Richard Dawkins: The Greatest Show on Earth
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When he has that fire in his belly, Richard Dawkins is arguably the greatest living popularizer of evolution.
His foundational work, The Selfish Gene, inspired a generation of evolutionary biology students, while The God Delusion was a powerfully effective self-esteem booster for atheists in the closet.
With his new book, splendidly titled The Greatest Show on Earth, Dawkins joins other popularizers in what has become almost a rite of passage - to make the case for evolution to the general public.
It's like the ring the bell game at the county fair where every able young male feels obliged to step up and swing the giant mallet.
Evolution theory is the biggest lie antiscientific lie in human history. Is was pushed through indoctrination of the kids in schools, never was allowed the discussion of any fact contradicting the theory. The theory was presented as certified fact without any comments or different points of view. If anybody had such points then of course they were not qualified enough to understand it. "All the scientists agree on the theory of evolution" which is another lie.
Can anybody explain how a bacteria or a yeast cell can make human insulin using the human genetic code for insulin?
The human insulin is different from the animal insulin.
How can you make the fetus of an animal grow human organs?
That can be only if the nucleus of the cells are the same.
How did the first cell did generate in itself the genetic sequence to replicate itself, and then replicated itself...
Popularity has nothing to do with it. He's supporting the scientific evidence that speaks for itself. Dawkins has the courage many others do not. Clearly @DustUp didn't bother to become literate in the science of all things constantly evolving. Give a man a bible and it will keep him wrapped in delusion for the rest of his life.
Surely...the biggest question is what was before the Big Bang? And why did the Big Bang even occur? And How? Of the magnitude that created everything that we know that exists...space, time, matter, the observable and invisible universe, everything. And amongst all that incredible chaos we find the incredible and complex beauty of the Universe, Our Milky Way galaxy which is just one of milions, billions if not trillions and zillions of other galaxies, a spec in a vast unimaginable expanse of "who knows what", and then amongst all that we have our solar system, within which our even tinier spec of a planet exists, for which many different variants and occurences need to be in place in order for life to exist let alone thrive, on which we have 'evolved' along with a million other complex forms of life all uniquely different but perfectly adapated to exist and co-exist (if we let them!), all as a result of a long line of chance occurences and amazing coincidences, where all the component factors need to be perfectly placed - phew - surely...your rational mind...your unbelievable logic...must have a tiny teeny thought niggling away think how completely and uniquely remarkable...if not a total miracle....if you believed in such things...that all is? Seriously?
Is it so hard to fathom that feelings of spirituality and connectedness in the Universe is a product of evolution itself. Much like murderers were cast out from tribes because the general well being of the group was affected, the general mental well being of those same tribe members was affected positively when we invent creation stories in the absence of scientific truth. Like, "Hey, it's ROUND." <--- Ever wonder why that's not in the Bible? Because we obviously didn't K ow it yet. Just like we didn't know our moral compass was produced by tribalism and survival. Aka 'if I murder that child, my child could be murdered.'
It baffles me how stupid people are when they project their evolved knowledgeable minds on the past and say dumb things like "Anyone who can think for themselves knows that there is certainly a spiritual element to our lives as human beings (if not all sentient beings)"
Send a fool to college and they will fall for anything. Like anything the Rockefeller grant funded socialist anti Christian professors say.
Much smarter men, in control of their egos(the real problem at the root of collectivism and transformational evolution) founded this country and made it great knowing that there are powers higher than those who walk this earth (or other worlds if there actually are any). "Oh what a loon ...everybody knows there are other worlds." Oh and where did you learn that? School. Exactly. And they are still teaching the sun is a big ball of fire. Hahaha. And that you are an insignificant spec in a huge universe so it doesn't matter if you're exterminated by the elitists who refuse to volunteer to provide leadership on how to lower the population and go first. Thank God, yes indeed, it is good to be appreciative rather than arrogant knobs like the anti theists who imagine they are superior in intellect because they prefer to deny all the evidence that is around them.
