Darwin, Dawkins And Dictatorship

maundy thursday lecture 2008 darwin, dawkins and dictatorship (slide 1) where are we going? let me welcome you here tonight, and let me begin by telling you what i’m not going to do, and what i am going to do. what i’m not going to do tonight is attack the theory of evolution. that may surprise or disappoint some of you, but i’m not. neither am i going to defend six-day creationism, nor the concept of intelligent design. that again may be a surprise or a disappointment, but at least you’ll know not to listen out for it. and i’m not going to prove god exists, or even try to do that. what i am going to try to do is to look at the impact of an idea. and i’m going to suggest that if this has a generally negative effect on human life and humane living, then there is something wrong, either with the idea or with its application.. it’s an approach which is actually used by writers like richard dawkins and the australian philosopher, peter singer (to whom i will also be referring), and others, so i think in the context it is fair to do this. and then i will conclude by putting forward what i think is a better way of looking at things. (slide 2) let me start, though, with a quote from augustine of hippo, writing at the beginning of the fifth century AD, from his book the literal meaning of genesis. usually, even a non-christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, // (slide 3) about the

2 predicable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, // (slide 4) and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. // (slide 5) now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a christian, presumably giving the meaning of holy scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; // (slide 6) and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a christian and laugh it to scorn. (augustine, the literal meaning of genesis, AD 408) as regards the relationship between scientific discovery and scripture, this is a very sound approach. but remember, a lot of the science augustine was referring to was in fact wrong. i wouldn’t go as far as scott adams, author of the dilbert cartoons (slide 7): the theory of evolution will be scientifically debunked in your lifetime. (scott adams, the dilbert future) but i would certainly agree with richard dawkins at this point (slide 8): darwin may be triumphant at the end of the twentieth century, but we must acknowledge the possibility that new facts may come to light // (slide 9) which will force our successors of the twenty-first century to abandon darwinism or modify it beyond recognition. (from a devil’s chaplain p 81, quoted in a mcgrath, dawkins’s god, 106)

3 scientific enquiry has no place for intellectual arrogance. however, i’m going to proceed on the assumption that darwinism will not be refuted, and one of the reasons for that is the compelling simplicity of darwin’s original idea. (slide 10) darwin’s big idea charles darwin’s origin of species, published in 1859, is over 480 pages long in the penguin paperback edition. however, its important conclusions can be summed up in a couple of paragraphs. darwin had been struggling with this issue for several years. amongst the things he noticed were that the forms of plants and animals are adapted to their specific needs and yet that some species had died out. he also noted the uneven geographical distribution of species — how some appeared in one location, but not others. and, very importantly, he noted how many creatures possess rudimentary structures with no apparent usefulness, such as male nipples, and so on. in addition, he was well aware that variations in plants and animals could be produced deliberately, by breeding. putting all this, together, the argument he put forward was as follows (slide 11): if ... organic beings vary at all ... and i think this cannot be disputed; if there be ... at some age, season, or year, a severe struggle for life, and this certainly cannot be disputed; // (slide 12) then ... i think it would be a most extraordinary fact if no variation ever had occurred useful to each being’s own welfare // (slide 13) ... individuals thus characterised

4 will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce offspring similarly characterised. // (slide 14) this principle of preservation, i have called, for the sake of brevity, natural selection. (charles darwin, the origin of species, 169-170, quoted in kirsten birkett, the essence of darwinism, 20) it is a brilliantly simple idea (blank slide 15). the only thing darwin lacked was evidence. specifically, there was no known biological mechanism by which the variations to which he referred could be preserved from one generation to the next. there was also a lack of sufficient evidence in the fossil record. so early resistance to darwin’s theory wasn’t just based on obstinacy or obscurantism. but his ideas soon found acceptance — gradually in some quarters, but rapidly and willingly in others. and it would be fair to say that just as some people resisted darwin’s ideas because they didn’t like their wider implications, there were others who embraced them precisely because they did. (slide 16) implications and responses so what were the first implications and responses. the most obvious was that it contradicted the popular theory, advanced by william paley, that the evidence from nature showed that god had designed and created each species individually. paley is famous for his concept of the “divine watchmaker” — just as a watch suggested a

