Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think: Reflections by Scientists, Writers, and Philosophers 
asked by bigdv on November 10, 2006 4:19 PM
Published to coincide with the 30th anniversary of The Selfish Gene, this sparkling collection explores the impact of Richard Dawkins as scientist, rationalist, and one of the most important thinkers alive today. Specially commissioned pieces by leading figures in science, philosophy, literature, and the media, such as Daniel C. Dennett, Matt Ridley, Steven Pinker, Philip Pullman, and the Bishop of Oxford, highlight the breadth and range of Dawkins' influence on modern science and culture, from the gene's eye view of evolution to his energetic engagement in public debates on science, rationalism, and religion. This volume, which includes personal reminiscences and critical debate, as well as accessible discussions of science, is a stimulating tribute to a remarkable intellectual, written by some of the finest writers and scientists working today.
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If you have read Richard's books over the years, you will enjoy reading some other prominent peoples' opinions. I am now re-reading "The selfish gene"
reviewed by fusionz on November 29, 2006 3:02 AM
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The subtitle, after the title naming the subject of the tributes, says: "HOW A SCIENTIST CHANGED THE WAY WE THINK". Who is "WE"? Certainly not anyone. Rather, it may apply to the contributors to the book, and more widely to Darwinians. My drift is that if that scientist, Richard Dawkins, indeed changed the way someone thinks, it concerns those who accept Darwinism as axiomatic, the change concerning how they think Darwinism can be detailed.
To me this is like thinking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Despite the authors' absolute certainty that Darwinism is true, it is, as I have tried to show elsewhere, not only a theory, but a false one. Its refutation is in fact quite simple, but it resides in what has been a blind spot on both sides of the dispute for or against the theory.
One of the authors in the book quotes Dawkins in matters that highlight the essence of the dispute (p.233): "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." (As an aside: What about spiritually, emotionally, fulfilled?) And "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."
Ironically, the just spoken "blind" indicates the blind spot mentioned above. The dire views expressed in the preceding quotations are belied by an overwhelming phenomenon completely overlooked. It is the activities characterizing every live organism. Their directions toward its preservation display the opposite of "blind pitiless indifference", of "no good", of "no purpose".
I shall not go further here into the questions of theism or atheism; it should, however, be clear from the aforesaid that the presence of directedness in nature, contrary to the claim of its absence, is, in the functionings of organisms, very much part of science, as exemplified by medicine.
It is instead Darwinian aimlessness which contradicts these observations. In this respect one may take a look at a prevalent theme in the reviewed book, regarding what "changed the way we think". Dawkins proposed (p.55) that the gene, "defined as any portion of chromosomal material that potentially lasts for enough generations to serve as a unit of natural selection", must be recognized as "the fundamental unit of natural selection, and therefore the fundamental unit of self-interest."
This has to do with the microscopic unit transmitting hereditary characters and which Dawkins for the preceding reason called "the selfish gene". Of interest now is of course that the gene or anything else in organisms is called without hesitation a unit of, aimless, "natural selection". As seen above, organismic parts do act with aims and are correspondingly replicated through generations with aims.
Dawkins called the gene "the fundamental unit of self-interest" because it is so replicated, and as known, "natural selection" is to favor that which survives, and the gene appears to survive longer than other units of organisms. But in the organism's activities aimed at its survival the genes are merely instruments by which organisms propagate for that survival. In other words, genes do not act in self-interest but in the interest of organisms.
More importantly, as here again called attention to, the living do not adapt as a result of undirected effects of natural selection, but as a result of their directed activities toward self-preservation.
To me this is like thinking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Despite the authors' absolute certainty that Darwinism is true, it is, as I have tried to show elsewhere, not only a theory, but a false one. Its refutation is in fact quite simple, but it resides in what has been a blind spot on both sides of the dispute for or against the theory.
One of the authors in the book quotes Dawkins in matters that highlight the essence of the dispute (p.233): "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." (As an aside: What about spiritually, emotionally, fulfilled?) And "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."
Ironically, the just spoken "blind" indicates the blind spot mentioned above. The dire views expressed in the preceding quotations are belied by an overwhelming phenomenon completely overlooked. It is the activities characterizing every live organism. Their directions toward its preservation display the opposite of "blind pitiless indifference", of "no good", of "no purpose".
I shall not go further here into the questions of theism or atheism; it should, however, be clear from the aforesaid that the presence of directedness in nature, contrary to the claim of its absence, is, in the functionings of organisms, very much part of science, as exemplified by medicine.
It is instead Darwinian aimlessness which contradicts these observations. In this respect one may take a look at a prevalent theme in the reviewed book, regarding what "changed the way we think". Dawkins proposed (p.55) that the gene, "defined as any portion of chromosomal material that potentially lasts for enough generations to serve as a unit of natural selection", must be recognized as "the fundamental unit of natural selection, and therefore the fundamental unit of self-interest."
This has to do with the microscopic unit transmitting hereditary characters and which Dawkins for the preceding reason called "the selfish gene". Of interest now is of course that the gene or anything else in organisms is called without hesitation a unit of, aimless, "natural selection". As seen above, organismic parts do act with aims and are correspondingly replicated through generations with aims.
Dawkins called the gene "the fundamental unit of self-interest" because it is so replicated, and as known, "natural selection" is to favor that which survives, and the gene appears to survive longer than other units of organisms. But in the organism's activities aimed at its survival the genes are merely instruments by which organisms propagate for that survival. In other words, genes do not act in self-interest but in the interest of organisms.
More importantly, as here again called attention to, the living do not adapt as a result of undirected effects of natural selection, but as a result of their directed activities toward self-preservation.
reviewed by mags on November 29, 2006 5:42 AM