legal" all those arguments who support his inocence. 11) Dawkins keeps reciting the mantra that people want to believe in God because they need confort in this tough and sad world. What do we make about this often heard argument? Well...nothing! Don't let Dawkins get you asleep on this one. This argument has nothing to do with particles-to-people-evolution, it proves nothing, it beggs the question and it is totally reversible. I might equally say that in a God's created moral universe, some people like Dawkins don't want to believe in God because, being sinful (we all are), they need the confort of avoiding the existential, moral and spiritual questions that keep comming to their minds. So Richard Dawkins sould avoid using this and similar arguments. They are "non sequitur". 12) Dawkins should remember that although he is a very intelligent man, he is just a man (by the way, I believe Richard Dawkins is more than a just a higher primate or a mere random collection of selfish genes, 95% DNA homology with chimps notwithstanding).
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Summary: The cornerstone of every essay is truth.
Review: Richard Dawkins, a powerhouse of evolution known for the influential, "The Blind Watchmaker," and coining the term "meme," has now compiled a collection of essays. Written over the past twenty-plus years, they are often brilliantly interesting and a pleasure for those who thirst for a deeper understanding of science. However, it can be difficult at times to comprehend, especially for the non-scientist, when the text is heavily laden with scientific jargon.
The range of topics vary considerably -Africa, genes, evolution, trial by jury and a couple of eulogies. The cornerstone of every essay is truth; his love for the truth is insatiable and infectious. But his diatribe on religion quickly becomes counter-effective due to his angry tone and the empty reasoning offered for refusing to debate creationists. Dawkins is most accessible and honest within a letter to his ten-year old daughter entitled, "Good and Bad Reasons for Believing." It begins, "Have you ever wondered how we know the things that we know?" The next six pages are as good as an entire scientific textbook espousing the scientific method. The simple, yet effective word choices in the letter, if used more often throughout "A Devil's Chaplain" would of made the book a stellar hit for the common reader and not just the scientific one.
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Summary: The New Darwininan paradigm: science, ethics, philosophy
Review: Since I started my studies of biology about ten years ago, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection has been always present and seemed to me an easy, unmysterious one. Only recently, have I realized that I was missing much of the point and I begun to understand the real dimension of this theory, the importance of its implications to understand our nature and our nowadays life. I had never felt that there was anything else to be understood, even though the meaning of Dobzhansky's sentence: "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" always resulted a bit unclear for me.
Maybe it is because I am a bit stupid, but maybe not. Maybe my case is not an exception and many professionals of the biological sciences are still missing much of this point. But still worse, most of our society, most of societies are still missing it. Among academics and professionals, this is particularly true when talking about the people from social sciences: philosophers, psychologists, cultural anthropologists, historians, and so many others. Thus, the full implications of the Darwinian Theory are yet to be discovered by our society, and many good things are to come when it happens.
Richard Dawkins' Devil's Chaplain is a wonderful gate to the Darwinian perspective both for the expert on the matter as for the not. It is a strong book, full of intelligent and rational thinking, always in the light of evolution.
The book is composed by a series of essays written by Professor Dawkins during the last 25 years and initially thought to be published in a variety of media, such as newspapers, book chapters, book reviews, obituaries, and others. This diversity in origin and objective of the essays, instead of being a handicap for the book results into a fresh and easy to read combination.
Texts are grouped in seven sections according to their character. I found all the essays interesting and worthy reading, but naturally some of them more than others. I particularly enjoyed reading the first three sections, perhaps the most important of the book.
In Science and sensibility (first section) we find eight essays where Dawkins links science with ethics and philosophy. In What is true? he strikes against the double standards, and defends the existence of trustable truths; Gaps in the mind, also discusses again the double standards, in this cases for ethic considerations. He discusses the unnatural nature of our human-centered ethics, and the lack of consistency between the human/animal frontier, so natural for all us. Dawkins is brave and provocative, and is not afraid to declare his interest in seeing a hybrid of human and chimpanzee. It was delightful; Genetics, risk and ethics, is a text specifically written for Tony Blair, where he brightly exposes the "risks and ethics" of the present fast development of genetics. Some of the most interesting lines that I have read about genetics for lay people. Finally Postmodernism disrobed is a really funny review of Intellectual impostures, a book deconstructing the bases of the postmodernism. I really laughed reading Lacan's equations about the men's organ. Please read it!