5 watchmaker, so the complications of plants and animals suggested a creator. but darwin’s theory apparently didn’t need a watchmaker. now i think it’s fair to say the elimination of the watchmaker was challenged then and can be challenged now, but for many christians, this presented a profound problem. yet by no means all christians saw it that way. indeed, it may come as a surprise to some to discover that darwin’s ideas found support amongst the original fundamentalists — the men whose collection of essays on the fundamentals gave us the term — including benjamin warfield and james orr. others, however, such as thomas huxley, happily seized on darwin’s theory precisely because they saw in it a tool against religion. huxley is famous for his debate with samuel wilberforce, the bishop of oxford (although there is a great deal of myth about that debate). however, it is interesting to note that on several key points, huxley actually didn’t agree with darwin. his enthusiasm for darwinism was as much about his distaste for dogma as it was about his scientific convictions. in fact, huxley coined the term ‘agnosticism’ to describe his own, preferred, position. (slide 17) a new perspective but there were other implications in darwin’s theory, which were to have massive consequences as they gained acceptance. in particular, it seemed to require a shift from a ‘top down’ understanding of human nature to a ‘bottom up’

6 understanding. (slide 18) before darwin, there was a widespread assumption that human beings were at the ‘pinnacle’, if not of creation, at least of the animal kingdom. coupled with this, there was (again) an assumption in historical tradition that the human body was, for want of a better word, the vehicle of the soul. clearly, darwin’s theory challenged these assumptions. to quote the full title of his greatest work, the human species was essentially the result of (slide 19) ... the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. (slide 20) thus the ‘top down’ view of humanity was challenged by a ‘bottom up’ view, where the human race as simply one branch of the evolutionary tree: a higher animal — if that. darwin himself later wrote (slide 21), we must ... acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities ... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. (darwin, the descent of man, quoted in mcgrath 45) instead of being a little lower than the angels, as the bible puts it, mankind suddenly found itself, in the eyes of many, a little higher than the apes. and this idea opened the door to new possibilities. (slide 22) from darwin to dictatorship, phase 1 whilst some people were deeply unhappy with this new perspective, there were others who were not only happy to embrace it, but who were eager to apply it to their understanding of society. indeed, they felt duty-

7 bound to do so. darwin’s theory of natural selection via the struggle for existence, had an immediate problem with respect to human beings, as darwin himself noted (slide 23): we civilised men ... build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. // (24) [...] thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. // (25) no one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. (darwin, the descent of man, 1882, 133134, darwin-online.org.uk) (blank slide 26) it was darwin’s cousin, francis galton, who really ran with this idea. in a book published in 1883, inquiries into human faculty and its development, galton coined the term ‘eugenics’ for what he had n mind. the 1921 second international eugenics conference defined eugenics as, (slide 27) “the self-direction of human evolution.” (source, wikipedia, illustration of conference logo) what this meant in practice was that those people in the categories darwin mused about, the imbecile, the destitute, generally the weak and incompetent, would basically be encouraged to breed less. galton’s ideas found widespread support in this country, where hg wells and george bernard shaw, were enthusiastic supporters, but it was in the united states of america that they found their greatest

8 practical application, were groups were targeted for slide 28) ... “feeble-mindedness” ... “pauperism,” prostitution, low intelligence, epilepsy, mental illness, “criminality,” and even blindness. (henri r mannasse, jr. ‘the other side of the human genome’, american journal of healthsystem pharmacy 2005;62(10):1080-1086) the eugenics movement, however, was just part of what came to be called ‘social darwinism’. this was an idea developed by, amongst others, the english philosopher, herbert spencer in the late nineteenth century, who first applied the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ to human groups. however, it was adolf hitler (slide 29) who gave this aspect of ‘darwinian’ thinking its most dramatic application. hitler and darwin the influence of darwinism can clearly be seen in this passage from mein kampf: (slide 30) ... the struggle between the various species does not arise from a feeling of mutual antipathy but rather from hunger and love.// in both cases nature looks on calmly and is even pleased with what happens. // (slide 31) the struggle for the daily livelihood leaves behind in the ruck everything that is weak or diseased or wavering [...]. and this struggle is a means of furthering the health and powers of resistance in the species. // (slide 32) thus it is one of the causes underlying the process of

