Dawkins and the Divine: Is God a Virus of the Mind? (Part 1 of 2)
Harvard University 2007
Summary: Richard Dawkins' recent book The God Delusion has been a best-seller on the New York Times list for several months running. The interaction between the mind and religious belief is particularly current at Harvard in the wake of the recent controversy over the undergraduate "reason and faith" requirement. This event seeks to address how traditional understandings of religion interact with scientific advances in understanding the development of the mind and religious thought. What, if anything, can science say about the nature of religion itself, or, conversely, can religion say about the experience of the physical world? This event was moderated by Dr. Gerald Gabrielse, George Vasmer Leverett Professor of Physics at Harvard University.
Topics: Science
To Dr: Levin. Richard Dawkins in his book “Blind Watchmaker� he only glances the subject of reproduction saying crystals 'reproduces' by as it grows and rejects a non-like crystal. He doesn't explain how complex living organisms could have its reproduction organs by series of steps of mutations. It's because he can't do it. Dawkins says in his other book "Climbing Mount Improbable", one can climb such a mountain by many small steps at a time. We know how complex the reproductive organs are. So the question to Dawkins is ‘How can series of mutations can result in having reproductive organs without having reproductive organs to start the series of mutations?’ Dawkins violates his own Darwinian evolution logic of series of small steps to get to the top of the mountain since having reproductive organs in the first place is a HUGE JUMP, and NOT a series of small steps. Will Richard Dawkins acknowledge and change his mind about evolution as well as another professor who changed his mind or at least acknowledge that his logic is wrong?
paula.smith, Nov 15, 2007 | 12:25 pmDarwin in his famous book "The Origin of Species," wrote "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." Yes there are such organs. They are the reproductive organs. Darwin assumed in his theory that these organs already existed in the first place. Reproductive organs are quite ‘complex organs’. Since most of you know how the human reproductive organs works, and if we were to follow Darwinian evolution path, let’s see how this might be explained by Darwinian evolution. 1. A mutation causes an ovary to grow inside a human, we now call woman. 2. Few generations later, a mutation causes the testicles to grow inside a human, we now call, man. 3. Few generations later, another mutation causes uterus to be in the woman. By now, the reader has to agree, that these is illogical since there is no “next generation� without having all the organs listed here plus many other organs, in the first place. So by Darwin’s own words, his theory absolutely breaks down. Q.E.D.
paula.smith, Nov 15, 2007 | 12:26 pmTo Dr. Levin: Many scientists were ‘religious’, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, etc. Science and religion are not against each other. Currently, the most talked-about issue is about Creation versus Evolution. Unfortunately, evolution is not science, but just a theory, which is crumbling, and thus itself is, ironically a ‘religion’. Most layperson thinks ‘creation vs. evolution’ is about ‘religion vs. science’. And all believe in ‘science’ such as 1+1= 2. So anything that is labeled ‘science’ is true and smart people who went to respected universities are scientists, thus, ‘scientists’ who believes in Darwinian evolution must be true and thus uneducated ‘religious’ people are false. This is the BIG mistaken concept of the layperson.
paula.smith, Nov 15, 2007 | 1:00 pmEvolution: Survival of the fittest, and thus, the animals or plants that survives under various stress and/or difficult conditions are obviously advanced in their evolutionary journey. We can look at the various organisms that have survived and see how they live today as the earth has changed. There are several ways to measure how organisms are advanced in their evolutionary journey. One can be by measuring the populations of the organisms. Another way is, for animals, to see how they eat and what they eat in various challenges that all organisms have competing against its own kind and other animals. So Richard Dawkins and others, they will have to agree, that the most advanced animals are the cockroaches and rats in the world. Just look at the population of them and how they can survive even against human who keeps trying to kill them. And by these animals are so advanced, that they are evolved such that they don’t have the capacity of killing all of each other like us human species can with nuclear bombs. Boy, we human better evolve into cockroach or rats if we were to survive for a long time.
tchin, Apr 5, 2008 | 11:02 am