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From The Sunday Times
August 5, 2007
The gullible age
Richard Dawkins’s book The God Delusion sold a million copies. In a new and hilarious onslaught he pits hard science against astrology, tarot, psychics, homeopathy and other ‘gullibiligy'
They sang about it back in the 1960s, taking their clothes off on stage and extolling “mystic crystal revelation and the mind’s true liberation”. Few back then dared hope that their new age would one day be a broad enough church to embrace the heir to the throne and the wife of a prime minister. Cherie Blair has worn Mexican “bio-electric shield” pendants, Prince Charles endorses alternative medicine, and those hallowed shrines of capitalist consumer-ism Selfridges and Harrods host the Psychic Sisters mediums.
Even modern global oil corporations have used dowsers to search for deposits But now Richard Dawkins, the man who told you that God was not only dead but had all along been a bogeyman invented by bogeymen, has levelled his sights at the whole new age caravanserai, including astrologers, spirit mediums, faith healers and homeopathic medicine. Is it high noon for the Age of Aquarius? It is the believers in Aquarius (and Leo and Taurus and Pisces) who attract the first body blow in Dawkins’s new Channel 4 series The Enemies of Reason, which begins next week.
Dawkins is horrified that 25% of the British public has some belief in astrology – more than in any one established religion – and that more newspaper column inches are devoted to horoscopes than to science. Leaning back on a sofa in the faded gothic splendour of Oxford’s 14th century New College he sighs with something approaching despair: “It belittles our universe. To have astrologers demeaning astronomy by tapping into the spine-tingling wonder of the universe is . . .” he struggles briefly for a word, then finds one and pronounces it with a keen awareness of the irony: “Sacrilegious!”
For Dawkins, of course, science is a religion, at least in the sense that it is something he fiercely believes in, a belief system that insists its dogma stand up to rigorous “double blind” experimental testing and rejects anything that fails. Those who refuse to put their beliefs to any test, he suggests, do so because they instinctively know they will fail. He gives short shrift to the astrologer Neil Spencer’s refusal to explain his “art” beyond claiming it to be a “deep dark mystery”. He has more sympathy, though only just, for a group of dowsers attempting to find one canister containing water amid 11 containing sand.
The results are no better than the law of averages – or pure guesswork – leaving one woman close to tears, devastated by the apparent disappearance of her powers.
“I don’t enjoy dashing people’s lifetime careers, but if their careers are based on claims that are simply wrong . . .” he lets the sentence tail off, implying a good dashing is what they deserve. Not that it does much good. In most cases he has discovered both practitioners and believers immediately invent reasons why the experiment was flawed or a fluke to keep their faith. “The forgivingness of the gullible is amazing,” he says.
The closest he can come to sympathy is to quote the British-Brazilian Nobel prize winner Peter Medawar’s dismissal of the Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s confused teaching on evolution: “He can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others he took great pains to deceive himself.”
But the real scorn, and I can almost detect a tinge of repressed involuntary hatred beneath his unfailingly polite exterior, falls on spirit mediums, whom Dawkins clearly believes to be little better than confidence tricksters feeding on the emotionally insecure or damaged. At a new age “trade fair” featured in the first episode of his series we hear Simon Goodfellow, a Midlands card reader, tell him he should prepare for a change in his life. But hinting at retirement to a man in his sixties is hardly a miracle of divination.
Goodfellow, obviously struggling to find something that strikes a chord with this seemingly mild-mannered elderly gentleman in front of him, tries to get a reaction for “a male relative with a G”, possibly who has “served in the armed forces” – again hardly a wild guess for a man of Dawkins’s age and class, except that he is barking up the wrong family tree. “No, nobody in my family involved in the military at all,” is the glacially polite reply. Goodfellow, obviously wishing he had predicted his own ill-fortune for the day, makes a final stab at a “female with E”, only to fail equally abysmally. Dawkins refers to the skilled television illusionist and “mind reader” Derren Brown, a master of “cold reading” (and explaining it afterwards) who takes hints and clues from the person or audience, then plays on the reaction, drawing inferences and using basic psychology so that in many cases the person being “read” provides most of the information.
More often than not the “reader” simply offers a variety of obvious routes for them to go down: when he sees someone fighting emotion or close to tears he can say with phoney sincerity: “I’m sensing tragedy here, a death, maybe quite recent.” Dawkins says of the mediums: “These are people making money out of others’ grief.” He is unwilling to see much moral difference between show business types who perform in front of an audience for profit and the spiritualist leaders who conduct essentially similar “services” in so-called churches.
It is not hard to see this as a grey area where new age beliefs and superstitions blend with the old established religions. Have lucky charms and incantations simply supplanted rosaries and Hail Marys? Is there much essential difference between a spiritualist preacher communing with the other side and a priest praying to saints for divine intercession? For Dawkins the traditional religious – or indeed superstitious – defence, that the very concept of belief requires you to make a leap beyond the available evidence, is an insult to human intelligence. But what annoys him most is the people who take chunks of scientific language and blend it into “their own mumbo-jumbo”. A woman in Glastonbury (where else?) claimed to have “altered his DNA” back to its original “Atlantean” structure by inserting the “missing triangles”.
Dawkins has yet to feel any effect, he says with a smile before adding dismissively: “Of course, it’s complete and utter rubbish. DNA is a spiral helix. There are no triangles involved.” There is a world-weary incredulity in his voice when he asks me: “Did you see her face? Do you think these people really believe it?” I have to admit that I suspect they do, although faced with Dawkins’s searching intellectual gaze, more than one of his interviewees seems forced into what looks suspiciously like a smile of mild embarrassment.
He has not yet caught up with the BBC’s imported blockbuster Heroes, in which a twist in DNA in certain individuals brings on mutations that give superpowers, a hugely successful television fantasy piggybacking on what I suggest is a modern trend towards “wistful thinking”. “I very much like that science fiction style of imagination which breaks out of the box and imagines things that could be true,” he says, but he is no fan of that which takes the science out of the fiction. Obviously not a great television viewer, he also performed the minor miracle of altogether missing The X Files, although he approved of setting the sceptical Agent Scully against the paranormal proselytiser Mulder.
As far as Dawkins is concerned the truth is indeed out there, but too many of us are looking in the wrong direction. I put it to him that his assertion that these unverifiable beliefs “undermine our civilisation” flies in the face of the importance of richness of myth and religious belief to our artistic and cultural inheritance. His answer is straightforward: “I suppose that’s an aesthetic judge-ment.”
