Secular sermons
A review of A Devil’s Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies,
Science, and Love by Richard Dawkins
Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 2003
by Lael Weinberger
Richard Dawkins hardly needs introduction. As Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding
of Science at Oxford, Dawkins is a leading proponent of Darwinism, and is perhaps
the most visible living apologist for atheism. A Devil’s Chaplain
is a loosely-structured collection of articles, reviews, and other writings, most
of which have been published previously over the past 25 years, and a few of which
are new to this collection. The essays are separated into more-or-less related groups
with introductory remarks by Dawkins.
Borrowing from the subtitle, there are two rough categories under which we can discuss
the major themes of these essays: celebrations of his love for science, and warning
calls decrying as ‘lies’ all departures from scientific ‘orthodoxy’.
‘Science’ (including, in Dawkins’ view, Darwinism as a central
tenet) is Dawkins’ overarching theme, his ultimate truth, which holds the
entire book together.
Love and hope
Photo by Michael Johnson
Dawkins’ hyperbole reaches a peak when he attributes terrorism to religion
in general.
Dawkins loves ‘science’, Darwinism in particular, and delights in singing
its praises. Christians delight in science as well—as the handiwork of God.
But Dawkins loves science as god, and consciously tries to build a world and life
view around science, wearing many hats in the process.1
The scientist Dawkins dilates on the wonders of the atomic structure of crystals
(pp. 43–45), and muses on the possibilities arising from genetic sequencing
of an increasing body of creatures (chapter 2.5). As an educator, he exalts a certain
school headmaster who loved the sciences and succeeded in imparting that love to
his students (chapter 1.8). Dawkins the historian admires the foresight of Darwin
in an introduction to a new edition of Descent of Man (chapter 2.1). As
a philosopher, Dawkins moralizes on the wickedness of ‘speciesism’,
the view that we humans are more valuable than any other species (chapter 1.3).
And reveling in ‘universal Darwinism’, as the Darwinian chaplain Dawkins
presents his own theoretical argument for Darwinian evolution being universally
valid to life anywhere in the universe (‘Darwinism really matters in the universe’,
p. 79).
Dawkins includes elegies and tributes to close friends Douglas Adams and W.D. Hamilton;
their shared love of science is their religion. Nostalgically, Dawkins writes of
his love for Africa, with its quasi-religious significance as the evolutionary birthplace
of humanity (section 6)—and his own birthplace (Nairobi, Kenya). He concludes
with a letter to his ten-year-old daughter on science as the ultimate way to truth.
Lies
Sprinkled liberally among the odes to science are Dawkins’ signature polemics
against all departures from pure, orthodox Darwinian science. Our ‘devil’s
chaplain’, it appears, believes just as strongly as any (much maligned) fundamentalist
preacher that the hard ‘truth’ must be preached (they obviously disagree
on what that truth is). Dawkins rebukes a variety of people who he believes misunderstood
science to a greater or lesser degree: a government minister (p. 27), ‘alternative
medicine’ advocates (pp. 36, 164, 179–186), postmodernists (pp. 6, 47–53),
and even Stephen Jay Gould (chapters 5.1–5.4).
Dawkins saves the real fire and brimstone preaching for his excoriations of religion
and creationism. Whether it is decrying as deceitful a creationist film crew who
stumped Dawkins on tape (during what he calls a ‘suspiciously amateurish interview’)
(pp. 61, 91–92),2
or describing religions in general as ‘mind parasites’ (p. 117), it
is clear that (theistic) religion is what really draws Dawkins’ ire (not of
course his own atheistic religion). His rhetorical vehemence comes to a climax in
‘Time to Stand Up’ (chapter 3.5), which was originally printed in the
aftermath of the September 11 tragedy:
‘Judaism, Islam and Christianity have much in common. Despite New Testament
watering down and other reformist tendencies, all three pay allegiance to the same
violent and vindictive God of Battles … . Is there no catastrophe terrible
enough to shake the faith of people, on both sides, in God’s goodness and
power? No glimmering realization that he might not be there at all … ? Those
of us who have for years politely concealed our contempt for the dangerous collective
delusion of religion need to stand up and speak out’ (p. 157, 160, 161).