9 development towards a higher quality of being. (blank slide 33) some have described hitler as ‘pseudo-darwinian’, and that may be true. but there is no concealing the darwinian flavour of what he says. similarly, we can see the influence of eugenic thinking in the same document (slide 34): the demand that it should be made impossible for defective people to continue to propagate defective offspring is a demand that is based on most reasonable grounds, // (slide 35) and its proper fulfilment is the most humane task that mankind has to face. (adolf hitler, mein kampf)

the final outcome of that train of thought was seen in the national socialist programmes of extermination, which included not just jews, gypsies and homosexuals, but disabled children.. (slide 36) two kinds of dictatorship but i want at this stage to clarify what i am and am not saying. i am not saying that darwin’s theory of evolution leads directly to the gas chambers specifically, or to dictatorship. what i am saying is that the ideas darwin’s theory provoked have a link with dictatorship, and we see this in the fact that there are at two kinds of dictatorship. first, there is the dictatorship of power, which is found throughout human history from ancient rome, via ghengis khan to much of what we see happening under the communist regime in china today.

10 in these kinds of dictatorship, the underlying principle is that the authority of the state must not be questioned. but provided the individual accepts this, life can be lived more or less harmoniously and, indeed, prosperously. then there is the dictatorship of ideology, which is very different. here, the underlying principle is a vision for what society and individuals ought to be. an early example would be the french revolution. another would be pol pot’s regime in cambodia, but hitler’s germany clearly fits in the same category. a dictatorship of this kind requires conformity by the individual to its own ideas about society and human nature. and it will, if necessary, enforce that conformity through laws and by force. the question i am asking is how darwinism and this kind of dictatorship might be linked and what we might learn from this. clearly there was a link, however tenuous, in the case of hitler. might there be other links today. (slide 37) ideas and opposition the problem lies not in darwin, nor in the theory of evolution. rather, it is that ideas about darwinism — even half-digested and inaccurate ideas — impact the way people think about themselves, about human nature and about human society. however, you don’t have to be a dictator yourself for this to be a problem. a dictator needs pliant people willing to be dictated to. thus hitler, despite having openly declared his contempt for democracy in mein kampf, was voted into power by the german electorate.

11 an important question is therefore “what leads to dictatorship and what encourages opposition?” history suggests that opposition to ideological dictatorships will come from those with ideas of their own. (slide 38) from darwin to dictatorship, phase 2 the second world war, however, ended with a great sense of an evil narrowly-averted. as a result the population of this country was largely immunised against dictatorship of the nazi variety. however, we must remember this was also the era of donald mclean, guy burgess, kim philby and anthony (later to be sir anthony) blunt — all cambridge graduates, all from privileged social backgrounds, and all soviet spies. despite the fact that the communist regimes of eastern europe and soviet russia, soon to be joined by china and other parts of the far east, were just as much dictatorships as nazi germany, there was a widespread and active support for communism in this country. and again, lest we excuse this on the grounds that communism was not nazism, the ideological oppression in these countries was plain for all to see, and the deaths of millions under josef stalin, mao zedong, pol pot and others would eventually become undeniable. the fact that these things were denied and ignored, especially amongst the so-called intelligentsia, ought to be a lesson to us. (slide 39) the arrival of postmodernism the collapse of communism, however, coincided with a

12 change in the intellectual climate in the west. the certainties of marxism were replaced with uncertainties of postmodernism — uncertainties that, ironically, were upheld with equally strong conviction. postmodernism is notoriously hard to pin down or define. its importance, however, is once again in the ‘filtering down’ effect into society as a whole. people who had never read paul de man or jacques derrida, and who had no idea what was meant by the deconstruction of a narrative, nevertheless grasped that ‘what matters is ‘what matters for you,’ that ‘everyone is entitled to their opinion,’ and, ‘you don’t have the right to say i’m wrong.’ and so the postwar intellectual mood shifted from relief, through optimism, via the pessimism of the thatcher years (whether you liked margaret thatcher or not), to a directionless confusion in which no one is allowed to say anyone is wrong, and everyone is allowed to believe they are right. but as dire straits put it years ago, “two men say they’re jesus, one of them must be wrong.” (slide 40) atheist absolutism into this atmosphere, the atheist absolutism of richard dawkins, christopher hitchens, philip pulman, peter singer and others dropped like a bombshell. what is immediately obvious about all of them is that have no truck with the ‘everyone is entitled to their opinion’ mood of popular postmodernism. in one respect at least, they are convinced that they are absolutely right: it may not matter much what else you