Years ago there was one or more scientists who said similar to: Eventually, if your investigations to disprove God by science cause you to look, slice, dice, break things down to their essence, you will run right into God. It is merely denial of those that desire to be their own gods that have to promote it ...like the drinker who needs everyone else around to drink to or he'll feel guilty.
I truly hope the earth finds a way to naturally select theists into extinction. They are making the human gene pool dangerously shallow.
i feel sorry for Dick, everyone goes mental at him, you tell em pal.
Even though I disagree that religion should be taken from people not yet logically intelligent enough to see through it, just as I don't think it's wise to rip the training wheels off a toddler's bike, I must respect Dawkins both for his breadth of knowledge, his passion for truth and his optimism with regards to the reasoning faculties of the average human being, an optimism I apparently lack.
The documentary was entertaining though it goes without saying I wished it focused more on the details of evolutionary theories like kin selection and less on preaching reason to the irrational.
@Achems
I will say 52/24/7, i have been (for quite some time) open to have this dimension crack open before my eyes (should say my mind), not knowing what, when, why and how but walking in the dark with my blind awareness feeling around.
The other night after i fell through the hole, i got to replay in my mind the splitsecond when it engaged, the second while in the freefall and the concious slow motion travel of it. I have replayed it many times since then. I care a lot more about the impression it left me with than the sore butt, elbow, knee, back and neck.
I am not sure what i am making of it but it has to do with realizing that cracking this dimension could happen the same way.
more to come
az
Another great read for those like-minded is Jon Krakauer's "Under the banner of heaven".
Excellent, excellent idea Dr. Dawkins! I wholeheartedly agree that classes/courses in comparative religion should be added to the curriculum in U.S. public schools. Children are more intelligent than most people give them credit for. Let them choose and decide for themselves. Furthermore, if a parent's religion is really 'the right way, the truth', then certainly the child/children would quickly realize it during the course without them being indoctrinated by their parents, no?
Dr. Dawkins you are one of my heroes. You shouldn't waste your time on religions that will never fully respect your genius.
great science from 152 years ago , might be slightly obsolete though
God, can never be proven...Even as a muslim, its all about faith .Faith whether you do not or you do believe n god....The truth will always be subjective for most.
I have read all the comments posted, and I continue to ask believers of ANY religion the same unanswered and avoided question I have asked for over 17 years. If you can prove God to me, how I can disprove God to you, then what choices would a rational person have; except to embrace belief?
I pray the evolutionists are right!!!
@Atheist13
Thank you for taking the time to look over the post again and respond. If ever in the future you find errors, factual, grammatical or otherwise, I would appreciate it if you would point them out to me.
Once again, thank you.
Robert1
@robertallen1
1. Complements on re-affirming what I was trying to say, namely ,- I “support evolution as a theory” . But was it really necessary to expend a few valuable minutes trying to do so ?
2. In accusing me of “unwittingly justified Dr. Dawkins and EVERTHING he stands for, including atheism and anti-Christianity” , and then the statement “distortedly misdiagnoses Dr. Dawkins as a man with a messianic complex.” , could you not perhaps be succumbing to an element of self-contradiction ? Does the part-statement “EVERTHING he stands for, including atheism and anti-Christianity” not at least in part imply the truth of the statement “Dr. Dawkins as a man with a messianic complex.” ? Or if you like , the two statements are not mutually exclusive. Dr. Dawkins might be very disappointed if he were to know that one of his ardent supporters were to downplay his enthusiastic endeavours. I have to agree with Madeleine Bunting who described Richard Dawkins as an “unashamed proselytiser” in her excellent critique in the Guardian in May 2007. But maybe you are correct, perhaps Dr. Dawkins has already reflected on the fact that he is no more likely to become an atheistic messiah than either Nietsche or Sartre unsuccessfully aspired to be.
3. Are you sure you meant to imply faith = ‘blind reliance’ ?
Well then, let me ask you this ? Do you believe the law of gravity will still operate one hour from now? (I cannot imagine for one minute your answer would be ‘no’) . If that is the case please PROVE IT !
