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187-508: The overall goal of the intelligent design movement is to overthrow materialism and atheism . Its proponents believe that society has suffered "devastating" cultural consequences from adopting materialism and that science is the cause of the decay into materialism because it seeks only natural explanations, and is therefore atheistic. They believe that the scientific theory of evolution implies that humans have no spiritual nature, no moral purpose, and no intrinsic meaning. They seek to "reverse

374-490: A Church of England ethos, where he was in Laundimer House. While at Oundle, Dawkins read Bertrand Russell 's Why I Am Not a Christian for the first time. He studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford (the same college his father attended), graduating in 1962; while there, he was tutored by Nobel Prize -winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen . He graduated with a second-class degree. Dawkins continued as

561-587: A Labour voter in the 1970s and voter for the Liberal Democrats since the party's creation. In 2009, he spoke at the party's conference in opposition to blasphemy laws, alternative medicine, and faith schools. In the UK general election of 2010 , Dawkins officially endorsed the Liberal Democrats, in support of their campaign for electoral reform and for their "refusal to pander to 'faith ' ". In

748-532: A blind watchmaker, in that reproduction , mutation , and selection are unguided by any sentient designer. In 2006, Dawkins published The God Delusion , writing that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion . He founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science in 2006. Dawkins has published two volumes of memoirs , An Appetite for Wonder (2013) and Brief Candle in

935-410: A kangaroo court and argued that their participation would lend an undeserved air of legitimacy to the hearings. Board member Kathy Martin declared at the beginning of the hearings "Evolution has been proven false. ID (Intelligent Design) is science-based and strong in facts." At their conclusion she proclaimed that evolution is "an unproven, often disproven" theory. "ID has theological implications. ID

1122-684: A " cultural Christian " and a "cultural Anglican " in 2007 and 2013 and again in 2024. Dawkins explained, however, that this statement about his culture has "means absolutely nothing as far as religious belief is concerned." On his arrival in England from Nyasaland in 1949, at the age of eight, Dawkins joined Chafyn Grove School , in Wiltshire , where he says he was molested by a teacher. From 1954 to 1959, he attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire , an English public school with

1309-542: A "100x Signatory". He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Huddersfield , University of Westminster , Durham University , the University of Hull , the University of Antwerp , the University of Oslo , the University of Aberdeen , Open University , the Vrije Universiteit Brussel , and the University of Valencia . He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from

1496-412: A God or gods exist) to 7 (100% certainty that a God or gods do not exist), Dawkins has said he is a 6.9, which represents a "de facto atheist" who thinks "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there". When asked about his slight uncertainty, Dawkins quips, "I am agnostic to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of

1683-561: A basis for understanding altruism . Altruism appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources and decreases one's own chances for survival, or "fitness" . Previously, many had interpreted altruism as an aspect of group selection, suggesting that individuals are doing what is best for the survival of the population or species as a whole. British evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton used gene-frequency analysis in his inclusive fitness theory to show how hereditary altruistic traits can evolve if there

1870-699: A book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in 'anti-scientific' fairytales". In 2011, Dawkins joined the professoriate of the New College of the Humanities , a private university in London established by A. C. Grayling , which opened in September 2012. Dawkins announced his final speaking tour would take place in the Fall of 2024. Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of

2057-730: A book review published in Nature , Dawkins expressed his appreciation for two books connected with the Sokal affair : Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt and Intellectual Impostures by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont . These books are famous for their criticism of postmodernism in U.S. universities (namely in the departments of literary studies, anthropology, and other cultural studies). Echoing many critics, Dawkins holds that postmodernism uses obscurantist language to hide its lack of meaningful content. As an example he quotes

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2244-612: A broadly physicalist or scientific materialist framework, producing rival accounts of how best to accommodate the mind , including functionalism , anomalous monism , and identity theory . Scientific materialism is often synonymous with, and has typically been described as, a reductive materialism . In the early 21st century, Paul and Patricia Churchland advocated a radically contrasting position (at least in regard to certain hypotheses): eliminative materialism . Eliminative materialism holds that some mental phenomena simply do not exist at all, and that talk of such phenomena reflects

2431-708: A conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter. James Jeans concurred with Planck, saying, "The Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter." In the Critique of Pure Reason , Immanuel Kant argued against materialism in defending his transcendental idealism (as well as offering arguments against subjective idealism and mind–body dualism ). But Kant argues that change and time require an enduring substrate. Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins FRS FRSL (born 26 March 1941)

2618-409: A critical theoretical fold dominated by poststructuralist theories of language and discourse. Scholars such as Mel Y. Chen and Zakiyyah Iman Jackson have critiqued this body of new materialist literature for neglecting to consider the materiality of race and gender in particular. Métis scholar Zoe Todd , as well as Mohawk (Bear Clan, Six Nations) and Anishinaabe scholar Vanessa Watts, query

2805-487: A decade to advance intelligent design as both a concept and a movement as necessary adjuncts of its wedge strategy policy. This cadre includes Phillip E. Johnson, Michael Behe, William A. Dembski and Stephen C. Meyer. They are united by a religious vision which, although it varies among the members in its particulars and is seldom acknowledged outside of the Christian press, is predicated on the shared conviction that America

2992-455: A far smaller scale, Larry Caldwell and his wife operate under the name Quality Science Education for All, and have made a number of lawsuits in furtherance of the movement's anti-evolution agenda. In 2005 they brought at least three separate lawsuits to further the intelligent design movement's agenda. One was later abandoned, two were dismissed. An August 2005 poll from The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life showed 64% of Americans favoring

3179-674: A field from which Dawkins has distanced himself. Dawkins's meme refers to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator of a certain idea or set of ideas. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as capable of such replication, generally through communication and contact with humans, who have evolved as efficient (although not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour. Because memes are not always copied perfectly, they might become refined, combined, or otherwise modified with other ideas; this results in new memes, which may themselves prove more or less efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing

3366-551: A field of inquiry, began after the Supreme Court of the United States , in the case of Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), ruled that creationism is unconstitutional in public school science curricula. A Discovery Institute report says that Charles Thaxton , editor of Of Pandas and People , had picked the phrase up from a NASA scientist, and thought "That's just what I need, it's a good engineering term." In drafts of

3553-460: A foreword in which he asserts that alternative medicine is harmful, if only because it distracts patients from more successful conventional treatments and gives people false hopes. Dawkins states that "There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work." In his 2007 Channel 4 TV film The Enemies of Reason , Dawkins concluded that Britain is gripped by "an epidemic of superstitious thinking". Continuing

3740-404: A framework for a hypothesis of cultural evolution based on memes, a notion that is analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes. Although Dawkins invented the term meme , he has not said that the idea was entirely novel, and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past. For instance, John Laurent has suggested that the term may have derived from the work of

3927-483: A god. He states: "The main residual reason why I was religious was from being so impressed with the complexity of life and feeling that it had to have a designer, and I think it was when I realised that Darwinism was a far superior explanation that pulled the rug out from under the argument of design. And that left me with nothing". This understanding of atheism, combined with his western cultural background, influences Dawkins as he describes himself in several interviews as

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4114-489: A healthy, independent mind. He hopes that the more atheists identify themselves, the more the public will become aware of just how many people are nonbelievers, thereby reducing the negative opinion of atheism among the religious majority. Inspired by the gay rights movement , he endorsed the Out Campaign to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly. He supported a UK atheist advertising initiative,

4301-437: A large portion of his 2003 book A Devil's Chaplain posthumously to Gould, who had died the previous year. When asked if Darwinism influences his everyday apprehension of life, Dawkins says, "In one way it does. My eyes are constantly wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence. Not just human existence but the existence of life and how this breathtakingly powerful process, which is natural selection, has managed to take

