Dawkins and OUT
My weekend can be summed up like this: Goths, Dawkins, Cut Copy, Cherry Blossoms. Well okay the last part is planning stages of a weekend biking around DC during the Cherry Blossom festival, but its still exciting. This is exactly the sort of week one moves to NYC for - join a CSA one night, see friends bands' another two, go to an awesome gig in a warehouse in Brooklyn that requires walking down a dodgy street with a beautiful view of the city and meet an intellectual hero somewhere in the middle, in a stately old institution of free thought.
So, to Dawkins. The event was part of his book tour, and hosted by New York's Society for Ethical Culture and co-sponsored by the think tank, Center for Inquiry. The SEC has a beautiful, gracious old auditorium on Central Park West that was used for the event. We arrived just before the advertised time, and were among the last 5 people let into the hall, those in the line behind us (which stretched around the block) were turned away. Finding seats was difficult, and there was no way to be down near the microphones that had been set up for the Q&A, which was a shame but at the same time - I loathe Q&As, they generally lead to idiocy, soapboxing etc. and I end up embarrassed for everyone involved.
Dawkins was introduced first by the SEC President and then by the CforI president. If the speakers reflected their organisation, then I would say the SEC is the genteel remnant of old-school 'free thinkers' - they still think of themselves as a 'religious' society and claim to have helped found the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). On the other hand, the CforI is the angry, young, political and somewhat bitter backlash to the rise of the religious right in the USA. The speaker asked what had happened to the brave young nation who declared separation of church and state, bemoaned the state of politics etc. Both speeches were mercifully short, however, and Dawkins soon took the stage.
After the speaker preceeding him, who, while funny and charismatic, had also been pessimistic and strident, Dawkins was a shock. He is so often portrayed as arrogant and combative, that even I in recent years have been distancing myself from his reputation. He is, in actual fact, short, slightly podgier than you'd expect, and walks with the rather humble shuffle of a professor, not a media star. He took the podium and began to speak, commenting first on how rather depressing the CforI guy had been, and how he hoped things weren't that bad after all.
His speech concentrated first on 'raising consciousness', in this case of the things about our world we accept in the guise of religion that would not be tolerated under another name. He did this by doing away with evolution as a topic early, and moving on to talk about real scientific controversies. From there, he showed a map of the world with the religions color coded on. And then changed the legend so that it now reflected competing theories explaining the K/T (dinosaur) extinction. Of course this got a laugh - and he pushed the point home, now 'editing' a special edition of the quarterly review of biology from 'Iridium layer at K/T boundary suggests extraterrestrial impact' to 'it has been personally revealed to the president of the royal society that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs' and 'a fatwa has been issued and all loyal followers of the society are required to kill any who do not believe that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs'. Cute. There was another visual trick like this, a captioned photograph of 4 year olds from the Times which had identified the children as Sikh, Muslim and Christian was re-edited to now read 'Marxist, Conservative and Secular Humanist' and so on. He did his best to drive home the point that there is no such thing as a 'Religious Child' - not anymore than there are 4 year olds who are members of the postal workers union.
The second half of his speech was an exhortation to atheists everywhere to let go of the little battles, the ones that are losing PR and which, he suspects, the religious right in this country quite enjoy. You know - the court case over the words of the pledge of allegiance, or the ten commandments in court rooms or 'In God We Trust' on the money. Instead, he suggested, in a rather nice co-opting of a creationist slogan, that we get behind a movement to 'Teach the Controversy' and start requesting that schools everywhere offer Comparative Religion classes, that the Bible, the Koran and the Talmud be taught as literature (probably, he argued, the Homeric gods and the Norse should also be included for a full understanding of our own English literary culture). Not less exposure to religion, but MORE exposure to religion and its ideas and influences on our culture. Unsurprisingly, this generally leads to a less religious populace, so it is unabashedly a subversive idea - but at the very least, people will choose to believe in an informed manner, rather than through sheer childhood indoctrination. Further, he encouraged people to become involved with the OUT Campaign, which is not so much an attempt to organize atheists as it is to get them to speak up, to self-identify. He was inspiring in his love for the beauty and granduer of this world, exhorting everyone to live in it fully, and pointed out that those most afraid of death are very often believers (usually Catholics!) not the non-believers, quoting Mark Twain "I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it".