13 believe, provided you don’t believe in god. but atheism is a negative philosophy. as richard dawkins himself asked (slide 41), ... why would anyone go to war for the sake of an absence of belief? (richard dawkins, the god delusion, 316) if we are to function as human beings, or even to get out of bed in the morning, we must have more to motivate us than an unbelief. and so richard dawkins puts forward evolutionary theory to fill the gap. (slide 42) reality and morality one of the striking things about dawkins and the other new atheists is that they are passionate moralists. one of their principle objections to christianity is that it is not merely mistaken but immoral. yet dawkins himself denies that the concepts of good and evil have any meaning in relation to the universe as a whole (slide 43): the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. (richard dawkins, river out of eden, quoted in birkett, 97) i am not sure what the word ‘pitiless’ is doing there — but the australian philosopher peter singer writes in a similar vein (slide 44), justice is not ... a sacrosanct moral principle imposed on us by a divine being, nor is it

14 somehow engraved into the bedrock of the universe. (how are we to live?, 176) so where do we get our morality? the answer they, and others, give is: from instinctive altruism. (slide 45) instinctive altruism altruism is defined as behaviour which may not be in the best interests of the individual, but serves the interests of others. however, within a darwinian framework, this apparently unselfish activity can have a survival advantage. dawkins famously coined the expression, ‘the selfish gene,’ but in the god delusion he points out (slide 46), there are circumstances — not particularly rare — in which genes ensure their own selfish survival by influencing organisms to behave altruistically. (247) this, incidentally, is a typical example of dawkins’s misuse of purposive language. genes are not selfish, they do not ensure their survival, nor do they go around influencing organisms. the point may seem a minor quibble, but in this field the use of language is a key issue. leaving that aside, however, dawkins claims this explains a lot about human behaviour. things like our ‘good samaritan’ instinct to help others are actually what he calls ‘misfirings’ of an altruistic survival mechanism, rather like when a reed warbler feeds a young cuckoo (slide 47): we can no more help ourselves feeling pity when we see a weeping unfortunate (who is

15 unrelated and unable to reciprocate) // (slide 48) than we can help ourselves feeling lust for a member of the opposite sex (who may be infertile or otherwise unable to reproduce). both are misfirings, darwinian mistakes ... but it is just as well these mistakes happen, because in his view these are (slide 49) ... ... blessed, precious mistakes. (ibid, 253) but notice what has happened. on the one hand, we are told emphatically that the universe is “pitiless”, with “no design, no purpose, no evil and no good,” and that, furthermore, the darwinian explanation reflects that harsh reality, up to and including our own behaviour. but then we are asked to accept that outcomes which are strictly unnecessary from a darwinian point of view — indeed, which are the misfirings of our survival mechanisms — can be deemed, in our case, ‘blessed and precious’, though not, apparently, in the case of the reed warbler feeding the cuckoo. what, we might ask, has darwin got to do with it? (slide 51) misfirings made me do it the seriousness of the problem is highlighted, however, in the reverse case. we can all be persuaded that being a good samaritan is a good thing, even when the motivation might not be all we might have imagined. but what about the opposite? what about the priest and the levite, in the parable of the good samaritan, who walked by on the other side? did misfirings also make them do it?

16 both dawkins and singer make hitler something of a reference point in the moral debate. so what do we say about the concentration camps and the gas chambers? at first, the answer might seem straightforward. just as we see in nature examples of altruism, so we also see examples of selfishness which has its own evolutionary advantages. so aren’t the gas chambers just another kind of darwinian ‘misfiring’ — another case of evolution going wrong? the trouble is, there is something deeply unsatisfying about the notion that we can explain this kind of behaviour in this way, and certainly neither dawkins nor singer seem to excuse it on evolutionary grounds. (slide 51) the ‘repulsive duty’ the problem is worse than that, however, for a darwinian explanation of moral behaviour. the fact is that many of the acts carried out under the nazi regime were done by people who, in at least some cases, had persuaded themselves that they were acting out of noble motives. heinrich himmler pulls out all the stops in this speech to the einsatztruppen who carried out many of the killings: (slide 52) you ... are called upon to fulfill a repulsive duty. but you are soldiers who have to carry out every order unconditionally. you have a responsibility before god and hitler for everything that is happening. // (slide 53) i myself hate this bloody business and i have been moved to the depths of my soul. but i am obeying the highest law by doing my duty. (quoted from hitler’s elite, l l snyder, berkley

