Dawkins: Religion is Still Evil Part One

KEVIN HARRIS: Hey! Welcome to Reasonable Faith with Dr. William Lane Craig as we begin a two-part series evaluating an interview with Dr. Richard Dawkins. Let’s go to part one today and look at some highlights. I want to remind you as always as we begin that you can give to Reasonable Faith to keep this ministry speaking out all over the world. Just hit the Donate button when you go to ReasonableFaith.org. We certainly appreciate your financial support, and especially your prayer support. Here’s part one of a recent interview with world-famous atheist Richard Dawkins.

I know we talk about Richard Dawkins pretty often, but he keeps giving us things to talk about. And since he devotes a good portion of this latest interview talking about you, we're going to take a listen today. Alex O’Connor, the Cosmic Skeptic as he's known, (who has interviewed you a couple of times, Bill) conducts this interview with Dawkins. Right off the bat, he asks him about Ayaan Hirsi Ali's conversion to Christianity. Let's go to that first clip.

ALEX O'CONNER: Professor Richard Dawkins, welcome to the show.

PROFESSOR DAWKINS: Thank you very much.

ALEX O'CONNER: Ayaan Hirsi Ali recently, despite you being perhaps the world's most famous atheist, described you as one of the most Christian people that she knows. Why did she say that?

PROFESSOR DAWKINS: I'm a great fan of hers. I have talked to her about this. I think the respect in which we differ is that for me what really matters is the truth claims of Christianity. For her, what really matters is the morality, the politics actually. I think, for her, Christianity is a bastion against something worse. As Hilaire Belloc said, “always keep a-hold of Nurse for fear of finding something worse.” For her, I think she wants a faith which will help people to stand up against worse faiths. She singles out Islam. She singles out China, I think, and Putin and wokeism.

ALEX O'CONNER: Wokeism, yes.

PROFESSOR DAWKINS: And I'm with her on all of those. And to the extent that I think that a religion might be valuable for political reasons, I would go along with her. But I think it's the wrong way to approach religion. I think that what really matters about a religion is whether it's true. And to adopt a religion for almost as though one is saying, “Well, I don't believe this nonsense but it's a very good idea if other people do”, there's something patronizing about that. She doesn't do that. She says, “I believe in it. I am a Christian.” Therefore, it's not patronizing. But I think the fundamental motivation is a political and a moral one.

KEVIN HARRIS: We talked about this very issue in our podcast on Ayaan Hirsi Ali.^[1]

DR. CRAIG: Exactly. I think it's clear, as Dawkins recognizes, that she is a sincere believer. She does believe that Christianity is true and not just useful. Now, it is correct to say that she thinks it is a bastion against worse faiths. But what Dawkins does not mention is that one of those worse faiths that she singles out is the New Atheism! She has deconverted from the New Atheism to following Christ. Dawkins quietly overlooks that element of her conversion. She gives two sorts of reasons for her conversion to Christianity. One would be political, that we've already mentioned. But then he didn't mention the other that you and I talked about; namely, the existential where she finds meaning, value, and purpose in life through a relationship with God. I think that both of those can be valid motivations. It's clear that she is sincere. She believes it's true. Part of her motivation is that deep existential quest for meaning that she did not find in the New Atheism.

KEVIN HARRIS: We would agree with Dawkins. He says it's the truth claims of the Christian faith that are important.

DR. CRAIG: Yes.

KEVIN HARRIS: We would agree. We would step to that challenge. Let's go to the next clip then. Dawkins says that this is what drives his atheism.

PROFESSOR DAWKINS: The horrific idea of Paul and the early Christian fathers that we're all born in sin and we needed the death of Jesus to save us. That's the kind of thing that I suspect drives your atheism, whereas for me that's irrelevant. I mean, for me, I talk about it but for me what really drives it is the scientific question. Is there a creator underneath the universe? Because if there is then it's a profoundly different kind of universe from a scientific point of view from if there isn't. To me that's the big question. The problem of evil to me shouldn't be a real problem because you just say, well, there could be an evil god. That's a lesser question for me.

KEVIN HARRIS: Humanity’s sin problem is a horrific idea, he says. And the scientific question is what drives his atheism. Bill?

DR. CRAIG: I think that what's important to understand that Dawkins does not grasp is that it's not just a scientific question. The question of the existence of God is a profound philosophical question. There may be good philosophical reasons for believing in God that are not scientific in nature. For example, think of the moral argument or the ontological argument or the argument from the uncanny applicability of mathematics. There are good philosophical reasons for believing in God in addition to scientific evidence that can support premises in philosophical arguments for God.

