Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

Richard Dawkins interview on religion, evolution and Iraq

By Matt Kennard

“Blair is surely guilty but I as I said “with agony” – that’s what I meant. I think he really did agonize over it whereas I think Bush is too stupid to agonize about anything.”

By on Friday, March 19th, 2010 - 1,396 words.

MK: Do you draw distinctions between religions? In terms of Islam and Christianity do you think they are both equally malicious and malign or do you think that one is worse than the other?

RD: Well in terms of the potential danger from blind faith there’s no difference between them. All faith is dangerous because all faith teaches that you don’t need to argue for your point of view – you just simply assert: this is my faith, this is what I believe, I don’t have to give reasons for belief. That is very dangerous. And in the case of Christianity the danger in practice was sort of played out in the Middle Ages and thereafter and Christianity has now more or less tamed it except in some extreme areas in America. In Islam it hasn’t and so what we’re seeing in Islam – they are now doing what Christianity used to do in the Middle Ages, in much more dangerous circumstances because now there are much more terrible weapons than the Crusaders, for example, ever had. Or than other Medieval Christians ever had.

So Islam is the big danger today because they have a Medieval mindset which bursts through into the twenty-first century.

MK: How far do you think the rise of this Medieval mindset can be put at the door of the West in terms of encouraging it in the 20th century?

RD: That is always a good point that one has to make. That the West in a way has been answering for trouble by its belligerent posture, for example, in the Iraq war. This has served to exacerbate political – that’s undoubtedly true. But I think it’s a sort of added affect over the precept of Islam.

MK: Do you think religion – I know your very anti-it – could it be described as an evolutionary mechanism to consolidate social relations and that type of thing?

RD: I believe that it probably does have to have some kind of evolutionary explanation. But you immediately slid into one particular hypothesis, which was social consolidation. That’s only one of many hypothesis that one could offer and it could be right but you don’t have to plump for that one when you talk about an evolutionary hypothesis.

MK: So it could be a whole manner of things?

RD: Yes. Social consolidation is not a very good evolutionary theory, by the way, because it doesn’t explain how it could have evolved. It says that in some vague sort of way it’s a good thing. But a vague good thing – there’s no rule that says it has to evolve. No absolutely not. I mean natural selection is a very specific process, which works by the differential survival of some kind of entities as opposed to alternative entities. In real biological evolution that usually means genes: that successful genes survive at the expense of unsuccessful genes. The reason they survive is that they are good at doing something: good at building bodies that fly or hunt or swim or whatever it is. To say that something that something is good for social consolidation doesn’t explain anything because it doesn’t say why natural selection would therefore favour it.

You could make a kind of group selection model. There are people who believe that natural selection works at the group level. That some groups survive while other groups don’t survive. Then you could say, well, groups that have a religion that causes social consolidation survive. Groups that don’t have a religion or have a less efficient religion don’t survive. And that is group selection but group selection is a very… I mean it’s controversial and I’m partisan in that controversy – I don’t think it works. This could be the one place where it does work but I would rather bring it down to the level of the individual and say: “What is it about the psychology of humans which makes them take to religion under the right circumstances? And how is it that that particular kind of psychology in the past made them more likely to survive and reproduce?”

MK: But is there a sense that if it does have an evolutionary purpose we will never be rid of it?

RD: No. Not at all. To say it has an evolutionary purpose means that natural selection has favored genes which in the past has produced brains which have a tendency under the right conditions to produce religion. Suppose we asked well what are those psychological dispositions that favor religion: they could be things like obedience to authority, a tendency to hallucinate vision – these are all things which the brain has a susceptibility to. And under the right conditions those psychological susceptibility will give rise to religion. But the conditions might be different. They’ll give rise to religion if, for example, you’re bought up in a culture in a culture that teaches religion. But if we change the culture so that we no longer teach religion or if we change the culture so that we educate people in science or if we change the culture so that we teach comparative religion then things might be different.

MK: But religion has appeared in all societies – in different gradations. We’ve been educated in science a lot of us since birth and still – look at America there’s been science teaching in school and still 50% of the population believe mad things about the origin of the world.

RD: Yes. So what are you saying then?

MK: That it will always appear within any cultural format.

RD: I don’t think that’s necessarily true. It doesn’t affect everybody. The fact that I and presumably you don’t believe it mean that it is possible by education to escape from it which proves that it is not inevitable. All we have got to do is reproduce whatever conditions it is that make people escape from it and my guess it that’s largely education.