If by any chance you cannot prove it but believe it emphatically, I put it to you - THAT is FAITH ! So are you sure you don’t want to go back and revisit your statement “blind reliance (i.e. faith)” ? If faith is belief in the unprovable, which you and Richard Dawkins incessantly declare, then how do you manage to live your lives – you cannot possibly prove the next plane you fly in, or car you drive in isn’t going to crash due to catastrophic metal fatigue. Yet you probably continue to fly or drive . That is faith. I opine that you exercise faith in many ways i.e “total reliance on things you cannot prove”. The argument could be extended to countless other examples. Its all FAITH , FAITH , FAITH , my friend .
But then I hear you say , that’s completely different from faith in an invisible , infinite God. Actually no, it’s not . If by ‘unprovable’ you mean impossible to prove through scientific methods then you are totally correct. If to somehow prove to anyone through rationalization alone then, yes, that might be unlikely. Let’s say for argument’s sake that God did exist (and do you think you would be able to turn off your extreme skepticism of such a possibility long enough to follow my argument ?). Then let’s say he was the creator and sustainer of all that is known and can be known. In that case would it be possible for him to ‘hide’ himself from the direct scrutiny of man by ‘sensible’ or empirical means ? In a nutshell, God is not a possible object of sensible experience, but transcends all such categories. The next obvious question would be , ‘WHY’ ?! Well the answer to that would require at least another posting, and considering your responses to my postings so far, you probably would not be interested . Perhaps others might be ; but I fear you may have scared everyone else off .
4. Complements on making the effort to look up the reference John 14:6 – or perhaps even further complements if you happened to know it by heart. Oh, incidently , what I think you meant to say was ‘life’ instead of ‘light’. (A trivial error – so no need for me to waste valuable time highlighting it at length !) If you were to read more of the accounts of Jesus’ life and proclamations in John’s Gospel in an openly critical and impartial manner you might be able to comment on it more intelligently. However, you might still remain resolutely skeptical of Jesus Christ and Christianity, but perhaps you might be able to respond more cogently than merely betray no evidence of higher level thinking by employing phrases like “pathetically conceited asseveration “ . (Maybe a tactic which you acquired from Richard Dawkins ?)
Incidentally, no need to complement me or even vilify me if you were to respond to this posting ; I suppose you probably realize by now it doesn’t bother me one way or the other !
American Evangelical theologian William Lane Craig is ready to debate the rationality of faith during his U.K tour this fall, but it appears that some atheist philosophers are running shy of the challenge.
Richard Dawkins will have nothing to do with him.
But the pseudo-intellectuals scream ever louder - "Crucify Him" - I watch the Atheists talk about how the moon broke off from the earth into a million particles that have now joined together into a single round mass just the size of the sun (relative to the view of the earth). How did this water world stay in the exact place through the years? One degree closer and we evaporate while one degree farther we freeze? How did the water evolve at it's limited range of temperature?
Why do Atheists hate so much? They don't hate Santa - who they claim not to believe in....maybe they hate him because St Nicolas loved Jesus - which is the reason that he gave to others.
Soooo many questions for the Atheist but they don't debate - they state "motherisms" learned from "scientists" who knew much less than we know now. And when a question arises that they don't know, they say they are bored and walk away....back to Richard Dawkins...
@ Davek47
I had hoped to compliment you on a more intelligent post than your last until you described evolution as only a theory. Like so many others, you are ignorant of the term in its scientific sense, i.e., a preponderance of the evidence, not a conjecture. Thus, by agreeing that the preponderance of the evidence supports evolution, ergo, you support evolution as a theory.
Next comes ignorant assertion number 2: “the jury is still out.” No, the jury of mainstream scientists—and this is the only jury that matters--came in a long time ago with a unanimous verdict in favor of evolution. By fabricating a controversy where none exists, you put yourself on the level of Michele Bachmann who ejaculated a similar statement.
