I saw Richard Dawkins and Paul Davies on our Australian Broadcasting
Commission TV show Lateline. Like his previous Lateline appearance,
I thought Dawkins was pathetic (although no doubt my atheist/agnostic
Australian friend Derek might have thought otherwise).
Dawkins backpedalled from his favourite Blind Watchmaker random
mutation + cumulative selection line in the face of Davies' argument
for a role for self-organisation. Dawkins conceded that the random
mutation might not be so random after all, but in fact might be, at
least in part, self-orgnaised according to physical laws. This is a
major concession and seems to put Dawkins in the same camp as Goodwin
and even Gould.
When faced with acute questioning by the TV hostess about the origin
of life, Dawkins brushed aside any suggestion that it might have been
caused by God, by just asserting that it had to be due to yet to be
discovered natural causes, because there was nothing else available.
When the hostess (who had obviously done her homework) quoted from
Dawkins' new book, "Climbing Mount Improbable", to the effect that we
are robots, and asked why people don't feel that they are automatons,
Dawkins backpeddled lamely that it was OK if people did not want to
think they were robots!
Davies was almost as disappointing. Although he has written books
which give the impression that he believes in a god of sorts, and
even won a lucrative Templeton prize for religious literature, he was
at pains to disavow any idea that he believed that a personal,
supernatural Creator was responsible for anything. Dawkins made a
good point when he asked rhetorically why, if Davies doesn't believe
in God, he writes books that give the impression that he does?
Davies didn't answer. I could sugge$t an an$wer but that might be
unkind! :-)
I would have loved to see Phil Johnson on the panel. IMHO he would
have made philosophical mincemeat out of both of them.
God bless.
Steve
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| Stephen E (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ sjones@iinet.net.au |
| 3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au |
| Warwick 6024 ->*_,--\_/ http://www.iinet.net.au/~sjones |
| Perth, West Australia v (My opinions, not my employer's) |
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