Re: [asa] Interesting review of "The Selfish Gene"

A couple of years ago, I had the chance to hear Dawkins speak at
Swarthmore College (PA). He was hosted by the "Free Thought Society" -
a groups of self proclaimed atheists or "Brights" as Dawkins would call
them. His talk was entertaining, but frustrating by the overarching
assumption that all moderns should have gotten past any superstitions of
any kind. He obviously ignores those scientists who openly acknowledge
either Christianity or theist in general.

Of course, he was preaching to the choir - so only easy questions came
from the audience. I waited too long and when I did stand for a chance
to ask, the Q/A session ended before my turn.

Dawkins deals with issues of morality and ethics a little bit in some
recent work - and I am not familiar enough to comment extensively - but
what I did read made me think that he seemed to wanted to have his cake
and eat it too. Certainly Lewis makes the "moral argument" his central
one in Mere Christianity.

I do have an interesting observation - there was some talk a while back
of Lewis' view of evolution. I didn't realize that he repeatedly
referred to E in Mere Christianity. These are mostly just incidental
references, but he clearly seemed to be accepting that evolution of life
and man were to be assumed since science had demonstrated them
sufficiently. I must go back and collect those references.

I do not know how he deals with those serious and accomplished
scientists who are openly religious. It was a very good experience to
have men/women like Francis Collins address the ASA at Calvin this
summer.

Alan McCarrick

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Received on Thu Aug 17 08:09:15 2006