Some Mid-Way Thoughts on Dawkins' Book

I am now about halfway through Dawkins' book The God Delusion, at the point where he summarizes the main conclusion of the book (this first half of the book argues why it is good to be atheist; the second half of the book argues why it is good to be militantly so, i.e. actively trying to end the game of religion rather than simply not participating in it). In his words (this is a relatively extended quote):

This chapter has contained the central argument of my book, and so, at the risk of sounding repetitive, I shall summarize it as a series of six numbered points.

1. One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect, over the centuries, has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises.

2. The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself. [It is natural to apply the analogy of a watch~watchmaker and posit the existence of a universe-maker such as God.]

3. The temptation is a false one, because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer. [...]

4. The most ingenious and powerful [mechanism for deriving complex objects from simple objects] so far discovered is Darwinian evolution by natural selection. [...] We can now safely say that the illusion of design in living creatures is just that - an illusion.

5. We don't yet have an equivalent [mechanism] for physics. Some kind of multiverse theory could in principle do for physics the same explanatory work as Darwinism does for biology. [...]

6. We should not give up hope of [such a mechanism] arising in physics, something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology. But even in the absence of [such a mechanism in physics] to match the biological one, the relatively weak [versions of such a mechanism, for instance the multiverse theory] are, when abetted by the anthropic principle, self-evidently better than the self-defeating skyhook hypothesis of an intelligent designer.

If the argument of this chapter is accepted, the factual premise of religion - the God Hypothesis - is untenable. God almost certainly does not exist.

What Dawkins means by a "skyhook" is something he takes from Daniel Dennet's book (which I have not yet read) Darwin's Dangerous Idea. It is meant as a "deus ex machina" hanging precariously out of thin air, to be contrasted with "cranes" (which I have replaced with "mechanisms" in the large quote above), which have their feet planted firmly on the ground. I'd like to express a few thoughts about this succession of points and their presumably inevitable conclusion.

First of all, I see nothing wrong with Dawkins' points (1) and (2), and although I don't think I know enough physics to really weigh in on the debate (I'm not convinced that Dawkins does, either), I can accept (5) for the sake of argument. I also agree with (4) and (6) as far as the first sentence (out of two) of each goes. I completely disagree with his point (3).

The second sentence of (4) is stated in the form of a conclusion based on the first sentence. However, I think this juxtaposition makes for a non sequitor. I suppose that it is possible that design in the case of the universe should be conceived on a much broader and grander scale than that of living beings - a scale over which Darwinian evolution does not operate. Dawkins anticipates this by discussion the constants of the universe and the multiple multiverse theories on the table, and arrives at (6). Again, the second sentence of (6) is stated in the form of a conclusion based on the first sentence. However, it is again a non sequitor. How so, you ask? Well, it comes back to skyhooks.

Turn back 3 pages - same chapter, as Dawkins is wrapping up his main presentation of the argument for (6). He writes the following:

Time and again, my theologian friends returned to the point that there had to be a reason why there is something rather than nothing [this is Leibniz's famous question]. There must have been a first cause of everything, and we might as well give it the name God. Yes, I said, but it must have been simple and therefore, whatever else we call it, God is not an appropriate name (unless we very explicitly divest it of all the baggage that the word 'God' carries in the minds of most religious believers). The first cause that we seek must have been the simple basis for a self-bootstrapping crane which eventually raised the world as we know it into its present complex existence.

This is where Dawkins' argument begins to unravel. First, the appeal to a "self-bootstrapping crane" seems to be nothing more than a skyhook. Second, Dawkins' acquiescence that there must have been a first cause seems to run afoul of his earlier criticism of Aquinas' "proofs" of the existence of God. Granted, Dawkins protects himself in that chapter by pointing out that even if "God" is the thing we call the first cause, it does not necessarily follow that the qualities of this first cause are those attributed to God. But that is beside the point that I am making right now - the point is that Dawkins' notion of a first cause contradicts his earlier criticism of Aquinas. Indeed, his only really novel argument against "the God Hypothesis" is based on the notion that at the end of the almost-infinite regress of questions such as "What made X? What made the thing that made X? What made the thing that made the thing that made X? &c." must be an incredibly simple thing (since simple things can become complicated things, at least in some domains). How is this an argument against "the God Hypothesis?" God is not a simple thing. Since the beginning of all things must have been simple, it could not have been God. Therefore, God does not exist. Q.E.D.

But this brings us round to Dawkins' point (3). First, I don't think that the question "who designed the designer" comes up if we posit God as the designer. This seems to be a point where Dawkins either fails to understand the Christian notion of God, or loses all imagination, or both. But more on that later. Second, Dawkins himself cannot escape his own criticism, since he posits a simple "self-bootstrapping crane," of which the question is immediately raised (assuming we allow such a device, which we don't) what made this simple crane? Infinite regress.

Back to the self-bootstrapping crane. The only thing that allows Darwinian evolution to be a plausible crane is that it has ground underneath it on which to operate. One thing that Dawkins does not mention, and even seems to forget (he must be aware of it), is that natural selection (Dawkins' catch-all for making complex things out of simple things) operates on variation. Where the variation comes from is a different question. There's another recent book about this called The Plausibility of Life by Marc Kirshner and John Gerhart. Whether or not they succeed in explaining the origin of variations is beside the point (although based on the first couple of chapters I don't think they will, even though they do appear to be barking up a very interesting tree). But this is not what I want to talk about. The point for now is that a similar grounds for the self-bootstrapping crane is by definition non-existant.

But now let me ask, if Dawkins can imagine a very simple something without feeling a need to explain the existence of that something, why does he feel that people who think God created everything face a huge obligation to explain the existence of God? If anything can simply exist, why does it have to be an extremely simple thing? What does it matter how simple or complex the simply existing thing is? (This is accepting for the sake of argument Dawkins' notion of "complex", which I'm not sure I fully understand, nor am I convinced that it is appropriate to the Christian conception of God.)

Let's recap:

1) I haven't spent any time defining the notion of a "broader, grander scale" than the one evolution acts on, but I have asserted that the first and second sentences of (4) constitute a non sequitor.

2) Dawkins' point (3) is self-defeating at least and perhaps also irrelevant.

3) Point (6) is a non sequitor that leaves Dawkins with a skyhook, defeating his own most appealed-to criticism of Christianity.

Now how about a thought-experiment? This may help to clarify what I mean by a "broader, grander scale".

Suppose we find out that there is life out there on other planets. What will the anatomy and physiology of that life look like? What if it turns out to be more or less exactly what we have here on Earth? If we were committed to naturalism, that is if we were committed to a universe without God, how would we explain this? Since I only thought of this question today, I haven't had enough time to really think much about it. So I will leave you, Dear Reader, with the question.