Sailer on Dawkins and God

Poking around VDARE turned up an essay Steve Sailer wrote back in 1999 regarding Darwin, evolution, and God. I found it interesting because it is similar but more completely developed and better written than what I recently wrote.

"A Miracle Happens Here:" Darwin's Enemies on the Right
Part I of a Two Part Series
by Steve Sailer, 11/20/99

Darwin seems to lose out with the public primarily when his supporters force him into a mano-a-mano Thunderdome death match against the Almighty. Most people seem willing to accept Darwinism as long as they don't have to believe in nothing but Darwinism. Thus, the strident tub-thumping for absolute atheism by evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins, author of the great book "The Selfish Gene," is counter-productive.

But biologists should be wary of atheistical triumphalism for more than merely tactical reasons. Dawkins' seems to have forgotten the point made by "Darwin's Bulldog," Thomas H. Huxley, that true skepticism implies agnosticism, not atheism. The smug atheism rampant among prominent evolutionists today is reminiscent of that of the physicists in 1899, just before the 20th Century unleashed a host of unwelcome surprises upon them. Unfortunately, biologists don't know enough of the history of physics and cosmology to see how atheistic dogmatism can mislead and slow scientific progress.

In other words, it's bad juju to let your dogma drive your kharma.

Sailer goes on to describe the plight of cosmologists. Faced with evidence that our universe has a finite age and is improbably tuned to carbon-based life's needs they still feel no need to invoke a Designer. Goodness no. Instead they posit an infinite number of universes.

Isn't it just wonderous? Next they'll be hypothesizing an infinite number of Flying Spaghetti Monsters. There's just as much evidence. Cosmologists don't need no stinkin Creator. They feel much more comfortable invoking Darwin to infinity and beyond.

This infinite universes concept is a sensationally creative idea. Of course, in its utter untestability, it's not exactly science. In truth, it is theological speculation at its most grandiose. Philosopher Robert C. Koons notes, "Originally, atheists prided themselves on being no-nonsense empiricists, who limited their beliefs to what could be seen and measured. Now, we find ourselves in a situation in which the only alternative to belief in God is belief in an infinite number of unobservable parallel universes! You've come along way, baby!" At minimum, we now know that our natural world cannot account for its own existence. To do that, we need to assume the existence of some sort of supernatural word. And even if some enormous breakthrough let us validate the existence of this superuniverse, we'd probably end up having to assume that it was brought about by some sort of hyperuniverse beyond that, and on and on.

In summary, for reasons stretching from the gritty world of tactical politics to the most ethereal conjectures about the cosmos (or cosmoses), those who claim to be skeptics should try harder to keep their minds open.

Amen.