I've only read Dawkins' rather pathetic attempt at religious critique in the "God Delusion," so I thought it would only be fair to actually read his science stuff, very carefully and seriously. I will still be antagonistic to it; that's inevitable with such a character as Dawkins, and I'm not sure he would necessarily mind (at least he reads people that way). So I open up my reading with some thoughts on his first chapter, "Why People."
I shall do this in three movements: first, a discussion of his basic thesis; second, a discussion of his assumptions concerning science and inquiry.
Dawkins, near the beginning of his Preface, says "we are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes" (ix.). This is the general thesis of the book, and he specifies this in a few different ways. First, he says, "my purpose is to examine the biology of selfishness and altruism" (1). Second, "the argument of this books is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes" (2). How is he justified in this? He has a very simple, and "elegant" argument (as scientists are wont to say when using basic logical principles):
a. All animals have evolved by natural selection.
b. Natural selection always entails selfish behavior.
c. Therefore, all animal behavior is selfish. (4)
For number 2 he uses the subjective "should", so its a bit ambiguous whether he's arguing for this, or whether or not there will be exceptions to this.
But there is an exception! Altruism. As he says, "an entity, such as a baboon, is said to be altruistic if it behaves in such a way as to increase another such entity's welfare at the expense of its own" (4). Consider a worker bee who stings a foe. If the bees stings such foe, it will surely die, since vital organs are connected to the barbed stinger. Clearly this is a problem for proposition (a) above, yet Dawkins is not afraid: "this book will show how both individual selfishness and individual altruism are explained by the fundamental law which I am calling gene selfishness" (7). No matter how it looks with these cases of sacrifice, there is another principle at work: altruism depends on selfishness.
How is this possible? Doesn't this seem like a blatant contradiction? Well, here Dawkins gets around this by displacing the unit of selection. In an argument with Robert Ardrey's view of "group selection" instead of "individual" selection (Ardrey was a populizor of sociobiology in the late 60's and 70's) - the view that natural selection selects groups rather than individuals - Dawkins slides the individual from the organism selection (individual) to "gene selection" (8). Group selection is not a part of the "orthodox" of evolutionary theory, and so I won't discuss his response to Ardrey. But his argument for the selfishness of individuals goes like this:
a. In any group of altruists, there will most "certainly" be one "rebel" who puts his interests above the rest.
b. This rebel, since he looks out for his interests, will, "by definition", be more likely to produce offspring.
c. The child of this rebel with then "inherit his selfish traits."
d. Eventually, these "selfish traits" will overrun the group.
So, it appears from this argument that there are selfish traits, and we can assume these are somehow connected with genes. I'm assuming his next couple of chapters will elucidate this, and we'll see how these notions get cashed out.
This thesis seems rather strange but is straightforward, at least in terms of clarify. If Dawkins is anything, he is clear. But I do find this thesis, on the face of it, extrodinarily reductionistic, in the worst possible way. I'll have to read his chapters on genes before I make any judgment, but to even think that there is one universal law for all of these behaviors is rather simplistic. The world is so extraordinarily complicated and pluralistic, it seems rather restrictive to place everything on the shoulders of one principle.
And this leads to the most interesting thing to me so far - since I'm much more a philosopher at heart. Dawkins opens his chapter "why people" with a panegyric to Darwin as the person who "first put together a coherent and tenable account of why we exist" (1). Because of this, "we no longer have to resort to superstition when faced with the deep problems: Is there a meaning to life? What are we for? What is man" (1). Furthermore, Dawkins quotes G.G. Simpson, who, after posing these questions, says, "the point I want to make now is that all attempts to answer that questions before 1859 are worthless and that we will be better off if we ignore them completely" (1). Dawkins doesn't mince words.
Now, from his book "The God Delusion," you get the feeling Dawkins really means what he says (and quotes). But there are two huge problems with his view of Darwin expressed here, one historical, and the other philosophical.
1. Historically speaking, Darwin did not come up with all of this on his own. Not only was there another gentleman, an Alfred Russell Wallace (who Dawkins doesn't mention), but there was a whole host of economic, sociological, and scientific grounds that supported Darwin. He certainly came up with the most coherent vision, but it wasn't done at all in 1859. It was just starting then, and it took a very long time to reach a coherent picture - as all science does. But you cannot forget Darwin's cultural milleau, as if it didn't exist. He was a child of the British Empire during the rise of capitalism - and his theories owe a lot (by Darwin's own admission!) to this.
Now, for Dawkins to talk like this seems a bit crazy to me. I mean, I understand his gross misrepresentation of religion and philosophy in "The God Delusion", since he hates religion anyway (and after that quote from Simpson, I'd be surprise if he actually read anything he critiqued). But here? On his own turf? It seems rather amazing he would be so bombastic and off-kilter about it.
2. Philosophically speaking, its hogwash that Darwin finally gave us an answer to the question "why are there people?" Unless, of course, you mean that in the way one would say "why are their cars," and you talk about the production of a car, from the metals mined to the engine blocks machined, and all in between. But very few people, when they ask the question "why are people," are asking how it happened (although that's bound to be a question often as well). The "why" questions - why "meaning", purpose, and all that, are not scientific questions per se. Science purports to explain causation on the material and efficient levels (i.e., the way something actually moves), not the formal and final levels (the question of meaning and purpose). The last two levels are properly outside that domain, mainly because they aren't testable. And it would just be smuggling teleology back into biology for Dawkins to claim that Darwin allows for that. The "why" question is a teleological question through and through.
Now, the same lack of philosophical IQ Dawkins displayed in "The God Delusion" is displayed precisely here. My real question is why? Why does he have to make claims like this? How can anyone take him serious? Who is he trying to convince? I find it all puzzling.
One last note, and perhaps this explains my question. Dawkins specifically uses the word "orthodox." Most scientists that I've read do not use this word, but rather the phrase "dominant view." This seems to allow for a certain variability in the future, and the possibility that this "view" may not always be dominate. It is interesting then that Dawkins takes a word that means "correct teaching" from religion. It is "correct teaching" that he is advocating. And if that is the case, then it makes sense that he would make such extreme statements about his religion's founder.
Enough for the first chapter. Like I said, I'll be antagonistic. At the same time, there is no reason not to take him seriously.
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