OPINION & EDITORIAL
Dawkins reveals beauty of science
Looking for a print version?
Simply choose ‘Print’ on your computer and a printer-friendly document will be generated.
Also by Corey Sheahan:
- No 'alternative' to funding, just stop (February 26, 2008)
- Darwin Day: Triumph of evolution (February 12, 2008)
- Stimulus needed for legislators' minds, not economy (January 29, 2008)
- Free trade our best chance (December 3, 2007)
- Prognosis poor on hospital tax (November 5, 2007)
Related Stories:
- Darwin Day: Triumph of evolution (February 12, 2008)
- The debate that never was (December 3, 2001)
- UW religion policy needs change (October 2, 2006)
- Let's show Horowitz we value free speech (December 10, 2001)
- Another token (November 3, 2003)
by Corey Sheahan
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Tonight, University of Wisconsin welcomes professor Richard
Dawkins to our campus as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series. Mr. Dawkins,
an evolutionary biologist, is best known in this country for his best-selling
work, “The God Delusion.” I will be attending the lecture tonight, and I whole-heartedly
encourage everyone — religious and non-religious people alike — to attend as
well.
While Mr. Dawkins is best known as an atheist, I suspect
that if you asked him, the word “atheist’” would not be the first term he would
use to describe himself. If you get anything from his lecture tonight, I hope
you recognize that Mr. Dawkins is not a nihilist, out to promote despair and
desolation. “The God Delusion” is an
explicit attack on religion, but in his earlier works — “The Blind Watchmaker,”
“Climbing Mount Improbable” and especially “Unweaving the Rainbow” — Mr.
Dawkins reveals he is most interested in understanding the wonder and majesty
of the universe.
For example, in “Unweaving the Rainbow,” Mr. Dawkins
discusses Newton’s experiment that proved that white light was really the
combination of the light of the visible spectrum. From that simple experiment,
scientists have since been able to discern the chemical composition of distant
stars, determine the universe is expanding rapidly and calculate the very age
of the universe to a surprisingly accurate degree. The results that the “unweaving”
of white light produced are indeed incredible and awe-inspiring.
Science, reason and empiricism are responsible for helping
us comprehend our place in the universe, in addition to raising our standard of
living an incredible amount over the past few centuries. This is an undeniable
fact. However, the fact that belief in the supernatural — specifically, in organized
religion — is still so prevalent seems to indicate religion provides something
the scientific outlook cannot. I contend, to the contrary, that science and
skepticism can provide an even more satisfying worldview than can belief in the
supernatural.
In a recent opinion piece, (“American faith not going
anywhere,” Feb. 27), Wasim Salman wrote that faith would always have a role to
play as long as we do not completely understand the nature of the universe.
Furthermore, he argued the elegance of faith is not chained to any standards of
evidence and can be molded to fit individual and institutional beliefs.
First, the argument that faith can explain the as-of-yet
unexplained is intellectually shallow at best. If you argue science can’t
explain a certain phenomenon, a scientist will likely response “Yes, but we’re
working on it.” And even if science fails to explain everything about the
universe, it does not follow that faith’s explanation — “God did it” — provides
a satisfactory answer. We’re here because of Darwinian natural selection. If
you believe there’s something more to this life, faith and science offer
different paths for finding that deeper meaning. Faith states that it has
answers, as long as you don’t ask questions. Science, on the other hand,
encourages questions and relies on constant investigation of knowable facts.
Another challenge to science is that while it helps explain
the nature of the universe, it does not provide a reason for living in this
universe. While science might not offer the moral proclamations or criteria for
getting into the afterlife, the scientific outlook can provide both the
direction for how we should live our lives and an explanation as to why we’re
here — the two questions faith and religion try to answer.
In 2004, a Yale mathematician estimated that everyone on
this planet shares a common ancestor from as recently as 3,000 years ago. When
one recognizes that we are all related to and interconnected with one another,
the violence and hatred common throughout the world become completely
senseless.
Geneticists have pointed out that the number of people that could
possibly exist far exceeds the number of people that ever have existed. Given
the slim probability of our individual existence, the opportunity provided by
nature’s complex processes must not be taken for granted.
Corey Sheahan (csheahan@wisc.edu)
is a senior majoring in history and
economics.
Anonymous (March 11, 2008 @ 10:54am):
What Yale mathematician? 3,000 years ago there were distinct seperate populations of people in the Americas, Asia/Europe/Middle East/Africa, and Australia with no land bridge to reach each other. Might want to push that estimate back about 10,000 years.
Anonymous (March 11, 2008 @ 11:16am):
The article fails to acknowledge the possibility that reason and faith can combine to provide the best possible search for truth. There is no reason that the scientific pursuit of knowledge and faith cannot be combined to ultimately search for truth. There are many different Christian denominations that hold this viewpoint. It is usually the denominations that place science and religion in competition that make headlines, not those who place them in conjuction. Sheahan only mentions the "God of the Gaps" theory where faith is used to explain uncertainties in scientific reason. Perhaps a mention of the combination of the two is worth a mention. Considering this may give a different outlook on organized religion for those who may be weary and unsure about religion's influence on society.
Thanks,
Keith Harding
-UW student
Anonymous (March 11, 2008 @ 11:48am):
Corey, what's up with the last two paragraphs? They don't fit with the rest of your piece. It's like they were pasted in from another two articles.
Anonymous (March 11, 2008 @ 12:28pm):
when and where is Mr. Dawkins lecturing? is it open for anyone to attend?
Anonymous (March 11, 2008 @ 12:45pm):
Right on, except for one point: I don't think it's plausible to maintain that the scientific outlook can provide a "direction for how we should live our lives." Brute empirical facts just don't have normative value; I can make an observation about the way the world is, but that in no way impels me to act in a certain manner in regard to that fact. If there are objective values (and I doubt there are--value seems to be an imposition of our subjectivity upon things in themselves), then the best candidate for our apprehension of those values is our intuitive emotional reaction to contentious cases. This is obviously a decidedly un-empirical method. Of course, insofar as this is the product of social conditioning and/or historical and material circumstances, it's doubtful that even this could yield knowledge of objective values that somehow inhere in the fabric of reality.
Anyhow, we rationalists need not be committed to chasing the specters invoked by religious authority. If reason and observation cannot disclose to us the nature of objective values, then perhaps they simply don't exist.
Anonymous (March 11, 2008 @ 1:22pm):
11:48, I believe the last two paragraphs are derived from portions of the superlative "Unweaving The Rainbow," and are meant to illustrate the contention of the previous paragraph.
Keith, can you give me a single historical example where the addition of faith to the scientific method resulted in the enhancement of human knowledge? It's easy to talk about preferred epistemological syntheses (just as I might assert that I'd like to have my cake and eat it too), but not so easy to give a concrete example of their effectiveness. Faith, at least in a religious context, is the assertion of the mere will to believe. What I will to believe and what I find during empirical inquiry will probably contradict one another. The is especially so if the propositions I will to believe were the metaphysics of a Bronze Age tribe or Roman cult.
~William Waller
(also 12:45pm)
Anonymous (March 11, 2008 @ 3:14pm):
12:28, 7:30pm - Memorial Union
Ryan Argall (March 11, 2008 @ 3:39pm):
If evolutionary biologists are so smart, how come they live in IGLOOS?
Add a comment
We welcome your thoughts, but please keep your feedback thoughtful, on-topic and respectful. Offensive language, personal attacks, or irrelevant comments may be deleted.
Login...
Not registered? Sign up now.
It's quick, free, and the email address you provide will not be sold or solicited.