MK: At the moment would you say we are regressing in that respect?

RD: I think we are but I think it’s probably temporary and I think the overall sweep of history is in the right direction. And any trend in a complex system like a society tends to have sawtooth ups and downs. I think we are going into a sawtooth at the moment, especially in America but it won’t go on for centuries, probably not even decades.

MK: I wanted to move on briefly to you views on Iraq. You weren’t opposed to the war in Afghanistan were you?

RD: Well I wasn’t because I felt that America needed to try to find those responsible and it did really appear as though Al-Qaeda was being actively encouraged by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and it was promoting that kind of terrorism and promoting the most awful religious repression in its own country as well which is an additional factor.

MK: But in terms of Iraq, did you feel it was establishing a new military norm for the US?

RD: Well what I really objected to was the lying about the motives for going into Iraq. I mean lying about Weapons of Mass Destruction and really taking our eye off the ball of world terrorism since whatever else Saddam has done, he did not mastermind the 9/11 attacks and so the deliberate lies by Cheney and Bush and that gang who implied that he did – the timing of it. If there was a reason for going into Iraq that reason had been around for a long time before, why suddenly choose a time of hysteria immediately after 9/11? Obviously, because it was an act of political opportunism – catching the America mood – the tendency just to blame all Arabs because it was Arabs who did 9/11 and the Iraqis are Arabs aren’t they?

MK: Do you think there was any altruistic motive in it? Freeing the Iraqis from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein.

RD: I think there probably was and that was immensely naïve with hindsight.

MK: More on Blair’s part than Bush?

RD: I think that’s true.

MK: Lots of other people have said… did you read the memo recently in which Blair was assuring Bush about British support even before Parliament voted?

RD: Oh yes. I mean Blair is surely guilty but I as I said “with agony” – that’s what I meant. I think he really did agonize over it whereas I think Bush is too stupid to agonize about anything.

26 Comments

  1. Historyscoper says:
    March 20, 2010 at 00:25

    Islamophobia is not bad, it's just being knowledgeable and smart about the threat of Islam to the West like Dawkins is. Too bad, the school system cranks out Islam history ignoramuses, but never fear, you can master all the key facts fast accurate and free with the Historyscoper, to get started click http://go.to/islamhistory

    Reply
  2. D J Wray says:
    March 20, 2010 at 05:36

    Richard Dawkins can't grasp the concept that not everything has to be explained in a rational way before it can be considered valid. He is entrenched in a model that assumes that everything runs like clockwork, whether it be the universe or the conscious mind and therefore must be accountable to a concrete explanation. Until he can escape this mindset he won't evolve beyond his limited comprehension.

    D J Wray
    Packaged Evolution: The Intelligent Universe
    http://www.atotalawareness.com/documents/packaged…

    Reply
    • Grenangle says:
      March 20, 2010 at 11:48

      Well looking at your little power point rationality has not impeded you in the slightest.

      Reply
    • MattHunX says:
      March 22, 2010 at 19:01

      Yours, is what a truly limited comprehension is. You seek the easy way out of every question, it is far easier for you to automatically presuppose the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient being than to look for real, "concrete explanation". You are "entrenched" in model where everything is answered by the same, arrogant, certitude that their must be a creator. Many of you even claim to even know how this supernatural being thinks and feels. How presumptuous. For someone who is so infantile and weak-minded that he has to believe in a creator to make life easier for him, you have some nerve to say Richard Dawkins has a "limited comprehension", child.

      Reply
  3. Evil Eye says:
    March 20, 2010 at 11:50

    There is a rational (explainable by science) explanation for everything in the universe. Science is a process of uncovering those answers. NOTHING happens without a cause. Uncovering those causes may be difficult at times, but not knowing what they are yet does not give you the right to insert your own philosophy as the answer.

    Reply
    • hounddog says:
      March 22, 2010 at 23:02

      what about the fact that the same cause can have different effects ie quantum indeterminism. Our universe is not deterministic. If a cause has several possible effects – the universe appears to roll a dice to decide which is actualised – it is random within a probability distribution. So deterministic reasoning can never work on the lowest levels – and everything is made of the lowest levels. The reason why I am typing might be because an atom – by chance went pop in my brain causing me to think this – because the dice roll led to that out of the available options. Actually I find quantum indeterminism scarier than the clockwork universe.