Dawkins is far outside his sphere of expertise when opining that the God of the
Koran and the God of the Bible are the same deity. The view of salvation presented
in the respective holy books could not be more different.
Dawkins is far outside his sphere of expertise when opining that the God of the
Koran and the God of the Bible are the same deity. The view of salvation presented
in the respective holy books could not be more different.3 Further, what about Christian ‘just war’
doctrine—does this not give Dawkins an inkling that he might be interpreting
the ‘God of Battles’ out of context?
4
Dawkins believes that religion is one of the ultimate problems in the world, and
his attacks take many forms. Dawkins uses his pet theory of memes to describe religions
as ‘viruses of the mind’ (chapter 3.2).5 He is willing to join with unorthodox Gould in advising
other scientists to avoid debates with creationists, lest it lend intellectual respectability
to the antievolutionists (chapter 5.5). The last chapter of the book (Dawkins’
letter to his daughter) sounds like an antitheistic Sunday-school lesson:
‘I want to move on from evidence, which is a good reason for believing something,
and warn you against three bad reasons for believing anything. They are called “tradition”,
“authority”, and “revelation”’ (p. 243).
Dawkins thus ends the book on a fittingly moralizing note, preaching at once the
dangers of religion and the virtues of empirical science.
Sloppy chaplain
Considering the brevity of the essays, the number of topics discussed, and Dawkins’
tendency to paint with a broad brush, it is not surprising to find that overstatements
and false impressions abound. Unfortunately, people tend to accept a well-known
intellectual’s views without the careful scrutiny that they require, but the
familiar scientific motto (and Dawkins’ own advice to his daughter) ‘nothing
by mere authority’6
should be turned on Dawkins.
The evolutionists’ information problem remains; Dawkins has merely obscured
it by confusing complexity with one form of information. Specifically, he has failed
to distinguish semantic information from Shannon information, and thus makes the
equivocation harder for the layman to spot.
In one article included as chapter 2.3, Dawkins attempts to meet the ‘information
challenge’ posed by creationists,7
and provides a plausible-sounding solution. However, plausible sounding
is all that it is. The evolutionists’ information problem remains; Dawkins
has merely obscured it by confusing complexity with one form of information. Specifically,
he has failed to distinguish semantic information from Shannon information, and
thus makes the equivocation harder for the layman to spot (a common evolutionist
fallacy when dealing with this issue).8
It is hard to believe that Dawkins was ignorant of this problem, as a detailed creationist
critique of his original article had been available four years before publication
of A Devil’s Chaplain.9
Accepting Dawkins’ authority is not safe when he declares the information
problem solved.
In an entirely different line of argument, Dawkins uses the tired old canard that
religion, if it doesn’t cause war, is at the least ‘incendiary’
and divisive, and is thus bad (pp. 156–161). That religion divides is undoubtedly
true, but this is hardly unique among ideologies—has Dawkins never heard of
Marx’s class warfare?10
The historical record gives no reason to believe that scientifically-minded rationalists
with ideologies are any less dangerous than a ‘divisive’ religion; quite
the opposite is true (the Nazi Holocaust Stalin purges and Pol Pot genocides were
caused by evolutionary/atheistic régimes; their casualties dwarf those of
all ‘religious wars’ throughout history put together11). Besides, rejecting an idea because the person
espousing it is less than perfect is a classic case of the genetic fallacy (e.g.
if Einstein had been a serial killer, would that make E = mc2 less true?).