For him there is little more glorious than pure knowledge. “I regard the current backlash against science as a betrayal of the Enlightenment.” He deplores the slide in science in British universities. Could it simply be that modern science is too hard for most people, and that superstition and religion have always been a way in which the wonders and vicissitudes of the natural world have been made accessible to the masses? I can see it does not come easy for Dawkins to sympathise with the truly ignorant. “That shouldn’t be a licence to lie. The universe doesn’t owe us justice,” he says. “If people are down on their luck, there’s no reason why that should change. There’s no reason for people like Hitler and Stalin to get their comeuppance, much as we might like them to. “I shouldn’t want people to behave in a particular way on account of a lie, though I expect some politicians would. Tony Benn, for example. I don’t think he’d care whether something is true or not – just whether or not it benefits humanity.”
I suggest that is more or less classic Marxism, and perhaps where it comes closer to humanism. But this is one area where Dawkins would have more in common with the Romantic poet John Keats’s “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”, though they might have to argue a bit about the definitions.
A man who holds no truck with established religion is unsurpris-ingly unlikely to have much good to say about Scientology, which purports to use scientific tools such as its controversial “E-meter”. “It’s purely made-up. It just taps into some ‘gullibiligy’. They find some film star or somebody like Tom Cruise or whatever his name is who’s thick as two short planks and he becomes a sort of advertisement.”
But he has more scorn for the likes of Deepak Cho-pra, the Indian who has written bestsellers with titles such as Quantum Healing, which Dawkins says suggest some spurious linkage between spirituality and cutting edge science. “There is much about quantum theory that sounds almost mystical,” he is willing to admit. “Much of it is indeed still plain mystery, but its predictions are stunningly accurate.”
What matters is not to use fuzzy references to verifiable scientific theory in order to accrue credibility. Is it also the backlash against science that has delayed appreciation of the true risks of global warming? Dawkins has no doubts about the evidence, and drives a hybrid Toyota Prius, one of the first imported into the country – its dashboard displays are in Japanese – proudly pointing out the indicator that shows when it is running on electric power only. Among the dangers of the revolt against conventional science he cites the widespread rejection of the MMR vaccine after Andrew Wakefield’s now discredited report claiming a link to autism.
As Dawkins says: “There might be bad scientists, but that does not mean the methodology of science is bad.” For him the acid test is forever and always: “Test it!” This is a principle totally lacking, he charges, at the Royal London Homeopathic hospital, recently refurbished to the tune of £20m, including £10m from the cash-strapped NHS, and with a plaque certifying the endorsement of the Prince of Wales. (His title for episode two of The Enemies of Reason is The Irrational Health Service.) What is undisputed is that homeopathy derived from an early misunderstanding of the principle behind vaccination: that like cures like.
But actually a real vaccine stimulates the body’s own immune system to fight the disease. What makes homeopathy so truly absurd in Dawkins’s inexorable logic is the idea that a substance becomes more powerful the more it is diluted. The idea, widely believed though totally unproven, is that water retains a “memory” of the molecule, though if it did he points out – as the people of Gloucester might nowadays bear in mind – it would also “remember” the salt, mud and urine it once contained. He cites the statistical probability that “one molecule in every litre of water drunk once passed through the bladder of Oliver Cromwell”. Hardly reassuring for royalists.
“I say to doctors who use homeopathy: if you can identify this you’d have discovered a whole new force in physics. Either there is no effect, in which case you shouldn’t be charging people money, or there is an effect, in which case you should prove it and win the Nobel prize.”
The fact that homeopathic doctors and patients do claim there is a benefit he puts down to the human body’s power to restore itself when given the psychological boost of someone else’s concentrated concern and attention: the average half hour to an hour, rather than the typical eight-minute NHS GP consultation. “There was a time when old-fash-ioned family doctors used to hand out placebos but now they aren’t allowed to because it’s against medical ethics. Now it’s only the homeopaths who are allowed to benefit from the placebo effect.
“Homeopathy started out about 200 years ago at a time when conventional medicine was considerably more dangerous. At least they weren’t applying leeches.” Dawkins insists that phenomena including religion, myths, superstition and science need to be seen in their historical context. He quotes the science fiction author Arthur C Clarke’s Third Law, “any significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.
“But you can’t simply reverse that and say that because it calls itself magic now it must be future science.”
He admits that applied science can be a process of trial and error, but insists that recognising the error is what makes the difference. His own hope would be that in 500 years’ time science will have advanced as far as it has in the past 500.
When I suggest that fundamental- ism in Islam – the culture that ironically kept scientific advance alive in the Middle Ages – and a revival of creationism among Christians could turn all that on his head, he closes his eyes and says with deep feeling: “A nightmare!”
The creationists can prepare for a rocky ride from Dawkins the year after next, which will be the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. “It’s going to be a big Darwin year,” he says with undisguised relish.
Dawkins doesn’t want to ban religion – “as long as it’s done between consenting adults in private”, he adds only half jokingly.
His ambition is to make people in the 21st century appreciate the world that modern science has given them, rather than rejecting it at the same time as taking its benefits for granted.
“I’m interested in consciousness- raising. In the same way that femi- nists now wouldn’t get worked up any more about the phrase ‘one woman, one vote’, because they’ve already made us think about the issue.”
He can certainly claim to have done that. His atheist treatise The God Delusion, now out in paper- back, has already sold more than 1m copies globally, though he admits he hadn’t thought of the possibility that a few people might have bought it to burn it.
He was bemused at one Christian journalist’s attempt to maintain that he secretly did harbour a belief in a supreme being. “I might have used the word ‘God’ in the same way Einstein did when he said ‘God doesn't play dice’: what he meant was that the universe couldn’t be different. He was arguing against Heisen- berg’s uncertainty principle.” It was one of the few arguments in which science eventually came down against Einstein.
Richard Dawkins can accept people’s longing for “something else” – miracles or an afterlife. He just wishes they would look in the proper places. “There is a certain nobility about facing up to the truth. There is something wonderful about understanding!”
Perhaps it’s what God gave us a brain for. Oh, dear . . .
The medium who found Dawkins’s father on the far side
When Dawkins consulted a medium who has appeared on daytime television and charges £50 for instant phone readings she said she could hear or see his father “on the other side”.
He did his best not to look surprised as she continued: “I’m aware of your father stood right behind you. “On a spiritual level he wasn’t the most openest man with his thoughts and his feelings. Ummm, I kind of want to say that I do love you and I do care – but that wouldn’t have been his character.” (Or that of many middle-class father figures of his generation, a sceptic might have said.)
