There are people, who find it particularly exciting to think that they have contributed something to the common cause. They are vain and superficial, and usually extremist in their views. They usually make good extremist fanatics regardless of what particular cause they are supporting. They are all too ready to use their eloquence to prove their statements even at the expense of the truth of the matter itself. Moreover, the more they feel that they are fake as specialists, the more extreme views and stances they propose. It is especially true with regard to science.
A true scientist hardly ever takes an extreme position on anything. On the other hand, a fake scientist is always ready to spearhead one extreme proposition or another, sometimes just to conceal the fact that he does not really know much of what needs to be known on the matter. Such “scientists” are very convenient to be used as active promoters of whatever scientifically disguised extremist views and ideas that the society is being inculcated with now. As it is well known, the best way to educate the society in general is by introducing the novel, revolutionary ideas to students in central universities. When those students graduate, they have the inculcated patterns of thought and behavior firmwared into their brains for good. They then become the chief agents of change in the society in general.
These days, the principal myth that is being implanted into the public psyche is that of the irrelevance of the organized religion and religious thought (faith) in our times. Hence is the populist debate between faith and science. The superficial, populist, and sensationalist nature of Mr. Dawkins’ statements regarding the relationship of religious and scientific ideas, as well as his opinionated speeches on faith and knowledge in general, can make good impression on the minds of the universities’ sophomores but are usually met with criticism in science circles. This has been true since the “The Selfish Gene”, a book that takes a gene-centered view of evolution by Richard Dawkins, was published in 1976.
There is every evidence that Christian faith, in the same way like scientific beliefs, is based upon certain pieces of evidence, but people like Richard Dawkins are not likely to bother to consider those pieces of evidence, for they are generally not used to expertly and responsibly work with any evidence as a true researcher. They can juggle scientific data and drop impressive figures and names in order to associate themselves with scientific research and certain prominent scientists, but they themselves are not credible as scientists.
The relationship between various religious beliefs and between Christian creed in particular and contemporary scientific views of the world is a hot topic these days. Many systems of beliefs -- nationalist, capitalist, humanist, etc. -- have come under fire recently as the world witnessed dramatic global geopolitical changes of the past decades. Since the inspiration to delve into these highly controversial issues once again has come from Mr. Richard Dawkins’ own statements during his interview at the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on September 24, 2013, I decided to begin with the personality of Mr. Dawkins, whose name became a byword for ruthless skepticism, aggressive intellectualism, relentless atheism, and popular scientism.
Mr. Dawkins is a well-known public figure, who has been presented to us as an evolutionary biologist of some sorts and a controversial atheist. He is an ethologist, to be exact. While studying zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, Mr Dawkins was tutored by Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen. He graduated in 1962 and continued as a research student under Tinbergen's supervision, receiving his M.A. and D.Phil. degrees by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year. Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behavior, particularly in the areas of instinct, learning and choice. Mr. Dawkins's research in that period allegedly concerned models of animal decision-making.
From 1967 to 1969, he was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. After becoming heavily involved in the anti-war demonstrations and activities Mr. Dawkins returned to the University of Oxford in 1970, taking a position as a lecturer. In 1990, he became a reader in zoology. It appears that Mr. Dawkins’ activity as a scientist continued until the mid-1990s but he must have been not very successful in his scientific research. He did not make any breakthrough scientific discoveries, did not carry out any significant experiments in his field of study, nor did he write any prominent paper to ascertain his position as a lead specialist in ethology. At least no such papers of his own scientific research during his years at the University of California at Berkeley or at Oxford University can be found on the Internet.
The lack of open science papers by Mr. Dawkins as well as the strange path of his career as a fellow and lecturer at Oxford is attributed largely to an unexpected turn his life took in 1973, when a serious strike in Britain caused prolonged electricity cuts, and he was allegedly forced to pause his computer-based research. More likely, Mr. Dawkins had never been keen on actively engaging himself in the dirty work of proper scientific research, experiment, and analysis. Even now, by looking at him, one can hardly imagine Mr. Dawkins ever toiling in his study like an ordinary lab rat.
He never was an enthusiastic scientist eager to engage in field research or experimentation in his major area of expertise, i.e. ethology. Without achieving anywhere higher than a research assistant in his own scientific aspirations, Mr. Dawkins nevertheless taught zoology at the University of California at Berkeley and at Oxford University. However mediocre it sounds, but, professionally, Mr. Dawkins was and still remains, technically speaking, a teacher and a lecturer, but not a scientist proper.
He has not distinguished himself with any scientific endeavor or discovery, nor has he made himself an authority of any kind in the world of natural sciences. He was a brilliant, impassioned, articulate, and, at times, cynically impolite debater, which made him popular among his students and fellow teaching colleagues. He compensated the lack of his scientific achievements with his passionate and charismatic dialogs and lecturing, his expressed devotion to scientific method, and his religious belief in science in general. He did not write research papers of his own, but he was ingenious in introducing other scientists’ writings to a wider audience. Richard Dawkins had everything it took to be a devout, and even fanatical, proponent of scientism.