The Q&A followed, and I prepared to cringe. But it was actually very good. Throughout his speech, Dawkins had occasionally referred to 'Darwinists' or 'Darwinism' which had made me hiss each time. If someone of Dawkins' stature kept using this term, a favorite of the creationists as it implies a cult of personality, what hope did we have? Well, one of the questioners was on it - he gave a very well expressed disagreement with Dawkins' use of the term, pointing out one would never speak of 'Newtonianism' or 'Einstenism'. Dawkins stopped, thought about it, repeating some of the argument and stating in what sense he used the word(s) and responded "well. You have convinced me. I shall try to stop using those terms.". Other questioners pointed out the eminently reasonable people who make up the bulk of the religious and the use of religion to the disenfranchised throughout the world. Dawkins was careful to clarify that he was interested in attack the institutions first and foremost, in educating the public, and free of scorn for those who are sensible. To the 'human need for comfort/meaning' argument, he responded with both his own words: "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people that could have been here in my place but who will never se the light of day outnumber the sand grains in Arabia.. in the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here".
Having seen him, I wouldn't characterize Dawkins as arrogant at all. I went to a similar thing with Al Gore not long ago, and contrasting the two - Gore is a very charismatic, polished speaker, clearly practiced with good sound-bytes as answers. He is not a scientist, he is a politician, and perhaps that shows. When he turns the full force of that personality on you, it can be dazzling and you will feel personally appealed to and seduced. Dawkins, by contrast, is much less polished, he is thoughtful, he will stop and think, he will concede points, he will argue and he will say 'well this is how far I've thought about this, and perhaps you're right, but I think we could explore it a little further, don't you?'. He is, however, completely unafraid to call someone an idiot. If in the face of overwhelming evidence you stick to an explanation that is clearly wrong, you are an idiot and he will be calling you out on it. He had a lovely analogy for young-earth creationist's opinion that the world is 6000 years old. This error, he said, is equivalent to considering the distance from New York City to San Francisco/the Pacific Ocean to be 7.4 yards (a bit less than 7m). It reminded me of the 'New Yorker's View of the World' cartoon (though of course this espouses a rather different idea):
So, to Dawkins. The event was part of his book tour, and hosted by New York's Society for Ethical Culture and co-sponsored by the think tank, Center for Inquiry. The SEC has a beautiful, gracious old auditorium on Central Park West that was used for the event. We arrived just before the advertised time, and were among the last 5 people let into the hall, those in the line behind us (which stretched around the block) were turned away. Finding seats was difficult, and there was no way to be down near the microphones that had been set up for the Q&A, which was a shame but at the same time - I loathe Q&As, they generally lead to idiocy, soapboxing etc. and I end up embarrassed for everyone involved.
Dawkins was introduced first by the SEC President and then by the CforI president. If the speakers reflected their organisation, then I would say the SEC is the genteel remnant of old-school 'free thinkers' - they still think of themselves as a 'religious' society and claim to have helped found the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). On the other hand, the CforI is the angry, young, political and somewhat bitter backlash to the rise of the religious right in the USA. The speaker asked what had happened to the brave young nation who declared separation of church and state, bemoaned the state of politics etc. Both speeches were mercifully short, however, and Dawkins soon took the stage.
After the speaker preceeding him, who, while funny and charismatic, had also been pessimistic and strident, Dawkins was a shock. He is so often portrayed as arrogant and combative, that even I in recent years have been distancing myself from his reputation. He is, in actual fact, short, slightly podgier than you'd expect, and walks with the rather humble shuffle of a professor, not a media star. He took the podium and began to speak, commenting first on how rather depressing the CforI guy had been, and how he hoped things weren't that bad after all.