But Dawkins let her continue. “I’m aware that you don’t have you dad’s photograph out” – it was true, he didn’t – “so I’m a little bit concerned why. So I’m going to ask you: why don’t you have it out?” Dawkins had a bombshell ready: “Well, he might be aware that I don’t have it out because he comes to the house about once a week.” “Oh, he’s still here,” she said, adding after a few seconds: “I don’t feel it’s working.”
“Is that because you thought my father is dead and discovered that he’s still alive?”
“No, nothing to do with that. I don’t know.”
She commented later: “As a clairvoyant you’re only as good as the client.”
The Enemies Of Reason starts on Channel 4 on August 13
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We need hundreds, thousands, no - a million Dawkins to keep up the good and oh so necessary work of combating the irrational in all its forms. Whether it's religious nonsense or pseudo-scientific alternative so-called medecin he is the person who best fights the good fight for plain truth against medieval superstition; alas so widespread in the world today. Lets hear it for Dr Dawkins, and may he continue his courageous struggle for many years to come.
Chris Eden, Paris, France
Francis Treuherz, London, England Wrote "sub-molecular dose" What does that mean? It seems very wooly! How much is it? How can an agent be sub molecular unless it is an atom? Then what not define for us what this atom is.
You are demonstrating the very thing Dawkins is talking about.
More learning and rigour please!
Andrew MacLeod, Oban, Scotland Argyll
Jerry Marshal your reply is utter diatribe! (Pityful!)
Please provide objective evidence of your "ultimate sources" Please also clarify what theism has ever explained? What selective empiricism exactly are you referring to? Other wise you are peddling dogma and supersition - and I suspect religeon (and all its negative corrolaries)
Andrew MacLeod, Oban, Scotland Argyll
We sure could use some more Dawkins down South in America. These yahoos believe almost anything as long as it's old enough. They're scared not to because it's not really about "religion" but more of a social phenomena and social pressure. You have to "have religion" or your out of the social circles, outcast and ostracized. Most of the SUV-driving evangelical types down here wear their religion on their sleeves anyway and crow about their sanctity at the top of their lungs to make sure everyone hears them; They wouldn't stop for one second to help a pregnant woman change a flat tire, but they would sure as hell break the law and run a red light as fast they could. Then they'd tell you you're going straight to hell for not loving Jesus!
People prefer to wear religion down here like British women wear stylish hats. Looks great out in public, but comes off the minute you're home.
Scott, Durham, NC, USA
A splendid series - it's too bad it was only two episodes. No, Dawkins' arguments are not infallible, but they are rooted in much more solid ground than the causes he challenges. His books cover these issues in greater depth than two short TV slots can do, but they were useful nonetheless. We need a great deal more programming like this.
Quentin, Cambridge, UK
Consistently Mr. Dawkins's conclusions betray his presuppositions, themselves the children of his selective empiricism and dismissive biases, among them the refusal to consider explanations emerging from ultimate sources, primarily that explained in theism. Meanwhile his tirades against superstition distract from genuine arguments based in reason. Such a waste.
Jerry, Marshall,
Indeed this is a gullible age... have you read the God Delusion? It is amazing what people will believe.
Andrew brown , Derby, UK
While Dawkins points out lot that is true bout dogma and unquestioned beliefs... He could go further and look at collective, cultural, national assumptions. I don't see why he needs to condemn others for unconscious thinking.
Ironically the process of uncovering the false eventually leads to a clarity that is spiritual, whole and beyond mechanistic and dualistic thinking. This Dawkins has yet to understand. He would be very surprised if he read spiritual teachings by J Krishnamurti, Eckhart Tolle, Ken Wilber and Prof David Bohm (the quantum physicist who worked with Einstein and became one of the most cutting edge) (for example) because their are many parallels with Dawkins.
Maybe he would open his mind and go beyond his current fixed position that he holds onto. By understanding what is false one can go beyond ones own limited understanding. Although Dawkins contribution is helpful in highlighting the falsness of belief systems it is also destructive because it has become personal and is trying to protect his own beliefs. He has become his enemy as all those who go on a crusade do. Dawkins would learn a lot from the people I have mentioned if he could see beyond is limited conceptual reality.
james, London, UK
Also, the belief in empirical evidence is pretty much un-testable J because of the observer and observed principle. Where the observer changes that which he observed and therefore nothing can be objectified. Modern physics show that matter acts more like a conscious, intelligent being than inanimate particles. If one looks beyond concepts of matter and observes the actuality of life then one will see that life is clearly a miracle and that (whatever word you like to use whether it be god) god is clearly the miracle and intelligence of life itself. Can life ever be truly known put into a concept? Does there need to be a concept? By not needing a why is going beyond belief, security by living in an utter unknowable mystery is true religiousness. To live in absolute mystery while one uses the intellect, as a utility to understand how seems to be what is necessary to go beyond ones conditioning.
james, London, UK
Toby from Cape Town hits the nail on the head: "He (Dawkin) seems to be saying that we shouldn't believe what can be proved to be wrong ... which is very different from saying that 'what we believe is wrong if it can't be proved".
This is the essence of what the great uneducated crystal swingers dont understand: Being a scientist doesn't close your mind to new theories but if it turns out that testing proves it wrong, you change your theory until it fits the FACTS,why are facts so uncool today?
What horrifies me is this fallacy that so many believe: "science cant explain this so there MUST be a spirtual/religious explanation which science will never be able to explain" How do they KNOW science wont explain these in the future?
My feeling is that because science is so advanced now it alienates them, it doesnt provide the "instant generation" with quick answers in the same way that mysticism and religion can.
All I can hope is that more scientists like Dawkins keep up the crusade!
Tom D, London, UK
I like Dawkins even though I personally think there's a God.
The big issue I have with him is his assertion that, because we cannot (yet) make sense of the universe it must therefore be random. We've only just started our voyage of scientific discovery - who knows what the future holds? This idea seems much more of a cop out than the belief our creation might have been intended. It may be, ironically, that science eventually brings us closer to God than we've ever been before!
Computers can process logic thousands, millions of times faster than men, yet which computer could have ceated the societies in which we now live? Imagination, hope and belief (including many which may seem/ have seemed, irrational) are integral parts of our being, have been hugely important in our advancement and shouldn't be denigrated.
john macdonald, aberdeen, uk
Another thing - it's really disturbing to read comments such as "scepticism and cold logic is the thing needed to advance humanity".
Hardly - a true sceptic would hardly be able to get out of bed. What's the point, after all? And how do you relate "cold logic" to something abstract like great art?.
In fact, seeing as existence begins and ends with the self a true sceptic might just decide one day to end it all.
