Remarkable exchange between Michael Ruse and Daniel Dennett
| February 21, 2006 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
As Michael Ruse remarked when he gave me permission to quote the following exchange between him and Daniel Dennett: “feel free to quote — after all, I am in deep sh** already!!!”
HIGHLIGHT OF THE EXCHANGE: “I think that you and Richard [Dawkins] are absolute disasters in the fight against intelligent design – we are losing this battle, not the least of which is the two new supreme court justices who are certainly going to vote to let it into classrooms – what we need is not knee-jerk atheism but serious grappling with the issues – neither of you are willing to study Christianity seriously and to engage with the ideas – it is just plain silly and grotesquely immoral to claim that Christianity is simply a force for evil, as Richard claims – more than this, we are in a fight, and we need to make allies in the fight, not simply alienate everyone of good will.”
=-=-=-=-=-
From: Dennett, Daniel C.
Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 9:57 PM
To: Michael Ruse
Subject: RE: your letterDear Michael,
I’ll wait before replying to you. I doubt that you mean all the things you say here. Think it over.
Dan
=-=-=-=-=-
From: Michael Ruse
Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 5:29 PM
To: Dennett, Daniel C.
Subject: RE: your letterNow don’t be grumpy – “You may want to try to extricate yourself, since you are certainly losing ground fast in the evolutionary community that I am in touch with.†— I am a full professor with tenure at a university known chiefly for its prowess on the football field, living out my retirement years in the sunshine – I have no reputation to preserve, and frankly can say and do whatever the f**k I want to without sinking further.
Now, for the record.
I am a hard-line Darwinian and always have been very publicly when it did cost me status and respect – in fact, I am more hard-line than you are, because I don’t buy into this meme bullsh** but put everything – especially including ethics – in the language of genes. I stick to this and my next book – which incidentally starts by quoting you approvingly on the world importance of selection – goes after the lot – Marxists, constructivists, feminists, creationists, philosophers, you name it.
It is true that I condemn or at least want to point to evolutionism, which I do think functions as a secular religion – but never have I said that Darwinian evolutionary theory is anything but a genuine theory – I am the guy who stood up in Arkansas and said this when all of the fancy philosophers would not have any part in the fight, and who got slammed afterwards by Larry Laudan, Ernan McMullin, Philip Kitcher, and others, because of my stand.
Second, I have no more belief than either you or Dawkins – I call myself a sceptic because I think that atheism is unprovable, but I don’t believe in the trinity or whatever – and have never concealed this, especially not to the Templeton people, to whom one might think I would suck up.
Third, I would defend to the death the right of you and Richard Dawkins to say what you like – I would print those bloody cartoons, believe me – if Richard gets caught on that sh*t Tony Blair’s laws to placate Muslims, the first thousand dollars to his defence fund will come from me.
Fourth, I thought your new book is really bad and not worthy of you – I agree that the Times review was loaded (although funny) – I tried in my review in Nature to express my disapproval but in a way that left us both with respect.
Fifth, I think that you and Richard are absolute disasters in the fight against intelligent design – we are losing this battle, not the least of which is the two new supreme court justices who are certainly going to vote to let it into classrooms – what we need is not knee-jerk atheism but serious grappling with the issues – neither of you are willing to study Christianity seriously and to engage with the ideas – it is just plain silly and grotesquely immoral to claim that Christianity is simply a force for evil, as Richard claims – more than this, we are in a fight, and we need to make allies in the fight, not simply alienate everyone of good will.
Ok, enough preaching for a Sunday – I really like you and Richard, but my liking for you and respect for what you two have done matters not a bit with respect to what I think that I, Michael Ruse, should do – I would be ashamed of myself if I thought and acted otherwise.
Michael
=-=-=-=-=-
From: Dennett, Daniel C.
Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 3:34 PM
To: Michael Ruse
Subject: RE: your letterDear Michael,
Funny you should ask. They didn’t publish my/our letter, and today you can see why. The ugly review from Wieseltier [[Mentioned on this blog here -- WmAD]]. I attach my response, which they WILL publish (but not till March). I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I think the NYTBR is under the spell of the Darwin dreaders. I’m afraid you are being enlisted on the side of the forces of darkness. You may want to try to extricate yourself, since you are certainly losing ground fast in the evolutionary community that I am in touch with. As you will see, I do lump your coinage in with ‘reductionism†and “scientism†etc. and think you are doing a disservice to the cause of taking science seriously. Are you among the Wieseltiers? I’d like to think not, but you are certainly being pulled in by them.
