reida, i take your point, that the concepts used in science do not have the same type of reality as the underlying objects. but to refer to this as myth-creative is way too strong. the underlying objects always provide a test for the accuracy and value of these concepts.

and yes, i can appreciate the source and the value of myths to humans and human society. but there is also huge danger, to the extent that these myths are unchallengeable, and i would suggest that most religious people regard their myths in that manner.

further, religious myths are not necessarily there to make to the unknowable intelligible. they can also be there to blind, to simply hide our fear of the unknowable. they can simply be lies.

in any case, merry christmas, whether it happens to be a special birthday or not.

.. and a merry Christmas to you too bushbasher. Despite our perhaps differing views on the Christmas myth we can certainly transcend them with our good-will.

Dear George,

To call Dawkins' views naive scientism is to argue by adjective. It saves the trouble of pointing out exactly where the views are at fault and addressing the fault. Arguing by name calling tells one that you do not like those views but are not willing to specify precisely what is wrong with those views.

david f,
you are right to a point: I should not have used the term “dawkinsian naive scientism“ without further explaining what I meant. I was not referring directly to Richard Dawkins but to some contributors on this forum, without wanting to name them. The marxist (more precisely marx-leninist) educators that I was exposed to many years ago said many naive, sometimes plain stupid, things (as my father used to explain, and I myself found out later) but today I am aware that Karl Marx would not have endorsed many of those things. The same about dawkinsians and Dawkins (and, you would probably add, Christians and Jesus).

As to Dawkins himself, I sort of read both The Blind Watchmaker and The Selfish Gene, and I am grateful to him for many insights into evolutionary biology I gained as a non-biologist and non-geneticist. In spite of the occasional “non sequiturs” when he delves outside of biology, even science. However. I have to admit I never read his latest book, only some reviews, that seem to confirm my reservations about his “non sequiturs“ or, as some reviewer said, that the title of the book should have been “The Dawkins Delusions about What the Belief in God Means.”

Besides, as you might know, Dawkins just recently proclaimed himself a cultural Christian (albeit atheist) which I do not think the dawkinsians I was referring to would all want to call themselves. This admission might not mean much in terms of a world view, but it makes him more sympathetic, at least in my eyes. Maybe after all, he is not that negative, and appreciates the value of belonging to a cultural tradition that I referred to in my previous post, and is not shy about appreciating the Christian contribution to it. (ctd)

(ctd) Also, the term “naive” could be pejorative, but also a technical term (e.g. naive realism in philosophy). By naive scientism I mean the attitude in philosophy of science that sits well with Newton’s physics (philosophically underpinned by e.g. Immanuel Kant) that had to be abandoned in the last century because of relativity theory and, notably, quantum mechanics, including recent attempts to reconcile them. Suddenly there are not only ambiguities concerning whether one creates or discovers mathematics, whether God created man or man created God, but there seem to be similar ambiguities in the philosophy of contemporary physics. As far as I can tell, Dawkins does not address these ambiguities.

Unchallengeable myths. This is a pretty good description of biological evolution. Is there any one thing we know for certain about how the protozoa became the pelican, palm tree, or philosopher? But dare challenge the story that they so did transform.

You are allowed to tinker with the details but, for many, the idea of evolution is an unassailable tenet of faith.