4488-522: A letter, circulated to thousands of university professors, defending the book. Among the 39 signatories were nine who later became members of the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC). During the early 1990s Johnson worked to develop a 'big tent' movement to unify a wide range of creationist viewpoints in opposition to evolution. In 1992, the first formal meeting devoted to intelligent design

4675-459: A long-standing partnership with Channel 4 , Dawkins participated in a five-part television series, Genius of Britain , along with fellow scientists Stephen Hawking , James Dyson , Paul Nurse , and Jim Al-Khalili . The series was first broadcast in June 2010, and focuses on major British scientific achievements throughout history. In 2014, he joined the global awareness movement Asteroid Day as

4862-408: A man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of

5049-518: A medical professional. Calling this " social constructionism gone amok," Dawkins and Sokal argued further that "distort[ing] the scientific facts in the service of a social cause" risks undermining trust in medical institutions. In his role as professor for public understanding of science, Dawkins has been a critic of pseudoscience and alternative medicine . His 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow considers John Keats 's accusation that by explaining

5236-608: A member of the new organization's board of directors. Dawkins was confirmed into the Church of England at the age of 13, but began to grow sceptical of the beliefs. He said that his understanding of science and evolutionary processes led him to question how adults in positions of leadership in a civilised world could still be so uneducated in biology, and is puzzled by how belief in God could remain among individuals who are sophisticated in science. Dawkins says that some physicists use 'God' as

5423-433: A metaphor for the general awe-inspiring mysteries of the universe, which he says causes confusion and misunderstanding among people who incorrectly think they are talking about a mystical being who forgives sins, transubstantiates wine, or makes people live after they die. Dawkins disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould 's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) and suggests that the existence of God should be treated as

5610-552: A million dollars in grants, the largest being from Howard Ahmanson, Jr. , with smaller but still large contributions coming from the Stewardship Foundation established by C. Davis Weyerhaeuser and the Maclellan Foundation, and appointed their first class of research fellows. The wedge strategy was formulated by Phillip E. Johnson to combat the "evil" of methodological naturalism . It first came to

5797-650: A monist ontology, instead espousing the ontological separation of matter and space (i.e. that space is "another kind" of being). Wang Chong (27 – c. 100 AD) was a Chinese thinker of the early Common Era said to be a materialist. Later Indian materialist Jayaraashi Bhatta (6th century) in his work Tattvopaplavasimha ( The Upsetting of All Principles ) refuted the Nyāya Sūtra epistemology. The materialistic Cārvāka philosophy appears to have died out some time after 1400; when Madhavacharya compiled Sarva-darśana-samgraha ( A Digest of All Philosophies ) in

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5984-426: A new turn in materialism in his 1841 book The Essence of Christianity , which presented a humanist account of religion as the outward projection of man's inward nature. Feuerbach introduced anthropological materialism , a version of materialism that views materialist anthropology as the universal science . Feuerbach's variety of materialism heavily influenced Karl Marx , who in the late 19th century elaborated

6171-444: A position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field", and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins. He held that professorship from 1995 until 2008. Since 1970, he has been a fellow of New College, Oxford , and he is now an emeritus fellow. He has delivered many lectures, including

6358-519: A public relations campaign meant to influence the popular media and sway public opinion ; and an aggressive lobbying campaign to cultivate support for the teaching of intelligent design amongst policymakers and the wider educational community. Both these activities are largely funded and directed by the Discovery Institute, from national to grassroots levels. The movement's first goal is to establish an acceptance of intelligent design at

6545-597: A purposeful or guided evolution is not to talk about evolution at all. That is "slow creation." When you understand it that way, you realize that the Darwinian theory of evolution contradicts not just the book of Genesis, but every word in the Bible from beginning to end. It contradicts the idea that we are here because a Creator brought about our existence for a purpose. That is the first thing I realized, and it carries tremendous meaning. I have built an intellectual movement in

6732-582: A religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler ", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley , who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog " for his advocacy of Charles Darwin 's evolutionary ideas. He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science , which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through

6919-666: A research and publicity program to "unseat not just Darwinism but also Darwinism's cultural legacy." Mr. Ahmanson funds many causes important to the Christian religious right , including Christian Reconstructionism , whose goal is to place the US "under the control of biblical law." Until 1995, Ahmanson sat on the board of the Christian Reconstructionist Chalcedon Foundation . The intelligent design movement primarily campaigns on two fronts:

7106-428: A research student under Tinbergen's supervision, receiving his Doctor of Philosophy degree by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year. Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly in the areas of instinct , learning, and choice; Dawkins's research in this period concerned models of animal decision-making. From 1967 to 1969, Dawkins was an assistant professor of zoology at

7293-412: A scientific hypothesis like any other. Dawkins became a prominent critic of religion and has stated his opposition to religion as twofold: religion is both a source of conflict and a justification for belief without evidence. He considers faith—belief that is not based on evidence—as "one of the world's great evils". On his spectrum of theistic probability , which ranges from 1 (100% certainty that

7480-491: A similar vein, the movement's hub, the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture had until 2002 been the " Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture ." Explaining the name change, a spokesperson for the CSC insisted that the old name was simply too long. However, the change followed accusations that the center's real interest was not science but reforming culture along lines favored by conservative Christians. Critics of

7667-446: A spurious " folk psychology " and introspection illusion . A materialist of this variety might believe that a concept like "belief" has no basis in fact (e.g. the way folk science speaks of demon-caused illnesses). With reductive materialism at one end of a continuum (our theories will reduce to facts) and eliminative materialism at the other (certain theories will need to be eliminated in light of new facts), revisionary materialism

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7854-438: A stake in, so let's debate that question first. Let us settle that question first. There are plenty of other important questions on which we may not agree, and we'll have a wonderful time discussing those questions after we've settled the first one. We will approach those questions in a better spirit because we have worked together for this important common end." ... [The Wedge is] inherently an ecumenical movement. Michael Behe

8041-561: A statement that "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." Shortly afterwards the National Center for Science Education described the wording as misleading, noting that a minority of the signatories were biologists and some of the others were engineers, mathematicians and philosophers, and that some signatories did not fully support

8228-476: A unit within the Discovery Institute called the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (later renamed the Center for Science and Culture). This center was dedicated to overthrowing " scientific materialism " and "fomenting nothing less than a scientific and cultural revolution." A 1995 conference, "The Death of Materialism and the Renewal of Culture," served as a blueprint for the center. By 1996 they had nearly

8415-413: A younger sister, Sarah. His parents were interested in natural sciences , and they answered Dawkins's questions in scientific terms. Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal Anglican upbringing". He embraced Christianity until halfway through his teenage years, at which point he concluded that the theory of evolution alone was a better explanation for life's complexity, and ceased believing in

8602-405: Is 'overwhelmingly accepted' by the scientific community." The Discovery Institute (DI) is a religious think tank that drives the intelligent design movement. The Institute's Center for Science and Culture (CSC) counts most of the leading intelligent design advocates among its membership, most notably its former program advisor the now deceased Phillip E. Johnson . Johnson was the architect of

8789-425: Is a British evolutionary biologist , zoologist , science communicator and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford , and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. His book The Selfish Gene (1976) popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and coined the word meme . Dawkins has won several academic and writing awards. Dawkins

8976-528: Is a Roman Catholic. The next book that is coming out from Cambridge University Press by one of my close associates is by an evangelical convert to Greek Orthodoxy. We have a lot of Protestants, too. The point is that we have this broad-based intellectual movement that is enabling us to get a foothold in the scientific and academic journals and in the journals of the various religious faiths. The Discovery Institute consistently denies allegations that its intelligent design agenda has religious foundations, and downplays

