Richard Dawkins discusses The God Delusion on Minnesota Public Radio

Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, has spent countless hours defending his positions before lay audiences. What’s really impressive about Dawkins is the way he keeps his cool under fire (I was first impressed with Dawkins' composure when I viewed this episode, involving Dawkins' interview of the gay-bashing hypocrite, Ted Haggard). Consider this condescending interview conducted 3/4/09 by Kerri Miller of Minnesota Public Radio. You can listen to the entire one-hour interview here. At the beginning of this interview, Miller could barely hide her disdain for Dawkins. Many of the people calling the show to ask questions were much more open-minded than the host--they certainly didn't pick up the host's mocking tone. Miller began the interview by branding Dawkins a failure because people weren’t running to convert to atheism, despite Dawkins’ hope (expressed in The God Delusion) that people reading his book would be caused to rethink their beliefs in religion. Dawkins explained that he did hope that people would rethink their beliefs, but that his book didn’t fail merely because people didn’t abruptly quit their religious affiliations. Here's the hope Dawkins expressed when he wrote The God Delusion:

I hope to persuade . . . a substantial number of middle of the road people that there’s nothing wrong with a disbelief in God … there’s nothing outlandish about it. It’s probably what they’re like anyway, whether or not they admit it to themselves.

Miller then worked to corner Dawkins with a belief expressed by theist John Polkinghorne that there are no hard and fasts truths. Dawkins agreed with Polkinghorne on this general point, but advised Miller that this doesn’t mean that we have no understanding of anything.

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What if our economic woes were really about something we can’t bear to consider?

What if our economic woes were something symptomatic about a deep dysfunction many Americans refuse to contemplate. What if Thomas Friedman has it about right when he suggests that our infinite growth model inevitably leads to environmental/economic hell?

Let’s today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question: What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”

We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese ...

We can’t do this anymore.

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Obama Backlash Growing Quickly

For the last eight years, the fear and doubt crowd have had one of their own in the head office. Comforted that science will be suppressed and church programs will be federally funded, the vocal conservatives fell into relative complacency. Or did I miss it? But now, the flood gates are opening. The "gun nuts" are buying up weapons and ammunition creating a price spike never before seen. Why? Because they are convinced that Obama is a communist who will outlaw their guns and tax their ammo. The anti-family-planning crowd is staging bigger sit-ins at health clinics. They are also submitting bills to local, state, and federal government to restrain the feared upsurge in availability of contraception and related information. He overturned the stem cell funding ban. Now discarded blastocysts are again eligible research subjects rather than just trash. The humanity! After all, they quail, if we don't respect trashed cell clusters as people, how can we possibly value adult citizens? Anti-science groups are pushing ever more vocally for science in schools to be properly tempered by religious counterpoints. Bills appear in state after state calling for "Academic Freedom," meaning to give the Bible equal weight as proven science in schools. Yes, this started long ago, but now they have greater urgency. The conservative media is calling Obama's initial tax cuts a hike, and his pushing through of the stimulus package (that had been in the works for months under his predecessor) as typical unrestrained Democrat unilateral spending. They can get away with it because they knew that the necessary spending will pass whether or not they approve it. Looking tough with no teeth is all they have, at present. Recall the political fury during the 1930's depression. A Democrat prevailed over strong Republican objections and turned the country around doing basically what Obama is now doing. He kept getting re-elected because he got results. Results directly opposite of all the dire predictions of the Republicans. Basically, the same arguments being made now against Obama.

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How to spot religion in science clothing

How can you easily spot religion in science clothing? According to New Scientist book review editor Amanda Gefter, look for these code words:

  1. Scientific Materialism
  2. The invocation of Cartesian dualism
  3. Misguided interpretations of quantum physics (also a "New Age" giveaway)
  4. The terms "Darwinism" or "Darwinist" (scientists refer to "evolution" and "biologists")
  5. Referring to natural selection as "blind", "random" or an "undirected process"
There's also a censorship story within this story. Click the above link for more.

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Muffins and the end of innocence

"Did you know there's totally science behind muffins? Totally ruined muffins for me." Ah, the wisdom of youth. That particularly large & shiny pearl came from a blazered private school girl of perhaps 15 who I was standing next to (almost on top of) on my Connex-brand cattle-truck - I mean, "train" - this morning. Girl Student (henceforth "GS") was bemoaning the fact that in her cooking class her teacher explained that the release of carbon dioxide during the cooking process was responsible for the rising of muffins and for the tiny little pockets of air that end up being formed in all things baked. So, in response to this new but unwanted & unwelcome knowledge, GS now proclaims her hatred for - or at least new found apathy toward - the little round cakes she used to love. Naturally, her comment got me thinking. Does GS approach every mundane mystery in her life in such a manner? Would she disavow Myspace if she figured out that barely any of those seventeen thousand and eighty-four "friends" of hers actually qualified for such a title? Would she stop catching the train if she knew a tad more about electricity? What if she found out what keeps planes in the air? Sweet flaming crikey, no more summer trips to the Whitsundays then (probably a good thing, it'd totally suck to find out how that big hot disc in the sky is making you slightly darker). Safer stuck at home I guess, with just the TV/Wii/Blu-Rayer/microwave/mobile phone for company ... on the other hand, perhaps not. Perhaps all those modern wonders are just a fresh crop of parades waiting to be stripped of their brilliance by the acid rain of knowledge. You never know what awful, awful knowledge might leach into your brain if you sit on the remote and accidentally switch to the Discovery Channel.

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