Hope, imagination and belief have had enormous roles in human development, and will continue to do so.
institutions, laws founded upon religious morals have been intergral to creating an environment conducive to scientific discovery.
a mix of logic and imagination -that's what we need, that's what we've got. Any swing in one direction would be disastrous.
john, london, uk
Richard Hawkins comes from a 5 sense perception. You need to open your 6th sense to understand anything that is beyond what he calls reason.
Of course there are lots of fraudsters, then you get this in every area of life. Once upon a time people didn't believe in bacteria because they couldn't see it, we had to use our creativity to find a machine to show us. Once upon a time we believed that the world was flat, then people sailed around the world and discovered it was round and now we have pictures from outer space to show us the world is indeed round.
People can have all the evidence of something put in front of them and they still will not believe it. There are groups of people that still believe the world is flat and people that believe the landing on the moon was staged.
I know from my own experiences there is much more then our 5 senses perceive, as I have had the wonderful experience of the beyond.
Laura Lian, wells, somerset
Matt, read Unweaving The Rainbow, and you'll realise Dawkins positively soars with imaginative zest , intelligence, wit and spirit. He loves life, humanity and knowledge....................
Jack, newcastle,
great article and I can't wait for Dawkins show to be available in North America. We need more people like him saying enough is enough.
I live in a little recreational and retirement community that is rife with alternative wing nuts. We even had a doctor who tried to get Therapeutic Touch accepted as hospital based service the same way Physiotherapy or Podiatry is.
tim, BC, Canada
Why is Mr Dawkins so threatened by people creating their own reality?
Mr Dawkins would have been one of the herd of sheep to assert that the World was flat - based on all the evidence of that time.
Why is so dangerous for people to think and reason outside of their three dimensional, economic and politically enslaved lives? Are we just a bunch of soul-less matter that are socially engineered to basically consume and die like good animals do? Mr Dawkins seems to think that we should accept this version of reality , and anybody who does not is an enemy of reason.
Is is me, or does Mr Dawkins come across as an incredibly dull, boring, and unimaginative individual? Some people might want to create their own reality, and just because he can't do it without a science book and peer journal, doesn't mean those that have any faith in creating their own reality are dangerous people.
Matt, Kent,
May I, a 17 year old school student (agnostic Hindu) get something straight. Religion has absolutely nothing to do with "God. Heres a quote from the Oxford Dictionary:
Religion: ORIGIN originally in the sense life under monastic vows: from Latin religio ‘obligation, reverence’.
Those who constantly discrimnate against science as not being a religion or athiesm being a religion are CLEARLY wrong. Science can form communities that can have members following similar life-styles and beliefs, just as athiests do. Those who constantly force their religion in our face like many Xtians have done here with references to missionaries are extremists who cannot defend their position so have to attack any other religions that may prove to be a "better" religion (no religion is better, hence quotation marks).
V.W., London,
Here we go again.
Whilst I'm no new ager, I find it disturbing that so many seem to be in thrall to Richard Dawkins. He is eloquent with a nose for populism, but his arguments are, like those of his opponents, highly fallible.
I don't believe in anything new age, but science is in its infancy. Its explanation (including many he has described himself in his books) for our origins, or concepts such as love, good, evil or morality are incomplete (or, in the case of Good and evil, they don't exist) , yet we have Dawkins and a few others telling us that because the universe doesn't seem to make sense at this stage, it cannot. Almost all discovery, scientific or otherwise, has been based on a belief, a hunch, an instinct, so this obsession with the observable and the measurable is unimaginative, inhuman and, ultimately, dangerous.
If people want to spend money on their chakras then good for them - I don't see how it presents a danger to society.
john, london, uk
I had a look a this programm yesterday. I got what I expected: charming and courteous Dc Dawkings fighting against obscurantism...And of course, we had Dc Chris French around to test dowsers(probably Richard Wiseman or Susan Blackmore were busy, or on holyday.)..But, by the way , dowsers don't look for still water, but running water. And if they are just self-delusionned nutters, why do the police or the army carry on using them in various countries on this planet?I support what someone said here about homeopathy: do animals react to placebo?
Henri Schmitt, Cambridge, UK
What skepticism! The concerns about science and how it is always lacking the explanatory scope to deal with the Universe is the profound mysticism here. There is plenty that we don't know; and plenty that may never be knowable about the cosmos, but that does not mean that understanding resides in the simplicity of common myth. I disagree with the pessimistic attitudes displayed towards science with a passion, not through faith, but because of the overwhelming idea that as science cannot, as yet, explain a phenomena; the spiritual can. Doesn't it sounds so undeniably silly!?
Stuart Sarre, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire
In response to Mr John White of Malvern,it seems that your knowledge of physics, and evolution to boot, is highly questionable, if not facile. Whilst little is known about the origins of the universe, much is theoretically understood, that is not in question. What is, and possibly always will be, in question is the nature of the origin of time. It is widely accepted that time started at the Big Bang. However, as a sentient, thinking being how can you not incorporate this into your argument?Can you offer me some kind of indication of what a timeless existence is? A response to this may be " Well, nothing was there before the start of the universe!"In this case, explain nothingness with as much conviction and confidence as you, and the other contributors to this section, argue for the veracity of scientific truth.I am an atheist, but I believe that science is just a fitting model for the explicable, and can delve no more concisely into the mysteries of the universe than 'supernaturalism'
Thomas Harris, Paris, France
Richard may well be Pontiff of Science. But inference of infallibility by either side of the divide, does not withstand scrutiny. Scientific dismissal and scientific dogma are themselves sometimes separated by mere time. With this investigation the investigator might try standing further away from what he thinks he is seeing, and taking another look. Attempting to explain matters in a way which has meaning to him personally, rather than appreciating what is actually occurring, is precisely what the others are doing. With equally erroneous results.
alan thomas, high wycombe,
To Francis Treuhertz
On the point of Homeopathy i would make the comments that if it produces only a placebo effect why is it that vets have so much success with it.
Secondly if you accept the reality of placebo effect aren't you accepting mind -over-matter also!
Neil Coyle, Felixstowe, England
Your article says: "For Dawkins, of course, science is a religion" - such a comment reveals complete scientific illiteracy.
Really? Then you'll be good enough to tell me what happened just before the big bang in terms that arnt an article of faith? Or exactly how the first lifeforms emerged from inorganic matter that isnt a belief? "Science" is simply the religion of those over specialised to depend on their left brain, and reliance on Science alone as imblanced as reliance soley on imagination: both worlds would result in horrors, as all athiestic forms of goverment proved in the 20th century: but what does Dawkins say about Stalin? "oh he wasnt a proper athiest": Thats the opposame of "oh, he wasnt a true believer". Science claims knowledge, but in fact offers NO solutions to the needs of humanity, other than reducing the human being to a robot. William Blake pwned Issac Newton beautifully back in 1795 as obsessed by minutae so as to to be blind to wonder, true then: true now.