Of course, even in his own field, Dawkins’ own authority is only as good as
his arguments and evidence. In an essay responding to Gould’s punctuated equilibrium
claims, Dawkins was presenting the case for gradualism by using the evolution of
the eye as an example. He stated,
‘ … modern analogues of every step up the ramp can be found …
But even without these examples, we could be confident that there must have been
a gradual, progressive increase in the number of features which an engineer would
recognize as contributing towards optical quality. Without stirring from our armchair,
we can see that it must be so’ (p. 212).
Photo: Dartmouth College
The compound eye of a fruit fly is an example of stunning engineering. The trilobite
also possessed a compound eye, and the presence of this complex feature is a problem
for evolutionists who date the trilobite back to the Cambrian.13 Dawkins never deals
with this issue in his discussion of the evolution of eyes.
But the fact that such analogues are extant today does not show that they were actually
the steps which led to our eyes in evolutionary history; certainly gradual development
sounds better than postulating instantaneous formation of eyes by macromutation,
but Dawkins has not dealt with the problems for gradualism.12 Further, he never deals with the fossil-record
problems, the problems that led Gould to doubt gradualism in the first place. In
the case of the eye, Dawkins mentions none of the difficult cases, such as the enormously
complex eye of the trilobite.13
Was there really time for the gradual development of that eye by the Cambrian explosion,
even given an evolutionary timescale? If so, does he have nothing to say about the
absence of intermediates developing toward trilobite-eyes? We do not expect Dawkins
to go into great detail in a short essay; still, though, to provide an armchair
argument for why gradualism is preferable to punctuated equilibrium hardly saves
gradualism from its real problems.
This is typical Dawkins, interacting with criticism at only a superficial level.
If he condescends to Gould, it is even less surprising (but no less sad) that he
ignores the flood of scholarship coming from the creationist and Intelligent Design
(ID) camps. This book’s strength is Dawkins’ ability to put standard
Darwinian concepts in creative and often memorable words, not providing heavy-duty
new technical solutions to evolutionary problems. For example, his ‘landscape’
metaphor for evolution, upon which he bases his argument for universal Darwinism
(chapter 2.2), is simply an explanation14
of humdrum natural selection extrapolated (as usual) too far when it passes the
‘kind’ level.15
If Dawkins were really interested in refuting creationists, this would have been
an excellent place to answer our arguments against a seamless continuum of evolutionary
forms.
Classic Dawkins
A Devil’s Chaplain is certainly not Dawkins’ most powerful book, but
anthologies rarely ever are. As an anthology, it does provide a lively smorgasbord
of Dawkins. The points made are not new, and its most significant sections were
printed (and often refuted) well before the book came out. Its selling point is
Dawkins’ skill as a popular writer. Though filled with bad arguments, his
essays are easy and exciting to read, discussing scientific and hot-button social
issues with plentiful use of anecdote, analogy and rhetoric. It is something like
a collection of random sermons and advice from atheism’s most popular preacher.
Vulnerable chaplain?
When Dawkins talks of religions fomenting wars, how does he know on a naturalistic
basis that there is anything at all undesirable about war?
Dawkins’ sermons fall apart under close scrutiny, and further, he never even
considers deeper philosophical problems underlying his method of argumentation.
When Dawkins talks of religions fomenting wars, how does he know on a naturalistic
basis that there is anything at all undesirable about war?16 How does he know that there is anything inherently
good in ‘truth’? In fact, as Alvin Plantinga has shown,17 there are reasons to doubt whether human thought
is even capable of corresponding to reality within a naturalistic framework—the
ultimate reductio ad absurdum of naturalism.18
As the late Greg Bahnsen noted,
‘One does not decide whether to form some epistemological viewpoint
and theoretical basis for certainty or not; he simply chooses whether he shall do
it self-consciously and well.’19
Dawkins has an epistemology. He believes that he is capable of knowing true information
by means of the scientific method, but he is entirely without a foundation in naturalism
for such a belief. Christians who presuppose Scripture, on the other hand, have
epistemological warrant for belief in efficacious reason and science, on the grounds
that God is logical and made an orderly universe.20
Small wonder, then, that Dawkins avoids the subject and prefers a surface-level
polemical approach. The biblical apologetic not only can withstand his individual
ad hoc ‘empirical’ arguments,
but even undercuts his entire basis of argument by showing that in order to have
a reason to trust reason itself, we must presuppose the God of Scripture.21
Related articles
Further reading
Related resources
References
- For a generally excellent summary of Dawkins’ treatment
of science as a secular religion, written by a non-Christian, see Ruse, M., The
Evolution-Creation Struggle, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp.