      Reply
  4. D J Cool says:
    March 20, 2010 at 11:50

    You're so right, D J Wray. I feel much more comfortable living in a world explained by blind faith, unsubstantiated fantasy and wilful ignorance. I far prefer an irrational explanation to a rational one. It makes flying so much more relaxing, for example, knowing that the hand of God is supporting the plane and not the laws of physics. Like you, I have evolved beyond my limited comprehension and can laugh at fools like Richard Dawkins, A C Grayling, Douglas Adams, Stephen Fry, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and Jonathan Miller.

    D J Cool
    Packaged Ignorance: The Stupid Universe

    Reply
    • jONES says:
      July 16, 2010 at 00:41

      hahahahahaYoBlind faithuYour life sound boring keep sleeping my frien

      Reply
      • jones says:
        July 16, 2010 at 00:43

        SORRY THAT WAS NOT SUPPOSED OF BEEN POSTED, i REALISE YOU'RE BEING SARCASTIC. I hope anyway. My apologies for the mistakes I can't see the waht i have typed.

        Reply
  5. Anthony Martin says:
    March 20, 2010 at 12:02

    I loved Richards comment. Quote: ''…. psychological dispositions that favor religion: they could be things like obedience to authority, a tendency to hallucinate vision''!
    Just brilliant!

    Reply
  6. Martin says:
    March 20, 2010 at 14:04

    Great interview

    Reply
  7. Weegible says:
    March 20, 2010 at 21:55

    Personally, I think RD is far too charitable towards Blair. It was a nasty connivance between the US & UK to get rid of nutty Saddam…. who, despite being a maniacal bampot, kept a lid on terrorist activities in Iraq. Lets be honest. There was only room for one tyrant… and he was it!

    Reply
  8. speedweasel says:
    March 21, 2010 at 00:58

    sore tooth?

    Sawtooth. As in the pointed, up and down
    teeth on the blade of a saw. Right?

    Reply
  9. Philoctetes says:
    March 22, 2010 at 21:09

    "…not everything has to be explained in a rational way before it can be considered valid. ".
    Out of the mouth of a supernaturalist that is an absurd statement. But, not everything experimentally provable is necessarily rational, take chaos theory, string theory and its 11 dimensions (imagine that!) or quantum mechanics. Wasn't it Nils Bohr who said "If you think you understand QM, you are missing the point."? I (largely) accept QM etc. but on the credibility of its proponents rather than my own patchy understanding. I guess that makes me (in this case) a person of faith.

    Reply
  10. JHJEFFERY says:
    March 22, 2010 at 22:11

    Uh, DJ, scholars never cite Wikipedia

    Reply
  11. JHJEFFERY says:
    March 22, 2010 at 22:12

    But maybe there is a different rule for you neuroscientists :)

    Reply
  12. Jack Day says:
    March 22, 2010 at 22:32

    The need for religion is fear based. As with 9/11, a lot of disasters of such magnitude produce an inordinate amount of fear for individual safety therefore rendering the individual unable to be consoled by anything other than that which is more powerful than the enemy – be that other individuals or the cyclone, volcano or whatever. Naturally people turn to "God". This has no doubt being going on forever. Science is the cure for this natural inclination to an omnipotent power in the face of adversity – by science it should be meant all the sciences. Only then will people understand that the volcano is not a representation of the anger of the gods nor an attack on a nation or a people an act of punishment or revenge by god. What I am getting at is that if we are ever to evolve out of our primitive mindset, there is nothing wrong with science replacing religion in our society as long as science doesn't become a like religion and closed to debate.

    Reply
  13. Jack Day says:
    March 22, 2010 at 22:32

    The need for religion is fear based. As with 9/11, a lot of disasters of such magnitude produce an inordinate amount of fear for individual safety therefore rendering the individual unable to be consoled by anything other than that which is more powerful than the enemy – be that other individuals or the cyclone, volcano or whatever. Naturally people turn to "God". This has no doubt being going on forever. Science is the cure for this natural inclination to an omnipotent power in the face of adversity – by science it should be meant all the sciences. Only then will people understand that the volcano is not a representation of the anger of the gods nor an attack on a nation or a people an act of punishment or revenge by god. What I am getting at is that if we are ever to evolve out of our primitive mindset, there is nothing wrong with science replacing religion in our society as long as science doesn't become a like religion and closed to debate.

