The God Delusion - ongoing review

GeoffP said:
And were I to instruct you that your intelligence was at deficit compared to my own on basis of your beliefs, you would simply wave your hand at this? Dubious, my good Q.
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Please do so that the affirmative response be realized.

As to personal offense: of course. Who would be surprised at this? He presents a case that he has absolutely no evidence for at this point - perhaps he's saving it for some other work
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You have yet ventured waist deep into Chapter 2 of your review, how can we at this point jump to that conclusion?

...and calls me stupid for not accepting his version
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He did?

As for what I'm scrutinizing: you shall have it, as soon as he presents something of more substance to be considered.
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If you've not run across any substance in the book thus far, you have already missed a great deal. But, I await your further criticisms, Geoff. It's always a pleasure. :)

I've seen his ridiculous wife act solely and only so far as I can tell in 1960s exploitation films and on a dubiously acclaimed science fiction show
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That would be the TV series, "Doctor Who"
 
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SAM said:
How would tht question follow from anything about an extended phenotype? And how do you find discussion of one animal - say an ant - behaving so as to help "the genes of another" (say the queen, with much the same genes, significantly), going off track? ”

Because its a false paradigm. Is the guy who is repairing my cable doing so to help my genes? If not, what differentiates one behaviour from another?

Are the people in Wall Street investing overseas and profiting themselves at the possible expense of local economy helping to select againt the local genes?
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You are badly confused about what an extended phenotype is, despite having read Dawkins's book - which is evidence in support of your apparent disdain for the value of his writings, I guess. But we can't require one source to do for everyone, or be accounted worthless. I found his explanation reasonably clear, but then I had run into the concept before.
geoff said:
But that's not the issue, or not entirely: he pretends to a sort of chauvinistic equanimity but in fact his thrust is limited to a few specific targets - not in the hope of delimiting damage from them, but in hopes of damaging their faith altogether. He starts out by saying that he's not confining his attacks to any one religion, and then goes off on only two. Where is his condemnation of Thor, or how about even Kali-Mal, whose religion of stranglers could easily be said to be a little violent? It's disingenuous, and many of his arguments are specious.
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I insist that you have mistaken Dawkins's argument and overlooked his explicit dealing with exactly that issue, in my print copy of the book. Your objections seem to be based on mistaken assumptions of what Dawkins says he is about - he is indeed, purposefully, and says he is, setting out to damage a specific kind of faith altogether, and all of that kind, in his cultural audience. That is his explicit purpose, for which purpose his examples are chosen.

There is nothing disengenuous, or bait and switch, or deceptive about it.
 
iceaura said:
You are badly confused about what an extended phenotype is, despite having read Dawkins's book - which is evidence in support of your apparent disdain for the value of his writings, I guess. But we can't require one source to do for everyone, or be accounted worthless. I found his explanation reasonably clear, but then I had run into the concept before.
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From what I remember (and I've read it a long time ago) his idea was that the concept of the phenotype should be extended to embrace not only the organisms own body but also its effect on the environment, beneficial not only to the organism itself but also other organisms that receive benefits from the behaviour. That reminded me of a movie I once saw "Sliding Doors" and I applied the concept accordingly. However to arbitrarily assign the effect on the external environment to the phenotype seems to me extremely far fetched.
I insist that you have mistaken Dawkins's argument and overlooked his explicit dealing with exactly that issue, in my print copy of the book. Your objections seem to be based on mistaken assumptions of what Dawkins says he is about - he is indeed, purposefully, and says he is, setting out to damage a specific kind of faith altogether, and all of that kind, in his cultural audience. That is his explicit purpose, for which purpose his examples are chosen.

There is nothing disengenuous, or bait and switch, or deceptive about it.
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I don't think there is anything specific about it. He's just covering his base to protect the intellectual elite who may have made references to metaphorical (as he interprets Einsteins statement) gods.

Definitely deceptive.
 
SAM said:
However to arbitrarily assign the effect on the external environment to the phenotype seems to me extremely far fetched.
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No kidding.

Until I get some evidence to the contrary, I'm just going to assume that everything you claim to believe about Dawkins's writings is equivalently informed - you haven't read it, don't understand what he's talking about, or are reacting against a conception of his writings simply invented to suit the requirements of your response to his category of essay.

Such as this bit of nonsense:
SAM said:
He's just covering his base to protect the intellectual elite who may have made references to metaphorical (as he interprets Einsteins statement) gods.

