The philosopher AC Grayling is one of my favourite people. Here, at age 60, he makes some brief comments in the Guardian series “This much I know.”
A few choice extracts:
“The democracy of blogging and tweeting is absolutely terrific in one way. It is also the most effective producer of rubbish and insult and falsehood we have yet invented.
I am putting together a secular bible. My Genesis is when the apple falls on Newton’s head.
I would imagine Jesus was a kind of Jewish reformer. If you were looking for an equivalent to the figure you dimly perceive through the gospels it would probably be a Richard Dawkins.”
“Our knowledge about evolution includes facts (e.g., fossil records, genetics, molecular biology of DNA), theories (e.g, natural selection, sexual selection, genetic drift) and speculation (e.g., much of evolutionary psychology). Just like any other body of scientific knowledge.”
We could add that although many ideas in evolutionary psychology are speculative, some of these are firming up. Steven Pinker does a good job of separating the more reliable ideas from the more speculative (see his books: The Blank Slate, How the Mind Worksand The Stuff of Thought). Similarly, some of the theories, such as natural selection, are now so well supported by factual evidence they are beginning to be accepted as facts in themselves. A bit like the laws of thermodynamics.
However, when it comes to the basic facts there are just so many of them now. Darwin discussed things like homological similarities between species, geographic distribution, selection during domestication, hybridisation, embryology, etc. Then there is the fossil record – which is still improving dramatically today. But the field of molecular biology is producing so many useful facts about evolution it enables us to develop our theoretical understanding of the evolution of humans and other species in a way which we would not have believed possible 60 years ago.
More about that below.
Dawkins and Venter on the facts of evolution
Richard Dawkins has famously said that those who reject the facts of evolution are either ignorant or dishonest. Some creationists, who seek to demonise Dawkins, interpret this as a comment on the entirety of evolutionary science – but Dawkins knows too much about science to mean that. However, there are clearly people around who remain ignorant about the facts of the fossil record and molecular biology. And then there are creationist activists who just lie about those facts.
Recently Dawkins interviewed Craig Venter about some of these modern facts of evolution – the work he and his research company have done on the genomes of humans and other species.
Its a great interview. I really appreciate the way that Dawkins is using different formats to get across information. In this video he and Venter stroll through the laboratories of the Venter’s company. This provides a great background to the discussion.
After having spent a research career getting by with limited facilities, laboratory space, assistants and instrumentation, I can’t help feeling jealous about the resources available in this field today. The nature of these resources and how rapidly they are improving, comes through very strongly in the interview.
Briefly the method involves ranking the blogs according to 11 different ranking indices – 4 page ranking (Google Pagerank, Alexa 3 month rank, Technorati rank and Alexa NZ rank), 5 linking indices (Alexa links, Google web links, Google blog links, All the Web links and Yahoo links) and 2 RSS subscription counts (Google reader and Bloglines). The average rankings for the 11 indices are then ranked to produce a final rank.
I also include a separate ranking for each of the 3 broad classes – Page ranking, Links and RSS subscription counts.
The local Christian apologetics blog “Thinking Matters” appears to have made a policy decision to outsource most of the content. Specifically to the subcontinent (where else do New Zealanders outsource to) and a Walter Mitty type of character, Johnson Philip.
Philip claims to be “a physicist, with expertise inter alia in Quantum-nuclear Physics, and has worked extensively on the inner quark-structure of Protons and Neutrons.” However, as he doesn’t appear to have published anything in a scientifc journal I think the more relevant part of his CV is that he “has also specialized in Christian Apologetics, Biblical Archeology, Journalism, Alternative Medicines, and several other fields.” He has written extensively in those areas.
Some anarchically-inclined friends of mine use to say that about general elections. “Don’t vote for politicians – it only encourages them.” It’s not usually a convincing argument for me – but when it comes to this “child discipline” referendum I think it is the only sensible advice.
So, New Zealanders can vote from the end of next month on the proposition: “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?”
I recently watched a fascinating presentation on Google’s new application – Wave. It will be available later this year but was launched for developers a few weeks ago. You can see the presentation of its launch in the video below.
It’s certainly impressive. Its developers describe it as the email we would have now if we designed it now from scratch – “intelligently designed” instead of the clunky “evolved” email we currently use!
Seems a simple enough question. Easy to answer yes or no. But apparently not.
Terry Eagleton, author of Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate, claims it’s a meaningless question. He goes so far as to claim that no respectable theologian he knows would answer yes to that question!! Strange! I thought that’s what theologians spent their time doing – trying to justify the answer yes!
“Just a quick post to spread the word about a survey covering the public acceptance of evolution in New Zealand and the effect (if any) of religious/spiritual beliefs on the the extent to which evolution is accepted in the wider community. The survey can be found Here, and the results will be presented around November 2009.
The survey is being conducted by Drs Marc Wilson and Peter Ritchie of Victoria University in Wellington. I hope to secure an interview with the two Drs closer to the release of the data to get their views on the implication of the findings. In the mean time go participate in the survey, it will only take a few minutes and will be time well spent.”
I have just done the survey – its pretty thorough but doesn’t take long.
Definitely worth doing – and I certainly look forward to the results.
My previous post on Purposeseems, from the discussion, to have hit a raw spot with some people. Just to add fuel to the fire, have a look at this video of Richard Dawkin’s’ recent presentation during his March USA tour. Entitled “Purpose of Purpose” he discusses how the word is often used inappropriately. Along the lies of the theological “why” questions. Quoting Peter Atkins he points out that often “why” questions are just silly.
However, Dawkins does point out that humans are obsessed with purpose, and discusses why that may be so. He describes how purpose has evolved and why the human brain can derive humanitarian and religious purposes which are not necessarily seen as evolutionary adaptions.
The philosopher AC Grayling is one of my favourite people. Here, at age 60, he makes some brief comments in the Guardian series “This much I know.”
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