Richard Dawkins in the Time 100
Of Richard Dawkins' nine books, none caused as much controversy or sold as well as last year's The God Delusion. The central idea—popular among readers and deeply unsettling among proponents of intelligent design like myself—is that religion is a so-called virus of the mind, a simple artifact of cultural evolution, no more or less meaningful than eye color or height.
Of his nine books, none caused as much controversy — or sold as well — as last year's The God Delusion. Yet the leading light of the recent atheist publishing surge, Oxford University's Richard Dawkins, has always been a man driven by the big questions. Born in Kenya in 1941 of British parents, he received a mild Anglican upbringing. But at the age of sixteen Dawkins discovered Charles Darwin's theory, and thought he'd found a pearl of great price.
His academic career as an evolutionary biologist got off to a fast start in the 1970's with his first book, The Selfish Gene, which argued a then-unfashionable notion: like many politicians in Congress, individual genes of a genome are looking out just for their own good. So if somehow an unconscious gene mutated to be copied more effectively, it would outcompete its fellow DNA fragments. The fundamental idea of this "gene-centered" view of evolution had been proposed by other researchers. But, using his remarkable gift of scientific exposition, Dawkins painted the abstruse concept so clearly, and drew out the logic of its problematic premises so brightly, that it quickly became evolutionary orthodoxy.
Dawkins pushed the old idea in new directions. He argued that genes shape not only the body of an animal, but also its external environment: the imagined genes that move a beaver to build a dam are working for their own survival no less than the genes that shape the beaver's tail. Even human thoughts were fitted to the Procrustean mold. He coined the word "meme" to denote fragments of ideas, such as cultural fads or music lyrics, that might replicate within brains like genes in a cell. And into the disreputable category of meme he firmly placed religion, calling it a virus of the mind.
With the big questions of life and mind supposedly solved in principle, Dawkins has in the past several decades abandoned research, and turned instead to persuading society of the correctness of his views. It was for Dawkins that computer software billionaire Charles Simonyi endowed the Oxford Chair of the Public Understanding of Science, freeing Dawkins to write newspaper articles, produce films, and travel the world to spread the meme that, "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 pointless indifference." A stark message, certainly. But true, thinks Dawkins, and he will not shrink from saying so.
The God Delusion, which deals more with philosophy than science, has been panned as amateurish by academic reviewers. Yet even a Roman Catholic intelligent design proponent like myself, who thinks Dawkins' conclusions follow much less from his data than from his premises, has to admire the man's energy and determination. Concerning those big questions, Someone once advised us to be either hot or cold, but not lukewarm. Whatever the merit of his ideas, Richard Dawkins is not lukewarm.
2. Comment #37074 by BaronOchs on May 3, 2007 at 10:36 am
3. Comment #37075 by Rtambree on May 3, 2007 at 10:37 am
Where does this list rank on "The Top 100 Meaningless Lists"? Vote now...4. Comment #37076 by Fedler on May 3, 2007 at 10:42 am
5. Comment #37079 by hightrekker on May 3, 2007 at 10:47 am
Michael Behe?--6. Comment #37081 by BaronOchs on May 3, 2007 at 10:49 am
7. Comment #37083 by MikeCaptnKidd on May 3, 2007 at 10:58 am
Michael Behe? Might as well have David Duke write Martin Luther King's obituary:8. Comment #37085 by perkyjay on May 3, 2007 at 11:01 am
My word - aren't we all bitchy today ? Did somebody urinate on our Cornflakes. What Michael Behe said was not actually that bad, and he is, after all, a proponent of ID. Come on guys - how about a bit of that charity, which is not only restricted to christians.9. Comment #37086 by Ian on May 3, 2007 at 11:04 am
Hate the cartoon, I thought these illustrations were supposed to reveal something about the character 'hidden' in a photo. I guess it was cheap.10. Comment #37089 by roach on May 3, 2007 at 11:08 am
Heh. Behe reveals that ID is nothing more than creationism dressed up in technical language when he says: "The central idea—popular among readers and deeply unsettling among proponents of intelligent design like myself—is that religion is a so-called virus of the mind, a simple artifact of cultural evolution, no more or less meaningful than eye color or height." And then he mentions the Bible in his last paragraph!11. Comment #37091 by William on May 3, 2007 at 11:12 am
What Michael Behe said was not actually that bad
12. Comment #37093 by ghostbuster on May 3, 2007 at 11:16 am