Definitely deceptive.
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(He's covering his base to protect the intellectual elite !? )

Fair enough?
 
iceaura said:
No kidding.

Until I get some evidence to the contrary, I'm just going to assume that everything you claim to believe about Dawkins's writings is equivalently informed - you haven't read it, don't understand what he's talking about, or are reacting against a conception of his writings simply invented to suit the requirements of your response to his category of essay.
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Duh you could explain if its not too beneath you. :p
Such as this bit of nonsense: (He's covering his base to protect the intellectual elite !? )

Fair enough?
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He had to explain Einstein somehow and a metaphorical god is very convenient. I've heard him speak and he always seems embarrassed by this point. Its actually quite entertaining to hear his long drawn explanations explaining away the references to God in "great" scientists [his emphasis] while ditching Hitler and Stalin as religious.

Oh all these great scientists didn't mean God as in God. Oh all these vicious mass murderers didn't mean what you think they did when they said stuff against religion!:D

Which begs the question:

Are Dawkins statements those of an athiest, considering he was schooled in an Anglican environment?
 
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SAM:

He had to explain Einstein somehow and a metaphorical god is very convenient.
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This is a simple question of evidence. One need only look at what Einstein wrote and said about God to discern his conception of God.

Dawkins' summary of how Einstein thought about God is accurate.

If you wish to claim inaccuracy, then back your claim with evidence. But bear in mind that you will be arguing not only against Dawkins but also against many biographers of Einstein and others who have carefully examined his comments on god and religion.

I await your in-depth analysis of this matter.
 
James R said:
SAM:



This is a simple question of evidence. One need only look at what Einstein wrote and said about God to discern his conception of God.

Dawkins' summary of how Einstein thought about God is accurate.

If you wish to claim inaccuracy, then back your claim with evidence. But bear in mind that you will be arguing not only against Dawkins but also against many biographers of Einstein and others who have carefully examined his comments on god and religion.

I await your in-depth analysis of this matter.
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It depends on who you ask. Einsteins god sounds rather like the Hindu concept of Brahman to me. :)
 
I notice that the people reacting most strongly and baselessly against Dawkins's book here have apparently not read him, but heard him.

I haven't heard him, other than a few youtube clips. Has anyone done both, and noticed some kind of explanatory feature of his declamatory style, like a really irritating manner or tone, that differs from the approach of his books ?
 
Has anyone done both, and noticed some kind of explanatory feature of his declamatory style, like a really irritating manner or tone, that differs from the approach of his books ?
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He has a clipped English accent that is probably taken as arrogant by his detractors. Other than that, I think they're mainly upset that he would dare to openly question religion.
 
James R said:
He has a clipped English accent that is probably taken as arrogant by his detractors. Other than that, I think they're mainly upset that he would dare to openly question religion.
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Thats not fair. :)

I think one would be a very poor theist without faith. Fear of the truth is not faith, is it?
 
sowhatifit'sdark said:
It would only be unfair then if there are no poor theists. I would say there are quite a number. At least one president.
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Then they're missing the whole point of the exercise, aren't they?

As such, its unlikely you'll ever reach them, anyway. :)
 
SAM said:
Extended phenotype: all effects of a gene on the world.

It does not say living thing.
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It seems unlikely that Dawkins would claim that not-living things can evolve in the same way as living ones, since the mechanism of "inheritance" for non-living things is - at the very least - different.

Normally the "extended phenotype" is a characterization of how selection happens at the genetic level and not the organism level, and one of the results of this is that selection on a trait will seem to cross the line from one organism to another. From Wikipedia's article on the subject:
An animal's behaviour tends to maximize the survival of the genes "for" that behaviour, whether or not those genes happen to be in the body of the particular animal performing it.
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This implies nothing about the selection on or evolution of traits in non-living things, like Wall Street. That was your own invention and a tad disingenuous all in there as well.
 
S.A.M. said:
I don't think there is anything specific about it. He's just covering his base to protect the intellectual elite who may have made references to metaphorical (as he interprets Einsteins statement) gods.

Definitely deceptive.
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If anyone holds the the title for deception, it is you, sam. Since you've not read the book and have no idea what those statements are, you're response here is a complete fabrication.

Are you an attention whore, Sam? Is that why you constantly lie?
 
S.A.M. said:
Then they're missing the whole point of the exercise, aren't they?

As such, its unlikely you'll ever reach them, anyway. :)
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Interesting and pehaps even revealing if I was clever enough.
But who can we reach on either side of that divide?
I see competing madnesses.
 
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