When Selfish Gene author Richard Dawkins challenged physicist John Barrow on his formulation of the constants of nature at last summer’s Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowship lectures, Barrow laughed and said, “You have a problem with these ideas, Richard, because you’re not really a scientist. You’re a biologist.”Is anyone else laughing as hard as I did over that first paragraph? I can't remember where I saw the link to the article (apologies ...) but I enjoyed it immensely.
For Barrow, biology is little more than a branch of natural history. “Biologists have a limited, intuitive understanding of complexity. They’re stuck with an inherited conflict from the 19th century, and are only interested in outcomes, in what wins out over others,” he adds. “But outcomes tell you almost nothing about the laws that govern the universe.” For physicists it is the laws of nature themselves that capture and structure the universe—and put brakes on it as well.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Quite Possibly the Most Perfect Comeback Ever to Richard Dawkins
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Thanks for posting this! Funny, and very interesting indeed ...
ReplyDeleteI have read some of John Polkinghorne too, and now will certainly follow-up with Barrow. Great post and linked article.
ReplyDeleteThanks Happy Catholic!
Dear Julie,
ReplyDeleteI find it difficult to laugh, being one of those denigrated as not being a scientist. The arrogance of this physicist is simply an expression of the extreme of feeling toward those of us who explain what is real and observable rather than those who make things up and then invent things to explain them. Superstrings? String theory? Even, to some extent atomic sub-particles--the chronicles of which read like some medieval bestiary.
No, this isn't even a little amusing to me--even though it is directed at a target worthy of whatever withering blast one might choose to direct that way. It really is just more arrogance, and I, for one, and most of my compatriots are tired of it.
However, I can see how, outside the context of the sciences this little marital spat could be seen as amusing--so I'm not faulting anyone who does find it amusing, simply providing the background.
shalom,
Steven
Dear Stephen, welcome to how Tom and I often feel when people denegrate advertising and all related fields as lying, cheating moneygrubbers. However, we have to admit that there are many such, shrug our shoulders, and know that those jokers are not targeting us. We try not to be thin skinned about it and realize that such generalizations are inevitable. Or where would jokes come from? This is why much joking has to take place only with people who agree with you these days. No one is broad shouldered not to take offense. Which is why Texas Aggies are so often the target of hilarious jokes. Unlike blondes, the Polish and other such traditional joke subjects, they can take it. :-)
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Julie
I think Barrow's barb is only funny to the extent he was joking, in much the same way it's only funny to say "you're not really a Catholic, you're a Jesuit," as a joke.
ReplyDeleteAnd for some reason, this reminds me of one of my favorite bits of movie dialog, from I think Mona Lisa, in which George, a small-time hood played by Bob Hoskins, is waiting for someone in a posh hotel. A waiter comes over and asks in suitably disapproving tones if he would like anything.
George answers, "Tea."
"Earl Grey or lapsang souchong?"
"No, tea."
Whoa, Julie! Who said the Poles can't take a joke?
ReplyDeleteDear Julie,
ReplyDeleteI'll leave off after this--but the point is that it isn't joking--this is
Dear Julie,
ReplyDeleteOh darn, distracted. What I was trying to say is that this is the attitude of physicists and chemists (many of them) toward any of the "historical" or "anecdotal" sciences and to a person working in the field, merely tedious. I don't take offense at them, as I consider the source and the historic conflict--but I must admit, I don't find them even remotely funny--they're just another way we have of tearing each other down--and that, quite frankly saddens me.
shalom,
Steven
Steven, I think the main point is really that for everyone else, the joke is about Dawkins and his probably reaction. Not at all about the scientific divisions. I expected Dawkins' supporters to come to his defense because of that ... much as I almost expected Wiccans to take offense at the previous post's example.
ReplyDeleteChristopher ... point taken! :-D
ReplyDeleteSnappy comebacks rarely shine light on a serious dispute so I can't see how one would draw any intellectual satisfaction from the first paragraph.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the difference between the approach taken by a biologist and that taken by a physicist to the issue at hand is interesting.
As much as I would like to see Dawkins get his comeuppance, I don't get Barrow's characterization of biology. I'm not offended. I just don't GET it.
ReplyDeleteBut maybe that's because, though I'm a geneticist, I come from a chemistry background and see biology as chemistry, which is all really physics, and therefore entirely grounded in those laws that govern the universe that Barrow's talking about. Though I can't say I know any biologists who don't see it that way.
Oddly enough, it's the physicists I've met who don't get that biology is governed by physics and ask me "how does an enzyme know what to do?" (I'm not joking. This has happened.)
I'd love to know how Barrow thinks the laws of physics were identified without observation of the world (like natural history) and experimentation (those unimportant "outcomes" that I assume he's talking about). You can come up with all the fancy equations that you want, but eventually you have to compare them to real world data (like really cool radiation maps of outer space that my physicist friends turn into beach balls).
Of course, this is all really distracting from what biologists and physicists should really be doing--making fun of mathematicians: "A biologist, a physicist, and a mathematician watch one person walk into a house and two people leave..."
Ah, yes! That natural bonding point between scientists! :-D
ReplyDeleteThe amusement here comes from the fact that Dawkins was finally treated to the same kind of arrogance and dismissiveness that he has shown his opponents for many years. He, as has been noted in this comment string, finally got his just deserts, so to speak; and there is always satisfaction in seeing justice served.
ReplyDeleteThere is an important observation in Barrow’s elaboration on his initial comment; namely, that biologists have become so consumed with defending Darwin’s problematic theory that they focus on natural history (e.g., fossil records) to the neglect of the rest of their discipline. They have, in effect, ceased to become biologists and are now historians (not scientists, in Barrow’s estimation). This observation is, of course, a generalization; but it has some validity when generally applied.
You will find what appears to be the original link for the quotations from Barrow at http://www.templeton.org/milestones/milestones_2006-04.asp.
We Christians should not accept Barrow’s criticism of Dawkins entirely, given what one can infer from it (but perhaps not what Barrow, a Christian himself, implies). Barrow seems to limit even more the already overly-limited modern recognition of those disciplines considered to be true sciences. This too-limited recognition has been significant to the perceived relationship between religion and science (and even to the terms we use for this relationship). The educated recognized theology not very long ago as the Queen of the sciences and metaphysics (the study of being qua being, and not the modern sham), the first cousin of theology, as her second. The other sciences were subordinate and preparatory to these two. The Scientific Revolution of the XVIth-XVIIth and the Enlightenment of the XVIIIth centuries succeeded in labeling these sciences as un-scientific; and more recent intellectual developments have further limited the use of the term science to apply only to the natural sciences. Limiting this term even more, as one can infer Barrow does, to refer merely to physics and sciences closely related to it is unwelcome, indeed. Our goal, instead, should be to expand the use of the term to include all of those disciplines that are, in fact, sciences, notwithstanding that their proper methods differ from those of the natural sciences. An appropriately general use of the term would help to indicate that the science of theology, like the natural sciences, provides true knowledge within its proper sphere.
ReplyDeletehello all good catholics. lets stop fooling around with banning protestants from making comments. Lets fire up the inquisition chambers and roast these non catholics like we used to do.hail mary.
ReplyDelete