Dawkins on Darwin, now on C4+1 if you missed it...

[Schmetterling]

I studied Philosophy of Religion for a while and the lecturer was deliciously jealous of Dawkins; which, of course, he would always deny. Once he actually said 'Anyway, he is not even that good looking!'
We took great pleasure in signing his Christmas card: Love, Richard Dawkins.
Just thought I'd share that and bring nothing to the discussion.

 

[danny la rouge]

I studied Philosophy of Religion for a while and the lecturer was deliciously jealous of Dawkins; which, of course, he would always deny. Once he actually said 'Anyway, he is not even that good looking!'
We took great pleasure in signing his Christmas card: Love, Richard Dawkins.
Just thought I'd share that and bring nothing to the discussion.

Brilliant.

 

[baldrick]

Which is kind of the problem with the title, really. Many people can't see past the metaphor. Which is Steve Jones' point.

True. But he is a pop-science writer.

How many people would have bought a book called "Kin Selection and the Origins of Altruism"?

The Selfish Gene was the first Dawkins book I ever read. When I was 17, the title caught my attention in a bookshop and I bought it. Since then i've read almost everything else he's written and been introduced through that to many other writers like Gould, Maynard Smith etc

It's possible that may never have happened if not for the title

 

[SpookyFrank]

See that's one of the things about Dawkins that also irritate, he uses terms like the 'selfish' gene, which in my opinion is unessesary anthropomorphism.

At the level of genes there is no 'self' to be selfish, there is only information, and it's persistance or overwise. It's as if he's more interested in mirroring religion than he is in ignoring it for something far more interesting, that is- the way the stuff actually works as opposed to lots of emotive assertions that try to force observed phenomona into human terms.

My sentiments exactly. Dawkins is good but I prefer writers like Richard Lewontin and the late, great Stephen Jay Gould who argue strongly against 'social Darwinism' and similar concepts. Lewontin's book 'Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA' is excellent if anyone's interested in this sort of stuff and finds Dawkins a little too preachy.

 

[danny la rouge]

True. But he is a pop-science writer.

Absolutely. And that's the point about the programme, too. However, I do think pop science writers should take care over their metaphors. And since Dawkins levels just that criticism at Gould, perhaps it's one he can legitimately be called to heed himself.

 

[N_igma]

there are state schools using Creationist materials in science lessons.

Really? I had 14 years of state Catholic education and Creationism wasn't mentioned once.

 

[danny la rouge]

Really? I had 14 years of state Catholic education and Creationism wasn't mentioned once.

Aye, but where and when?

Funnily enough, I was reading something a few weeks ago suggesting that Catholic schools in Scotland anyway - perhaps mindful of the PR tripwires - are better than "non denominational" state schools in this respect.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

On an international level at least, providing the strategy and the money, the people pushing creationism in school science classes are mostly US fundies as far as I'm aware, and hence various sorts of protestants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy - an overview of the basic strategy (use some psudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo called 'Intelligent Design' to insist that 'alternative theories' to evolution be taught.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2006/nov/27/schools.uk1 - journalists account of the relationship between 'Truth in Science' (the people pushing this in the UK) and the Discovery Institute (the US fundies)

Basically what we're talking about here is a well-funded and organised effort at what you might call 'cultural engineering' by people on the religious end of the US right which is now polluting British as well as US schools.

 

[N_igma]

Aye, but where and when?

Ireland and finished school in 2005. All of our religious classes focused on the Gospels and Jesus, we even had a few semesters looking at world religions. Not what you would expect from a Catholic school that was in effect, run by priests.

 

[danny la rouge]

On an international level at least, providing the strategy and the money, the people pushing creationism in school science classes are mostly US fundies as far as I'm aware, and hence various sorts of protestants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy

Indeed, although that doesn't explain the take-up of Creationist materials in UK state schools; it would seem that Scottish Catholic schools are less susceptible than their "non denominational" counterparts.

 

[d.a.s.h]

My own theory for the emphasis being on Charles Darwin is it allows the ideas to be presented as a very English success - until Darwin brought together all previous ideas on the subject, added his experiences and the important additional idea of Natural Selection, it wasn't an English story.

Not an exclusively English story no, but many of those who had important influences on Darwin were English: Whewell, Herschel, Malthus and others. Like it or not - and you probably don't like it - the development of evolutionary biology was a very English success.

One book by Marek Kohn charts the subsequent development of evolutionary biology: A Reason for Everything: Natural Selection and the English Imagination.

Yet, the record demonstrates that Darwin's Britain, after sprouting the two men, Darwin and Albert Russel Wallace, who spawned the idea, continued to produce the greatest thinkers on issues of evolution by natural selection. Kohn isn't the first to note this fact. [. . .] He explains how a string of scholars enhanced and explained how natural selection works and why the focus remained in England. No other single nation came close to matching this record.

http://www.amazon.com/Reason-Everything-Natural-Selection-Imagination/dp/0571223923

Kohn is a superb science writer and having studied biology under John Maynard Smith, knows what he's talking about. It's an excellent book.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Indeed, although that doesn't explain the take-up of Creationist materials in UK state schools; it would seem that Scottish Catholic schools are less susceptible than their "non denominational" counterparts.

I suspect that the take-up relates to a couple of things, the US creationist Wedge strategy and copious associated propaganda materials are already available, so it doesn't take much extra effort to make them available in the UK.

That just requires a few religious loons willing to push these ideas and an environment where nobody is stopping them from doing so. The former is easy enough and it doesn't take many of them to be effective when the strategy and materials are effectively free. The latter, I suspect, is something that nuLabour allowed/encouraged to happen. Partly for economic reasons (get some private funding for education) and partly because several key nuLabour figures are themselves religious loons.

 

[kyser_soze]

Was good to see him mention Lyall at the start of the show, a bit of a favourite chap of mine cos he was one of the first people to think about plate tectonics, a theory that wasn't recognised as fact until the 1970s, but whose grasp of the time scales involved in the existance of rocks gave Darwin the temporal 'space' to argue for natural selection...

 

[poului]

8y79ujp

Much better episode this evening.

 

[kyser_soze]

Nutsack, I missed it. Will have to try that 4OD service if I can't find it on UKNova...

 

[danny la rouge]

Very good. Except that (as noted before), he has to do extra explaining because 30 odd years ago he chose a particular phrase as a metaphor: the selfish gene.

It was that phrase which put him at odds with the primatologist (with whom he otherwise agreed).

And at the end of the programme, it was because of that phrase that he ended up saying something along the lines of that we can use our evolved consciousness to work against our selfish genes, when in fact he had adequately explained how it was those "selfish genes" which had ensured we evolved altruism.

But he's stuck with it now.

 

[danny la rouge]

Nutsack, I missed it. Will have to try that 4OD service if I can't find it on UKNova...

There's certain posters in a forum below this one who should really watch tonight's episode.