17 books, 1990) but here’s the problem: if altruistic behaviour is setting aside self-interest for the ‘group good’, then himmler was appealing to altruism. this is one of the reasons why peter singer prefers speaking about ethics rather than morals — because of the historic connection he sees between morality and duty. and if himmler succeeded, then the actions of at least some of those he addressed derived from just the same darwinian ‘misfiring’ that dawkins calls blessed and precious in the case of the good samaritan so we wind up with two kinds of altruism — the good kind, which helps people, and the bad kind, which kills some people to help others. but if they are both drawing on the same evolutionary instinct, how do we judge which is blessed and which is not? (slide 54) reviewing the situation now at this point, you may be feeling this all very confusing. and if you are, that is precisely the point i am trying to make. one of the regular differences between a good theory and a bad theory is simplicity — good theories generally turn out to be simpler than bad theories. and there is a much more simple way of accounting for human behaviour than talking about instinctive altruism and darwinian evolution. in fact, richard dawkins himself tells us what it is (slide 55): we have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth [...]. we are built as gene machines ... but we have the power to turn against our

18 creators. (from the selfish gene, 200-1) but what is this power? the answer is the combinaiton of cognition and volition (slide 56), or to put it another way, consciousness (click) and will (click). having consciousness means i am aware that i exist (click). like rene descartes, i can say to myself, “i think, therefore i am.” having will means i can make choices (click) such that i can even overrule my instincts or appetites. as dawkins puts it (slide 57): we can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism — something that has no place in nature [...]. (from the selfish gene, 200-1) but having the power of cognition and volition, consciousness and will, means we don’t have to talk about the ‘misfirings of darwinian mistakes’. we just talk about people doing good or doing bad. (slide 58) the stages of existence the problem with the darwinian explanation offered by dawkins and others is that complicates things by trying to ignore the fact that although biology is part of the story, it is certainly not the whole story. we can see this quite simply in our present understanding of how the universe has developed and how, at each stage, we need a new set of concepts to give an account of reality. the first stage is the ‘big bang’ (slide 59). and at this stage we only need the language of physics because

19 physics is all there is. in the second stage (click), however, the formation of stars and galaxies leads to the production of various chemicals. the physicists will argue that everything is still just physics, only more complicate, but actually we now have chemistry and chemists have a job to do. then in the third stage (click), we have the emergence and development of. the physicists are still trying to argue its all just physics. the chemists might want to say it is just a complicated chemistry, but the biologists know it is much easier to talk about biology. in fact, if we use the wrong language, we miss something about reality. the physicists will tell you the world is really mostly space, and that it is the interaction of sub-atomic particles that gives the illusion that things are solid and that one thing can therefore rest on top of another. the chemist will say that life is just a vastly complex series of chemical reactions, held together within a cellular membrane which may be joined with other cells to form a conglomeration of cells capable of coordinated interaction. the biologist says, “the cat sat on the mat.” and if the chemist and the physicist refuse to admit that, then it is they who are missing out on something, not the biologist. (slide 60) the fourth stage but then there is a fourth stage to existence — the emergence of beings with consciousness and will (slide 61 and click).

20 the problem comes when people want to use the language of the third stage — the stage of biology — to talk about this fourth stage. but this fourth stage needs its own language, because it is uniquely different from the previous stages. peter singer indicates as much in his how are we to live? (slide 62): the existence of a biological explanation for what we do is quite compatible with the existence of a very different motive in our own minds. // (slide 63) conscious motivations and biological explanations apply on different levels. (peter singer, how are we to live? 124, emphasis added) conscious motivations and biological explanations of our behaviour apply on different levels because they are different things. and your or my helping a stranger is therefore no more a ‘darwinian misfiring’ than my tummy rumbling is a thought. if we try to deny that, by trying to explain everything about ourselves in terms of biological and evolutionary mechanisms, we fail to give a true account of reality. (slide 64) the present problem it is not, then, that the theory of evolution is wrong, but that evolutionary theory cannot provide an adequate basis for an account of human life. but remember, we are talking here not just about an idea, but the impact of an idea, and this means there is a real danger in a campaigning atheism. as we have seen, it was not darwin, nor was it his

