"Root of All Evil?" doco by Richard Dawkins

[ptgatsby]

Originally Posted by Langrenus

Ahhh, releasing the pessimism felt good...

While you are right, how often do you see flat-earthers now? The reality is that the society as a whole needs to push them out. Anyone who chooses to believe something regardless of what is presented to them will... nothing will ever change that... however ideas do grow - feminism and equal rights, racism and slavery... It's the social component that will determine if these ideas are mainstream or not. This simply is a war to bring one ideology to the front.

As far as I can tell, he's doing exactly what needs to be done in order to bring a new ideology to light.

[HilbertSpace]

Originally Posted by Langrenus

I still don't think I agree with this marginalisation thesis - as believers keep telling me, this isn't about science or rationality per se, it's about faith. Don't confuse some evangelical church leaders attempting to dress their views in a pathetic veil of science as proof that the whole edifice will come shattering down if only we can make them see the underling irrationality

I can absolutely see this side of it, and it's one reason why I don't myself go about trying to start arguments. At the same time, a lot of people (myself included) came to our position because we became that the argument from design (in whatever guise) had fallen apart based on something we read, or a conversation we had.

...it hasn't happened in the past 2000 years, I see absolutely no reason why it will change now. Attacking ideas as ideas without reference any inclusion of the faith angle just strikes me as a weak position to work from. The most sane individual in the world can still come back and say "well sorry, I just believe in this" and there's bugger all you can do.

The faith angle is inarguably strong, and can be decisive in several individuals. Other studies indicate that around 40% of scientists claim belief in a personal God (which is still under half the rate of the general population), and that even among members of the National Academy it only falls to about 8%. Perhaps significantly, faith is highest amongst medical doctors and lowest among biologists.

My feeling is that this compulsion to faith probably has both a biological and a psychological component. In any case, and trying to stay more or less on topic, Dawkins is attacking faith qua faith, rather than a specific belief system or set of irrational ideas. I agree that this concept needs to be out there and getting discussed, but also think that, for most people, it's not going to be the first step on a rationalistic road to Damascus.

[Langrenus]

Thanks folks, interesting discussion thus far.

Originally Posted by ptgatsby

While you are right, how often do you see flat-earthers now? The reality is that the society as a whole needs to push them out.

This is a fair point, but the fundamental difference here appears to be that the shape of the earth can be proved empirically from a number of different sources. The choice of whether or not to believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being cannot be made against any empirical reference points, and so cannot be refuted rationally in the same way that the flat-earth theory could. Refuting the theory was also a practical necessity for nations looking to master the high seas, or else I wonder whether we might have rather more deniers amongst us

With this said I do take the point that societal attitudes change and evolve, and these changes require some pressure to gain momentum

HilbertSpace, some interesting figures there - I've seen comparable results for the Royal Society (which I assume, in my ignorance, is the rough equivalent of your National Academy) and off the top of my head the 8% figure looks identical. The fact that medical doctors have a higher tendency to believe is definitely something that's worth reflecting on.