More Free Publicity For Dawkins
Say what ye will about Dawkins, and there are a lot of criticisms that can be made, but then read this paragraph (from an interview in Salon). I think it is quite brilliant.
What about the old adage that science deals with the "how" questions and religion deals with the "why" questions?
I think that's remarkably stupid, if I may say so. What on earth is a "why" question? There are "why" questions that mean something in a Darwinian world. We say, why do birds have wings? To fly with. And that's a Darwinian translation of the evolutionary process whereby the birds that had wings survived better than the birds without. They don't mean that, though. They mean "why" in a deliberate, purposeful sense. So when you say religion deals with "why" questions, that begs the entire question that we're arguing about. Those of us who don't believe in religion -- supernatural religion -- would say there is no such thing as a "why" question in that sense. Now, the mere fact that you can frame an English sentence beginning with the word "why" does not mean that English sentence should receive an answer. I could say, why are unicorns hollow? That appears to mean something, but it doesn't deserve an answer.
Right! Right! The framing of such a question presupposes too much information that is still up for grabs. It's like, "So when did you stop beating your wife?" The "why" questions about the meaning or purpose of life presuppose that there is a meaning or purpose. You can't ask the "why" question until you figure out what "what" question is - "Is there a purpose to life?" But that in itself is an unanswerable, ergo the "why" question is unaskable!
What do you kids think?
What about the old adage that science deals with the "how" questions and religion deals with the "why" questions?
I think that's remarkably stupid, if I may say so. What on earth is a "why" question? There are "why" questions that mean something in a Darwinian world. We say, why do birds have wings? To fly with. And that's a Darwinian translation of the evolutionary process whereby the birds that had wings survived better than the birds without. They don't mean that, though. They mean "why" in a deliberate, purposeful sense. So when you say religion deals with "why" questions, that begs the entire question that we're arguing about. Those of us who don't believe in religion -- supernatural religion -- would say there is no such thing as a "why" question in that sense. Now, the mere fact that you can frame an English sentence beginning with the word "why" does not mean that English sentence should receive an answer. I could say, why are unicorns hollow? That appears to mean something, but it doesn't deserve an answer.
Right! Right! The framing of such a question presupposes too much information that is still up for grabs. It's like, "So when did you stop beating your wife?" The "why" questions about the meaning or purpose of life presuppose that there is a meaning or purpose. You can't ask the "why" question until you figure out what "what" question is - "Is there a purpose to life?" But that in itself is an unanswerable, ergo the "why" question is unaskable!
What do you kids think?
posted by Joolya at
9:41 AM
4 Comments:
I think Dawkins is spot on, just like he almost always is.
The "why" questions are covered by the humanities. We are human, after all. "Why do we care about science in the first place?" Answered by a combination of philosophy and history, as well as the hard social sciences. "Why are we religious?" Ditto.
As you scientists often argue, the existence of "God" is something scientists should be agnostic about, as it lies in a realm beyond experience. If you think all your philosophical and existential questions can be answered by science, as Dawkins seems to do, then you believe in "scientism."
But these more existential "why" questions - as in "why are we here?" and "does life have a purpose" - I think these are answered by a search of yourself and careful, private questioning. The universalist religions or forms of enquiry, like Christianity or Islam or science, don't work so well. This is why Karen Armstrong is so amazing, because she asks us to think critically about different religious traditions without debunking them or calling them "evil", as Dawkins does, which, frankly, is silly.
There should be a distinction between the literal meaning of that adage - which Dawkin chooses to take- and the meaning that most English speakers would take from it. It seems stubborn - and, as springy puts it, is an attitude born of "scientism." The most the biological and chemical sciences will ever be able to tell us is "this is how we think evolution happened."
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