Dawkins Dawkins Dawkins. The Selfish Gene was obviously a work of conceptual brilliance. I understand he’s had some good stuff since then. But his recent crusade to prove what a knuckleheadedly stupid idea believing in God is is getting really irritating. If you haven’t been exposed to it or aren’t sick of it, he’s got a new essay out just in time to promote his new anti-God book. You can read it, if you want to, here.

He qoutes Carl Sagan disparagingly, which is sort of funny given that Sagan a) is the only other scientist I can think of who has done an even half-decent job of writing on the subject and b) supports the same general conclusion as Dawkins himself. He qoutes Sam Harris approvingly, and I might add that if bald in-perpectivism is your thing, Mr. Harris attacks religion while maintaining a much better poker face. And he quotes Michael Ruse and calls him “plonkingly witless”. I had a brief thrill there – Michael Ruse once taught me and a couple hundred other ungrateful undergrads Darwinian history, before fleeing to an American university for a higher paycheck and taking the good silver with him.

It’s not that I don’t agree with Dawkins’ conclusions, or that I don’t understand the searching bewilderment that drives his passion. But he manages to translate that passion into a number of often shallow arguments delivered with a wickedly condescending “can’t you idiots see the obvious?” tone. The man is bordering on insufferable.

A universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference. God could clinch the matter in his favour at any moment by staging a spectacular demonstration of his powers, one that would satisfy the exacting standards of science.

How does he know what a universe with a god would be like? Has he been there?

Why would a supernatural entity who ordered the universe feel the need to prove it’s presence to humans? Why would we expect it to be comprehensible to us at all if it tried?

And most of all, why would we expect it to prove it’s existence to Richard Dawkins?

Really, the man is giving atheists a bad name. Just when they were considering letting us hold young children unsupervised or run for public office.