Interview with Richard Dawkins

KEVIN HARRIS: Bill, it’s been awhile since we talked about Richard Dawkins. In fact, I think that he’s kind of persona non grata these days. He may have shot himself in the foot with some of the philosophical speculations that were so ridiculed in his book and some of his sayings. But let’s take a look at some excerpts of his recent interview with Piers Morgan and see what he’s saying these days. One thing that has apparently not changed is his view that there is no evidence for God. Listen to these two clips.

RICHARD DAWKINS: I despise people who believe something without evidence and then go out and take action which damages other people.

PIERS MORGAN: His 2006 blockbuster, The God Delusion, made him the global face of atheism.

INTERVIEWER: What's wrong with, in your opinion, believing in a God regardless of who the God is?

RICHARD DAWKINS: I think it's false. I think that it's a matter of belief without evidence.

KEVIN HARRIS: I know that that's one of your pet peeves, Bill.

DR. CRAIG: Yeah. Here Dawkins is espousing an epistemology (or theory of knowledge) that has been exposed as being untenable and is therefore now obsolete; namely, that you should only believe things based upon evidence. That is an untenable epistemology. It's untenable because there are vast areas of knowledge where we know things to be true reasonably and rationally even without evidence, including things in science itself. Unprovable assumptions are at the very root of science. Moreover, it's self-refuting to say that we should only believe things based upon evidence because there's no evidence for that principle. So it defeats itself. Epistemologists like Alvin Plantinga have shown that vast amounts of our knowledge is what he calls properly basic beliefs; that is to say, these are beliefs that are foundational. They lie right at the very root of our belief system and are not justified through argument and inference. So wholly apart from the question of whether there is evidence for God – I think that there is – the more fundamental question raised by Plantinga is why belief in God could not be a properly basic belief akin to belief in the reality of the external world or belief in the presence of other minds or belief in the reality of the past, all of which we are rational to believe even though it's impossible to prove them based upon evidence.

KEVIN HARRIS: You hear Internet atheists say this all the time like a broken record: there is no evidence for God. I suspect what they mean, and I'm pretty sure it's what Dawkins means, is that there is no scientific evidence for God. And that's scientism. That's their standard. If you were to press them, that's probably what they're saying. There's no scientific evidence and science is the only way to knowledge.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. That's a very good point. It's even worse than his espousing this untenable epistemology of evidentialism. He's espousing an even narrower view, as you say, which is scientism which is, again, just untenable and also, I think, equally self-refuting.

KEVIN HARRIS: Let's go to the next clip. They go all over the place in this interview. In this one, Piers Morgan asked him about evolution in general. Here's the next clip.

PIERS MORGAN: Evolution itself – I think I'll ask a question like this. What do we know now about where we've come from, and what don't we know?

RICHARD DAWKINS: OK. We know once you've got a self-replicating entity – which nowadays is DNA, but it wasn't originally – once you have got life started, once natural selection, Darwinian natural selection, has got going, then we pretty much understand the four billion year history of what's given rise to us and all other living creatures. We don't know how it started, and that's still a mystery. And it may always be a mystery because it happened a very long time ago, and we may never know exactly what did happen. We know the kind of thing it had to be.

PIERS MORGAN: What kind of thing do you think it was?

RICHARD DAWKINS: It was the origin of a self-replicating molecule – a molecule that makes copies of itself. DNA is such a molecule, but the original one was almost certainly not DNA because DNA is (it's been called) a high-tech replicator. There had to be a precursor to DNA. Something the laws of chemistry gave rise to a molecule which has this unusual property of making copies of itself which mutated, changed in random ways, and that gave rise to competition between rival versions of it, and that gave rise to the whole panoply of life eventually.

KEVIN HARRIS: He sounds pretty confident that evolutionists have filled in the blanks. But once we get that self-replicating molecule then now we know how it all fits.

DR. CRAIG: This connects with my recent work on origin of life studies for my systematic philosophical theology, and so I'm really glad for the opportunity you've given me to interact with this clip. What Dawkins appeals to here is that for the first life you've got to have a self-replicating molecule. Now, he admits that it cannot be DNA. DNA is too complex. DNA can store information but it needs enzymes in order to function, and those enzymes are themselves produced by DNA. So you've got a sort of chicken and the egg situation here. Although he doesn't mention it, the darling of many origin of life researchers (at least until recently) has been the RNA molecule – ribonucleic acid. This sort of nucleic acid can not only store information but it can replicate, and so the claim is that the chemicals on the prebiotic Earth assembled themselves somehow into an RNA molecule. Now, we have no idea how that could have happened. There is no understanding of how that would have come about. But even more fundamentally, even given an RNA molecule, that is not life. That is not primitive life. In order to have life you've got to have cells, and so somehow this RNA molecule needs to turn into a living cell which can then reproduce and divide and make further copies of it. And with all the knowledge that we have of prebiotic chemistry, there's absolutely no understanding of how this could have happened. So actually origin of life researchers have tended to abandon the so-called RNA world hypothesis. James Tour, who is an organic synthetic chemist, has said that, “I'll give you all of the basic biomolecules. I'll give you all the RNA that you want. Produce a living cell and a Nobel Prize awaits you if you can do that.” That's all you need to do. And, of course, nobody can do it. So Dawkins here is exuding a confidence that is born out of his philosophical naturalism rather than based upon scientific evidence. Here it is he who is actually going contrary to the evidence.