Best wishes,
Dan
=-=-=-=-=-
From: Michael Ruse
Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 3:03 PM
To: Dennett, Daniel C.
Cc: ‘Michael Fisher’
Subject: your letterDear Dan:
Each Sunday I turn with fear and trembling to the letters page of the New York Times Book Review, searching for the scathing letter that you and Pinker penned about my inadequacies. Each Sunday, with my name unmentioned, I then turn with relief to the Week in Review to read instead about the inadequacies of others. Are you flying under the radar of the editors of that particular organ?
Ever yours in Charles Darwin,
Michael
45 Responses to Remarkable exchange between Michael Ruse and Daniel Dennett
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Ruse and Dennett go at it
Uncommon Descent has a very interesting exchange between two philosophers I’m currently reading: Michael…
tinabrewer wrote:
“Incidentally, I have always wondered why this blog avoids in principle the discussion of the philosophical aspect/implications of ID theory.”
Hello tinab,
It’s almost 24hrs since your post, so I don’t know if you’ll see this:
And crandaddy responded about the proselytizing…
My guess (as to the why the blog avoids….) is that the avoidance is not deliberate. It may be that discussions of the philosophical/implications are not necessary, or perhaps are redundant.
Darwinism cannot escape the philosophical because the philosophical materialism of Darwinism is really the CORE of the theory! For some time, I’ve seen more and more and more attempts by Darwinians to REWRITE EVERYTHING: history, psychology, art, *religion*, paleontology, LAW, education….everything. The reason is DARWINISM, to be “valid” MUST explain not only biology, but *everything*. Six thousand years of theology, history, art, literature, philosophy, government, etc. etc. MUST be turned inside out because almost ALL of human history and science and art and so on was written by THESISTS of one persuasion or another.
ID *does* *not* have to do this. ID is WAY MORE efficient. ID simply reports its findings: all of the the theology, philosopy, history, art, literature, etc. etc. HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE by loads of others, some of whom had almost no knowledge of the modern Darwinian “story” whatsoever.
Another way to say this is virtually EVERY FIELD OF STUDY (see lists already referenced) IS ALREADY *CONSISTENT* with the findings of ID!!!! For example, in the field of theology, Christianity, yes, but also Judaism, Islam, Buddism, Hinduism, you-name-it is already consistent. Archology is already consistent with the findings of ID. History of Western Civilization…..
Time for a blanket statement: The ONLY fields that are not already consistent with ID are almost all fields that have arisen from the seeds of Darwinism: Freudian psychology for example, Marxism for example, neism for example.
So, in my opinion, the reason the philosophical and implications are not discussed is not so much that people want to and don’t, but that there’s no need to.
From scordova
“ALL my friends with Ph.D. degrees who are college professors believe in evolution. NONE of my friends with Ph.D. degrees who work in the defense industry believe in evolution. ”
I’ve noticed this pattern too. I think you need to be religious to work in the defense industry so you can believe someone will help us if we actually do use all that technology. Thinking you need to figure it out for yourself may make you more likely to be an academic.
I’m an ID-Critic who is only recently trying hard to understand the actual arguments. Thanks for posting this exchange between Ruse & Dennett. It has been enlightening for me to discover that there are many on “our side” who are making things much worse than they need to be.
Michael Ruse is one of the few Darwinists whose opinion I respect. He’s WRONG, of course, as all Darwinists must be (as Dr. Bill puts it in his text _ID: the Bridge Between Science and Theology_ “As Christians we know naturalism is false”), but he’s also the only front-line Darwinist who can at least remain cordial in debating us supernaturalists. And he’s dead on about Dawkins; when Dawkins publicly avers that anyone who doesn’t believe in evolution is either stupid, ignorant, or wicked, he risks alienating 90% of his audience.
But as I often argue, since naturalism has neither a philosophical leg to stand on nor the empirical support required to make it rationally compelling, the only real tool in the arsenal of the Darwinist is therefore mere bluster, which invariably leads him to a discourse rife with sneering and invective. He can’t use logic or evidence to win the argument, so he has to resort to simple name-calling to try to intimidate his opposition into silence.
Ruse’s point, which Dennett of course fails to understand, is that such a strategy in inevitably a losing one.
I just finished reading Dennett’s book. I think I understand this now. There seem to be 3 issues.
1) the reason why phd students prefer not to use common sense is because its been wrong… dangerously wrong… in the past. Slavery, the extermination of jews, burning witches, etc… were all seen as common sense in our history. People in academia are desperately concerned about supporting the slavery, extermination of jews, or burning of witches, of our time… evil things that we just don’t realize yet. Even though common sense is so often right… the only way to avoid the infrequent, disasterous results of common sense, is to be skeptical, and not rely on common sense in our deeper thinking.
