Probably the best takedown of the fat little fart of a book that is Dawkins’ God Delusion is this one, by biologist H. Allen Orr, in the New York Review of Books. It’s well worth reading, whatever your take on Dawkins.
A few quotes will give you a taste of Orr’s bitch-slappery
Dawkins when discussing religion is … a blunt instrument, one that has a hard time distinguishing Unitarians from abortion clinic bombers. What may be less obvious is that, on questions of God, Dawkins cannot abide much dissent, especially from fellow scientists … Indeed Dawkins is fond of imputing ulterior motives to those “Neville Chamberlain School” scientists not willing to go as far as he in his war on religion … The only motive Dawkins doesn’t seem to take seriously is that some scientists genuinely disagree with him.
The most disappointing feature of The God Delusion is Dawkins’s failure to engage religious thought in any serious way. This is, obviously, an odd thing to say about a book-length investigation into God. … Having no patience with the faith of fundamentalists, he also tends to dismiss more sophisticated expressions of belief as sophistry (he cannot, for instance, tolerate the meticulous reasoning of theologians). … The result is The God Delusion, a book that never squarely faces its opponents.
One of the most interesting questions about Dawkins’s book is why it was written. Why does Dawkins feel he has anything significant to say about religion and what gives him the sense of authority presumably needed to say it at book length? The God Delusion certainly establishes that Dawkins has little new to offer. … Dawkins is obviously entitled to his views on God, ballet, and currency markets. But I doubt he feels much need to pen books on the last two topics.
Though I once labeled Dawkins a professional atheist, I’m forced, after reading his new book, to conclude he’s actually more an amateur.
So go read it now!
If you enjoy New Atheist hissy fits, you may also want to read Daniel Dennett’s outraged response to this review, and Orr’s response to it. (They’re both here.) Orr gets off a nice parting shot:
It’s one thing to think carefully about religion and conclude it’s dubious. It’s another to string together anecdotes and exercises in bad philosophy and conclude that one has resolved subtle problems. I wasn’t disappointed in The God Delusion because I was shocked by Dawkins’s atheism. I was disappointed because it wasn’t very good.
But this, it turned out, wasn’t enough for the angry Dennett, who continued the “debate” on TheEdge.org. Orr tried to bring an end to the increasingly unproductive discussion:
Daniel Dennett seems to think that the author of any review he doesn’t like is obliged to spend the rest of his days debating him— even if the review in question was of someone else’s book, not his.
But naturally, as you’ll notice, PZ Myers had to stick his fat little head in as well. (Start at the bottom and read your way up.)
13 Comments
June 11, 2008 at 10:15 am
First off, Dawkins deals entirely with God and said existence or lack of. Surprisingly enough, existing falls under the purview of science.
Neville Chamberland school is his reference to those who claim that those who embrace NOMA. Look it up- it IS crap.
Both Unitarians and abortion bombers use faith to believe in God- they are theists. The only reason he uses such a broad stroke is otherwise he’d have to go through each religion, one by one.
I have actually read the “sophisticated reasoning” of theologians… let me be honest- there is nothing there that an inbred hick couldn’t refute. Notice that if they were so useful and effective people would actually use them- they aren’t hard to understand, just a bunch of flowery nonsense language.
He wrote the book because people like Orr exist. And he isn’t a professional atheist- he is a biologist.
Notice that Orr does not ONCE give an actual example from the book of “bad philosophy”, or a “sophisticated argument”. Orr’s review is nothing but smoke and mirrors.
Dawkin’s book as it turns out isn’t new or unusual (we have just as good books from… 50 BC actually. On the Nature of Things would be the first example). Of course apologists arguments have moved since then from the originals like “how do you explain why everyone lives in cities and towns?”, “are you denying the divinity of the emperor!” and the like to present day ones… of course some have stayed exactly the same (argument from design).
So every few decades a new book on atheism comes up with the vocab changed to match the current vapid arguments creationists make. The reason there are so many coming out now is because antitheism is hitting its stride- you kill for Allah and people acting “in the name of Christ” enough times and people start to get nervous. Particularly history students.
Anyway I took a look at the debate they had.
The first serious guy is a person who claims that religious language has a special meaning that isn’t encompassed by the ordinary meaning of the words… for those of you who don’t know, if you can’t put something into (Any) words that it is meaningless.
Then there is the argument “God isn’t complex”. Which is a bit of nonsense- Dawkins treats God like any other natural phenomena. Claiming that it is supernatural and thus above the rules is a bit of nonsense. Not to mention a completely fabricated statement- there is no example of intelligence anywhere that doesn’t require complexity. So saying God is simple goes against everything reality has shown us.