In Light will be thrown, the second section, Dawkins mainly discusses topics about the natural selection as motor of evolution, the figure of Darwin, and the power of his theory. Especially I liked The "information challenge" and Son of Moore's law, because he imaginatively introduces interesting topics as the theory of information, and its parallelism with current genetics, and the expected development of this field in the next 50 years.
The infected mind, third section, is dedicated to the memes, and to one of Dawkins' favorite type: religions and their role in our societies. They told me, Heraclitus contains several obituaries where I really enjoyed reading the one for WD Hamilton and snake oil a text against the supposed miracles of alternative medicines, particularly homeopathy; Even the ranks of Tuscany, which also has something of obituary, is in fact composed by reviews to several books of SJ Gould, with a tender text coauthored by these two confronted heavyweights of Darwinian evolutionism; the last two sections are by far more personal. From There is all Africa and her prodigies in us, I will mention Heroes and ancestors, where some Herculean Africa researchers, as the Leakey and the Douglas-Hamilton families, pioneers of the conservation ecology in Eve's continent. A prayer for my daughter is an open letter written to his daughter at her age of 10, talking about what kind of things are worthy to be believed and which things not (tradition, authority and revelation). It resulted a bit harsh for a 10 years old kid but a coherent end for the book.
Rating:
Summary: Common sense can be beautiful.
Review: There are certain books that everyone in a country considering itself "enlightened" should be required to read, at least before (s)he's out of school. The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan comes to mind immediately, as does this book by the brilliant Richard Dawkins, a man who thankfully continues to turn people away from superstition and ignorance and assists them in focusing on WHAT IS, rather than WHAT SOME PEOPLE WISH COULD BE (perhaps in the interest of furthering their own agendas). Common sense, lovely prose, striking contrasts between science and pseudoscience, and sterling examples of weighty evidence favoring clear-cut scientific inquiry and critical thinking all serve to make this, like all of Dawkins's other books, brilliant and inspiring from cover to cover. In a culture in which it hasn't been "okay" to be SMART in many decades (this is no coincidence, folks), Dawkins tries to get the reader to remember that (s)he has a brain, and that that brain is more than capable of perceiving hoaxes and ulterior motives. It becomes obvious after reading Dawkins's prose that one's natural sense of wonder can be fulfilled quite well by science
-- better than all other disciplines, in fact -- because scientific discoveries far outweigh any creation myth or new-age con job in regards to having the ability to strike the reader with eye-popping awe (and make one feel "special" as a living being on this planet). Books like this are vital in a world of ever-shrinking sensibilities. It's a good thing we still have a few good guys left. Dawkins is one of them. Let's hope he inspires enough people to champion the individual brain over the mass hallucination -- before there ARE no good guys left.
Rating:
Summary: Common sense can be beautiful.
Review: There are certain books which everyone in a country that considers itself "enlightened" should be required to read, at least before (s)he's out of school. The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan comes to mind immediately, as does this book by the brilliant Richard Dawkins, a man who thankfully continues to turn people away from superstition and ignorance and assists them in focusing on WHAT IS, rather than WHAT SOME PEOPLE WISH COULD BE (to further their own agendas). Common sense, beautiful prose, striking contrasts between science and other so-called belief systems, and sterling examples of weighty evidence favoring clear-cut science and critical thinking over pseudo-sciences like astrology (as science is the only general school of thought that actually delivers) all serve to make this, like all of Dawkins's other books, brilliant and inspiring from cover to cover. In a culture in which it hasn't been "okay" to be SMART in many decades (this is no coincidence, folks), Dawkins tries to get the reader to remember that (s)he has a brain, and that that brain is more than capable of perceiving hoaxes and ulterior motives. It becomes obvious after reading Dawkins's prose that one's natural sense of wonder can be fulfilled quite well by science
-- better than all other disciplines, in fact -- because scientific discoveries far outweigh any creation myth or new-age con job in regards to having the ability to strike the reader with eye-popping awe (and make one feel "special" as a living being on this planet). BUY THIS BOOK. Buy one for your best friend. It's quite necessary, in this world of ever-shrinking sensibilities. It's a good thing we still have a few good guys left. Dawkins is one of them. Let's hope he inspires enough people to champion the individual brain over the mass hallucination -- before there ARE no good guys left.
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