John White, malvern, worcs
I ceased being a theist when I was 8, I ceased being a deist when I was 12 and have since been a free-thinking atheist physicist. I am only 17 but cannot remember when I stopped believing in the "alternative" "science" (separate quotation marks) it was so long ago. How then can there be adults who are so stupid as to think themselves above all scientific findings, if a child can spot that it is claptrap? Though my mind is free from celestial totalitarianism, I try to free the minds of others, but it is disheartening to me and others who try to stamp out fundamentalism, when people who think that they are free thinkers worship pebbles and pieces of string. Bravo to Richard Dawkins for continuing his attack on from the religious to "New Age" morons.
Rohan Kandasamy, Bideford, Devon
Dr. Woodhouse,
Perhaps I am missing something but it seems to me that the questions you would pose to a materialist contain non sequiturs. Is a soul necessary for feeling pain? Physical pain is a useful sensation as a disincentive for acts that may injure the body and result in reduced reproductive fitness. Perhaps you are referring to psychological pain. I'm sure it has been conjectured that this is also useful from a purely materialistic perspective of ensuring group co-operation within related individuals.
You could possibly make a case for beauty, however why can it not be that this is a spin off effect of other psychological processes? To be sure a wonderful one but not sufficient to conclude there must be a soul or any other form of dualism involved.
There are many things in the world we do not understand still, but to make the leap that this requires supernatural explanation is faulty logic.
Darcy Cowan, Hamilton, New Zealand
Dawkins is right. It is a backlash against the Enlightenment.
The "God of the Gaps" is dead, and along with it has died the 400- year social compromise that held Western society together. Now we must either abandon science, abandon religion, or make up a new social contract that lets us know what we need to know while feeling what we want to feel.
Micheal C Planck, Tucson, AZ USA,
To Dr Martin Woodhouse
After 60 years you can only conclude that because you don't understand something it proves a belief in something immeasurable and unprovable? I sincerely hope you are not a doctor of medicine with that kind of outlook. You might try looking at the brain instead of a 'soul' for science that you can't comprehend. You might also contemplate the belief by some who take comfort in the idea of a human soul yet deny animals the same and wonder how both humans and animals can feel pain. Surely this contradicts your 'findings' of 60 years?
Richard Johson, Valletta, Malta
The world now needs atheist missionaries to tell these young potential suicide bombers "look! if you strap a bomb to yourself, there is nothing waiting for you after, no paradise! no virgins! Zilch !, Zero!, this it ! go and enjoy your life now". They should at least question the ' Old ' men who tell them to do it and why they are still here?.
Charles G, London, UK
To Krishna:
A very strange mixed bag of fantasy there. Firstly you deride science because they decided Pluto is not a planet. Without science Pluto wouldn't even have been discovered. You also claim that science is bad because some medicines have side effects. This is because scientific medicines actually 'do' something. Sugar and water has no effect on the body hence the reason alternative homeopathic medicine does not have side effects. This is not an alternative. If one medicine has been proven to make you better and another hasn't been proven to do anything at all which makes more sense to take? When people die because they listen to the woo-woo you seem to encompass and take medicines that don't do anything at all then it ceases to be a case of 'why can't people try alternatives' and becomes dangerous.
Richard Johnson, Valletta, Malta
I'm so glad that Richard Dawkins has taken the torch that was ignited by Carl Sagan. Skepticism, logic, rationality and science are the tools we need to advance humanity. The credulous and the gullible will always be victimized by those who purport extraordinary claims without any evidence to speak of save for their selfish assertions.
Joel, Edmonton, Canada, Alberta
To Francis Treuherz:
Homeopathy has been double-blind tested, and the results are no better than placebo effect. It has long been shown and known that homeopathy is merely fantasy plus placebo plus handwaving, for money.
A "proving" is not a valid test of homeopathy. In fact, homeopaths have no "scientific standard" proving of remedies! They have not agreed on standard protocols, dosages, or reporting. Most of their testing results are laughable, scientifically. Unlike "regular" medicines, which undergo batteries of mandatory, expensive, time-consuming, regulated testing.
The cure-rate for homeopathy is the same as doing nothing for the patient. The "millions of people who have been cured" would have recovered just as well without it. The great piles of "anecdotal evidence" are merely anecdotes, not evidence.
There is no such thing as "alternative" medicine, just medicine that works. And homeopathy is not medicine.
Dave Hawley, Sydney, Australia
I wish Dawkins would address some of the parapsychology studys conducted by Edwin C. May.. It seem these 'debunker' types like to ignore the most compelling evidence for psychic functioning and focus on easy targets.
John Black, nottingham,
Professor Dawkins is indeed a competent and charismatic scientist but -- as suggested here -- has not thought things through nearly well enough.
There are many persons of good heart who have become atheists for the reason Dawkins principally supports; namely, that if there's an all-good, all-knowing and all-powerful god, what's (s)he doing while children world-wide are dying not merely in abject poverty but never having experienced anything but misery in their short, painful, muck-ridden, starving lives?
That's a fair and sensible question. It 's also fair, though, to ask Dawkinsian materialists with no belief in a soul how they suppose that we -- as mere collections of molecules arranged in certain physical ways -- are capable of experiencing beauty, or, indeed, pain?
I think you will find (it's a matter I have studied for some sixty years) that they have no answer to this question and might be better employed seeking one than in taking pot-shots at easy targets.
Dr. Martin Woodhouse, Haslemere, SURREY, England
Onece again, three cheers for Professor Dawkins. The civilised world needs more people like him, not fewer.
AndyC, Rowlands Castle,
It appears that the author has tried to demolish every thing which has been beyond the authors comprehension. Take for instance the reference to the system of homoeopathy. Had the author read vast homoeopathic literature , had interacted with some out of lakhs of homoeopathic patients who had been cured a real picture would have emrged.
One should remember that Scienc is not everything in life because there are lot of things in the universe beyond the realm of scientific explanations. Till recently the scientists made the world believe that Pluto is a planet. Scientce created a diet faulty chart for infants which led to overfeeding of the babies since past forty years resulting in related disorders. The so called 'scientifically tested and clinically proven' medicines are found to be having side effects of sometimes dangerous dimensions. Then why the public be deprived of opportunities to try alternatives?.