Certainly, such skills of Mr. Dawkins could not have gone unnoticed for too long in places like Oxford. In 1995, he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field", and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins.
An evolutionary biologist and acknowledged controversial atheist, who could easily spur public debate, Richard Dawkins now became officially recognized as a talented speaker and blessed to go on his own offensive against religion in general and Christian “anti-scientific” beliefs in particular. From now on, Mr. Dawkins was, so to speak, officially freed from the need to pursue his own proper scientific career, which is normally based on loads of dirty work in field research and analysis, and instead focus solely on doing the work of a publicist, promoting scientific methodology and fighting against religious dogma, particularly that of Christianity.
That is why, even though he studied and taught zoology, there is no evidence of purely scientific activity or any scientific papers by Mr. Dawkins. Courtesy of his friends and tutors, Richard Dawkins managed to become a “scientist” without actually doing any science proper. What he has been doing ever since he became a lecturer at Oxford back in 1970 was popularize science and debate against religious faiths, including through his literary activity.
However, he would have never become “Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford” unless he was going to go much farther than merely promoting scientific approach and popularize certain scientific ideas. He was to advocate aggressive popular scientism, taking an aggressive populist stance against religion in general and Christianity in particular. His personal approach borders on nearly fanatical religious belief that “the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other inquiry”. It makes Dawkins look pretty much like a small town teacher, who is bent on fighting religion left and right in the name of science. However, it takes more than mere religious fanaticism of a naturalist, who failed to become a real scientist, to turn into a major promoter of scientism in the world.
Yes, Richard Dawkins became a scientismist! But he already was a natural public speaker and a talented debater. Thanks to his talents as an interlocutor, he became the world’s most celebrated scientismist of our times. His hardheaded stance against religion has garnered him special support and respect in certain circles, though. His career as a scientist has remained where he had left it long ago back in the 1970s, after he initially had abandoned his scientific research. His career of a social critic began later on in the 1990s, when he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford.
That is very important to note that Dawkins’ quest is in not against “irrational” religious belief but ultimately against religious thought, against theological thought, and ultimately against organized religion itself. The religious thought is in no way opposed to natural sciences but promotes scientific thinking, as Christian monotheistic thought had initially given decisive impetus to brave scientific journey into the heart and soul of nature. As Albert Einstein noted, all religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. There is nothing rational about cutting off any of those branches and turning others into objects of worship or persecution. Religious thought has produced faith as a consistent approach to greater things; in the same way, scientific thought has been giving us grounds to have faith in certain things we have not come to understand yet.
There have always been things beyond contemporary human understanding. Natural sciences have taken over the lead in our exploration of the universe. Religious faith has not lost its relevance as long as natural sciences have yet things to discover. The two – religious discourse and scientific inquiry – work hand in hand and without each other they cannot exist. Where religious dimension becomes ousted and neglected, science is abused in favor of pseudoscience and mere abuse of data and misinformation become a norm in a society without Christian religious outlook. On the other hand, in a true Christian society, scientific approach grows naturally out of contemplating the natural realm in search of the meaning that mysterious creator had put in there from the beginning.
In the absence of Christian religious outlook, any society as a closed system fails to properly deal with information and tends toward entropy. Without the organizing effect of Christian thought on social processes, natural sciences could become corrupted and eventually cease to exist as sciences at all. They become destruction instruments in the hands of people, who are beset by their own irrational self-destructive tendencies. That is the danger of scientism.
A society immersed in scientism is doomed to destruction as a mere closed social system, devoid of harmonizing effect of a certain monistic principle. That monistic principle is reflected in Christian dogma in a way we cannot fully comprehend yet, it seems. However, it provides us with guidelines of behavior that reflect the effect of that monistic principle, which it produces on such closed systems as human social group, be that a small community of remote village dwellers, an island nation, or a global civilization. In any case, in the absence of external space for expansionary growth, which we, as members of separate smaller social systems, are, so far, lucky to enjoy regardless of other individuals’ suffering and destruction, a closed system of human social group is bound to implode, unless there is an avenue of introducing the effects of that universal underlying principle. Christianity has provided such an avenue, through which was introduced the monistic principle of sustainable existence of a closed social system such as a religious community.
The religious community, as a closed social system, has the capacity to overcome natural entropy. Christian community has changed the world by opening human mind to scientific empirical and experimental approach toward natural world. Therefore, Christianity, as a social and cultural model, has served us as a foundation to our sustained social evolvement and to our scientific exploration of the natural resources. Although we have not yet fully grasped the monistic element of Christianity as a modifier of our existence both as a sound personality for independent individuals and as a united social body of humanity, but thanks to the early Christian religious thought, we have been able so far to enjoy the fruits and briers of the natural sciences.
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