202, 204–208, 2005; reviewed by Weinberger, L., Journal of Creation
20(1):31–33, 2006. Return to text.
- Dawkins denies that he was unable to answer, and claims that
the taped interview gave a false impression. But Dawkins’ account of the interview
itself is confused. For a full description of what happened, see Skeptics choke
on Frog, , and update Was Dawkins Stumped?
Frog to a Prince critics refuted again, which shows raw footage. Return to text.
- Islam, by failing to comprehend the fall in Genesis, teaches
that man can save himself by keeping the commands of Islam. Thus despite Dawkins’
claim that it is an ‘Abrahamic religion’, he is ignorant of the whole
point of the true Abrahamic religion—justification by faith alone,
not by works (Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6 which cite Genesis 15:6, cf. Ephesians 2:8–9); Islam
preaches justification by works. See Grant, G., The Blood of the Moon:
Understanding the Historic Struggle Between Islam and Western Civilization,
Thomas Nelson, Nashville, pp. 42–45, 2001. See also Wieland, C., The power
of ideas, Creation 24(1):6, 2001; Wieland, C. and Catchpoole,
D., Islam and worldview: the big picture (interview with Darrell Furgason),
Creation 28(4):52–55, 2006. Return
to text.
- See Geisler, N.L., Christian Ethics, Baker Books,
Grand Rapids, MI, ch. 12, 1989. Return to text.
- For a creationist critique of the most recent exposition of
memes, see Line, P., Unleashing the meme: is this the end of our existence?
Creation Matters 7(2), 2002; also Sarfati, J. Refuting Evolution 2, ch. 12, Creation Ministries International, Australia, 2002.
Return to text.
- This is a rough translation of the motto of the Royal Society.
Although today the Society’s motto unfortunately lends itself to anti-religious
propaganda, the original intent of the Society’s founders was shaped largely
by Puritan sensibilities, in the belief that conducting investigations into nature
which was ‘both to the greater glory of God and the good of man.’ Coser,
L.A., Men of Ideas, Free Press, New York, p. 29, 1965. See also Nickel,
J., Mathematics: Is God Silent? rev. ed., Ross House Books, Vallecito,
CA, pp. 130–131, 2001. Return to text.
- On the information argument, see Gitt, W., Information, science
and biology, Journal of Creation 10(2):181–187,
1996, and Gitt, W., In the Beginning Was Information, Christliche Literatur–Verbreitung
e.V., Bielefeld, Germany, 1997. See also Wieland, C., Not by chance! Creation
20(1):50–51, 1997. Return to text.
- See the detailed critique of Dawkins’ original article:
Truman, R., The problem of information for the theory of evolution, ,
15 July 2005. Shannon himself wrote of the difference between Shannon information
and semantic information: Shannon, C.E., A mathematical theory of communication,
p. 1, reprint with corrections from Bell System Technical Journal 27:379–423,
623–656, Jul., Oct., 1948, at .
On the import of this issue for biological information, see Bradley, W.L., Information,
entropy, and the origin of life, and Barham, J., The emergence of biological value;
in: Dembski, W. and Ruse, M. (Eds.), Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 332–335 and 213–214 (respectively),
2004. Return to text.
- Truman, ref. 8, was written in 1999. Return
to text.