KEVIN HARRIS: Let's go to the next clip, and in this one Piers Morgan asks him about the origin of the universe.

PIERS MORGAN: I’m a Catholic. I was raised a Catholic. So I'm a religious person, which I know is anathema to you. We'll come to that. But my arguments with atheists historically have always come down to one thing, and maybe you've got an answer which will persuade me of the folly of my ways, which is this: What was there at the start?

RICHARD DAWKINS: We don't know. But I don't know, and you don't know.

PIERS MORGAN: But no human brain, unless you want to correct me, can actually comprehend nothingness. Right?

RICHARD DAWKINS: But it's a fallacy to think that because I don't understand how it happened therefore God did it. And that's just weak.

PIERS MORGAN: Well, OK. I'm prepared to have an open mind about this. But somebody did. I've just never met a human brain that can explain to me what happened before. Say you go for the Big Bang argument. What was there before? What does nothing look like?

RICHARD DAWKINS: Physicists are debating this. I'm not a physicist, but they're debating it. My point is that they don't know and I don't know and you don't know and it doesn't help to postulate a God that did it.

PIERS MORGAN: But you are certain it is not a God, and yet you admit you don't know.

RICHARD DAWKINS: No. I'm certain that it doesn't help to postulate something very complicated at the outset because what we've got is primeval simplicity and from that stems everything. What science does is it starts with simplicity, which is relatively easy to understand, and from that it develops into the whole of the universe and the whole of life. It doesn't help to start with complexity, and a creator has to be complex. . . . I think that it doesn't help to introduce complexity at the outset.

PIERS MORGAN: No, I get that.

RICHARD DAWKINS: I don't think you do get it. Science can explain things starting with simplicity and working up to complex.

KEVIN HARRIS: Several things there, but I think primarily this whole notion that you've really called him on the carpet on in your speaking is that the Creator would have to be more complex than the creation or as complex, and you don't start with complexity. You start with simplicity.

DR. CRAIG: Yeah. There are so many problems with Dawkins’ argument, but even waiving those, the point that you just made is that God, by Dawkins’ own definition of complexity, is an immensely simple entity. Therefore to posit God prior to the Big Bang (causally prior) is an advance in simplicity. In his book, The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins defines complexity in the following way. He says on page 11, “A complex object as opposed to a simple one has many parts, those parts being of more than one kind.” So, for Dawkins, a complex object is something that is composed of many different kinds of parts, and clearly by that definition God is not a complex object. God has no parts at all, much less parts of different kinds. So if he is driving toward increasing simplicity, Dawkins is fairly impelled to posit some sort of God-like transcendent being beyond the universe which is responsible for the complex universe. His own principles ought to lead him to posit some sort of a God. Now, let me add that I think in Piers Morgan's expressions we see a layman who has an intuitive understanding that is right but he struggles to articulate it carefully. He says things like “no human brain can comprehend nothingness.” Well, I think what we need to understand is that the word “nothing” is not a term of reference. It doesn't refer to something. The term “nothing” is a quantifier term that just means “not anything.” So when scientists say that the universe came into being from nothing, what they mean is the universe did not come into being from anything. Therefore that cries out for some sort of an explanation. The point is that the best scientific evidence that we have points to an absolute beginning of the universe which was not preceded by anything physical. And given the principle that out of nothing, nothing comes (the universe can't pop into being uncaused), there must be a transcendent cause, and in this case it's going to be a being of tremendous simplicity which will fulfill all of Dawkins’ desires for an ultimate cause.

KEVIN HARRIS: I had to laugh when Dawkins said, “Well, you know, God didn't do it” and Piers said, “Well, somebody did it!” The first part of that question was all God of the gaps. “I don't know, and you don't know,” Dawkins says, “but that doesn't mean God did it.”

DR. CRAIG: Yeah, and that's not the reasoning. The reasoning is that the best scientific evidence we have gives us good grounds for thinking that the universe had an absolute beginning about 13.8 billion years ago and that this was not preceded by any sort of physical reality. So unless Dawkins is willing to say that the universe can come into being uncaused (which is a radical metaphysical hypothesis) he has to say that there is a tremendously simple transcendent being beyond the universe which brought it into existence which is exactly what Piers Morgan was pointing to.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next clip, he's asked about the Big Bang and the origin of time. Here's clip number four.

RICHARD DAWKINS: Scientists take a pride in admitting what they don't know, and they don't know what happened before the Big Bang. They don't even admit that the word “before” means anything with respect to the Big Bang, physicists will tell you.

PIERS MORGAN: But there has to.

RICHARD DAWKINS: Well, it doesn't because that's a naive statement. Physicists will say that you do not have to say there was . . . time began at the Big Bang is what some physicists will say.

PIERS MORGAN: To which I immediately respond with my basic human brain, well, OK, if time began, when did it begin? What was there before? Which is a fairly obvious question.