21 theory of evolution, that directly caused problems, but those who applied his ideas to their understanding of reality and society, and those who accepted that understanding and went along with its implications. so today, there are those who think darwinism dispenses with god and explains human nature, and there are those who are happy to think that, and then there are those who want to apply that to the way we live now. (slide 65) from darwin to dictatorship: phase 3? and so we come to the threat of dictatorship today. the christian author, cs lewis, warned about this sixty five years ago, when the outcome of the war against nazism was still undecided. in a very small book called the abolition of man, he wrote this (slide 66): ... many a mild-eyed scientist in pince-nez, many a popular dramatist, many an amateur philosopher in our midst, means in the long run just the same as the nazi rulers of germany. // (slide 67) traditional values are to be ‘debunked’ and mankind to be cut out into some fresh shape [...]. of course, there have always been people around wanting to reshape society. we have already mentioned galton, hitler, stalin and mao. but what lewis thought would be new about the people he called the conditioners was that, because of the way they viewed the world, all the time they thought they were controlling nature, nature would be controlling them. this may sound fanciful or exaggerated, but consider richard dawkins’ call to arms (slide 68):

22 we are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines [by a meme, dawkins means a controlling idea or concept], but we have the power to turn against our creators. we, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators. (richard dawkins, the selfish gene) so we can rebel against our creators, perhaps. but who is going to decide how the rebellion turns out? will it be you or me, or will it be the lawmakers, the policy makers and the educators? and if those in charge of this rebellion are vaguely atheistic people who accept, somewhere at the back of their minds, that we are the products of blind evolution driven by left-over instincts, what instincts will they decide are blessed and precious, and which will they seek to breed out? (slide 69) a society of sheep? in his book lost for words, broadcaster john humphrys writes about the important connection between language, thought and liberty (slide 70): it is that much more difficult to think for yourself if you don’t have the language. a society in which people don’t think for themselves is dangerous. // (slide 71) ‘a society of sheep begets a government of wolves’ was how the philosopher bertrand de jouvenel described the consequence. (john humphrys lost for words: how language reveals the way we live now, 239) (black slide 72) i have argued that the misapplication

23 of darwin’s theory to human society can be shown to be both wrong and dangerous. in the past it has reinforced dictatorship and i believe it will do the same in the future. this time it will not be the dictatorship of flags and jackboots, armbands and rallies. they will just tell you how to live, and how you can tell others how to live. let me quote from a speech given by nicholas humphrey, another convinced darwinian, and by his own account, a social liberal. this is what he said in a speech to the oxford branch of amnesty international. i apologize for the length of the quote: (slide 73) freedom of speech is too precious a freedom to be meddled with.[...] // (slide 74) and, since i am so sure of this in general, and since i’d expect most of you to be so too, i shall probably shock you when i say it is the purpose of my lecture tonight to argue ... in favour of censorship, against freedom of expression // (slide 75), and to do so moreover in an area of life that has traditionally been regarded as sacrosanct. // (slide 76) i am talking about moral and religious education. and especially the education a child receives at home, // (slide 77) where parents are allowed – even expected – to determine for their children what counts as truth and falsehood, right and wrong. (nicolas humphrey, what shall we tell the children?) of course it is extreme — particularly in its honesty. of course the government are not going to take away your

24 children — not yet, anyway. but what about those in his audience, liberals living in oxford, who found themselves nodding in agreement once they’d heard the rest of what he had to say? what if they are working in education, in local government, in the social services? (slide 78) a more excellent way in the words of the apostle paul, though, there is “a more excellent way.” richard dawkins says in the selfish gene, (slide 79) “we have the power to turn against our creators.” strangely enough, that is exactly what the bible says we have done, in the third chapter of genesis: we have turned against our creator. to return to something we quoted earlier from the same book, richard dawkins also says (slide 80), we have the power to ... discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism — something that has no place in nature ... pure, disinterested altruism is what the bible calls love, but the bible says it has a place in nature (as clearly it does) because we are here, and we can love. this is not to deny our biological roots. we sometimes talk about people behaving like animals, but we used to mean by that, they were not behaving how they ought to. the danger comes when we think that ‘like animals’ is the only way we can behave. richard dawkins recognizes, though, that there is more to human life than that (slide 81):

25 ... our biological impulses are filtered through the civilizing influences of literature and custom, law and tradition — and, of course, religion. (richard dawkins, the god delusion, 254) the difference between him and me is that i don’t want to cut off the last bit. my fear is that if we do, the literature, custom, law and tradition which we take for granted will soon disappear as well. richard dawkins writes (slide 82), we can give up belief in god while not losing touch with a treasured heritage. (richard dawkins, the god delusion, 383) personally, i don’t think so.