I didn't find the guy's stuff pompous. I thought he was at least polite and I don't mind the word "debate" at all. In fact, he should be invited to debate Richard--freely, not like the O'Reilly show. Maybe Behe would learn something, the fence-sitters probably would and Dawkins could just keep polishing up his debating skills which are already awesome.13. Comment #37095 by Aaron SF on May 3, 2007 at 11:21 am
14. Comment #37096 by waxwings on May 3, 2007 at 11:22 am
15. Comment #37101 by Fishpeddler on May 3, 2007 at 11:35 am
16. Comment #37106 by scottishgeologist on May 3, 2007 at 11:44 am
17. Comment #37109 by roach on May 3, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I can understand the reasons why they chose Behe to write the bio. It's a gesture of good will, civility, respect, etc. But the problem is that doing so implies that ID/creationism is on equal ground with evolution. Or at the very least suggests that ID is a worthy critique of evolution. The ID theory is superfluous or wrong. Neither option is respectable.18. Comment #37111 by ft77 on May 3, 2007 at 12:01 pm
--- 'roach' said19. Comment #37116 by ft77 on May 3, 2007 at 12:06 pm
It's not a gesture of goodwill, it's just cynical, lazy, journalistic relativism.20. Comment #37118 by Steven Mading on May 3, 2007 at 12:22 pm
It is not a gesture of good will to say that Dawkins is merely arguing his premises in The God Delusion, as Behe did here. To say that is to ignore the existence of any of Dawkins reasoned arguments in the book.21. Comment #37119 by Duff on May 3, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Behe was selected to provoke and sell copies of the mag. These editors are like selfish genes, they'll do anything to propagate and sell the product.22. Comment #37120 by sir_russ on May 3, 2007 at 12:33 pm
waxwings said, "Look for his upcoming book to flop and flop hard," but it may not turn out that way at all.23. Comment #37123 by commonhumanity on May 3, 2007 at 12:36 pm
CONGRATULATIONS, Richard!24. Comment #37128 by roach on May 3, 2007 at 12:44 pm
ft77 and Steven Mading:25. Comment #37132 by BaronOchs on May 3, 2007 at 12:50 pm
waxwings said, "Look for his upcoming book to flop and flop hard," but it may not turn out that way at all.
26. Comment #37138 by atkinson on May 3, 2007 at 1:00 pm
27. Comment #37141 by Corylus on May 3, 2007 at 1:03 pm
28. Comment #37142 by d4m14n on May 3, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Maybe they're just warming up their readership for when they drop The Big D in at number 1 on the Time 100 list.29. Comment #37146 by smoothington on May 3, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Hello!30. Comment #37147 by Greg Laden on May 3, 2007 at 1:24 pm
If you have a problem with Behe being asked to write this (and you damn well should!) then consider writing a letter to Time!!!31. Comment #37148 by sane1 on May 3, 2007 at 1:24 pm
32. Comment #37152 by k1mgy on May 3, 2007 at 1:33 pm
33. Comment #37162 by relevo on May 3, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Does anyone here know if TIME gave any reason for why they decided to choose someone anathema to Dawkins in writing his summary? Did they do this with every person in the list?34. Comment #37174 by chionactis on May 3, 2007 at 3:05 pm
35. Comment #37196 by maton100 on May 3, 2007 at 4:18 pm
36. Comment #37211 by valleyshrew on May 3, 2007 at 5:33 pm
37. Comment #37214 by Bonzai on May 3, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Why do you have to attack Behe personally? His review of Dawkins is respectful while acknowledging their differences. I don't think he volunteered to write the article, Times probably asked him to. We can be civil with each other even though we may be violently disagreeing with each other's ideas.38. Comment #37223 by Janus on May 3, 2007 at 6:27 pm
39. Comment #37227 by Russell Blackford on May 3, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Given that Behe actually does believe the things he believes (it's easy to forget this), I think we should assume good faith - to use a Wikipedia expression. From his perspective, he is simply being gracious, not doing anything unfair or underhanded. I agree with Bonzai that there's no need to attack him personally.40. Comment #37242 by un_ko on May 3, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Actually, TIME has edited out some chunk out of the original text - according to the pro-intelligent-design blog site, Uncommon Descent. Here is what Behe wrote originally, copied from the post:
Of his nine books, none caused as much controversy — or sold as well — as last year's The God Delusion. Yet the leading light of the recent atheist publishing surge, Oxford University's Richard Dawkins, has always been a man driven by the big questions. Born in Kenya in 1941 of British parents, he received a mild Anglican upbringing. But at the age of sixteen Dawkins discovered Charles Darwin's theory, and thought he'd found a pearl of great price.
