From: John W Burgeson (jwburgeson@juno.com)
Date: Tue Aug 26 2003 - 12:04:04 EDT
Sarah wrote: "Dawkins is surely one of the people that Lewontin means
when he talks about "vulgarizers of science"."
Thank you for picking up that very neat phrase. I've read Dawkins's
latest book; that phrase accurately describes my reaction to it.
I was rereading Eddington's THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD last week.
This book, based on Eddington's 1926 Gifford lectures, I first
encountered as a physics undergrad at Carnegie Tech about 1951. Readers
familiar with Dawkins will recall his observation that "Atheism first
became intellectually respectable when Darwin published in 1959."
(paraphrased). I wonder if Dawkins picked up that phrase from Eddington's
book. Here is Eddington, page 350 of the 1929 edition:
"It will perhaps be said that the conclusion to be drawn from these
arguments from modern science, is that religion first became possible for
a reasonable scientific man about the year 1927."
BTW, Eddington also has a good defense of methodological naturalism in
this most excellent book. He understands that the debate about the
faith/science boundary is absolutely necessary.
Burgy
www.burgy.50megs.com
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