Dawkins’ Philosophical Incoherence
In River out of Eden : A Darwinian View of Life Richard Dawkins wrote:
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A.E. Housman put it: ‘For Nature, heartless, witless Nature Will neither care nor know.’ DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.
In a 2007 New Scientist/Greenpeace Science debate, Dawkins said:
Far from being the most selfish, exploitative species, Homo sapiens is the only species that has at least the possibility of rebelling against the otherwise universally selfish Darwinian impulse . . . If any species in the history of life has the possibility of breaking away from short term selfishness and of long term planning for the distant future, it’s our species. We are earth’s last best hope even if we are simultaneously, the species most capable of destroying life on the planet. But when it comes to taking the long view, we are literally unique. Because the long view is not a view that has ever been taken before in whole history of life. If we don’t plan for the future, no other species will . . .
Dawkins’ does not seem to understand that he cannot have his cake and eat it too, and that leads the world’s most prominent atheist/evolutionary biologist to make mutually exclusive truth claims that I would expect the average high school freshman to avoid. Let us examine a couple:
1. DNA is all there is, and we dance to its music. Yet it is possible for Homo sapiens to rebel against DNA. But how can DNA rebel against itself? I cannot rise above myself. I cannot reach down, grab my bootstraps, and pull myself off the floor.
2. There is no good and no evil. Yet Homo sapiens has the capability of planning for the future (presumably to avoid an undesired outcome or achieve a desired outcome). But if there is no good and no evil, on what grounds should we desire any particular outcome and plan for it?
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