RICHARD DAWKINS: It is a very obvious question. It's too obvious, and physicists will tell you you’re being naive.

KEVIN HARRIS: OK. Bill?

DR. CRAIG: Again, what Piers Morgan is struggling to articulate is that if time began to exist (which is the majority view among contemporary cosmologists) then what is the cause of the universe? It can't just come into being from nothing without a cause. There needs to be a transcendent cause that brings the universe into being. Now, this cause needs to be causally prior to the Big Bang, if not temporally prior to the Big Bang. If time had a beginning at the moment of creation then God is causally prior to the Big Bang in the sense that God did not begin to exist at the first moment of time along with the universe.

KEVIN HARRIS: Here Dawkins is showing that he's studied a little bit in metaphysics. He seems to be allergic to metaphysics in that it seems to me that he should know about contingent and necessary beings and non-contingent beings and the simplicity of God and things like that. But it's almost like he's totally ignorant of any kind of theology or philosophy. Here he at least understands that “before” doesn't make any sense. So he's getting into it a little bit.

DR. CRAIG: I think it's a willful ignorance though because I and many other philosophers have written on these subjects, criticizing the arguments in The God Delusion, and I've seen him on video interacting with these thinkers, and it's very awkward for him. They correct him, but it's clear he simply doesn't take the correction. He just keeps repeating his old arguments.

KEVIN HARRIS: They take a real left turn in the interview now. Dawkins comments on the whole gender controversy that's raging today. Here's the next clip, clip number five.

RICHARD DAWKINS: There are two sexes. You can talk about gender if you wish, and that's subjective.

PIERS MORGAN: When people say there are a hundred genders, for example?

RICHARD DAWKINS: Yeah. I'm not interested in that. As a biologist, there are two sexes and that's all there is to it.

KEVIN HARRIS: You know, that's interesting. There are two sexes, but he said genders – there could be hundreds. You can call yourself what you want, but there are only two sexes.

DR. CRAIG: Yeah. I think that this does express the viewpoint of a biologist. There are two biological sexes regardless of whether a person feels that he belongs to a different gender or not. And Dawkins is, I have to say, very politically incorrect. He is not at all afraid to buck the fashionable trends in culture. This would be one area where he definitely chooses to do so.

KEVIN HARRIS: In this final clip, Dawkins is asked what question to which he would most like an answer. It's clip number six.

PIERS MORGAN: What is the question you would most like to get answered?

RICHARD DAWKINS: I think it is: Is there extraterrestrial intelligence? I think I would like to be visited by – well, I will never be visited by actual bodies, I think, but – visited by radio waves from another star system.

PIERS MORGAN: Do you believe it exists?

RICHARD DAWKINS: Yes. I'm not totally confident.

PIERS MORGAN: What else would you love to know?

RICHARD DAWKINS: Origin of life. The origin of the universe. Consciousness. If I were a physicist, I would want to know how to unify quantum theory and gravity. But I’m not a physicist, so don't ask me about it.

KEVIN HARRIS: I think that Piers Morgan wanted him to say something about God because he kind of asked him that twice.

DR. CRAIG: I don’t know. All of the questions are wonderful questions. They are very profound questions. And they're related. For example, his quandary about the origin of life is a huge gap in his naturalistic philosophy. He cannot understand how life originated on this planet, and that is related to his hope of finding extraterrestrial life. You see, the odds of life originating on Earth are so improbable, it's so fantastically unlikely, that it's unlikely to exist anywhere else in the cosmos. So if Dawkins could find extraterrestrial life, that would give hope that it could have originated by chance on this planet as well even if we don't know how. What's remarkable is that all of our sources for extraterrestrial material from meteorites, from the Moon, from comets, from asteroid debris, are all sterile. There is no life to be found anywhere. So Dawkins has a real vested interest in finding extraterrestrial life because he really needs it to save his naturalism with respect to the origin of life on Earth

KEVIN HARRIS: I'll tell you what I think he meant, too, when he said he would like to be visited. He knows he's not going to be visited by E.T. He knows he's not going to be visited physically, but he wants to get the radio waves. I wonder if he means by that that he realizes that they would be so far out that they're not going to get here, and the only way to contact is going to have to be through radio waves or something. I think that’s what he meant.

DR. CRAIG: Yes, I do, too. This is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence that years ago Carl Sagan was so enamored with. You look for radio signals from outer space that indicate some sort of intelligent complex pattern that couldn't be attributed to just noise. And naturalists, as I say, are very vested in the question of extraterrestrial life because they need it in order to make the odds of life originating on this planet tractable.

KEVIN HARRIS: As we wrap up the podcast, Richard Dawkins is 82 years old. He's working on two books right now. I don't think he has the platform that he once had, but perhaps in the future you may find yourself having to interact again with the popularity of what he writes in print.

DR. CRAIG: Well, in fact, in my systematic philosophical theology I am studying right now the evolution of biological complexity. Given that first cell which originated (we know not how) how did the biological complexity on this planet arise, and how is that best to be integrated with a Christian systematic theology? So in connection with that I have been reading Dawkins lately and engaging with his work.^[1]