9163-504: Is a necessary first step for ultimately introducing the Christian concept of God as the designer. Johnson emphasizes "the first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of the discussion" and that "after we have separated materialist prejudice from scientific fact" only then can "biblical issues" be discussed. In the foreword to Creation, Evolution, & Modern Science (2000) Johnson writes "The intelligent design movement starts with

9350-525: Is a philosophy of materialism from classical antiquity that was a major forerunner of modern science. Though ostensibly a deist , Epicurus affirmed the literal existence of the Greek gods in either some type of celestial "heaven" cognate from which they ruled the universe (if not on a literal Mount Olympus), and his philosophy promulgated atomism , while Platonism taught roughly the opposite, despite Plato's teaching of Zeus as God . Materialism belongs to

9537-501: Is a prominent critic of creationism , a religious belief that humanity , life , and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood". His 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker , contains a sustained critique of the argument from design , an important creationist argument. In

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9724-574: Is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else." Werner Heisenberg wrote: "The ontology of materialism rested upon the illusion that the kind of existence, the direct 'actuality' of the world around us, can be extrapolated into the atomic range. This extrapolation, however, is impossible   ... Atoms are not things." Some 20th-century physicists (e.g., Eugene Wigner and Henry Stapp ), and some modern physicists and science writers (e.g., Stephen Barr , Paul Davies , and John Gribbin ) have argued that materialism

9911-657: Is anything particularly "new" about "new materialism", as Indigenous and other animist ontologies have attested to what might be called the "vibrancy of matter" for centuries. Others, such as Thomas Nail , have critiqued "vitalist" versions of new materialism for depoliticizing "flat ontology" and being ahistorical. Quentin Meillassoux proposed speculative materialism , a post-Kantian return to David Hume also based on materialist ideas. The nature and definition of matter —like other key concepts in science and philosophy—have occasioned much debate: One challenge to

10098-471: Is based, particularly the exclusion of what it calls the "unscientific principle of materialism," and in particular the acceptance of what it calls "the scientific theory of intelligent design." Promotional materials from the Discovery Institute acknowledge that the Ahmanson family donated $ 1.5 million to the Center for Science and Culture, then known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, for

10285-425: Is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged. From this point of view, the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men's brains, not in men's better insights into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange. They are to be sought, not in

10472-471: Is flawed due to certain recent findings in physics, such as quantum mechanics and chaos theory . According to Gribbin and Davies (1991): Then came our Quantum theory, which totally transformed our image of matter. The old assumption that the microscopic world of atoms was simply a scaled-down version of the everyday world had to be abandoned. Newton's deterministic machine was replaced by a shadowy and paradoxical conjunction of waves and particles, governed by

10659-413: Is frequently assimilated to one variety of physicalism or another. Modern philosophical materialists extend the definition of other scientifically observable entities such as energy , forces , and the spacetime continuum ; some philosophers, such as Mary Midgley , suggest that the concept of "matter" is elusive and poorly defined. During the 19th century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels extended

10846-510: Is his scathing review of Not in Our Genes by Steven Rose , Leon J. Kamin , and Richard C. Lewontin. Two other thinkers who are often considered to be allied with Dawkins on the subject are Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett ; Dennett has promoted a gene-centred view of evolution and defended reductionism in biology. Despite their academic disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins dedicated

11033-418: Is in need of "renewal" which can be accomplished only by unseating "Godless" materialism and instituting religion as its cultural foundation. In his keynote address at the "Research and Progress in intelligent design" (RAPID) conference held in 2002 at Biola University , William A. Dembski described intelligent design's "dual role as a constructive scientific project and as a means for cultural renaissance." In

11220-460: Is matter and void, and all phenomena result from different motions and conglomerations of base material particles called atoms (literally "indivisibles"). De Rerum Natura provides mechanistic explanations for phenomena such as erosion, evaporation, wind, and sound. Famous principles like "nothing can touch body but body" first appeared in Lucretius's work. Democritus and Epicurus did not espouse

11407-399: Is missing from the mathematical formalism of our best description of the world. "Materialist" physicalists also believe that the formalism describes fields of insentience. In other words, the intrinsic nature of the physical is non-experiential. Most Hindus and transcendentalists regard all matter as an illusion, or maya , blinding humans from the truth. Transcendental experiences like

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11594-530: Is not "any scientifically valid evidence or an alternate scientific theory that challenges the fundamental principles of the theory of evolution," and 97% say that they did not use intelligent design concepts in their own research. In October and November 2001, the Discovery Institute advertised A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism in three national publications ( The New York Review of Books , The New Republic and The Weekly Standard ), listing what they claimed were "100 scientific dissenters" who had signed

11781-557: Is not a fundamentalist, as he is willing to change his mind in the face of new evidence. Dawkins has faced backlash over some of his public comments about Islam. In 2013, Dawkins tweeted that "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though." In 2016, Dawkins' invitation to speak at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism

11968-466: Is not strictly Christian, but it is theistic," asserted Martin. The scientific community rejects teaching intelligent design as science; a leading example being the National Academy of Sciences, which issued a policy statement saying "Creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by

12155-506: Is not valid science, its proponents having failed to conduct an actual scientific research program. This has led the movement's critics to state that intelligent design is merely a public relations campaign and a political campaign. According to critics of the intelligent design movement, the movement's purpose is political rather than scientific or educational. They claim the movement's "activities betray an aggressive, systematic agenda for promoting not only intelligent design creationism, but

12342-554: Is now being actively pursued by the Center for Science and Culture, which plays the leading role in the promotion of intelligent design. Its fellows include most of the leading intelligent design advocates: William A. Dembski, Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells and Stephen C. Meyer. Intelligent design has been described by its proponents as a 'big tent' belief, one in which all theists united by having some kind of creationist belief (but of differing opinions as regards details) can support. If successfully promoted, it would reinstate creationism in

12529-410: Is often associated with reductionism , according to which the objects or phenomena individuated at one level of description, if they are genuine, must be explicable in terms of the objects or phenomena at some other level of description—typically, at a more reduced level. Non-reductive materialism explicitly rejects this notion, taking the material constitution of all particulars to be consistent with

12716-411: Is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English." Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but

12903-617: Is somewhere in the middle. Contemporary continental philosopher Gilles Deleuze has attempted to rework and strengthen classical materialist ideas. Contemporary theorists such as Manuel DeLanda , working with this reinvigorated materialism, have come to be classified as new materialists . New materialism has become its own subfield, with courses on it at major universities, as well as numerous conferences, edited collections and monographs devoted to it. Jane Bennett 's 2010 book Vibrant Matter has been particularly instrumental in bringing theories of monist ontology and vitalism back into

13090-400: Is sufficient genetic similarity between actors and recipients of such altruism, including close relatives. Hamilton's inclusive fitness has since been successfully applied to a wide range of organisms, including humans . Similarly, Robert Trivers , thinking in terms of the gene-centred model, developed the theory of reciprocal altruism , whereby one organism provides a benefit to another in

13277-757: Is that a gene cannot survive alone, but must cooperate with other genes to build an individual, and therefore a gene cannot be an independent "unit". In The Extended Phenotype , Dawkins suggests that from an individual gene's viewpoint, all other genes are part of the environment to which it is adapted. Advocates for higher levels of selection (such as Richard Lewontin , David Sloan Wilson , and Elliott Sober ) suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The philosopher Mary Midgley , with whom Dawkins clashed in print concerning The Selfish Gene , has criticised gene selection, memetics, and sociobiology as being excessively reductionist ; she has suggested that

