From Uncommon Descent. (H/T ECM)
Excerpt:
In River out of Eden : A Darwinian View of Life Richard Dawkins wrote:
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A.E. Housman put it: ‘For Nature, heartless, witless Nature Will neither care nor know.’ DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.
In a 2007 New Scientist/Greenpeace Science debate, Dawkins said:
Far from being the most selfish, exploitative species, Homo sapiens is the only species that has at least the possibility of rebelling against the otherwise universally selfish Darwinian impulse . . . If any species in the history of life has the possibility of breaking away from short term selfishness and of long term planning for the distant future, it’s our species. We are earth’s last best hope even if we are simultaneously, the species most capable of destroying life on the planet. But when it comes to taking the long view, we are literally unique. Because the long view is not a view that has ever been taken before in whole history of life. If we don’t plan for the future, no other species will . . .
Well, which is it? Is there right and wrong or isn’t there? Are we selfish or aren’t we? Do we have free will or don’t we?
Is this why Dawkins refuses to debate William Lane Craig? Is his schtick just about selling books to gullible atheists who don’t understand the laws of logic?
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Learn more about intelligent design
- The caused beginning of the universe
- Fine-tuning of cosmological constants
- Galactic, stellar and planetary fine-tuning
- Origin of the building blocks in the simplest replicating cell
- Origin of biological information in the simplest replicating cell
- Sudden origins of all major body plans in the 3-5 million year Cambrian explosion
- The development of irreducibly complex molecular machines
WINTERY KNIGHT 
The first quote is about DNA. The second quote is about people. Where’s the contradiction?
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Did you notice the part about “DNA neither knows nor cares” and “We dance to its music”? We = people.
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I think you’re confusing the recipe with the meal.
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I think you’re confusing materialism (your view) with theism (my view). Your view (materialism) has no place for free will, because everything an organism does is determined by the material processes of the organism. On your view, there is nothing but matter in motion. There is no mind or soul that is capable of transcending the chemical reactions. No right or wrong choices, because there are NO choices, on your view.
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It’s neither clear that a) if materialism then determinism, nor b) if determinism, then no free will (wot about compatibilism?)
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I think you don’t understand the argument from your own camp.
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Clark Enwell, I think you’re confusing the ingredients with the recipe!
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Dawkins wants there to be no cake and eat it too.
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Under Darwinism, meaning, purpose, intent, values, are absurd, made-up categories — everything that forms the essence of what it is to be human.
When God becomes a big fiction, so does man.
When atheists “kill” God, they “kill” themselves.
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Actually, Winteryknight may be right in saying that Dawkins is being naive in thinking that humans are capable of “rebelling against the otherwise universally selfish Darwinian impulse”. Though I wonder what Dawkins is really trying to say, because the thing about us being uniquely capable of long-term planning doesn’t actually seem to say anything about free will, morality or anything much except that we have a greater ability than other animals to extrapolate possible futures. Which, as far as I can see, doesn’t REQUIRE free will, morality, or even consciousness – in principle, the computer I’m typing this on could perform such a task entirely mechanistically.
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I love it when Dawkins tries to be philosophical. It’s worse than me attempting Algebra.
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I also noticed that Dawkins’ statements and books are loaded with logical contradictions. Not a problem for the huge masses who blindly follow scientism: as long as a statement is dressed in a pompous, scientific-looking robe, it is okay. Including contradictions.
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There is no contradiction in those two cherry-picked quotes. The former speaks to the structure of a world in which biology unfolds as it has, which does indeed seem to be a world of pitiless indifference and stochasticity, with nothing suggestive of teleology, intention, meaning, purpose or love. The more you study evolutionary biology, the more this becomes apparent.
(Cf one of Dawkins’ earlier statements: “The more you understand the significance of evolution, the more you are pushed away from the agnostic position and towards atheism.”)
The latter is referring to humanity’s ability to buck this system and infuse the world with our own meaning, our own purpose, our own teleology, to reflect on our actions and behaviors in order to become moral and ethical thinking creatures. The possession of biochemically complex minds enables us to choose right or wrong, selfishness or altruism. Will we? That is the essence of what Dawkins is saying.
There is no contradiction.
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I think your comment is very helpful for me. I have always maintained that atheism is a non-cognitive worldview, such that the people who affirm it do so more as a way to escape from the demands of morality than for any rational grounds. This is at least true in my experiences with rank-and-file atheists.
Your comment shows this because in them, you confidently affirm both of the following pairs of statements:
1. Nothing is objectively right and wrong.
2. Some things are objectively right and some things are objectively wrong.
AND:
1. Human beings are biologically determined such that they don’t have free will.
2. Human beings can make free choices.
If that doesn’t show that atheism is non-cognitive, I don’t know what would. I’m willing to entertain atheism as an option, but I am a rational person.
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