D’Souza – Dennett Debate
| December 4, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Philosophy, Religion, Science |
Dinesh D’Souza and Daniel Dennett debated a few nights ago on the question whether God is a human invention (did God create man or did man create God). A video of the debate is available at RichardDawkins.net. An agnostic who attended the debate offered some interesting observations about it. Here’s a sample:
. . . And here’s the weakness of the entire Atheist movement on display. Argument via ridicule only takes you so far, and only keeps the already converted entertained. Time and again I was disappointed not only by Dennett’s inability to articulate the science, but in his inability to respond to D’Souza’s very interesting thought experiments, analogies and use of example from the history of Philosophy itself. What a disappointment from such a well-trained professor of philosophy! . . .
34 Responses to D’Souza – Dennett Debate
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What we’re seeing here with Shermer, Dennett, and to a lesser degree Hitchens, is a group of people stuck in an intellectual ghetto of their own making. They live in zone of ideas where everybody agrees with them and everybody they teach is required to agree with them. This is the state of the modern academy.
I grew up in a university family and spent the greater part of my life in university communities (Ann Arbor, Boulder) and I know very well the smug assumptions and the absence of real debate or new ideas.
When an outside barbarian like D’Souza comes into his arena, Dennett and his followers assume they’ll easily wipe up the floor with him. At the end of the debate, it was apparent that Dennett was intellectually shocked by what had happened and, moreover, angry that the students were paying more attention to D’Souza than him. In his closed world, he’s never had to face that kind of challenge and humiliation. I expect him to follow Dawkins and announce he will not debate with people outside the ghetto.
After watching this debate last evening I thought of Ambrose Bierce’s definition of “dullard” in The Devil’s Dictionary. A portion of the paragraph:
DULLARD, n. A member of the reigning dynasty in letters and life. The Dullards came in with Adam, and being both numerous and sturdy have overrun the habitable world. The secret of their power is their insensibility to blows; tickle them with a bludgeon and they laugh with a platitude…
Watching Daniel Dennett fumble around (“so many things to discuss,” etc.) in his rumpled style was a sad scene indeed. It was as if his adoring students were asking D’Souza questions on his behalf. His logic was muddled. I dare say he never answered a question posed by either D’Souza or an audience member.
This (IMHO) is what seems to have happened when Stephen Meyer debated Prof. Peter Ward
http://www.discovery.org/scrip.....38;id=3421
I think you have a hard proposition to defend that Dembski implicates an indivisible bond between ID and faith in his three-sentence introduction the cited post. It cites an agnostic reflecting that the atheist Dennet had a poor showing against a theist D’Souza in a debate.
First of all, Dembski states the two debated (and <gasp> the topic of the debate!) The second sentence tell you where you could go to see it. And the last introduces a quote of the agnostic review. That’s it.
Plus, it’s a reference to a larger article where the agnostic stance is clearly in view. And the agnostic, as neutral spectator, said Dennet did not impress him at all. Lastly, you don’t have to be anywhere near a theist (which I am) ID proponent (which I am not) to enjoy ID opponent and Dawkins’ little buddy taking a beating, from the hands of a “religious nut”.
But this is kind of like the impromptu dogmatism of a lot of “skeptics”. They’re quick to jump to an announcement of what “everyone knows is true” and insist that everybody else play along, or be considered disengenuous–before they’ve really even made an argument.