June 12, 2008 at 11:39 am
Now, this post is actually useful and well-researched, unlike some previous ones I could mention. Keep it up, and for science’s sake cease all the man-yelling-with-a-ciggie faradiddle.
June 13, 2008 at 6:56 am
This was a great review! Douglas Adams, indeed!
June 13, 2008 at 2:16 pm
srsly, though, what are good Dawkins reviews besides Eagleton and this one? Tell me plz
ps Scarlett Johansson is a Scientologist!
June 15, 2008 at 7:05 pm
here we get in to the conceptual “god”.
You cant treat God as entirely natural, dismiss it in the analysis or nature, and dismiss it as “super”natural. The natural world is what we know of it in our reality. We do not know the entire scope of reality in the space-time around us. thus we may call it super natural or “God”.
You cannot neccarilly say that:
” if you can’t put something into (Any) words that it is meaningless.”
Languages, including the languages of math and science only exist in the scope of human understanding and comparison.
It would be arrogant to say that what is just beyond our grasp of understanding, is meaningless or non existent. in fact, we may never know how small are grasp of understanding of the Nature universe is.
“God” may encompass what we do and do not understand… which is the point of many Unitarians and pantheists…
You cannot lump this in with abortion bombers.
September 15, 2008 at 11:25 pm
DAWKINS must think a chimp is his poppa THE CHIMP SHOULD FEEL INSULTED
November 9, 2008 at 12:10 am
>Surprisingly enough, existing falls under the purview of science.
Science deals with those existent things that can be examined through methodologically naturalism. If you assume metaphysical naturalism you can say science is exhaustive, but a proof of that’s got to be philosophical, not scientific.
And where that position gets really muddy is that there are things that at least some people might say exist that aren’t subjects of science. Do numbers or circles or likeness or ideas exist? What about justice? Or beauty? Or truth? Or time? Or consciousness? Consciousness isn’t a subject of science (and don’t pretend it’s a subject of neuroscience, neuroscientists don’t even know where to start in trying to study it). Would you like to say consciousness doesn’t exist?
Theology is a branch of philosophy, not science, so just as with consciousness and those other things, while understanding within it must be informed by science, the topic itself is not subject to it.
January 5, 2009 at 6:41 pm
@ Seasick Seagull – i think your poppa was a chimp.
January 20, 2009 at 11:42 am
Yeah, as a bloviating philosophy major (okay, it was a minor, I admit it alright!) it is glaringly obvious that Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris, et al, all these guys don’t know the first thing about modern/postmodern philosophy. They seem to operate on this 18th century positivist/empiricist mentality that scientific reduction is unlimited in its applications, which is ridiculously uninformed and ultimately regressive. Apparently they have never read Popper, Merleau-Ponty–well, the list goes on for days. And granted I respect that Dawkins is incredibly smart and well-read, but like all these guys, their practices certainly don’t reflect it. If anything, their behavior reflects more of an exploitation of Atheism as a political lever, rather than any inclusive examination of its attributes. While one appreciates the “hygienic effect” of their writings, it really only plays into the antagonistic dynamics of discourse these days, and they need to just shut their hypocritical traps. Atheism is not “new,” unless it is just a byproduct of political discourse and your run-of-the-mill group-think culture. Real Atheists should take a stand against so-called “new” Atheists; or at least we ought to have a conversation. Obviously I don’t have very positive views on them, likely because their greatest disrespect is not to theists/Christians, but to other Atheists.
January 26, 2009 at 12:37 pm
The review is not the most damning evidence against Dawkins in anyway. Dawkins and Atheist like him are speaking up for a cause they believe in from their angle of the belief. While most Atheist stay closeted or quite in the face of religious intolerance and the poisoning of science and schools at the hands of the people who use organized religion as the social narcotic that it is. Beleive what every you need to but allow all to speak on it and since Dawkins is a loud voice he will have many critics as does any public figure. Most people are looking for a point of veiw to validate their own and Dawkins point of veiw is the Atheistic Lion rather than the Lamb that is easily dispached by the religious media.
February 12, 2009 at 12:05 am
Great post! I am a former atheist. I first started considering being religious when I discovered I did not like the company of my fellow atheists! Individually they can vary, but as a group, they are rude! Unfortunately a lot of bad people become atheists so they can dispense with shame and morality.
Have you been to Dawkin’s web site? His constituents there give atheism a bad name!
February 15, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Madalyn Murray O Hair was 100 times more yapyapyapyapyapyapyapyapyapyap than Dawkins and nobody remembers her!
June 21, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Amateur Atheist? As apposed to professional – professional what?
Professional opinionated jack ass ?
What is the point ?
If you don’t believe in anything why institutionalize it ?
So we can kill the table eaters in the name of almighty science?