I was just paraphrasing F. Scott Fitzgerald:

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."

Followers?

BrunoMaggiore wrote:

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Dawkinsians?

Ginger Yellow wrote:

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Followers?

Er, there wasn't much seriousness in my last paragraph, it was a joke for Bored.

OK, watched it on V+ last night. My impressions, for what they're worth.

1. I thought your man did a pretty good job, as it goes. Better than his atheism show.

2. At no point did he claim that evolution by natural selection proved the non-existence of God.

3. At no point did he "come close to" claiming that.

4. He did say that e. by n. s. was "one of the main reasons I don't believe in God", or something like that, but what he meant was the old one about how it makes the idea of a pre-existing intelligence superfluous for explaining the current existence of intelligence (and complexity generally). I know liberal theologians, and their mates, reckon they've a way round that one, but I can't understand a word they're on about when they try to explain it, so at least for the moment I'm as one with Dawkins on all this. It's one of the main reasons I don't believe in God as well.

5. I'm looking forward to his take on Social Darwinism next week. I mean, I expect that politically the critique'll be from his usual standpoint of slightly naive "nice guy" liberalism, but theoretically, it'll be interesting to see how he explains the (clear but astonishingly often misunderstood) distinctions between Social Darwinism and the Neo-Darwinist idea of the Selfish Gene.

The only people who take a literal interpretation of the bible are religious fundamentalists and atheists.

Darwin was neither of those as far as I know.

You're being anachronistic. Biblical literalism was very strong among 19th century Protestants; Lyell's challenge to what we'd now call the "young Earth" doctrine was, for example, hugely controversial.

And yes, Darwin may well have been an atheist; certainly, he became convinced that the notion of a benevolent deity was absurd. And of course the term "agnostic" was coined by the leading Darwinian of the day, suggesting a strong historical link between Darwinism and religious scepticism.

But more importantly, I guess: the point about natural selection making the pre-existence of Mind superfluous is aimed at weakening all forms of theism, not just Biblical literalism.

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..even the priests et al didn't believe in creation as literal..

An aside, but it's always worth noting - to me, at least - that the Catholic church has explicitly opposed literalism at least since the third century. Now obviously, a lot of catholics don't know this, and get drawn into the evangelical/fundamentalist game of faith-as-competitive-sport. But priests, at least, should know this. Not all do, clearly, but "even" there suggests they'd be more likely to endorse literalism than the laity. In fact, the opposite is the case.

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He did say that e. by n. s. was "one of the main reasons I don't believe in God", or something like that,

Ok, cool, that's obviously what I heard (or misheard). Cheers for that.

Did you notice the elastic/plastic mention?

Yeah: "plastic" was right, surely. "Plastic" in that conext means "able to be re-formed"; "elastic" means "able to be re-formed temporarily, but then tending to resume original form".

Toro De France wrote:

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..even the priests et al didn't believe in creation as literal..

An aside, but it's always worth noting - to me, at least - that the Catholic church has explicitly opposed literalism at least since the third century. Now obviously, a lot of catholics don't know this, and get drawn into the evangelical/fundamentalist game of faith-as-competitive-sport. But priests, at least, should know this. Not all do, clearly, but "even" there suggests they'd be more likely to endorse literalism than the laity. In fact, the opposite is the case.

I think that's all true, but the literalism thing is, as I say, slightly off the main, Dennettian, point here, which has to do with how properties like intelligence and purpose can be emergent in contexts that originally lacked them.

I haven't done the thought experiment of not being an atheist, but I suspect the atheist position would be more vertiginous and intellectually uncomfortable if it had to rest on pre-Darwinian (say purely Humean) arguments. (Reckon it would still be right though--but that's very much another argument and one I suspect neither of us is keen on having).

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Yeah: "plastic" was right, surely. "Plastic" in that conext means "able to be re-formed"; "elastic" means "able to be re-formed temporarily, but then tending to resume original form".

I didn't realise that plastic meant that also. Cheers

That's why plastic is called plastic, innit. Because it's plastic.

Short for thermoplastic, in that context.