If blind reliance (i.e., faith) on such a pathetically conceited asseveration as “I am the way, the truth and the light” is your solution to the problems of mankind, you have unwittingly justified Dr. Dawkins and everything he stands for, including atheism and anti-Christianity. This can be expected from someone so simple-minded as to believe “God is alive and well” and who distortedly misdiagnoses Dr. Dawkins as a man with a messianic complex.
While complimenting Dr. Dawkins on his roseate view of natural selection, you blame what you consider the ills of the world (which you don’t enumerate, even in part) on the influence of philosophers such as Sartre and Nietsche. Well, I blame what I consider most of the ills of the world (and I’ll enumerate the two biggest culprits: ignorance and stupidity, i.e., “I am the way, the truth and the light.”) on religion and theology. It’s the difference between the conjectured and the provable or, if you prefer, the unsupported versus the supported.
Don't waste your time to breach science to those who believe in religion...In reality history has a clue...they will not vanish through discussion or convincing, like any other irrelevant theory, it will just fade off with each generation.
Just as we do not have many today believing in the gods of Pharoahs or Greeks, they will slowly be pushed aside by a relatively more reasonable theory to life.
The magic word is prerequisite; how atheist or non-religious you are is proportional to the prerequisite knowledge/reasoning/theory you have that convinces you that the previous prevailing thought is not relevant anymore.
Ever heard of an atheist uneducated bush man? Likely never, because believing in a deity comes from the fact that we have a brain big enough to need an explanation to why we are here. So by default you seek a theory, and coincidentally the most abundant one available to poor people is religion :) So trying to argue with someone who believes in an older theory about life and try to persuade them in sentences is not practical, either they are curious enough and got some education and clever enough...or the right combination of all i....and sometimes they could be born in a wealthy country, with good education and through shear willful ignorance remain to peddle a theory/religion that cannot stand up to rigorous tests.
So basically, religions are really just ancient theories built on incomplete observations about the universe. Galileo was jailed by the church, because he made observations that contradicted the existing theory about life.
Richard Dawkings to me represents the pinnacle of understanding the machinery of biology and how it can spawn consciousness.....I am thrilled to be able to understand his big picture of us...and sad that many just don't get it. I watched him host a professor on Physics...to show how even the bigger picture of the universe is consistent with modern theory of life. YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL AS YOU THINK....AND THERE IS REALLY NO GOD. IT IS JUST WISHFUL THINKING....SAME AS BELIEVING THAT YOU ARE RACIALLY SUPERIOR TO ANOTHER GROUP OF PEOPLE.
We are just a molecule that continuously refines itself through the forces of natural selection. That molecule builds protein structures around itself to engage with the environment for resources gathering and for the ultimate goal of reproducing. You are just a more complicated version of a simple virus. So no coincidence that your core molecule, DNA uses the same mechanism to replicate than a common cold virus, except one is many times more complex.
@Killin
I was right. All that you know of Dr. Dawkins is through this one video—so off you go, attacking your intellectual better with only a quarter-quiver of arrows and a rickety old church.
Yes, Dr. Dawkins denies the existence of a supreme being not out of whim, but because the burden of proof lies on the asserter and proof is impossible . . . Well, so much for half of what you describe as theology, the other and more vital half being god as a social construct which is subsumed in comparative religion, a discipline of which both you and Dr. Dawkins approve. That leaves theology as you conceive it with nothing.
You mention flaws in measure, perception and interpretation of evidence. The beauty of science is that, unlike religion it is errant and unlike religion, it changes and corrects and keeps changing and correcting as more evidence comes in.
But “science does not always produce, discover or create truth. This is intuitively obvious.” No it isn’t. How about some concrete examples?
Now that you mention it, how do you “create truth?” Is it through abstract thought which is nothing more than conclusions deduced from premises? While this is a “truth” of sorts (although outcome seems a better word), in no way is it tantamount to “truth” in the scientific sense. (quotes yours) So how does one go about creating truth--maybe you mean what you describe as “subjective truth.” If this is your oblique way of stating that what’s good for the goose might not be for the gander fine, but if you mean anything else, you are pathetically wrong.