His speech concentrated first on 'raising consciousness', in this case of the things about our world we accept in the guise of religion that would not be tolerated under another name. He did this by doing away with evolution as a topic early, and moving on to talk about real scientific controversies. From there, he showed a map of the world with the religions color coded on. And then changed the legend so that it now reflected competing theories explaining the K/T (dinosaur) extinction. Of course this got a laugh - and he pushed the point home, now 'editing' a special edition of the quarterly review of biology from 'Iridium layer at K/T boundary suggests extraterrestrial impact' to 'it has been personally revealed to the president of the royal society that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs' and 'a fatwa has been issued and all loyal followers of the society are required to kill any who do not believe that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs'. Cute. There was another visual trick like this, a captioned photograph of 4 year olds from the Times which had identified the children as Sikh, Muslim and Christian was re-edited to now read 'Marxist, Conservative and Secular Humanist' and so on. He did his best to drive home the point that there is no such thing as a 'Religious Child' - not anymore than there are 4 year olds who are members of the postal workers union.
The second half of his speech was an exhortation to atheists everywhere to let go of the little battles, the ones that are losing PR and which, he suspects, the religious right in this country quite enjoy. You know - the court case over the words of the pledge of allegiance, or the ten commandments in court rooms or 'In God We Trust' on the money. Instead, he suggested, in a rather nice co-opting of a creationist slogan, that we get behind a movement to 'Teach the Controversy' and start requesting that schools everywhere offer Comparative Religion classes, that the Bible, the Koran and the Talmud be taught as literature (probably, he argued, the Homeric gods and the Norse should also be included for a full understanding of our own English literary culture). Not less exposure to religion, but MORE exposure to religion and its ideas and influences on our culture. Unsurprisingly, this generally leads to a less religious populace, so it is unabashedly a subversive idea - but at the very least, people will choose to believe in an informed manner, rather than through sheer childhood indoctrination. Further, he encouraged people to become involved with the OUT Campaign, which is not so much an attempt to organize atheists as it is to get them to speak up, to self-identify. He was inspiring in his love for the beauty and granduer of this world, exhorting everyone to live in it fully, and pointed out that those most afraid of death are very often believers (usually Catholics!) not the non-believers, quoting Mark Twain "I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it".
The Q&A followed, and I prepared to cringe. But it was actually very good. Throughout his speech, Dawkins had occasionally referred to 'Darwinists' or 'Darwinism' which had made me hiss each time. If someone of Dawkins' stature kept using this term, a favorite of the creationists as it implies a cult of personality, what hope did we have? Well, one of the questioners was on it - he gave a very well expressed disagreement with Dawkins' use of the term, pointing out one would never speak of 'Newtonianism' or 'Einstenism'. Dawkins stopped, thought about it, repeating some of the argument and stating in what sense he used the word(s) and responded "well. You have convinced me. I shall try to stop using those terms.". Other questioners pointed out the eminently reasonable people who make up the bulk of the religious and the use of religion to the disenfranchised throughout the world. Dawkins was careful to clarify that he was interested in attack the institutions first and foremost, in educating the public, and free of scorn for those who are sensible. To the 'human need for comfort/meaning' argument, he responded with both his own words: "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people that could have been here in my place but who will never se the light of day outnumber the sand grains in Arabia.. in the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here".
Having seen him, I wouldn't characterize Dawkins as arrogant at all. I went to a similar thing with Al Gore not long ago, and contrasting the two - Gore is a very charismatic, polished speaker, clearly practiced with good sound-bytes as answers. He is not a scientist, he is a politician, and perhaps that shows. When he turns the full force of that personality on you, it can be dazzling and you will feel personally appealed to and seduced. Dawkins, by contrast, is much less polished, he is thoughtful, he will stop and think, he will concede points, he will argue and he will say 'well this is how far I've thought about this, and perhaps you're right, but I think we could explore it a little further, don't you?'. He is, however, completely unafraid to call someone an idiot. If in the face of overwhelming evidence you stick to an explanation that is clearly wrong, you are an idiot and he will be calling you out on it. He had a lovely analogy for young-earth creationist's opinion that the world is 6000 years old. This error, he said, is equivalent to considering the distance from New York City to San Francisco/the Pacific Ocean to be 7.4 yards (a bit less than 7m). It reminded me of the 'New Yorker's View of the World' cartoon (though of course this espouses a rather different idea):