13464-497: Is that the Darwinian theory isn't true. It's falsified by all of the evidence, and the logic is terrible. When you realize that, the next question that occurs to you is, "Well, where might you get truth?" When I preach from the Bible, as I often do at churches and on Sundays, I don't start with Genesis. I start with John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word." In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right and

13651-450: Is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers , Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know". When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory , Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it

13838-462: Is the fundamental substance in nature , and that all things, including mental states and consciousness , are results of material interactions of material things. According to philosophical materialism, mind and consciousness are caused by physical processes, such as the neurochemistry of the human brain and nervous system , without which they cannot exist. Materialism directly contrasts with monistic idealism , according to which consciousness

14025-401: Is the fundamental substance of nature. Materialism is closely related to physicalism —the view that all that exists is ultimately physical. Philosophical physicalism has evolved from materialism with the theories of the physical sciences to incorporate forms of physicality in addition to ordinary matter (e.g. spacetime , physical energies and forces , and exotic matter ). Thus, some prefer

14212-498: Is the theory of chaos, which has recently gained widespread attention. The objections of Davies and Gribbin are shared by proponents of digital physics , who view information rather than matter as fundamental. The physicist and proponent of digital physics John Archibald Wheeler wrote, "all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe." Some founders of quantum theory, such as Max Planck , shared their objections. He wrote: As

14399-462: Is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design as well as for being a vocal atheist . Some fellow academics have described Dawkins as a secular or atheist fundamentalist . Dawkins wrote The Blind Watchmaker in 1986, arguing against the watchmaker analogy , an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms . Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to

14586-487: The 2003 invasion of Iraq , the British nuclear deterrent , the actions of then-US President George W. Bush , and the ethics of designer babies . Several such articles were included in A Devil's Chaplain , an anthology of writings about science, religion, and politics. He is also a supporter of Republic 's campaign to replace the British monarchy with a type of democratic republic . Dawkins has described himself as

14773-528: The Atheist Bus Campaign in 2008 and 2009, which aimed to raise funds to place atheist advertisements on buses in the London area. Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth of the human population and about the matter of overpopulation . In The Selfish Gene , he briefly mentions population growth, giving the example of Latin America , whose population, at the time the book was written,

14960-570: The Axial Age ( c.  800–200 BC). In ancient Indian philosophy , materialism developed around 600 BC with the works of Ajita Kesakambali , Payasi , Kanada and the proponents of the Cārvāka school of philosophy. Kanada became one of the early proponents of atomism . The Nyaya – Vaisesika school (c. 600–100 BC) developed one of the earliest forms of atomism (although their proofs of God and their positing that consciousness

15147-504: The Biblical Creation Society ). In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters

15334-1007: The Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture (1989), the first Erasmus Darwin Memorial Lecture (1990), the Michael Faraday Lecture (1991), the T. H. Huxley Memorial Lecture (1992), the Irvine Memorial Lecture (1997), the Sheldon Doyle Lecture (1999), the Tinbergen Lecture (2004), and the Tanner Lectures (2003). In 1991, he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children on Growing Up in

15521-597: The Kansas State Board of Education and its State Board Science Hearing Committee to change how evolution and the origin of life would be taught in the state's public high school science classes. The hearings were arranged by the conservative Board with the intent of introducing intelligent design into science classes via the "Teach the Controversy" method. The hearings raised the issues of creation and evolution in public education and were attended by all

15708-423: The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science ( RDFRS ), a non-profit organisation . RDFRS financed research on the psychology of belief and religion , financed scientific education programs and materials, and publicised and supported charitable organisations that are secular in nature. In January 2016, it was announced that the foundation was merging with the Center for Inquiry , with Dawkins becoming

15895-460: The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work. Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a supporter of various atheist, secular, and humanist organisations , including Humanists UK and the Brights movement . Dawkins suggests that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, stressing that atheism is evidence of

16082-907: The Royal Society 's Faraday Award and the British Academy Television Awards , and has been president of the Biological Sciences section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science . In 2004, Balliol College, Oxford , instituted the Dawkins Prize, awarded for "outstanding research into the ecology and behaviour of animals whose welfare and survival may be endangered by human activities". In September 2008, he retired from his professorship, announcing plans to "write

16269-563: The University of California, Berkeley . During this period, the students and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed to the ongoing Vietnam War , and Dawkins became involved in the anti-war demonstrations and activities. He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 as a lecturer. In 1990, he became a reader in zoology. In 1995, he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford,

16456-670: The University of St Andrews and the Australian National University (HonLittD, 1996), and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2001 . He is one of the patrons of the Oxford University Scientific Society . In 1987, Dawkins received a Royal Society of Literature award and a Los Angeles Times Literary Prize for his book The Blind Watchmaker . In

16643-1158: The Zoological Society of London 's Silver Medal (1989), the Finlay Innovation Award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the 2001 and 2012 Emperor Has No Clothes Award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation , the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002),

16830-420: The gene as the principal unit of selection in evolution ; this view is most clearly set out in two of his books: Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such as spandrels , described by Gould and Lewontin ) and about selection at levels "above" that of the gene. He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance of group selection as

17017-466: The gene as the unit of selection (a single event in which an individual either succeeds or fails to reproduce) is misleading. The gene could be better described, they say, as a unit of evolution (the long-term changes in allele frequencies in a population). In The Selfish Gene , Dawkins explains that he is using George C. Williams 's definition of the gene as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency". Another common objection

17204-584: The methods of science ." On February 13, 2007, the Board voted 6 to 4 to reject the amended science standards enacted in 2005. In the movement's sole major case, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District , it was represented by the Thomas More Law Center , which had been seeking a test-case on the issue for at least five years. However conflicting agendas resulted in the withdrawal of a number of Discovery Institute Fellows as expert witnesses, at

17391-417: The rainbow , Isaac Newton diminished its beauty; Dawkins argues for the opposite conclusion. He suggests that deep space, the billions of years of life's evolution, and the microscopic workings of biology and heredity contain more beauty and wonder than do " myths " and " pseudoscience ". For John Diamond 's posthumously published Snake Oil , a book devoted to debunking alternative medicine , Dawkins wrote

17578-439: The 14th century, he had no Cārvāka (or Lokāyata) text to quote from or refer to. In early 12th-century al-Andalus , Arabian philosopher Ibn Tufail ( a.k.a.  Abubacer) discussed materialism in his philosophical novel , Hayy ibn Yaqdhan ( Philosophus Autodidactus ), while vaguely foreshadowing historical materialism . In France, Pierre Gassendi (1592–1665) represented the materialist tradition in opposition to

17765-776: The British Colonial Service in Nyasaland (present-day Malawi ), of an Oxfordshire landed gentry family. His father was called up into the King's African Rifles during the Second World War and returned to England in 1949, when Dawkins was eight. His father had inherited a country estate, Over Norton Park in Oxfordshire , which he farmed commercially. Dawkins lives in Oxford , England. He has

17952-522: The Dark (2015). Dawkins was born Clinton Richard Dawkins on 26 March 1941 in Nairobi , the capital of Kenya during British colonial rule . He later dropped Clinton from his name by deed poll because of confusion in America over using his middle name as his first name. He is the son of Jean Mary Vyvyan ( née Ladner; 1916–2019) and Clinton John Dawkins (1915–2010), an agricultural civil servant in

18139-499: The Darwinian theory of evolution contradicts not just the book of Genesis, but every word in the Bible from beginning to end. It contradicts the idea that we are here because a Creator brought about our existence for a purpose. That is the first thing I realized, and it carries tremendous meaning. ... So did God create us? Or did we create God? That's an issue that unites people across the theistic world. Even religious, God-believing Jewish people will say, "That's an issue we really have