A word of caution. Please do not try to snow me with philosophic quotes. I can come up with more than you can and all they demonstrate is nothing. Besides, intellectually, it’s bad form.
Yes, Dr. Dawkins is an ideological zealot whose mission is to stamp out the stupidity and ignorance caused by religion (theology) and people of your low intellectual caliber and replace it with knowledge and reason. If what he and others like him espouse is modern-day atheism, I’m all for it and wish him success in his impossible mission.
P.S. Contrary to what you state, I never asked you about your agenda because you didn’t seem intellectually competent or interesting enough to merit the question, but as long as you have provided it, I find it supports my judgment of you.
@killin
Mathematics excepted, what other proofs are there except evidence?
Mathematics excepted, what research other than empiric is legitimate?
It seems to me that because of his prominence and learning, Dr. Dawkins seems to assume that he can make trite statements about opposing viewpoints to his own and expects to get away with it scotfree. To be a scientist of such critical acclaim, he makes some very dismissive remarks regarding faith and theology that I am led to suppose that he has either not really studied the subject of theology at all or has studied the christian viewpoint in such depth that it doesn't even warrant any further treatment. Let me suggest that his approach rather than being laudable needs to be redressed a bit and if he is really to go down in history as one of the great protagonists of a view of the universe without an intelligent creator, he should really increase the depths of his arguments and make a real effort to discern at least the basic premises and principles of theology. The statement in the interview , 'I don't think theology is a subject at all ', I think could have a lot of theologians queing up to challenge the inanity and dare I say arrogance of such a statement.
It should be pointed out to many of the people who might be seduced by some of the superficial arguments presented by Dr. Dawkins , that the arguments presented in the theory of evolution, in this day and age can hardly even be cited as evidence against a God-centred view of the universe. What do I mean by this ? Well as a scientist and physicist I would suggest that before you can even begin to use the theory of evolution as 'supreme' evidence for the abscence of a 'prime mover' you need to go back to a consideration of the wonders of physical science - the atom, the molecule and the utter 'unlikliehood' of the laws of chemistry without which biology wouldn't exist ,let alone evolution. Time and brevity prevents me from surveying some of the breathtaking facts which have been discovered and still are being discovered as we speak. I recommend Martin Rees' masterpiece , 'Just Six Numbers', which gives a beautiful insight into the fundamental nature of reality. In this book Rees discusses the importance of some of the most important constants which govern the nature and behaviour of the universe, such as the forces of gravity and electricity . The precision required for some of these constants is quite astounding (in one case its 1 part in about 10 to the power 43 !) The tantalizing thought is that if you were to modify any one of these constants by even the minutest amount, you wouldn't end up with a 'modified' universe, but rather you would end up with nothing ! If you add up some of the numbers and work out the probabilities , I use the argument that you have trillions of times more likeliehood of winning a national lottery than betting that one of these constants is just right by chance .How many of those who bet the lottery go to bed every night believing that they are likely to be the one to win ? Don't they rather hope against hope ?
Cosmologists and physicists survey the intangible mysteries of the universe with humility because although their ‘better nature’ might persuade them to adopt a non-creationist view of existence, the utterly staggering complexity and incomprehensible ‘fine-tuning’ of the laws of physics leads them to the only appropriate attitude , which is a sense of awe and wonder –This is quite unlike the dismissive sometimes flippant approach which Richard Dawkins takes to the issues. I fully agree with him that one should believe nothing – either in science or in religion – without evidence. However, I think he is a bit naive in his perception of what constitutes valid or invalid evidence in the quest for religious truth.
I once read a profound and provocative statement by Richard Wurmbrand when quoting the famous statement uttered by Yuri Gagarin following his trip to space ,when he said “ I looked all round and saw no evidence of God anywhere. “ Wurmbrand said, “ That’s like an ant crawling on the sole of my shoe and saying , ‘I see no evidence of Richard Wurmbrand anywhere’.
@ Avd
You distort. I did not say that courts of law and science run the same way. I merely stated that both require evidence to back up assertions.