    Reply
  14. » Richard Dawkins interview on religion, evolution and Iraq » The Comment Factory says:
    March 22, 2010 at 23:21

    [...] Richard Dawkins interview on religion, evolution and Iraq » The Comment Factory. var addthis_language = 'en';var addthis_options = 'email, favorites, digg, delicious, myspace, google, facebook, reddit, live, more'; [...]

    Reply
  15. mark says:
    March 23, 2010 at 09:30

    RD sounds so right. And a creator sounds so wrong, and I pity those who feel they must have a faith to live by and not simply accept that as a species we can be altristic (spell check)? But I get rather over awed and somewhat confused the moment I look into the nights sky. It somehow asks me to contemplate beyond science. (well i know what I mean). I think.

    Reply
  16. Carney says:
    March 24, 2010 at 16:35

    Dawkins, for all his self-proclaimed love of rationality and precision, casually tosses around claims such as that Bush "lied" about WMD in Iraq, claims which are no less explosive and outrageous for having become routine among a certain fashionable set.

    Just THINK about that claim, even briefly. To say that Bush lied about WMD in Iraq is to say:

    1. There were none;
    2. Bush knew this;
    3. Bush chose to ignite a war under the pretext of looking for them anyway.

    Which is to say that Bush was knowingly and repeatedly telling a lie in the most solemn and high profile settings (speeches to the UN General Assembly and to joint sessions of Congress) that he knew perfectly well would be exposed as such within weeks of liberation at the latest, with the inevitable devastating political damage to himself, his party, and his country on the domestic and world stage.

    How plausible is this? Bush saw the career-ending consequences his father had suffered as a result of going back on a pledge about taxes, and it is well known he was scarred by the ordeal and vowed not to make such a mistake again. How likely was he to set himself up to be accused of an even more high-profile lie, with American lives in the balance?

    Sneering that Bush is too "stupid" to realize what such a lie would do to him is a cheap applause line designed to let its spewer preen smugly before tittering or braying Bush-haters, but is not only not serious analysis, it is itself stupid. Nobody, regardless of family background, can graduate Yale, achieve a Harvard MBA, graduate flight school, and become a fighter pilot, who is that stupid. Bush's SAT score is a matter of public knowledge; it places his IQ at about the 125-129 range). It also ignores the roles of the other villians in the left and Islamist narrative, the evil mastermind Dick Cheney and the dreaded "neocons", none of whom are accused of being stupid.

    It also consigns to the memory hole a long list of evidence (remember Dawkins' supposed reverence for evidence?) that grave concern about Saddam Hussein's actions, capabilities, and intentions with regard to WMD was shared across the political spectrum and around the world.

    Finally, it ignores the reality that hundreds of chemical warheads were found in Iraq, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, in direct violation of the ceasefire agreement. Carefully ignored by the media on the irrelevant grounds that they were made pre 1991 and not all it pristine condition.

    Reply
    • hank says:
      April 2, 2010 at 06:25

      Bush and his entourage did not have UN sanction to invade Iraq due to the fact they had no proof whatsoever of WMD's. Their 'evidence' was a supposed tape in Arabic talking about such weapons and a photo of a building supposedly housing WMD's, later exposed as having been lifted from a Googled undergraduate essay. Who knows who concocted the tape. In any case, the US ignored the inspectors' reports which turned out to be verified as accurate by the invasion.

      Of course Bush lied.

      The US now has control of the largest (Saudi Arabia) and second largest (Iraq) oil reserves on the planet, a remarkable coincidence wouldn't you say, a serendipitous gift from an altruistic invasion perhaps.

      Where Dawkins' argument is weak is his seeming ignorance of the connection between the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The Taliban had never engaged in aggressive international acts even against its neighbours. To believe they suddenly felt compelled to foment hostility half way round the globe against a superpower with no reason is an enormous leap of logic. For a more plausible picture, and backed up by interviews with Brzezinski, is that the CIA-supported Muhajideen in the 70's, later to surface as al-Qaeda, formed international cells with the intent to expel the Unfaithful from their Holy Land.

      Formerly seen as freedom fighters when terrorizing our enemies (Soviet Union), they are now seen as terrorists when their insanity-driven wrath is pointed in our direction.

