Dawkins on Evolution and Design
Early this summer, I finished a book by Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, which is in general an excellent account of the theory of evolution. However, Dawkins makes the further claim that the book is not intended to be merely a justification of evolution, but an argument that evolution proves that the world is one without design. It is this second claim that I find objectionable. It may be that evolution does not provide evidence of design. But before reading the book, I could not see how it could possibly falsify a theory of design.
As it turns out, Dawkin's argument against design, like most of his anti-theistic arguments, is an old and familiar one. (Cf. p. 141 of the 1996 paperback ed.) He argues that God cannot possibly exist, because there is no possible explanation for his existence. This is a variation on an old objection to a theistic argument. Going back to Aristotle, a common argument for the existence of God was a causal argument. Put simply, it went like this:
1. The Universe exists.
2. Everything that exists has a cause.
3. Therefore, the universe must have a cause.
4. This cause is God.
Dawkins, like many others, objects that by this argument, God must have a cause. But nothing can cause God (evolution can't do it, we don't know any other means for generating creatures, and God couldn't be created/developed by anything else anyway).
Now, there's an easy answer for this: God is his own cause. Put a little bit more complexly, the reason for God's existence lies within his own essence. Or, one other way, God just isn't the sort of thing that requires an external explanation. If there is such a thing as God, we would expect him to be the sort of thing that isn't explained by something outside of himself. He's not like a watch, where we expect there to be a designer. If I may be a bit poetic, he is not a fact to be explained, he is Fact itself. This is just the sort of thing we should expect, if there was a God.
The funny thing is that Dawkins himself makes a very similar argument. Later in the book, (Cf. p. 229) he is discussing gaps in evolution, and talking about the way in which the difference between 'punctuated equilbriuumists' and standard evolutionists is much smaller than the difference between either of these and the strict creationist. One major gap he notes is that before the Cambrian strata. He talks about how this has been a delight to creationists, who point to this as a reason to believe that the fossils were just put there, with no preliminary forms. What's Dawkins' response? That this is just the sort of thing we should expect, were the theory of evolution true.
As it turns out, Dawkin's argument against design, like most of his anti-theistic arguments, is an old and familiar one. (Cf. p. 141 of the 1996 paperback ed.) He argues that God cannot possibly exist, because there is no possible explanation for his existence. This is a variation on an old objection to a theistic argument. Going back to Aristotle, a common argument for the existence of God was a causal argument. Put simply, it went like this:
1. The Universe exists.
2. Everything that exists has a cause.
3. Therefore, the universe must have a cause.
4. This cause is God.
Dawkins, like many others, objects that by this argument, God must have a cause. But nothing can cause God (evolution can't do it, we don't know any other means for generating creatures, and God couldn't be created/developed by anything else anyway).
Now, there's an easy answer for this: God is his own cause. Put a little bit more complexly, the reason for God's existence lies within his own essence. Or, one other way, God just isn't the sort of thing that requires an external explanation. If there is such a thing as God, we would expect him to be the sort of thing that isn't explained by something outside of himself. He's not like a watch, where we expect there to be a designer. If I may be a bit poetic, he is not a fact to be explained, he is Fact itself. This is just the sort of thing we should expect, if there was a God.
The funny thing is that Dawkins himself makes a very similar argument. Later in the book, (Cf. p. 229) he is discussing gaps in evolution, and talking about the way in which the difference between 'punctuated equilbriuumists' and standard evolutionists is much smaller than the difference between either of these and the strict creationist. One major gap he notes is that before the Cambrian strata. He talks about how this has been a delight to creationists, who point to this as a reason to believe that the fossils were just put there, with no preliminary forms. What's Dawkins' response? That this is just the sort of thing we should expect, were the theory of evolution true.
posted by Mad Jurist at 5:51 PM
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