18326-405: The Discovery Institute show more support, these polls have been criticized as suffering from considerable flaws, such as having a low response rate (248 out of 16,000), being conducted on behalf of an organization with an expressed interest in the outcome of the poll, and containing leading questions. Materialism Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter

18513-538: The Discovery Institute's claims. The list was further criticized in a February 2006 article in The New York Times which pointed out that only 25% of the signatories by then were biologists and that signatories' "doubts about evolution grew out of their religious beliefs." In 2003, as a humorous parody of such listings the NCSE produced the pro-evolution Project Steve list of signatories, all with variations of

18700-500: The Discovery Institute. The bulk of the material produced by the intelligent design movement, however, is not intended to be scientific but rather to promote its social and political aims. Polls indicate that intelligent design's main appeal to citizens comes from its link to religious concepts. Scientists responding to a poll overwhelmingly said intelligent design is about religion, not science. A 2002 sampling of 460 Ohio science professors had 91% say it's primarily religion, 93% say there

18887-490: The National Academy of Sciences and the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), is that intelligent design is not science, but creationist pseudoscience . Richard Dawkins , a biologist and professor at Oxford University , compares the intelligent design movement's demand to "teach the controversy" with the demand to teach flat Earthism ; acceptable in terms of history, but not in terms of science. "If you give

19074-621: The Norse gods, if only because these, like the Abrahamic scriptures, are important for understanding English literature and European history". Inspired by the consciousness-raising successes of feminists in arousing widespread embarrassment at the routine use of "he" instead of "she", Dawkins similarly suggests that phrases such as "Catholic child" and "Muslim child" should be considered as socially absurd as, for instance, "Marxist child", as he believes that children should not be classified based on

19261-439: The United States and consistently held that mental states are brain states and that mental terms have the same referent as physical terms. The twentieth century has witnessed many materialist theories of the mental, and much debate surrounding them. But not all conceptions of physicalism are tied to verificationist theories of meaning or direct realist accounts of perception. Rather, physicalists believe that no "element of reality"

19448-657: The Universe . He also has edited several journals and has acted as an editorial advisor to the Encarta Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Evolution . He is listed as a senior editor and a columnist of the Council for Secular Humanism 's Free Inquiry magazine and has been a member of the editorial board of Skeptic magazine since its foundation. Dawkins has sat on judging panels for awards such as

19635-563: The Wedge Document and strategy demonstrate that the intelligent design movement is motivated purely by religion and political ideology and that the Discovery Institute as a matter of policy obfuscates its agenda. The Discovery Institute's official response was to characterize the criticism and concern as "irrelevant," "paranoid," and "near-panic" while portraying the Wedge Document as a "fund-raising document." Johnson in his 1997 book Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds confirmed some of

19822-641: The Year Award in response to these comments. Robby Soave of Reason magazine criticised the retraction, saying that "The drive to punish dissenters from various orthodoxies is itself illiberal." Dawkins has voiced his support for the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly , an organisation that campaigns for democratic reform in the United Nations, and

20009-536: The acceptance of intelligent design. A 2005 Harris poll identified ten percent of adults in the United States as taking what they called the intelligent design position, that "human beings are so complex that they required a powerful force or intelligent being to help create them." (64% agreed with the creationist view that "human beings were created directly by God" and 22% believed that "human beings evolved from earlier species." 49% accepted plant and animal evolution, while 45% did not.) Although some polls commissioned by

20196-582: The article 'Gaps in the Mind' to the Great Ape Project book edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer . In this essay, he criticises contemporary society's moral attitudes as being based on a "discontinuous, speciesist imperative". Dawkins also regularly comments in newspapers and blogs on contemporary political questions and is a frequent contributor to the online science and culture digest 3 Quarks Daily . His opinions include opposition to

20383-411: The assertion that his work simply serves as an atheist counterpart to religious fundamentalism rather than a productive critique of it, and that he has fundamentally misapprehended the foundations of the theological positions he claims to refute. Rees and Higgs, in particular, have both rejected Dawkins's confrontational stance toward religion as narrow and "embarrassing", with Higgs equating Dawkins with

20570-543: The attempts of René Descartes (1596–1650) to provide the natural sciences with dualist foundations. There followed the materialist and atheist abbé Jean Meslier (1664–1729), along with the French materialists : Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709–1751), Denis Diderot (1713–1784), Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1714–1780), Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771), German-French Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789), and other French Enlightenment thinkers. In England, materialism

20757-604: The benefits of reputation and fame that derive from a successful academic career: "Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content." In 2024, Dawkins co-authored an op-ed in The Boston Globe with Sokal criticizing

20944-509: The book has been translated into more than 30 languages. Its success has been seen by many as indicative of a change in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist and has also been identified with the rise of New Atheism . In the book, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion —"a fixed false belief". In his February 2002 TED talk entitled "Militant atheism", Dawkins urged all atheists to openly state their position and to fight

21131-698: The book over one hundred uses of the root word "creation," such as "creationism" and "creation science," were changed, almost without exception, to "intelligent design," while "creationists" was changed to "design proponents" or, in one instance, " cdesign proponentsists ." [ sic ] In 1989, Of Pandas and People was published by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE), with the definition: "Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc." Pandas

21318-401: The book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley via his book Natural Theology , in which Paley argues that just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things—with their far greater complexity—be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares

21505-460: The class of monist ontology , and is thus different from ontological theories based on dualism or pluralism . For singular explanations of the phenomenal reality, materialism is in contrast to idealism , neutral monism , and spiritualism . It can also contrast with phenomenalism , vitalism , and dual-aspect monism . Its materiality can, in some ways, be linked to the concept of determinism , as espoused by Enlightenment thinkers. Despite

21692-407: The colonial orientation of the race for a "new" materialism. Watts in particular describes the tendency to regard matter as a subject of feminist or philosophical care as a tendency too invested in the reanimation of a Eurocentric tradition of inquiry at the expense of an Indigenous ethic of responsibility. Other scholars, such as Helene Vosters, echo their concerns and have questioned whether there

21879-422: The concept of historical materialism —the basis for what Marx and Friedrich Engels outlined as scientific socialism : The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth

22066-436: The concept of materialism to elaborate a materialist conception of history centered on the roughly empirical world of human activity (practice, including labor) and the institutions created, reproduced or destroyed by that activity. They also developed dialectical materialism , by taking Hegelian dialectics , stripping them of their idealist aspects, and fusing them with materialism (see Modern philosophy ). Materialism

22253-522: The concept of matter had merely changed, while others believed the conventional position could no longer be maintained. Werner Heisenberg said: "The ontology of materialism rested upon the illusion that the kind of existence, the direct 'actuality' of the world around us, can be extrapolated into the atomic range. This extrapolation, however, is impossible...atoms are not things." The concept of matter has changed in response to new scientific discoveries. Thus materialism has no definite content independent of

22440-507: The concerns voiced by the movement's gainsayers: If we understand our own times, we will know that we should affirm the reality of God by challenging the domination of materialism and naturalism in the world of the mind. With the assistance of many friends I have developed a strategy for doing this,...We call our strategy the "wedge." The Kansas evolution hearings were a series of hearings held in Topeka , Kansas , from May 5 to May 12, 2005, by

22627-569: The conventional concept of matter as tangible "stuff" came with the rise of field physics in the 19th century. Relativity shows that matter and energy (including the spatially distributed energy of fields) are interchangeable. This enables the ontological view that energy is prima materia and matter is one of its forms. In contrast, the Standard Model of particle physics uses quantum field theory to describe all interactions. On this view it could be said that fields are prima materia and