KEVIN HARRIS: In this next clip, he says Darwin solved the biggest question.

PROFESSOR DAWKINS: The big problem of design, as William Paley put it, was life. He said something like the physical world is not the best place in which to demonstrate the existence of the creator because it's too simple. I think he’s right. He was also right when he said that the really big problem for religion is life. His whole book is based upon looking at design in the living world. Darwin solved that. So Darwin solved the big one. We have some remaining problems. The arc still hasn't really reached its end. We still have some problems with the origin of the laws of physics, the origin of the universe. But I think that the fact that Darwin solved the big one should give us confidence. That was the really difficult one. The amazing apparent design in the living world. I mean, that is such a staggeringly overwhelming impression of design. There's no question about that. And that was the one that Darwin solved.

KEVIN HARRIS: A couple of questions come out of that. One: Is the work of William Paley still valuable today? I'm curious about that. And did Darwin in fact solve the big problem?

DR. CRAIG: I think Paley’s argument is still valuable in terms of its form. It is an inference to the best explanation, and I think that there are good arguments such as from the fine-tuning of the universe for the existence of a cosmic designer of the universe. I think that Professor Dawkins, frankly, greatly exaggerates the scope of Darwin's achievement. Unfortunately, as a scientist, he enjoys a great deal of credibility in our culture and so people tend to believe uncritically what he says. But if you scratch beneath the surface, you'll find that the issues are much more complicated and much more controversial than what Dawkins gives them out to be. For example, he says the main question is life, and yet we have made no progress in understanding the origin of life on this planet. It remains a mystery, and Darwinian evolutionary theory is absolutely irrelevant to the question of the origin of life because evolutionary theory presupposes that there are living organisms, self-replicating cells, which then develop in their diversity and complexity. But it has no way and no relevance to explain the origin of life itself. And even with respect to evolutionary biology, I think that Professor Dawkins greatly exaggerates what has been accomplished. The eminent evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala identifies three distinct aspects of the contemporary evolutionary paradigm. The first of these would be universal common ancestry, and this is what is usually called “the fact” of evolution. That is to say, that all living organisms today are related to each other by common descent from a few primordial ancestors. So Ayala says this is what biologists mean when they say that evolution is a fact. It implies that there is a sort of evolutionary tree of life such that all living things (other than the very first) stem back from some simple primordial ancestor or ancestors rather than that there are multiple trees of life. So that's the first element of the evolutionary paradigm: universal common ancestry, which is very widely accepted and regarded as a fact. The second aspect of contemporary evolutionary theory that Ayala identifies is what he calls evolutionary history. This is the reconstruction of the tree of life showing all the various lineages that branched off from one another all the way back to the roots. Ayala explains that evolution in this sense is a matter of great uncertainty. Let me read to you what he says. He says,

Unfortunately, there is a lot, lot, lot to be discovered still. To reconstruct evolutionary history, we have to know how the mechanisms operate in detail, and we have only the vaguest idea of how they operate at the genetic level, how genetic change relates to development and to function. . . . I am implying that what would be discovered would be not only details, but some major principles.^[2]

So evolution in this second sense (tracing the tree of life) remains a matter of great uncertainty and controversy. In fact, in his book The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins himself says that this is one of the most acrimonious areas of evolutionary biology where disagreements are deep and emotional. The third aspect of the contemporary evolutionary paradigm that Ayala identifies is those explanatory mechanisms behind evolutionary change. And, again, Ayala thinks that this third aspect of evolutionary biology remains a matter of great controversy. He writes,

The mechanisms accounting for these changes are still undergoing investigation. . . . The evolution of organisms is universally accepted by biological scientists, while the mechanisms of evolution are still actively investigated and are the subject of debate among scientists.^[3]

So I think you can see how misleading it is when people say that evolution is a proven fact that is universally accepted by biologists. That is true at most in the sense of the word “evolution” as “descent with modification” or “universal common ancestry.” But insofar as evolution refers to those second and third aspects of evolutionary theory that Ayala explains, it is not, frankly, an established fact. According to Ayala,

The second and third issues—seeking to ascertain evolutionary history as well as to explain how and why evolution takes place—are matters of active scientific investigation. Some conclusions are well-established. Many matters are less certain, others are conjectural, and still others. . . remain largely unknown.^[4]

