June 18, 2021 - 3:28pm
We were really delighted that Richard Dawkins agreed to come on LockdownTV to discuss “Scientism” and his new anthology of writing about science literature, Books do furnish a Life.
It turns out that Mr Dawkins’ view of “Scientism” is that it is a “dirty word used by people who are critical of scientists” — so that was a relatively brief part of the conversation.
On Covid, he is not especially worried about the boundaries of politics and science becoming blurred, but feels that “science is the way to discover the right answer to anything about the real world — and that, of course, includes how to deal with a serious epidemic.” Vaccination and mask-wearing is “not a matter of a set of self interest” it is a “moral responsibility.”
I asked Mr Dawkins about the impact of the New Atheism movement, ten or more years on. How does he respond to Scott Alexander’s analysis that the Atheist+ activists of the 2000s seem to have graduated into the social justice warriors of the 2010s?
“I’m interested in science, I’m not interested in politics or sociology.” Fair enough!
I also asked how he responds to the Tom Holland thesis that the atheist movement bears many of the hallmarks of evangelical Christianity?
Mr Dawkins went into detail about a fascinating essay in his book about the evolutionary power of kin selection, how prioritising genetic relatives explains so much behaviour in the animal world. So what does that say about the human species? If prioritising our genetic in-group is so deeply wired in our DNA, what does that say about the tendency to revert to a tribal or race-based politics?
We discussed a conversation he had with Christopher Hitchens back in 2011 when they were both worried about America becoming a “theocracy”. Ten years on, that seems like rather a remote possibility, surely?
So what is the Dawkins dream scenario? A world where that number falls to zero and there are no religious people left?
Dawkins believes that as we move away from religion we are becoming more moral.
He ended with a note of cautious optimism, rejecting any notion that the era of rationality is over.
Our thanks to Richard Dawkins for sharing his thoughts. His book is available HERE.
is the Editor-in-Chief & CEO of UnHerd. He was previously Editor-in-Chief of YouGov, and founder of PoliticsHome.
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SubscribeDawkins makes a point which I agree with. In a clever way the word ‘science’ has been devalued over the last few years and it has been done deliberately to make a group called ‘Social Scientists’ into scientists.
Social Scientists are not scientists – they do Social Sudies, without any scientific training at all. But to the public, if you study Social Science you must therefore be a scientist.
During the lockdown we have been bombarded with opinions from Social Scientists. This has helped to give science a bad name.
Great comment.
I’m trying to revive a word from the medieval Catholic Schoolmen philosophers. The word is “universal” and in their vocabulary it was used as a noun, not an adjective. It indicated anything which had no existence other than as an aspect of something else. The classic example was colour. You can have any amount of objects which are red, for example, but you cannot go into a shop and buy a bucket of red. You can buy red paint, or red ink, or red wool, but you cannot buy just red.
Science is a universal. It does not exist except as a method practiced by scientists. There is no extant, discrete demigod called “science” walking the Earth, dispassionately building knowledge and disinterestedly disseminating it to the great unwashed. It exists only as an aspect of the scientists who practise its methods and is, like a gun, only as good or as bad as the people who use it. “Scientism” is the belief that science exists outside of scientists, which, of course, it doesn’t.
Thus, as a hypothetical example, if a massive correlation were found between a cheap generic drug which had been around for fifty years and used for the treatment of parasitic infection in sub-Saharan Africa, and the absence of…oh, I don’t know… Covid-19 in a given population, then scientists might attempt to suppress that knowledge if, eg, their jobs in the industry which had developed vaccines for Covid at massive cost depended on it.
Oh hail the one science!
So he hates religion but thinks everyone has a moral responsibility to wear masks because criticism of “scientists” is dirty. Lol.
Richard Dawkins managed to lose all my support in a single interview. Impressive.
did you have any support for him before? He has no respect for people: his book the God delusion is a sad criticism of human nature. He has of course his own religion: science….
Ditto
He’s a nice man, but remarkably one-dimensional, a materialist and reductionist to his toe nails. He talks about reality as if that only exists “out there”, or under a microscope. What he defines as real is what he can measure and prove, look at objectively. This of course leaves out of account the subjective experience of each and every one of us 7 billion human beings. No wonder he doesn’t understand religious ideas – they’re referring to something whose existence he refuses to acknowledge – his own interior.
What is the social responsibility of the scientists ? Does Dawkins accept that scientists scr8w up and could give very wrong advice to the society? If it is realised in the future that the scientists were wrong & If the consequences are dire, what should we do about this situation. And how do we know we are following the SCIENCE & not the SCIENTISTS who might be biased, incompetent or simply looking for personal gain in some way. All of us are corruptible . Like the leak theory is being revisited when it was waived away by prominent scientists because it was the other scientists who were responsible for its leak.
I guess scientists have the same social responsibility as the rest of us, to be as honest as they can be. I think it is possibly helpful to distinguish between scientists and science. The power of science lies in its falsifiability and the very democratic process of peer review depends on that. Individual scientists and groups of scientists can be and often are wrong in their conclusions, whether through some form of incompetence or conscious intent, but the debate that takes place through peer review and checking of data/replicating results allows science to approach the truth with ever higher probability over time. Individual scientists are a means to that end.
Problems arise when science mixes with politics because politics doesn’t manage probability and uncertainty very well. That has certainly happened during the pandemic, where politicians claim to be ‘led by the science’ when what they mean is ‘led by a group of scientists ‘. That group of scientists may be well intentioned but they are not infallible as has become increasingly clear, and by cutting out the debate provided by peer review, science isn’t being allowed to properly do its job.
He’s a simple soul. Comical really
“I’m interested in science, I’m not interested in politics or sociology.” Fair enough!