Is this a good strategy? I don’t know, but I really, really, don’t want to support something like slavery, and logical/critical thinking is the most consistent strategy for avoiding those pitfalls.
2) Scientists see the equation: 1+1=2 and believe that the most important feature is the “+” because it describes the process… the pure logic that will be true in every case.
Normal people see the equation: 1+1=2 and believe that the most important features are the “1″s and “2″, because they are the objects… the pure logic that will be true in every case.
To scientists… the process is the important thing: whenever you see a “+” it will function in a certain way. Normal people are more concerned about the objects… two “1″s is the same as a “2″.
This is the main controversy in the ID / evolution debate. Scientists see evolution as a “process”… whenever anything replicates, randomly mutates, and is weeded in some way or another… you will always have evolution/adaptation. That’s what the scientist sees and believes.
The normal person sees the living world as an “object”… lots of “2″s that have been created in some way. To them, only evidence of lots of “1″s will be compelling evidence… in this case… the “1″s are transitional species, the creation of complex cells from simple chemicals, etc.
This explains why evolution is so OBVIOUS to scientists… it’s as obvious as “1+1=2″.
This also explains why ID is so OBVIOUS to normal people… it’s as obvious as “1+1=2″.
This doesn’t tell us which is right… but maybe it will help us understand each other a little better.
3) Also… I think we each define religion and science differently. Scientists loosely define religion, as believing in god and the body of organized “common sense” beliefs that explain our world. Scientists loosely define science as the “process” for finding out confirmable information about our world.
Religionists loosely define science as “blind materialism”, science won’t even consider any explanation that doesn’t begin with materialist foundations…. so how can the conclusions possibly be unbiased if its biased to begin with? Religionists loosely define religion as the body of knowledge of our world. There’s a story that in the garden or eden, there were two trees… the tree of life,and the tree of knowledge. Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, but not the tree of life. In this sense, religion is the embodiment of the “tree of knowledge”… and is the nutrition for us… human beings / souls.. who are a part of the continuing tree of life.
4) For what its worth… I’m a scientist. I have a strong religious identity. I’ve become convinced that Dennett is correct. This ongoing conversation has enriched my access to our “Tree of knowledge”… and maybe brings us a little closer to understanding our roots in Eden.
An Exchange Between Daniel Dennett and Michael Ruse
Here. Ruse to Dennett: “I thought your new book is really bad and not worthy of you . . . .” Via Keith Burgess-Jack…
A Darwinian tiff
This had me in stitches. Apparently Darwinian philosopher Daniel Dennett (who’s out and about promoting his new book) has fallen out with fellow Darwinian, British-Born philosopher Michael Ruse. Ruse warns against taking evolutionary theory too far, s…
I’m trying to keep it clean here. Change your name to something unoffensive if you want to participate. -ds
Philosophy Versus Ideology
Michael Ruse and Daniel Dennett are philosophers. Both are Darwinists and both are atheists. But there 
Leftist Hostility to Religion
Michael Ruse, like me, is (1) a philosopher, (2) a Darwinist, (3) an atheist, and (4) a respecter of religion. Militant atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel D…
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[...] Dr Ruse was kind enough to let William Dembski reproduce an exchange that Ruse had with Daniel Dennett about the same issues. It’s more than worth the time to read it. Ruse is spot on at every level. Here’s a few Gem: I think that you and Richard [Dawkins] are absolute disasters in the fight against intelligent design – we are losing this battle, not the least of which is the two new supreme court justices who are certainly going to vote to let it into classrooms – what we need is not knee-jerk atheism but serious grappling with the issues – neither of you are willing to study Christianity seriously and to engage with the ideas – it is just plain silly and grotesquely immoral to claim that Christianity is simply a force for evil, as Richard claims – more than this, we are in a fight, and we need to make allies in the fight, not simply alienate everyone of good will. [...]
[...] Evolve This! I am pretty fired up right now. I just read an article on The Evangelical Outpost website that was fantastic! It was a three part post entitled 10 Ways Darwinists Help Intelligent Design. I was particularly amused by a letter between two hard-core Darwinists that the author provided a link to. This link was on William Dembski’s (well known Intelligent Design thinker and Darwinist critic) weblog, “Uncommon Descent” — yet another great site to visit. [...]
[...] in this article of ScienceMag and gives his opinion on the issue when he says the following in this email exchange with Daniel Dennett. It is true that I condemn or at least want to point to evolutionism, which I [...]