      Reply
  17. @mattbandrews says:
    March 26, 2010 at 06:33

    @Jack Day – just be careful when you say that removing religion can only do good for a society.

    A purely atheist society can do some absolutely terrifying things.

    And this video, is a iron-clad proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNxygsLGHSQ&am…

    Reply
  18. Kurt Sperry says:
    April 14, 2010 at 04:33

    I think religion still serves its original use- that of a useful shared cultural/tribal commonality of belief to maintain group cohesion and differentiation. I think all religion's essentially random irrationality is perhaps useful as well as if belief functioned on purely rational criteria, there would be a real danger of the belief systems gravitating towards some common consensus which would negate its tribal differentiation and cohesion functions. That is to say that human society is probably not suited to or best served in an evolutionary sense by a broad consensus of beliefs. A diversity of competing parallel approaches is probably a more robust evolutionary adaptation, and rationality works contrary to this end so in a real sense it could be that the structured irrationality of false religious belief confers an overall evolutionary advantage.

    There's also the question of how ideological conflicts between religious belief and science and objective truths can affect the technological development of their associated cultures. If the religious dogma is too rigidly held to allow for the incorporation of useful or even vital new technologies stemming from those conflicting objective truths, then obviously this can have profound detrimental impacts on the viability of the social subgroup holding those objectively falsifiable beliefs as other competing beliefs successfully incorporate new information to achieve military or economic advantage. Thus the belief systems will survive best that either avoid making any falsifiable claims or are sufficiently flexible to adjust their dogma to fit new facts as they come to light.

    I would guess that in times of prolonged relative stasis of scientific or technological advancement religions can afford to maintain a very rigid doctrine with little downside but in periods of rapid scientific discovery and technological progress the religions that can continually adapt and reinvent themselves to fit the known set of facts will have a real adaptive advantage. It has to be a balancing act though as if the dogma is seen as too fluid and ad hoc there will be a cost in lost credibility.

    I do think though that as long as there is someone credible seeming willing to trade tales and promises of an afterlife in exchange for money and influence, there will be people ready to supply the demand, so I doubt there will ever be a time when humans will advance past the need for reassuring mythologies and direction that they can surrender to. The human mind seems demonstrably incapable of successfully processing its inevitable mortality.

    Reply
  19. @inanely says:
    August 16, 2010 at 07:45

    RD said:

    "the danger in practice was sort of played out in the Middle Ages and thereafter and Christianity has now more or less tamed it except in some extreme areas in America"

    and

    "So Islam is the big danger today because they have a Medieval mindset which bursts through into the twenty-first century."

    43rd President of the United States:

    "This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while. And the American people must be patient. I'm going to be patient." http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/r…

    I take it RD is including the Whitehouse in his 'extreme areas'? Perhaps the mentality of the Middle Ages is not as played out as he thinks.

    I lived/worked in the Middle East for 3 years prior to 2000 (in a big six accounting firm) and I can say with certainty that the attitudes that underlay the East India Company were alive and well there among the multinationals that run the place; both in terms of attitude among the management, and in the business practices of the MNCs….Bushes choice of words in 2001 was no surprise to me.

    Having seen first hand the conditions that 90% of the populace live under, and the resentment and extremism it breeds I must say the blithe assertion that islam has an 'added effect' over and above christianity irritates me.

    RD is a scientist, so he should appreciate that in the absence of a control group in an experiment will make for shaky conclusions. The control group in this case would be a group of muslim countries that have never:

    1. Had arbitrary lines drawn across ethic groups to make new countries,
    2. Had kleptocratic proxy governments installed and supplied with materiel, to secure energy stability for the west,
    3. Had mass ethnic cleansing and displacement imposed (I'm talking about Palestine),

    by the west. If that control group were to exist, and Islamic extremism were still to be a destabilising factor, only then he would be able to assert that Islam is a greater danger to civilisation than the current policies of the West.

    As it stands, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that RD is acting in this interview as a cheerleader for a neo-colonialist agenda, with little solid evidence upon which to base his assertions.

    That's from an atheist who read and enjoyed 'The Greatest Show on Earth'.

    Reply

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Matt Kennard
United Kingdom

Matt Kennard graduated from the Journalism School at Columbia University as a Toni Stabile Investigative scholar in 2008. He has written for the Guardian, Salon and the Chicago Tribune, amongst others. In 2006 he won the Guardian Student Feature Writer of the Year Award.

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