Not fair enough actually, because this misses the obvious point that if politics harnesses science to its own agenda, that is just as bad as Dawkins’ preoccupation with the subordination of science to religion.
And he is quite wrong to dismiss Scientism as nothing more than a dirty word used by anti-rationalists: there are loads of rationalists like me who are aghast at the prostitution of science, it’s institutions and it’s processes to nakedly politicised agendas. It is sad and surprising that Dawkins does not seem to recognise the dangers here. The notion that climate change and lockdown science reach the policy level without any interference with the strict disciplines and processes that make science the essential basis for rationalism itself is risible and ludicrous. It just wont wash, Prof, sorry.
I do hope he’s right, however, that we’re not really headed for a new dark age of unreason, but I see little persuasive evidence that the danger is not real. We are busily constructing a new tyrannical morality that has already proved in its early stages to celebrate irrationalism and even to use it as a metric of success in defeating evidence-based policy-making and scientifically established conventions. I am not however persuaded by Dawkins confidence on the point, I merely note that he possesses it without any robust defence.
“The notion that climate change and lockdown science reach the policy level” – exactly. Politicians develop policy not scientists, but science needs the money from politicians. Teaching – Unions – Politicians, another unholy collection.
I wonder whether scientists working on CRISPR gene editing and other gain-of-function research are as uninterested in politics or sociology as Dawkins
But of course; anything else would be boorish!
He dodged the matter of today’s religious impulses morphing into political form, and it was grossly inconsistent of him. Why? Because after acknowledging that, together with Hitchens, he’d warned against a future American “theocracy”, he scuttled away into the coward’s cupboard, squeaking that he couldn’t possibly comment on current trends, being solely interested in science, not sociology. Hmm. Set aside that sociology aspires to the condition of science, it’s clear that when the irrationalist enemy no longer hales from the old right, he is either blind to it or afraid of it.
Touch of the old-time BBC deference there, “tell me Mr Dawkins, what would you like to tell our listeners”. It would have been good for Freddie to have asked him his reaction to the infamous Lancet and Nature articles regarding the Covid-19 origin and whether that dented his faith in the science establishment. I suspect he would have retreated into one of his no-go areas – “not my field old chum; couldn’t possibly comment on that”- especially given his evident gullibility on the climate issue.
Yes, that would have been good. The whole interview suffered in my opinion from a lack of focus. And not Freddie’s finest hour. I grant you. Usually our Freddie treads the line of beauty between old-fashioned journalists as you so well put it and the modern lot who want to show off their own puffed-up egos rather tha n helping viewers and listeners understand and draw conclusions. This time he erred too far to the deferential.
I am both unwilling to exclusively believe scientists (especially after locking me up for over a year during which time I followed ‘the science’ unfolding) and I am also unwilling to abandon my spiritual beliefs which I know to be true. I am wary of zealots from certain organised religions, but not everyone is a zealot and religions can assist in guiding morality in societies.
Some zealots are atheists! Atheism has become a religion because that is hardwired: science on the other hand is a bunch of rules applied to materialism in much the same way as AF rules apply to soccer.. not all of life is represented by soccer or by science..
Definition of Scientism:
Scientism is used to a describe a situation in which non-scientific statements, claims, etc. are being justified by an erroneous appeal to science. Yes, it’s intended to be a dirty word. And of course scientists take issue with it. Because who wouldn’t want their opinions arbitrarily elevated over everyone else?
From Dawkin’s own mouth:
No. Science doesn’t tell anyone what to do. Science describes how the world *is*. Not how the world *ought* to be. There are other disciplines, like philosophy (not science), that do help us decide what to do. It seems to me that Dawkins doesn’t like the word Scientism because it undermines his authority to tell us what is right and what is wrong.
I found this interesting because he spoke without his usual hostility towards religion. Since science tells us how the world works and religion is about the meaning of life, I am unsure why they are regarded as competitors. I’d enjoy hearing him talk with a scientist who is a Christian such as Francis Collins, also a biologist.
Guy’s as crazy as David Ike, but not as nice. As a student of evolutionary biology decades ago I read his books, and always find his protesting of how adamantly atheist he is is really a ‘Protest too much’ thing, and I expect a end of life conversion where he finds a Hitchens like Damascus.
“slavery is sanctioned in the Bible, after all” Well the entire past was sanctioned in the bible, so to speak, as that was when it was. I mean is he disappointed on the lack of a chapter on gender reassignment as well?
I have been enjoying his fellow evo-devo guy Bret Weinstein’s podcasts on youtube on the covid vaccines and how deadly they are looking to be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXApSn7t4yg “”Don’t come back until your lips are blue” (Robert Malone, Steve Kirsch, Bret Weinstein)” this is the guy interviewed by Freddy as well. (the hard Liberal/Lefty who got hoist by his own petard and now is totally anti-woke, and is also an ‘Evolutionary Biologist’, which is like being an anthropologist Biologist sort of thing which cannot ever differentiate between correlation and causation.
p.s. My first returning post and I am ‘Awaiting for approval’… sigh no going easy on the ‘Members’ I guess.
mmmm he should read: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/can-this-couple-work-it-out/
Freddy: would you please interview Canadian developmental psychologist Gordon Neufeld? I think he could provide some as yet ‘unherd’ reflections on the tribalism, groupthink, attacking behaviiour, and polarzation we see all around us. His understanding of the primacy of attachment and how attachment is a necessary but insuffccicient condition for maturation makes much understandable that is otherwise alarming and baffling.
Really? Because when I was out protesting the mandates and lockdowns that have since been found to not only be ineffective but in many ways unconstitutional I actually did have eggs thrown at me, and I doubt very much that they came from religious people. As a fellow atheist I have to say many of my brothers are still suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome (and I say that as a Never Trumper) which Covid-19 made even worse.