Krishna, Bangalore, India
Marie-Louise, you must let the skeptics society know which extraordinary phenomena and premonitions are real, incontrovertible, irrefutable, miraculous, supernatural happenings, for they have yet to assess any that stand up in the cold light of day after scientific and logical examination.
bill, towoomba,
It seems to me only ONE SCIENTIFIC TEST need be achieved in order to provide the possibility of truth in ALL the various religious and psychic phenomena and beliefs. If scientists could prove that DISEMBODIED INTELLIGENCE exists (and I don't mean computers or any other technology), then all "irrationalisms" (and also believers' failures to
prove them) could be rationally deduced, extrapolated or explained from that single proven fact. This would still not provide scientific proof for every individual "irrationalism"; only the POSSIBILITY that there could be some truth in it.
Hanna Nyman, London, England
Laura Boston: "I do not see atheists risking their lives like religious missionaries"
You're not looking hard enough then. Plenty of atheists do such charitable work.
If third world campaigns to reduce AIDS infection is being undermined by events in the first world, eg USA Christian groups emphasising 'abstinence' campaigns over contraception education, then voices against irrationalism in the West is hugely important.
Andrew Ryan, London, UK
I just donated my Refrigerator to the Salvation Army and they didn't ask me my religion, and now they are going to claim my donation as an orthodox christian donation? That is typical evil christianity. I should have known.
Titus, Houston, Texas
Laura: "Is there a reason why atheists are not going out into poor parts of the world and actively evangelizing for rationality?"
They are; you just don't see it. I actively support rational-thinkers doing this, and I do a little myself to bring rational thinking to poorer places.
Perhaps you don't see this because it's done it under a banner of rationalism rather than one of atheism (the difference being rather subtle). Or perhaps you don't see it because it doesn't fit a christian mindset. Meanwhile, I have seen others - soi-disant christians - decide that it's more important to lecture the needy about god (and perhaps bribe them into curch with baubles and food) than it is to provide housing, education, health, &c.
Superstition is a problem, not a solution.
bob rayner, ipswich,
Christian Martin, If you read Dawkins books, he is certainly not arrogant, and speaks with a sense of wonder. How many of his books have you read? Or do you prefer to make statements about him based on ignorance? How arrogant is that!
bill, towoomba,
The God Delusion may have sold many copies but Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code sold infinitely more. And they even filmed it. I am not into holistic therapies myself but if people wish to indulge in them it's a free country and I really don't see why Dawkins has to poke his nose into every aspect of other people's lives. The man must be bored stiff in Oxford. Anyway there are extrordinary phenomena. Accurate premonitions and telepathy are well-known and well-documented - and scientifically inexplicable.
Marie-Louise, Brussels, Belgium
i believe everyone has a belief system, it may or may not be related to religion or soul. but i also believe that this is not be cause we have a soul but that we are predisposed by evolution to make meaningful theories of certainty in a world full of uncertainties. religion seems to be a parasite piggybacking on these vulnerabilities. looking thru facts, i don,t see any meanigful advantages being religious other certain surveys where religious people report being more happy. i often come across people who after some religious retreats, claim to have found happines .But to me, they still seem to be as tensed, as anxious and angry as they were previosly but believe they have found the elixir of happines.
alex, bangalore , india
There is a Hawa'ian saying ( and, for Mr. Dawkins edification, I will be happy to supply it in the original Hawa'ian language ), which states that "
" ALL KNOWLEDGE IS NOT TAUGHT IN ONE SCHOOL ".
Truly, Arrogance is worse than Ignorance.
Christian Martin, Lake Mary , Florida USA
With the demise of Pluto as a planet, has that caused astrologers to alter their prognostications, past, present and future?
Keith Birch, Hamilton Ontario, Canada
Unfortunately there are a lot of people who believe in quackery and superstition, and who weight chance happenings as "evidence" of some mysterious supernatural power acting within the universe. They need to read more science, maths and probability theory.
As has been said before: You can always fool some of the people some of the time.........and that's enough to make you rich! Unfortunately it seems to be a lot of people much of the time!
Steve and Mike, do you fall into this group, or maybe you just prefer ignorance to truth, or are you just thin skinned when home truths are pointed out.....?
bill, towoomba,
For those of you chastising Dawkins for driving a Prius, I believe he is acting on a principle best put forward by someone whom Dawkins would vehemently disagree on a great multitute of subjects, Ghandi when he said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." Most drivers of such cars, as do drivers of bio-diesel and other alternative fuel vehicles, do so as an act of solidarity, a signal to the rest of the world that they believe that driving a vehicle that uses less fossil fuel is a better idea that driving one that uses more. I doubt Dawkins, a reasonable man in the most literal sense of the word, thinks that driving a Prius is going to change the global climate. But doing so might change some minds, and that's all you can do, try to change the minds of others, through reason, truth and enlightenment, which is vastly different from the way many of Dawkins' detractors try to change the world, using hatred, fear, and mysticism.
Kyle B Doeden, Minneapolis, MN
Faith is not a set of beliefs but a state of being that enables us to live with life's uncertainties without constant fear and anxiety. Not all religions are based on beliefs, some like my own, Quakerism, are based upon experience of a forgotten part of our nature (spirit, soul, true self - call it what you may) something that was with us long before we developed language and reason. It's perhaps related to our powers of visual-spatial reasoning (pattern recognition, intuition). These operate within a continuum, not by a series of discrete variables (coarse pixels of the real picture) as is the case with language and formal logic, which provide poor models of reality. When we are spiritually uplifted by a beautiful landscape, the feeling lies beyond reason. It is not improved by some scientific explanation of why we perceive it as beautiful. The desire to explain everything is the biggest obstacle to spiritual development. Einstein understood these things - but he was very bright!
Bill Walley, Stafford, England
An interesting discussion board, with views ranging from the informed & open-minded to the incomprehensibly ignorant. On that note this forum is, of course for discussion, and varying opinions are expected. But why is it, what with the Times being a British newspaper, that no other topic than religion seems to elicit so many comments from the USA. This wouldn't be a problem except the opinions are so predictable, coming as no surprise at all from such an indoctrinated & confused people: 'one nation under God'.
Laura from Boston, how well intentioned is the Catholic church in it's protection of priests committing acts of paedophilia on children in the developing world? And to suggest that atheists or nontheists do not embrace charity or voluntary work in the third world is not just 'unenlightened' but insulting. Having said that I think that an apathetic atheist is preferable to the damage the Catholic church has done in Africa with the unwavering stance on contraception.
