Is there a Dawkins?

5 Responses to “Is there a Dawkins?”

1. 
   mynym
   December 10th, 2008 at 9:25 pm

   A clever satire but once again it is almost impossible to make a satiric point against Darwinism. Does Richard Dawkins exist? Well, according to Richard Dawkins himself the answer is no, not in the way that one would naturally think of an organism or individual existing as a living, sentient and intelligent being. Instead the illusion that we think of as “Dawkins” is actually just a tool of certain selfish genes. As the philosopher David Stove noted:
   

   …consider the following representative statements made by leading sociobiologists. Richard Dawkins, easily the best-known spokesman for this movement, writes that ‘we are…robot-vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes,’ and again that we are ‘manipulated in order to assure the survival of our genes.’ The same writer also says that ‘the fundamental truth [is] that an organism is a tool of DNA.’ (That is, of the DNA molecules which are the organism’s genes.) Again, Dawkins says that ‘living organisms exist for the benefit of DNA.’ Similarly, E.O. Wilson, an equal or higher sociobiological authority, says that ‘the individual organism is only the vehicle [of genes], part of an elaborate device to preserve and spread them….The organism is only DNA’s way of making more DNA.’
   I will mention in a moment some other passages in which sociobiologists imply that genes are beings of more than human intelligence and power, but that implication should be clear enough already from the passages just quoted. According to the Christian religion, human beings and all other created things exist for the greater glory of God; according to sociobiology, human beings and all other living things exist for the benefit of their genes.
   [...]
   It must be admitted that sociobiologists sometimes say other things which are inconsistent with statements like the ones I have just quoted. Dawkins, for example, sometimes protests that he does not at all believe that genes are ‘conscious, purposeful agents.’ But these disclaimers are in vain. Of course genes are not conscious purposeful agents: everyone will agree with that. Where sociobiologists differe from other people is just that they also say, over and over again, things which imply that genes are conscious purposeful agents; and agents, at that, of so much intelligence and power that human beings are merely among the tools they make and use.
   (Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity and Other Fables of Evolution by David Stove: 248-249)

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2. 
   DB
   December 11th, 2008 at 9:46 am

   According to the Christian religion, human beings and all other created things exist for the greater glory of God; according to sociobiology, human beings and all other living things exist for the benefit of their genes.

   If sociobiology is correct, then on what foundation do we build our ethics and morality? If we are reduced to nothing more than a vehicle for our genes (who are, by far, more brilliant than we are, evidently?), then I see no reason to value anyone, including myself, or adhere to a worthless ethical and moral, man-made code of behavior.

   DEHUMANIZATION!!!!!

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3. 
   Mike
   December 11th, 2008 at 10:46 am

   Apparently to Dawkins, we live in a post-’Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ world, where we’ve all already hatched out of our pods, after being seeded by the Gene-Aliens from outer space.

   I think he needs to lighten up on the science fiction!

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1. “The Intolerance of Evolution” (Apologia) | An Outsider's Perspective
2. Morality: On What Basis? | An Outsider's Perspective

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