So there are certain unsolved problems in contemporary evolutionary biology. Let me just mention three of these for our listeners today. One of them would be the problem of transitional forms. How do you explain the gradual morphing of species into one another? Dawkins himself recognizes that this resolves itself into the question, “Has there been enough time for these successive generations to evolve this degree of diversity and complexity?” In answer to this question (“Has there been enough time?”), all Dawkins has to offer is “geological time is awfully long.”^[5] Well, right, but that leaves the question unanswered. Dawkins next asks then whether given a series of successive generations each member of the series can plausibly arise by random mutation of its predecessor. In answer to this question, Dawkins says,

My feeling is that, provided the difference between the neighboring intermediates . . . is sufficiently small, the necessary mutations are almost bound to be forthcoming. . . . It is thoroughly believable that every organ or apparatus that we actually see is the product of a smooth trajectory through animal space.^[6]

Now, look at his language here. His “feeling” is. It is thoroughly “believable.” What we have here is simply an appeal to personal credulity as opposed to rigorous scientific demonstration. Dawkins fails to show that the continuous path through animal space that he envisions wouldn't leave animals marooned on fitness peaks in the fitness landscape unable to take, realistically, the next step in the process. Finally, Dawkins asks whether it's plausible that each member of the series worked sufficiently well to facilitate the survival of the animal concerned. In respect, for example, to the series of intermediate eyes, Dawkins answers very cautiously, “It's less obvious, but I think that it is.” Now, this again is far, far different from the sort of certainty and confidence that he projects in these public interviews. I think it's evident that this remains a problem that is uncertain and unsolved. In addition to that problem of transitional forms, there's the problem of how organizational forms originate. How the body plans of various animals originate. These appear very suddenly on the scene, and it's unclear how these body plans evolved. Then, finally, number three would be the problem of genetic information, in particular the genetic code which traces all the way back to the most primitive bacteria. We have no explanation of how this genetic code came to originate. The point that I'm making here is really a very modest one. It is simply that the acknowledged explanatory deficits of the original Darwinian theory of evolution (but also of the so-called modern synthesis or neo-Darwinism) have not been fully rectified even by the advances of the so-called extended evolutionary synthesis which is now taking the place of the neo-Darwinism that Dawkins champions. We still have a great deal to learn about the causal mechanisms underlying the evolutionary history of life. That conclusion is widely acknowledged and I think hardly surprising. So today a whole host of causal mechanisms jostle to account for the correlations between the genetic structure and the morphological form or manifest characteristics of organisms. The evolutionary biologist Eugene Koonin pulls no punches. This is what he says, and I'll close with this quote. He says,

. . . in the post-genomic era, all major tenants of the Modern Synthesis [that's Dawkins’ preferred model] are, if not outright overturned, replaced by a new and incomparably more complex vision of the key aspects of evolution. So, not to mince words, the Modern Synthesis is gone.^[7]

KEVIN HARRIS: Those things that you mentioned there, they bring up some important issues because they're going to be perhaps some of our Young Earth friends who say, “See there? These problems show that evolution is not true.” And other believers who would hold to evolution in various forms say, “No, it doesn't show that. It just shows that perhaps though that more intelligent intervention would be required because of the complexity of some of these things.” Do you see where I'm getting at? How people are going to take this data?

DR. CRAIG: The points that I've made here have been made for years by creationists and advocates of intelligent design, but I think they were largely ignored because all they could do was poke holes in the evolutionary paradigm. But they had no better alternative to offer in its place. Young Earth Creationism is certainly not a credible alternative to explaining the history of life on this planet. So I think that what we learn from the evolution of the theory of evolution and the extended evolutionary synthesis is that Dawkins’ confidence in Charles Darwin and saying that Darwin solved the big problem and that it's all wrapped up now is just smoke and mirrors, frankly, and we need to continue to advance in trying to understand the causal mechanisms behind the origin of biological complexity on this planet. It is not at all implausible to think that this is under the directing supervision of a cosmic intelligence, though I am not making that point. My point here is much more modest. Simply that Dawkins has grossly exaggerated for his audience the extent to which Charles Darwin has solved the big problem.

KEVIN HARRIS: OK. Let’s stop right there for today, but let me tell you! It gets really juicy in part two. That’s coming up. Thanks for being here. I’m Kevin Harris. This is Reasonable Faith with Dr. William Lane Craig. We’ll see you next time.^[8]