Friday, September 04, 2009

Richard Dawkins presents, "The Greatest Show on Earth."

If you believe in Creation, think that evolution is false (and especially if you believe the earth is young), then according to Richard Dawkins', you are an educational disgrace. Why did Dawkins write such a book? Well, he feels that so many of us who don't believe that microbes evolved into biologists are uniformed and need to be educated on the evidences for evolution.

This is due to the fact that 40 percent or more of us don't believe in Evolution. This makes us an educational disgrace. The problem is, haven't we already been given the evidence for evolution? Did this 40 percent not go to public schools, get college degrees, and watch the Discovery channel? Is there some big mystery that we don't know about? Is Dawkins going to present evidence that I didn't hear about in my college biology classes? If so, then why isn't the most powerful evidence taught in our schools? This just isn't adding up.

I plan on reading this book only because I know it will be picked up by the masses. Yes, I expect Dawkins to present his arguments, but I do not expect Dawkins to spend any amount of time dealing with the best arguments and sources coming from the Creationist and Intelligent Design camp. Just like The God Delusion, I don't expect that Dawkins' target audience will be those who will actually look into what he says and what the other side has to offer. Nope. Probably will be more shallow argumentation that pretends as if Creationists and ID'ers have no response. Truly sad.

4 comments:

Brian said...

Dawkins says, "this is exactly what we would expect, were evolution true..."

Or, more formally,

1. If evolution is true, we would see Y
2. We see Y
3. Therefore, evolution is true.

I spot the formal fallacy, "affirming the consequent"

Mike Felker said...

Great point, Brian. I have a strange suspicion that this fallacy will prevail throughout his new book ;-)

Brian said...

I picked up the new book. It has lots of lovely color pictures. There are lots of drawings too. In one chapter he shows that we all personally evolved over the course of 9 months.

Talk about equivocating with the word evolution. But I do look forward to seeing what sort of case he plans to present... to see if it goes beyond the basic homology examples I see presented in the photos.

Dreammotive said...

He lost all credibility at :54 saying that people would not believe creationism if they were exposed to the evidence of evolution. I must admit I laughed out loud when I heard this because it shows how ridiculously closed this poor mans mind is. He is not even competent for a debate as he has just admitted that he does not listen to opposing views.