...in this programme, we got a tired professor whose intellectual courage went as far as challenging a bunch of 15-year-olds, and even then he still didn't manage to persuade them. What makes this a shame is that there clearly is a need for an accurate and evidence-based portrayal of evolutionary theory. I'm an evangelical Christian, but I have no difficulties in believing that evolution is the best scientific account we have for the diversity of life on our planet. I would welcome a clear and accurate demonstration of why we should all accept it, not least because it might help me to persuade some of my fellow believers why they should consider it.
The problem with Dawkins, though, is that he fails in his task because he seems unable to prevent himself from argumentative overreach. So, for instance, he tells the young people that evolution "is the explanation for our existence … everything we know about life is explained by it." Really!? Music, art, literature, love, beauty and ethics are all explained by evolution.
I haven't seen the programme myself (I must try to see it on the web) so in a nit-picking sense I can't really disagree with Justin Thacker at Comment is Free. But everything he says has the smell of wrongness about it. Christians love to attack Dawkins, their preferred approaches being to accuse him of arrogance, simple-mindedness (as opposed to their own implied sophistication) and of being a fundamentalist in his own way. Libby Purves tried that last one in the Times yesterday. They all seem to me to resort to playing the man rather than the ball.
How can Thacker complain about the intellectual courage of a man who wrote his arguments about God in a book, to be shot at by any Christian who dares argue on the merits? How can he stoop as low as simply to describe Dawkins as "tired"? That's pure invective masquerading as argument. And just after the bit I've quoted, Thacker deliberately misconstrues what Dawkins said in order to score an obviously bad point. We know he must know Dawkins does not and would not argue that evolution explains the big bang; but Thacker pretends Dawkins did argue just that. That, to me, shows a lack of intellectual courage. The argument that "Christians who accept evolution exist, therefore..." is purely an argument from authority. To argue that the existence of Christian scientists disproves Dawkins' view about God is no more sensible than to say Dawkins' mere existence proves him right. And the way Libby Purves uses the same argument is equally objectionable. Her view, that "no one can really know whether God exists, therefore no one should use science to argue for atheism" (and her argument surely does amount to saying that) is pessimistic about reason, relativistic and self-serving. By the same standard, shouldn't believers refrain from evangelising because "no one really knows"? Finally, to glory in a tactical threat: "don't argue against God, or our kids will reject science" is itself an encouragement of the idea that children will choose one over the other. At least, it accepts science only on condition that it shows appropriate deference to God.
I think the reality is that these writers are committed to their views regardless of the evidence. Dawkins is dangerous to believers, and must be undermined, precisely because he does dwell on detailed evidence like the thickness of various birds' beaks.
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