Tom, London,
It is very refreshing to read an article sympathetic to Dawkins, his arguments and rationality in general. So many profiles start with something along the lines of "Dawkins is supremely intelligent and forceful orator BUT..." and then proceed to chide him for appearing 'heartless', not 'understanding' his opponent's mumbo jumbo, or some such. Indeed it often appears that the writer will think it is somehow unfair to bring the weapons of logic and reason against such patent nonsense.
Regardless, I look forward to the new program. May Dawkins soon be known as Sir Richard!
Alex, Derbyshire, UK
It is right that Britain is the country within Europe where this debate is the fiercest. We are the most blatantly hypocritical; enjoying the fruits of science and technology whilst treating its practitioners as the new 'Untouchables'.
Peter, Oxford, UK
Dawkins provides a voice for the many people who are aghast at the way so many people live their lives spellbound by irrational belief in religion, horoscopes and the like. Humans are Credulous creatures who need to believe in something. Unfortunately in the absence of good grounds for belief people just settle for bad ones like spirits and star signs. We really havent moved on that much since the Pagans.
Billy Smith, Sunderland, UK
Well done Richard. The gullibility of a major part of the public, seems to be a running away from reality. Equally as damaging to our chances of becoming a decent and caring society as the hypocracy of battery farming and pet keeping!
Brian Wallis, Hemingford grey, Cambs
Laura,
One would hope that anyone would preach the benefits of scientific discoveries. This has nothing to do with atheism or Christianity or any religion.
It is only religious missionaries who feel the need to trumpet their faith. Most workers in the needy parts of the world just get on with the job in hand regardless of their personal beliefs. Many non-religious groups such as MSF are out there on the front line. You do see many atheists risking their lives - you just don't know they're atheists.
Dr Paul Millington, Reading, UK
To Medical Student, Cambridge,
Perhaps at Cambridge they don't have such medical journals for reference as the Journal of Pediatrics, Journal of American Physicians & Surgeons, Clinical Infectious Diseases Journal, Digestive Diseases & Science, Gastroenterology or American Journal of Gastroenterology, all peer-reviewed and all supporting the findings. We have them here in the US in just about any decent library and available through interlibrary loan or internet subscription when convenient. We also adhere to the practice of deciding if research is valid through replication rather than discarding it because of ego, political or monetary challenge.
Perhaps there is a need to broaden your studies just a tad.
If the grandmother of an autistic child can become educated in biochemistry, perhaps, one day, medical students can also.
V West, Silver City, NM, USA
Your article says: "For Dawkins, of course, science is a religion" - such a comment reveals complete scientific illiteracy. The difference between science and faith is evidence. The only reason that religion is called "faith" and not "science" is due to the lack of evidence. Faith is the opposite of science. Our legal justice system works on evidence. It doesn’t work on faith, because belief without evidence is completely unscientific and unreliable. Can you imagine what sort of a world we’d be living in if our courts replaced science with faith, simply because some uneducated fool decided that faith and science were equals? Only an uneducated person calls science a religion.
Guy Walker, London,
Is there a reason why atheists are not going out into poor parts of the world and actively evangelizing for rationality? Atheists show a dodgy tendency to stick to only publishing books in the First World. But in industrialized countries, no matter what people believe, they are likely to have the necessities of life provided quite well, due to industrial investors being favorably disposed toward empirical evidence. In a developing country, an atheist activist could actually save lives and benefit the environment by loudly preaching the benefits of scientific discoveries and technology and the dangers of practices such as violent exorcisms, species-threatening traditional "medicines," and "curing" AIDS through raping children. I do not see atheists risking their lives like religious missionaries who drill clean wells, preach the dangers of drunkenness, and confront corrupt politicians and militias.
Laura, Boston, USA
I'm not sure why people seem so offended by Dawkins expressing himself. I guess that they think he shouldn't be allowed to be passionate. He's only I suppose putting to paper I what a lot of people already think in their heads and already discuss.
S, Leics,
Too dogmatic, nauseatingly commensensical and straight down the middle, as it were, for my liking. I find him very off-putting.
Paul Tarsus, Reading, Berkshire
V West - For your information.
Dr Wakefield should be prosecuted. His immoral (look at his techniques) and sensationalist "research" (which did not stand up to peer testing and has been widely debunked by almost every medical authority) has contributed to lowing vaccine uptake rates in Britain to a level sufficient to cause alarm.
Do not believe every health scare you read about in the media. They rarely publicise the rebuttals to the same extend.
P.S. On a lighter note, is anything implied by the fact that while Wakefield is discredited and scorned in the UK, he is currently working (very profitably by all accounts) in America, selling the same nonsense...?
Medical Student, Cambridge University, England
Now why should my genes insist that I continue to look toward God for comfort and understanding, when a smarmy could-care-less physician schedules 15 minutes of his valuable time to inform me that based on his computer's recommendation, I'm presently most likely dying of ovarian cancer and there's nothing to be done about it? I wonder. Oh, how many planets are there in our solar system just now anyway? 8 or 9? Or is it 10? Yes, we're all so guillable us poor laypeople. Blessed be the Gene Mr. Dawkins. In the name of the adenine, guanine, cytosine, and the holy thymine - ahmen.
Elisha Moor, London, England
If ever there was a time in history when we need the discipline of Science now is it!
With two world leaders starting an illegal war because 'they know it is the right thing to do' we could do with a return to rationality. Clearly they found no place for 'evidence' in their world.
WMD and 'dodgy dossiers' equate to homeopathy, crystal healing, astrology and all the other mumbo jumbo. I would be happy to see state funding for any of them if only they would embrace the doctrine of evidence. Sadly they are cowards in this respect because they know their world would collapse if exposed to such a rigorous examination as that which science judges itself by.
Mike Hough, Norwich, UK
It strikes me that we really need to listen to what Dawkins is saying. He seems to be saying that we shouldn't believe what can be proved to be wrong which is very different from saying that 'what we believe is wrong if it can't be proved'.
In the middle ages the world was thought flat. It was subsequently proved to be spherical. It would therefore be ludicrous to believe today that the world is flat. It was not ludicrous in the middle ages although it was still wrong.
As he says there is much that we don't know. Quantum theory shows that the observed changes upon observation. The closer we get to the 'truth' the more mysterious it becomes.
My guess is that in 50 years we will know a lot more about these mysteries than we do today. Science will progress. A lot of what we think we know will be proved wrong. There will still be much to learn.
Dawkins is making a serious contribution. It doesn't, though, make him right!
Toby, Cape Town, South Africa
I am surprised that Dawkin with his emphasis on the scientific method can accept the scientifically unsubstantiated nonsense of CO2 and Global Warming as man made disasters.