His academic career as an evolutionary biologist got off to a fast start in the 1970's with his first book, The Selfish Gene, which argued a then-unfashionable notion: like many politicians in Congress, individual genes of a genome are looking out just for their own good. So if somehow an unconscious gene mutated to be copied more effectively, it would outcompete its fellow DNA fragments. The fundamental idea of this "gene-centered" view of evolution had been proposed by other researchers. But, using his remarkable gift of scientific exposition, Dawkins painted the abstruse concept so clearly, and drew out the logic of its problematic premises so brightly, that it quickly became evolutionary orthodoxy.
Dawkins pushed the old idea in new directions. He argued that genes shape not only the body of an animal, but also its external environment: the imagined genes that move a beaver to build a dam are working for their own survival no less than the genes that shape the beaver's tail. Even human thoughts were fitted to the Procrustean mold. He coined the word "meme" to denote fragments of ideas, such as cultural fads or music lyrics, that might replicate within brains like genes in a cell. And into the disreputable category of meme he firmly placed religion, calling it a virus of the mind.
With the big questions of life and mind supposedly solved in principle, Dawkins has in the past several decades abandoned research, and turned instead to persuading society of the correctness of his views. It was for Dawkins that computer software billionaire Charles Simonyi endowed the Oxford Chair of the Public Understanding of Science, freeing Dawkins to write newspaper articles, produce films, and travel the world to spread the meme that, "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 pointless indifference." A stark message, certainly. But true, thinks Dawkins, and he will not shrink from saying so.
The God Delusion, which deals more with philosophy than science, has been panned as amateurish by academic reviewers. Yet even a Roman Catholic intelligent design proponent like myself, who thinks Dawkins' conclusions follow much less from his data than from his premises, has to admire the man's energy and determination. Concerning those big questions, Someone once advised us to be either hot or cold, but not lukewarm. Whatever the merit of his ideas, Richard Dawkins is not lukewarm.
41. Comment #37274 by William on May 4, 2007 at 12:35 am
I don't think he volunteered to write the article, Times probably asked him to.
From his perspective, he is simply being gracious,
42. Comment #37317 by rokort on May 4, 2007 at 4:35 am
43. Comment #37321 by justme on May 4, 2007 at 4:52 am
44. Comment #37341 by glittergulch on May 4, 2007 at 6:10 am
45. Comment #37372 by danceswithanxiety on May 4, 2007 at 8:49 am
46. Comment #37503 by Richard Morgan on May 4, 2007 at 4:38 pm
47. Comment #38936 by bluebird on May 9, 2007 at 2:44 pm
48. Comment #38946 by simaloko on May 9, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Michael Behe seems very naive. I read about him on wikipedia. He is a proponent of I.D. because believes there are items at the molecular level that can be explained through natural selection.
1. Comment #37073 by willerror on May 3, 2007 at 10:35 am
Michael Behe? Michael Behe? That exposed little fraud, marginalized even by his own university? What is Time magazine thinking?Oh, that's right--it's not.
And who is that blonde woman? Is it Cameron Diaz? Cate Blanchett? Who?
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