22814-516: The creation of a more accountable international political system. Dawkins identifies as a feminist. He has said that feminism is "enormously important". Dawkins has been accused by writers such as Amanda Marcotte , Caitlin Dickson, and Adam Lee of misogyny , criticizing those who speak about sexual harassment and abuse while ignoring sexism within the New Atheist movement . In 1998, in

23001-464: The dialectical form of materialism. George Stack distinguishes between materialism and physicalism: In the twentieth century, physicalism has emerged out of positivism. Physicalism restricts meaningful statements to physical bodies or processes that are verifiable or in principle verifiable. It is an empirical hypothesis that is subject to revision and, hence, lacks the dogmatic stance of classical materialism. Herbert Feigl defended physicalism in

23188-543: The energy is a property of the field. According to the dominant cosmological model, the Lambda-CDM model , less than 5% of the universe's energy density is made up of the "matter" the Standard Model describes, and most of the universe is composed of dark matter and dark energy , with little agreement among scientists about what these are made of. With the advent of quantum physics, some scientists believed

23375-402: The existence of a designer who may or may not be God , all the movement's leading advocates believe that this designer is God. They frequently accompany their arguments with a discussion of religious issues, especially when addressing religious audiences, but elsewhere downplay the religious aspects of their agenda. The modern use of the words "intelligent design," as a term intended to describe

23562-460: The existence of real objects, properties or phenomena not explicable in the terms canonically used for the basic material constituents. Jerry Fodor held this view, according to which empirical laws and explanations in "special sciences" like psychology or geology are invisible from the perspective of basic physics. Materialism developed, possibly independently, in several geographically separated regions of Eurasia during what Karl Jaspers termed

23749-609: The expectation of future reciprocation. Dawkins popularised these ideas in The Selfish Gene , and developed them in his own work. In June 2012, Dawkins was highly critical of fellow biologist E. O. Wilson 's 2012 book The Social Conquest of Earth as misunderstanding Hamilton's theory of kin selection. Dawkins has also been strongly critical of the Gaia hypothesis of the independent scientist James Lovelock . Critics of Dawkins's biological approach suggest that taking

23936-525: The expense of evolution in public school science ; its long-term goal is no less than the "renewal" of American culture through the shaping of public policy to reflect conservative Christian values. As the Discovery Institute states, intelligent design is central to this agenda: "Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." The Discovery Institute has also relied on several polls to indicate

24123-608: The fight against certain stereotypes, and he has adopted the term bright as a way of associating positive public connotations with those who possess a naturalistic worldview. He has given support to the idea of a free-thinking school, which would not "indoctrinate children" but would instead teach children to ask for evidence and be skeptical, critical, and open-minded. Such a school, says Dawkins, should "teach comparative religion, and teach it properly without any bias towards particular religions, and including historically important but dead religions, such as those of ancient Greece and

24310-556: The garden". In May 2014, at the Hay Festival in Wales, Dawkins explained that while he does not believe in the supernatural elements of the Christian faith, he still has nostalgia for the ceremonial side of religion. In addition to beliefs in deities, Dawkins has criticised religious beliefs as irrational, such as that Jesus turned water into wine , that an embryo starts as a blob, that magic underwear will protect you, that Jesus

24497-448: The general public's attention when a Discovery Institute internal memo now known as the " Wedge Document " (believed to have been written in 1998) was leaked to the public in 1999. However it is believed to have been an update of an earlier document to be implemented between 1996 and 2001. The document begins with "The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization

24684-589: The hearings by promoting its Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plan which the Kansas State Board of Education eventually adopted over objections of the State Board Science Hearing Committee, and campaigning on behalf of conservative Republican candidates for the Board. Local science advocacy group Kansas Citizens for Science organized a boycott of the hearings by mainstream scientists, who accused it of being

24871-497: The idea that there are two schools of thought within science--one that says the earth is round and one that says the earth is flat--you are misleading children." At the 1999 "Reclaiming America for Christ Conference" called by Reverend D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, Phillip E. Johnson gave a speech called "How The Evolution Debate Can Be Won." In it he sums up the theological and epistemological underpinnings of intelligent design and its strategy for victory: To talk of

25058-724: The ideological or religious beliefs of their parents. While some critics, such as writer Christopher Hitchens , psychologist Steven Pinker and Nobel laureates Sir Harold Kroto , James D. Watson , and Steven Weinberg have defended Dawkins's stance on religion and praised his work, others, including Nobel Prize -winning theoretical physicist Peter Higgs , astrophysicist Martin Rees , philosopher of science Michael Ruse , literary critic Terry Eagleton , philosopher Roger Scruton , academic and social critic Camille Paglia , atheist philosopher Daniel Came and theologian Alister McGrath , have criticised Dawkins on various grounds, including

25245-463: The incursion of the church into politics and science. On 30 September 2007, Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens , Sam Harris , and Daniel Dennett met at Hitchens's residence for a private, unmoderated discussion that lasted two hours. The event was videotaped and entitled "The Four Horsemen". Dawkins sees education and consciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination. These tools include

25432-423: The kind of conflict that is known as a 'culture war.'" Recently the Center for Science and Culture has moderated its previous overtly theistic mission statements to appeal to a broader, more secular audience. It hopes to accomplish this by using less overtly theistic messages and language. Despite this, the Center for Science and Culture still states as a goal a redefinition of science, and the philosophy on which it

25619-443: The large number of philosophical schools and their nuances, all philosophies are said to fall into one of two primary categories, defined in contrast to each other: idealism and materialism . The basic proposition of these two categories pertains to the nature of reality: the primary difference between them is how they answer two fundamental questions—what reality consists of, and how it originated. To idealists, spirit or mind or

25806-488: The laws of chance, rather than the rigid rules of causality. An extension of the quantum theory goes beyond even this; it paints a picture in which solid matter dissolves away, to be replaced by weird excitations and vibrations of invisible field energy. Quantum physics undermines materialism because it reveals that matter has far less "substance" than we might believe. But another development goes even further by demolishing Newton's image of matter as inert lumps. This development

25993-532: The little-known German biologist Richard Semon . Semon regarded "mneme" as the collective set of neural memory traces (conscious or subconscious) that were inherited, although such view would be considered as Lamarckian by modern biologists. Laurent also found the use of the term mneme in Maurice Maeterlinck 's The Life of the White Ant (1926), and Maeterlinck himself stated that he obtained

26180-458: The mainstream scientific community, so they direct them toward politicians, philosophers and the general public. What prima facie "scientific" material they have produced has been attacked by critics as containing factual misrepresentation and misleading, rhetorical and equivocal terminology. A number of documentaries that promote their assertion that intelligent design as an increasingly well-supported line of scientific inquiry have been made for

26367-423: The major participants in the intelligent design movement but were ultimately boycotted by the scientific community over concern of lending credibility to the claim, made by proponents of intelligent design, that evolution is purportedly the subject of wide dispute within the scientific and science education communities. The Discovery Institute, hub of the intelligent design movement, played a central role in starting

26554-516: The materialist scientists are deluding themselves. Darwin's Black Box , mentioned in the quote above, received harsh criticism from the scientific community, including negative reviews by evolutionary scientist Nathan Lents . The intelligent design movement grew out of a creationist tradition which argues against evolutionary theory from a religious standpoint, usually that of evangelical or fundamentalistic Christianity . Although intelligent design advocates often claim that they are arguing only for

26741-573: The method through which God created life . Johnson explicitly calls for intelligent design proponents to obfuscate their religious motivations so as to avoid having intelligent design recognized "as just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message ." Hence intelligent design arguments are carefully formulated in secular terms and intentionally avoid positing the identity of the designer. Johnson has stated that cultivating ambiguity by employing secular language in arguments which are carefully crafted to avoid overtones of theistic creationism