Alex McGlynn, Weymouth , Dorset
I'm disappointed that the otherwise eminently rational Dawkins has decided to spend money on a low-emissions car, as if that would make a blind bit of difference to climate change (consider a recent news item about smog over the Indian Ocean having an effect equal in size to that of greenhouse gasses); and it's a bit rich to suggest that being dubious about the strange cultural phenomenon which is climate science indicates an anti-science stance. Richard, you might as well drive a cheaper car and hang a magical amulet in it to bring good weather.
Felix, Nottingham,
I am a Catholic and I adore Richard Dawkins. If all Christians were able to look scientifically at their religion they would have no difficulty in pleasing St Paul who begged them to 'be renewed in the spirit of your minds'. Fact: speaking personally, the Holy Spirit does lead into all truth and shows us things to come. It is the opening up of our 'spiritual' components that enables us to believe in another dimension and imagination doesn't come into it. We are meant to understand the Creator and the way has been provided by Jesus. Ask seek and knock - PLEASE fellow Christians, there's a whole world of Wisdom out there and without Wisdom (see biblical references please) the world is going down the tubes, look around.
I once met a Darwinist (Darwinism is quite different from 'evolution') who, when faced with the fact of Padre Pio's astonishing wisdom , spiritual abilities and undoubtedly defined stigmatism, said, 'It's all an illusion. We are nothing but accidents'.
Oh dear.
a dahn, bangor, N Ireland
Dawkins states 'Homeopathy started out about 200 years ago at a time when conventional medicine was considerably more dangerous.' So how come iatrogenic illness is the 3rd or 4th largest cause of death in the USA (varying in the last few decades.) There is no reason to lump homeopathy with what he dubs new age ideas or astrology as it is a medical system, not a spiritual fad. It does give credence to an idea that we have an innate vital force but so does the conventional idea of the vital healing power of nature. As for anecdotal evidence, there are so many millions of peope who have been cured, and tens of thousands of books of materia medica and cases, the sheer weight of this traffic must mean something. I suggest that some more money be given to investigate it. Perhaps Dawkins would like to prove (test) a remedy which can cause piles, in a sub-molecular dose? Of course it can heal them also, even in sceptics.
Francis Treuherz, London, England
To Mike of Cambridge - You seem to be quite passionate in your need to react ! You'll probably never wake up to the truth, at least you could ignore the lies of religion and quackery. To Steve of Tampa - I suspect you have studied just one book, and I'm guessing that book was written a good while ago by people just as ignorant as you. I have never had anyone knock on my door telling me God doesn't exist, however, there have been many times that someone has tried to convince me of his existence. The truth is you don't have to convince folk of the non-existence of a god/s. Deep down we all know religion is bunkum.
Luke, Maidenhead, UK
Dawkins is a national treasure - I've felt so much better about the prospects for humanity after seeing how popular The God Delusion was - perhaps we are not headed for the dark ages once more.
Comments such as the one from Mr. Martin in Cambridge just serve to illustrate how people with vested interests in the religious system (or people who just have never bothered to question anything) will only with great reluctance, and not without striking out first, accept new ideas. Rationality is what the world needs now, not more intolerance and hatred based on entirely irrational belief systems that have long since lost their relevance. Religion today is by far the greatest evil to mankind.
S Madsen, London, UK
"Dawkins has no doubts about the evidence, and drives a hybrid Toyota Prius.." Surely this is an act of faith, that by doing this he believes he can influence the climate of the planet. He obviously has delved little into the science of global warming.
The IPCC bases its conclusions on global climate models which cannot accurately reproduce the past and certainly cannot model clouds and water vapour, the main (95%) greenhouse gas.
In 2005, Hadley said: "Once we decide what temperature rise the world can tolerate, we have to estimate what greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere should be, and how quickly they should be allowed to change. This is very uncertain; we don't know exactly how the climate system responds to greenhouse gases. The next stage is to calculate what emissions of greenhouse gases would be allowable. This is more uncertain, we don't fully understand the carbon cycle and how it feeds back into the climate system."
Is this our scientific certainty?
DennisA, New Quay, UK
I like dawkins but he has fallen into the trap on global warming head first. driving a prius or whatever, how naive.
perhaps he thinks the more he drives it the cooler the planet becomes!
Just because science gave us all the polloution,radiation,chemical-biological weapons, and is responsible for the booming world population dont feel threatened dawkins, we wanted it all,we were seduced by it.
it was the promise of a better world,nature tamed,free power,vanquished enemies,an end to suffering.
The very things that we used to look to religon for!
jonathan charles gale, lymington, hampshire
Mr Dawkins elevates conventional medicine in the same way he criticizes others for elevating unprovable theory. It should be recognized, in the case of Dr Wakefield that he did, in fact, TEST. In fact the tests he conducted have been reproduceable.
Vaccine manufacturers, on the other hand, drug manufacturers and conventional medicine fail miserably in the testing phase. Despite elevated claims to the benefice of the substances they push/produce, the liver transplant industry is testimony to the lack of sufficient testing. The substances banned from the market after deaths have occurred and substances used "off label" in populations never tested are commonplace.
I'm sorry Mr Dawkins didn't see fit to include conventional medicine in his categorization of places NOT to look for miracles.
V West, Silver City, NM, USA
Richard Dawkins is a fraud. He sees himself as the breaker of the idols of irrational belief only to put himself in there as God, the great scientific arbiter of everything instead. Of course there has always been some quackery in religion, alternative medicine - the lot. But he is guilty himself of being a quack atheist as no one is so passionately concerned as he is with God and the irrational. Any good atheist would be disinterested. I see in my tea leaves a late conversion into either Catholicism or Islam.
Mike Martin, Cambridge, UK
He's not a scientist, he's a carping critic fixed in his own ideas of how things are. He doesn't study in depth, he looks for a few minutes at something and when it doesn't fit is fixed ideas, he says how bad it all is.
Steve, tampa, Florida
More power to Richard Dawkins. We need more people like him exposing all the mumbo jumbo out in the world. These charlatons cause more damage then we want to admit and the sooner we expose them for what they really are the better.
Alan Morris, Fethiye, Mugla, Turkey
Dawkins is a breath of fresh air in the midst of anti-intellecutal anti-enlightenment society. Modern science is indeedn hard for the masses to comprehend, so they have to accept the easiest explanations for thing they cannot understand. Often times these are supernatural or mystical explanations.
This article has made me an even greater supporter of Dawkins and helped me to realize just how gullible most of society really is.
Scott, Durham, NC, USA