- See Bergman, J., The Darwinian foundation of communism,
Journal of Creation 15(1):89–95, 2001, and Noebel, D.A.,
Understanding the Times: The Religious Worldviews of Our Day and the Search for
Truth, chapter 10, Harvest House, Eugene, OR, 1991, for summaries of how
the ideological ‘us’ and ‘them’ of Marxism is used to justify
war and class genocide. Return to text.
- For a few examples, see Bergman, ref. 10; Wiekart, R.,
From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany,
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2004 (review by Sarfati, J., Creation
27(4):39, 2005); Bergman, J., Darwinism and the Nazi race Holocaust,
Journal of Creation 13(2):101–111, 1999; Hardaway,
B., and Sarfati, J., Countering Christophobia: a review of Christianity on Trial
by Vincent Carroll and David Shifflit, Journal of Creation 18(3)28–30,
2004. Return to text.
- For a critique of one of Dawkins’ more detailed expositions
of eye evolution, see Sarfati, J., Book review: Climbing Mount Improbable
by Richard Dawkins, Journal of Creation 12(1):29–34,
1998; for refutation of the idea a computer simulation of eye evolution exists,
and admission by Dan-Erik Nilsson that his paper that Dawkins relied on made no
such claim, see Berlinski, D., A scientific scandal, Commentary April 2003
(partially at ),
subsequent letters Jul. 2003. Return to text.
- Sherwin, F., and Armitage, M., Trilobites—the eyes
have it, CRSQ 40(3) 172–174, 2003; Stammers, C.,
Trilobite technology, Creation 21(1):23, 1998.
Return to text.
- Based on Sewell Wright’s influential diagram. Return to text.
- On created kinds, see Wieland, C., Variation, information
and the created kind, Journal of Creation 5(1):42–47,
1991. Also see Sarfati, J.,
Refuting Compromise, Master Books, Green Forest,
AR, pp. 230–234, 2004; Scherer, S., Basic types of life, in Dembski, W., ed.,
Mere Creation: Science, Faith, and Intelligent Design, InterVarsity Press,
Downers Grove, IL, 1998. Return to text.
- After all, perhaps war or societal chaos could fuel an evolutionary
arms race, and thus advance the evolutionary value of progress! Conversely, Weikart
(ref. 11) documented how the Darwinian German pacifists during WW1 objected to war—not
because people were killed but because the fittest were often killed. Return to text.
- See Plantinga, A., Warrant and Proper Function,
Oxford University Press, New York, ch. 12, 1993. Return to text.
- Michael Ruse, no friend of Plantinga, has in fact challenged
Dawkins to at least interact with Plantinga’s arguments. Ruse, M., Through
a glass, darkly: a review of A Devil’s Chaplain by Richard Dawkins,
,
accessed 26 Jul. 2006. Ruse has tried and failed to convincingly answer a few of
Plantinga’s arguments in Ruse, M., Can a Darwinian Be a Christian?
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 107–110, 2001. See also Weinberger,
L., Preaching to his own choir: a review of Can a Darwinian Be a Christian?
by Michael Ruse, Journal of Creation 19(2):42–45,
2005. Return to text.
- Bahnsen, G.L., Pragmatism, prejudice, and presuppositionalism,
in North, G., ed., Foundations of Christian Scholarship, Ross House Books,
Vallecito, CA, p. 243, 1976. Emphasis in original. Return to text.
- See Sarfati, J., Loving God with all your mind:
Logic and creation, Journal of Creation 12(2):142–151,
1998. Return to text.
- See an introductory discussion in Bahnsen, G.L., Van
Til’s Apologetic, Presbyterian and Reformed, Phillipsburg, NJ, pp. 4–7,
1998. Semi-popular expositions of this argument are presented by Jonathan Sarfati
in his feedback responses ‘Presuppositionalism vs evidentialism, and is the
human genome simple?’ 6 June 2005
and ‘Correcting a severe misconception about the creation model’, 31
Dec. 2004 . Return to text.
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