26928-493: The mid-19th century was German materialism , which included Ludwig Büchner (1824–1899), the Dutch-born Jacob Moleschott (1822–1893), and Carl Vogt (1817–1895), even though they had different views on core issues such as the evolution and the origins of life. Contemporary analytic philosophers (e.g. Daniel Dennett , Willard Van Orman Quine , Donald Davidson , and Jerry Fodor ) operate within

27115-418: The movement cite the Wedge Document as confirmation of this criticism and assert that the movement's leaders, particularly Phillip E. Johnson, view the subject as a culture war : "Darwinian evolution is not primarily important as a scientific theory but as a culturally dominant creation story. ... When there is radical disagreement in a commonwealth about the creation story, the stage is set for intense conflict,

27302-627: The movement's key strategies, the wedge strategy and the "Teach the Controversy" campaign. The Discovery Institute and leading proponents represent intelligent design as a revolutionary scientific theory. The overwhelming majority of the scientific community, as represented by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Sciences and nearly all scientific professional organizations, firmly reject these claims, and insist that intelligent design

27489-640: The name Steve and most of whom are trained biologists. As of July 31, 2006, the Discovery Institute lists "over 600 scientists," while Project Steve reported 749 signatories; as of May 30, 2014, 1,338 Steves have signed the statement, while 906 have signed A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism as of April 2014. The movement's strategy as set forth by Phillip E. Johnson states the replacement of "materialist science" with "theistic science" as its primary goal; and, more generally, for intelligent design to become "the dominant perspective in science" and to "permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life." This agenda

27676-417: The natural world, as well as Scripture." In his presentation to the 1999 "Reclaiming America for Christ Conference," "How The Evolution Debate Can Be Won," Johnson affirmed this 'big tent' role for "The Wedge" (without using the term intelligent design): To talk of a purposeful or guided evolution is not to talk about evolution at all. That is "slow creation." When you understand it that way, you realize that

27863-454: The objects of mind ( ideas ) are primary, and matter secondary. To materialists, matter is primary, and mind or spirit or ideas are secondary—the product of matter acting upon matter. The materialist view is perhaps best understood in its opposition to the doctrines of immaterial substance applied to the mind historically by René Descartes ; by itself, materialism says nothing about how material substance should be characterized. In practice, it

28050-463: The other faction is named after the American palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould , reflecting the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of the pertinent ideas. In particular, Dawkins and Gould have been prominent commentators in the controversy over sociobiology and evolutionary psychology , with Dawkins generally approving and Gould generally being critical. A typical example of Dawkins's position

28237-480: The particular theory of matter on which it is based. According to Noam Chomsky , any property can be considered material, if one defines matter such that it has that property. The philosophical materialist Gustavo Bueno uses a more precise term than matter , the stroma. In Materialism and Empirio-Criticism , Lenin argues that the truth of dialectical materialism is unrelated to any particular understanding of matter. To him, such changes actually confirm

28424-596: The perception of Brahman are considered to destroy the illusion. Rudolf Peierls , a physicist who played a major role in the Manhattan Project , rejected materialism: "The premise that you can describe in terms of physics the whole function of a human being   ... including knowledge and consciousness, is untenable. There is still something missing." Erwin Schrödinger said, "Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness

28611-618: The philosophy, but in the economics of each particular epoch. Through his Dialectics of Nature (1883), Engels later developed a "materialist dialectic" philosophy of nature , a worldview that Georgi Plekhanov , the father of Russian Marxism , called dialectical materialism . In early 20th-century Russian philosophy , Vladimir Lenin further developed dialectical materialism in his 1909 book Materialism and Empirio-criticism , which connects his opponents' political conceptions to their anti-materialist philosophies. A more naturalist -oriented materialist school of thought that developed in

28798-414: The phrase from Semon's work. In his own work, Maeterlinck tried to explain memory in termites and ants by stating that neural memory traces were added "upon the individual mneme". Nonetheless, James Gleick describes Dawkins's concept of the meme as "his most famous memorable invention, far more influential than his selfish genes or his later proselytising against religiosity". In 2006, Dawkins founded

28985-571: The popularity of Dawkins's work is due to factors in the Zeitgeist such as the increased individualism of the Thatcher/Reagan decades. Besides, other, more recent views and analysis on his popular science works also exist. In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (what has been called 'The Darwin Wars'), one faction is often named after Dawkins, while

29172-417: The psychoanalyst Félix Guattari : "We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis." This is explained, Dawkins maintains, by certain intellectuals' academic ambitions. Figures like Guattari or Lacan , according to Dawkins, have nothing to say but want to reap

29359-432: The recognition that 'In the beginning was the Word,' and 'In the beginning God created.' Establishing that point isn't enough, but it is absolutely essential to the rest of the gospel message." The Center for Science and Culture, formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, is a division of the Discovery Institute. The Center consists of a tightly knit core of people who have worked together for almost

29546-431: The religious fundamentalists he criticises. Atheist philosopher John Gray has denounced Dawkins as an "anti-religious missionary", whose assertions are "in no sense novel or original", suggesting that "transfixed in wonderment at the workings of his own mind, Dawkins misses much that is of importance in human beings". Gray has also criticised Dawkins's perceived allegiance to Darwin, stating that if "science, for Darwin,

29733-534: The religious source of much of its funding. In an interview of Stephen C. Meyer when World News Tonight asked about the Discovery Institute's many evangelical Christian donors the Institute's public relations representative stopped the interview saying "I don't think we want to go down that path." Phillip E. Johnson, largely regarded as the leader of the movement, positions himself as a "theistic realist" against "methodological naturalism" and intelligent design as

29920-543: The religious worldview that undergirds it." Intelligent design is an attempt to recast religious dogma in an effort to reintroduce the teaching of biblical creationism to public school science classrooms; the intelligent design movement is an effort to reshape American society into a theocracy , primarily through education. As evidence, critics cite the Discovery Institute's political activities, its wedge strategy and statements made by leading intelligent design proponents. The scientific community's position, as represented by

30107-566: The request of DI director Bruce Chapman, and mutual recriminations with the DI after the case was lost. The Alliance Defense Fund briefly represented the Foundation for Thought and Ethics in its unsuccessful motion to intervene in this case, and prepared amicus curiae briefs on behalf of the DI and FTE in it. It has also made amicus curiae submissions and offered to pay for litigation, in other (actual and potential) creationism-related cases. On

30294-661: The run up to the 2017 general election , Dawkins once again endorsed the Liberal Democrats and urged voters to join the party. In April 2021, Dawkins said on Twitter that "In 2015, Rachel Dolezal , a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black. Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss." After receiving criticism for this tweet, Dawkins responded by saying that "I do not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic "Discuss" question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this. It

30481-648: The same year, he received a Sci. Tech Prize for Best Television Documentary Science Programme of the Year for his work on the BBC's Horizon episode The Blind Watchmaker . In 1996, the American Humanist Association gave him their Humanist of the Year Award, but the award was withdrawn in 2021, with the statement that he "demean[ed] marginalized groups", including transgender people, using "the guise of scientific discourse". Other awards include

30668-428: The scientific community about the validity of evolution." and that "Evolution is one of the most robust and widely accepted principles of modern science." The ruling in the 2005 Dover, Pennsylvania , trial, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District , where the claims of intelligent design proponents were considered by a United States federal court , stated that "evolution, including common descent and natural selection,

30855-520: The secular were much lower. Jason Rosenhouse summarized the prevailing attitude of the scientific community: "Scientists who have responded to ID arguments in print have generally done so with a tone of sneering contempt. This is understandable: ID supporters present fallacious arguments, use dishonest rhetoric, and often present non-contemptuous responses as evidence that their theories are gaining acceptance." Intelligent design advocates realize that their arguments have little chance of acceptance within

