The Damned

The Richard Dawkins Foundation set up a 2 hour discussion between the four horsemen of the new atheism (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens).   The videos can be found on YouTube here.

Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True (which coincidentally I started reading yesterday, and is so far excellent) has published an open letter criticising the NCSE and the BCSE for cuddling up to the religious at the expense of atheistic scientists.  The full text of the letter follows:

Dear comrades:

Although we may diverge in our philosophies and actions toward religion, we share a common goal: the promulgation of good science education in Britain and America—indeed, throughout the world.  Many of us, like myself and Richard Dawkins, spend a lot of time teaching evolution to the general public.  There’s little doubt, in fact, that Dawkins is the preeminent teacher of evolution in the world. He has not only turned many people on to modern evolutionary biology, but has converted many evolution-deniers (most of them religious) to evolution-accepters.

Nevertheless, your employees, present and former, have chosen to spend much of their time battling not creationists, but evolutionists who happen to be atheists.  This apparently comes from your idea that if evolutionists also espouse atheism, it will hurt the cause of science education and turn people away from evolution.  I think this is misguided for several reasons, including a complete lack of evidence that your idea is true, but also your apparent failure to recognize that creationism is a symptom of religion (and not just fundamentalist religion), and will be with us until faith disappears. That is one reason—and, given the pernicious effect of religion, a minor one—for the fact that we choose to fight on both fronts.

The official policy of your organizations—certainly of the NCSE—is apparently to cozy up to religion.  You have “faith projects,” you constantly tell us to shut up about religion, and you even espouse a kind of theology which claims that faith and science are compatible.  Clearly you are going to continue with these activities, for you’ve done nothing to change them in the face of criticism.  And your employees, past and present, will continue to heap invective on New Atheists and tar people like Richard Dawkins with undeserved opprobrium.

We will continue to answer the misguided attacks by people like Josh Rosenau, Roger Stanyard, and Nick Matzke so long as they keep mounting those attacks.  I don’t expect them to abate, but I’d like your organizations to recognize this: you have lost many allies, including some prominent ones, in your attacks on atheism.  And I doubt that those attacks have converted many Christians or Muslims to the cause of evolution.  This is a shame, because we all recognize that the NCSE has done some great things in the past and, I hope, will—like the new BCSE—continue do great things in the future.

There is a double irony in this situation.  First, your repeated and strong accusations that, by criticizing religion, atheists are alienating our pro-evolution allies (liberal Christians), has precisely the same alienating effect on your allies: scientists who are atheists.  Second, your assertion that only youhave the requisite communication skills to promote evolution is belied by the observation that you have, by your own ham-handed communications, alienated many people who are on the side of good science and evolution.  You have lost your natural allies.  And this is not just speculation, for those allies were us, and we’re telling you so.

Sincerely,
Jerry Coyne

P Z Myers has chipped in with his opinion here, as has Richard Dawkins.

My own opinion is simple and supports the three scientists (all of whom I admire) linked in this thread.  You will not find a demographic more dedicated to science and science education than atheistic scientists, nor will you find a demographic more opposed to science and science education than creationists.  It seems an open and shut case of who the NCSE should be supporting and it isn’t the religious over the atheist.

I understand that the NCSE has an obligation to reach out to the religious to educate them about science, but you shouldn’t alienate the people producing the science.

Thanks to Miranda Celeste for the link

Yesterday I had an unexpected treat. Richard Dawkins, the world-renowned evolutionary biologist, was making a stop at Duke on his national tour promoting his new book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. At the last minute I was asked to join a small group having brunch with him and was given a front-row seat at his talk in the afternoon.

Dawkins is quintessentially upper-class British. Well-spoken, gracious, dressed impeccably even on a Sunday morning, he has a sharp wit that can be quite cutting in a subtle kind of way when he wants it to be. Great fun when you're on his side, not so much when you're not. Yesterday there were lots of laughs for the folks who fall on the side of Dawkins's cause célèbre.

That cause is evolution: that Darwin's theory of evolution is largely fact, not conjecture or speculation or hypothesis. And that is certainly the case. In his talk yesterday, as in his many popular books, he does a magnificent job of explicating the science, the evidence, and the history of how that science and evidence were developed.

Read on