31042-454: The stifling dominance of the materialist worldview ", represented by the theory of evolution, in favor of "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." To achieve their goal of defeating a materialistic world view, advocates of intelligent design take a two-pronged approach. Alongside the promotion of intelligent design, proponents also seek to " Teach the Controversy "; discredit evolution by emphasizing perceived flaws in

31229-419: The teaching of creationism along with evolution in science classrooms, though only 38% favored teaching it instead of evolution, with the results varying deeply by education level and religiosity. The poll showed the educated were far less attached to intelligent design than the less educated. Evangelicals and fundamentalists showed high rates of affiliation with intelligent design while other religious persons and

31416-605: The teaching of science, after which debates regarding details could resume. In his 2002 article in Christian Research Journal , Discovery Institute fellow Paul A. Nelson credits Johnson for the 'big tent' approach and for reviving creationist debate since the Edwards v. Aguillard decision. According to Nelson, "The promise of the big tent of ID is to provide a setting where Christians (and others) may disagree amicably, and fruitfully, about how best to understand

31603-515: The term physicalism to materialism , while others use the terms as if they were synonymous . Discoveries of neural correlates between consciousness and the brain are taken as empirical support for materialism, but some philosophers of mind find that association fallacious or consider it compatible with non-materialist ideas. Alternative philosophies opposed or alternative to materialism or physicalism include idealism, pluralism , dualism , panpsychism , and other forms of monism . Epicureanism

31790-429: The theory of evolution, or disagreements within the scientific community and encourage teachers and students to explore non-scientific alternatives to evolution, or to critically analyze evolution and the controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution. But the world's largest general scientific society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science , has stated that "There is no significant controversy within

31977-443: The universities and churches that we call "The Wedge," which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science. One very famous book that's come out of The Wedge is biochemist Michael Behe's book Darwin's Black Box , which has had an enormous impact on the scientific world. Now, the way that I see the logic of our movement going is like this. The first thing you understand

32164-407: The use of the terminology "sex assigned at birth" instead of "sex" by the American Medical Association , the American Psychological Association , the American Academy of Pediatrics , and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . Dawkins and Sokal argued that sex is an "objective biological reality" that "is determined at conception and is then observed at birth," rather than assigned by

32351-462: The very simple facts of physics and chemistry and build them up to redwood trees and humans. That's never far from my thoughts, that sense of amazement. On the other hand, I certainly don't allow Darwinism to influence my feelings about human social life", implying that he feels that individual human beings can opt out of the survival machine of Darwinism since they are freed by the consciousness of self. In his book The Selfish Gene , Dawkins coined

32538-494: The view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker. In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate against A. E. Wilder-Smith (a Young Earth creationist) and Edgar Andrews (president of

32725-408: The word meme (the behavioural equivalent of a gene) as a way to encourage readers to think about how Darwinian principles might be extended beyond the realm of genes. It was intended as an extension of his "replicators" argument, but it took on a life of its own in the hands of other authors, such as Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore . These popularisations then led to the emergence of memetics ,

32912-420: Was a method of inquiry that enabled him to edge tentatively and humbly toward the truth, for Dawkins, science is an unquestioned view of the world". A 2016 study found that many British scientists held an unfavourable view of Dawkins and his attitude towards religion. In response to his critics, Dawkins maintains that theologians are no better than scientists in addressing deep cosmological questions and that he

33099-438: Was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue." In a recent interview Dawkins stated regarding trans people that he does not "deny their existence nor does he in anyway oppress them". He objects to the statement that a "trans woman is a woman because that is a distortion of language and a distortion of science". The American Humanist Association retracted Dawkins' 1996 Humanist of

33286-419: Was built." and then goes on to outline the movement's goal to exploit perceived discrepancies within evolutionary theory in order to discredit evolution and scientific materialism in general. Much of the strategy is directed toward the broader public, as opposed to the professional scientific community. The stated "governing goals" of the CSC's wedge strategy are: Critics of intelligent design movement argue that

33473-528: Was developed in the philosophies of Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), and John Locke (1632–1704). Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume (1711–1776) became one of the most important materialist philosophers in the 18th century. John "Walking" Stewart (1747–1822) believed matter has a moral dimension, which had a major impact on the philosophical poetry of William Wordsworth (1770–1850). In late modern philosophy , German atheist anthropologist Ludwig Feuerbach signaled

33660-443: Was doubling every 40 years. He is critical of Roman Catholic attitudes to family planning and population control , stating that leaders who forbid contraception and "express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation" will get just such a method in the form of starvation . As a supporter of the Great Ape Project —a movement to extend certain moral and legal rights to all great apes —Dawkins contributed

33847-441: Was followed in 1991 by Darwin on Trial , a neo-creationist polemic by Phillip E. Johnson, that is regarded as a central text of the movement. Darwin on Trial mentioned Pandas as "'creationist' only in the sense that it juxtaposes a paradigm of 'intelligent design' with the dominant paradigm of (naturalistic) evolution," but his use of the term as a focus for his wedge strategy promoting " theistic realism " came later. The book

34034-560: Was held in Southern Methodist University . It included a debate between Johnson and Michael Ruse (a key witness in McLean v. Arkansas (1982)) and papers by William A. Dembski , Michael Behe and Stephen C. Meyer . In 1993, Johnson organized a follow-up meeting, including Dembski, Behe, Meyer, Dean H. Kenyon (co-author of Pandas ) and Walter Bradley (co-author with Thaxton and Kenyon of The Mystery of Life's Origin (1984)), as well as two graduate students, Paul A. Nelson and Jonathan Wells . On December 6, 1993, an article by Meyer

34221-431: Was not material precludes labelling them as materialists). Buddhist atomism and the Jaina school continued the atomic tradition. Ancient Greek atomists like Leucippus , Democritus and Epicurus prefigure later materialists. The Latin poem De Rerum Natura by Lucretius (99 – c. 55 BC) reflects the mechanistic philosophy of Democritus and Epicurus. According to this view, all that exists

34408-421: Was published in The Wall Street Journal , drawing national attention to the controversy over Dean H. Kenyon's teaching of creationism. This article also gained the attention of Discovery Institute co-founder Bruce Chapman . On discovering that Meyer was developing the idea of starting a scientific research center in conversations with conservative political scientist John G. West , Chapman invited them to create

34595-560: Was resurrected , that semen comes from the spine, that Jesus walked on water , that the sun sets in a marsh, that the Garden of Eden existed in Adam-ondi-Ahman , Missouri, that Jesus' mother was a virgin , that Muhammad split the Moon , and that Lazarus was raised from the dead . Dawkins has risen to prominence in public debates concerning science and religion since the publication of his most popular book, The God Delusion , in 2006, which became an international bestseller. As of 2015, more than three million copies have been sold, and

34782-487: Was reviewed by evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould for Scientific American in July 1992, concluding that the book contains "... no weighing of evidence, no careful reading of literature on all sides, no full citation of sources (the book does not even contain a bibliography) and occasional use of scientific literature only to score rhetorical points." Gould's review led to the formation in 1992 or 1993 of an 'Ad Hoc Origins Committee' of Johnson's supporters, which wrote

34969-416: Was withdrawn over his sharing of what was characterized as a "highly offensive video" satirically showing cartoon feminist and Islamist characters singing about the things they hold in common. In issuing the tweet, Dawkins stated that it "Obviously doesn't apply to vast majority of feminists, among whom I count myself. But the minority are pernicious." Dawkins also does not believe in an afterlife. Dawkins

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