The Heresy Thread -- Where is Dawkins wrong?

[Gnieus]

Ok, Dawkins is big and moreorless the deity of Evol Ecol

 

Did anybody spot something questionable in his hypothesis?

 

Anybody found anything?

[Ophiolite]

His overwhelming arrogance that his particular take on evolution is the only correct one. Not a very scientific approach.

[Mart]

His overwhelming arrogance that his particular take on evolution is the only correct one. Not a very scientific approach.

I second that!!!

I think Gnieus has it in a nutshell in his first line. Dawkin's believes he is the deity. He has the absolute truth and people like him will burn you at the stake if they ever get the chance. Does that sound melodramatic? Not to me. I won't bore you with details

[Hellbender]

His overwhelming arrogance that his particular take on evolution is the only correct one. Not a very scientific approach.

 

I haven't heard much about this guy, what kind of things has he proposed?

[Guest Max Powers]

I am guessing they are talking about Richard Dawkins (one book that he wrote that you may have heard of is "Selfish Gene"). He does have a lot of interesting points about the correlation between evolution and the survival of ones genes. But yes, he is very arrogant and sometimes it is becomes obvious when you read some of his writings.

[Hellbender]

OKay I will look into it maybe and give some opinion later. I can start by saying arrogance certainly isn't a good quality for a scientist to have.

[Sayonara]

OKay I will look into it maybe and give some opinion later. I can start by saying arrogance certainly isn't a good quality for a scientist to have.

What if it's justifiable?

[Hellbender]

What if it's justifiable?

 

good point.

[Sayonara]

No really - I'm interested to know if people's perceptions of the man lead them to adjust their perceptions of his work.

[Aardvark]

No really - I'm interested to know if people's perceptions of the man lead them to adjust their perceptions of his work.

 

I don't like the man, but i love his work.

[Hellbender]

No really - I'm interested to know if people's perceptions of the man lead them to adjust their perceptions of his work.

 

actually now that I read some of his work and had no problems with it, I can't say what I have been told beforehand about his ignorance affecting my perception of him. Theres nothing wrong with being assertive.

[Hellbender]

His personal character means nothing to me.

[Gnieus]

I don't like him either ... I have to respect his work in a way .. but he has so much an agenda that I wonder if someone like this can be objective in his work.

[Guest Max Powers]

yeah, I may not like him as a person....but I'm not trying to be his friend...so that is no problem to me. I highly repect his work though.

[Aardvark]

I don't like him either ... I have to respect his work in a way .. but he has so much an agenda that I wonder if someone like this can be objective in his work.

 

Everyone has an agenda. He's just completely honest and open about it.

 

Looking at his work, it does seem to be scientifically rigourous.

[Ophiolite]

I want to clarify my earlier comments. The arrogance I refer to is his practice of dismissing alternative hypotheses with minimal or zero scientific argument, but rather a stance that implies 'I am an expert so you must accept what I say'.

He may be right in everything he postulates, though that seems doubtful. I would find his writing more palatable (but no more or less convincing) if he controlled the overbearing certainty. I enjoy a bit of arrogance from great minds, but it is best tempered with a measure of self deprecation.

[swansont]

OKay I will look into it maybe and give some opinion later. I can start by saying arrogance certainly isn't a good quality for a scientist to have.

 

It's a quality many scientists have. Lotta "A" types leading big and successful research progrms. You can't go forward if you second-guess yourself all the time. Of course, you can't have the attitude that you're always right, either, because inevitably you will be wrong about something.

[Hellbender]

Of course, you can't have the attitude that you're always[/i'] right, either, because inevitably you will be wrong about something.

 

thats the kind of arrogance I was talking about.

[Aardvark]

I want to clarify my earlier comments. The arrogance I refer to is his practice of dismissing alternative hypotheses with minimal or zero scientific argument, but rather a stance that implies 'I am an expert so you must accept what I say'.

 

True, but in his defence he does have to deal with a lot of idiots which would probably led to anyone having a shortened fuse. Trying to reason with some creationists is impossible, as such a dismissive attitude towards fools would, at the very least, save an awful lot of wasted time.

[Hellbender]

True, but in his defence he does have to deal with a lot of idiots which would probably led to anyone having a shortened fuse. Trying to reason with some creationists is impossible, as such a dismissive attitude towards fools would, at the very least, save an awful lot of wasted time.

 

I concur. I had a pretty long fuse for creationist arguments a while ago. It dwindled with every ad hominem attack, strawman attack, appeal to authority, misquotation and tired dogmatic argument. I am sure Dawkins gets to hear them all and then some. Such an attitude is likely an honest reaction to having to deal with all that insufferable pap biblical creationists like to use and are convinced is effective.

[PhDP]

Did anybody spot something questionable in his hypothesis?

 

Yes and no. First I don't know if we can call his views "his hypothesis", Dawkins didn't make much contributions to evolutionary theory, he just embrace more than everyone the approach of Williams, Hamilton and Wilson. His interpretation of evolution is probably the most orthodox. I have some difficulties with that... When you read Dawkins (or even Dennett or Pinker, which is more of the same), you're left with the impression that there's only one mechanism of evolution; natural selection, and that it's action can be seen as some sort of ultimate optimizer.

 

What of linkage ? Random genetic drift ? Endosymbiosis ? What of evo-devo and the nearly neutral theory of evolution ? It seem that in Dawkins' world, there's only place for natural selection. This summer I've made a little research on the theoretical foundations of life history evolution and I've seen that evolutionary ecologist have the bad tendency of ignoring large parts of evolutionary biology, so it's not only the problem with Dawkins.

 

Rather comical is Dawkins response to the question, asking to provide "....one single example of a genetic mutation or evolutionary process that increases the information in the genome"

 

Answer; "Polyploidy"

[Severian]

Let's have a couple of examples of why I don't trust anything that Dawkins says. From the first page of his book, 'the selfish gene':

 

Darwin made it possible for us to give a sensible answer to the curious child whose question heads this chapter. We no longer have to resort to superstition when faced with the deep problems: Is there a meaning to life? What are we for? What is man?

 

Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun

 

I don't think these really need much explanation. If he talks this much bollocks in the first page....

 

(That, of course, doesn't make ID in the creationist sense any less absurd.)

[Severian]

Microevolution is hard to disprove. If you look it up and learn about it i think you will find that it has been 100% proven.

 

That sort of statement does not enhance your case.

[Mokele]

Actually, Sev, he's right. Evolution is defined as change in gene frequency in a population over time. This has been observed, and is therefore fact. Similarly, small-scale evolution due to natural selection, sexual selection, genetic drift, inbreeding, genetic bottlenecks and founder effect has been observed countless times.

 

So stating that microevolution is 100% proven is basically correct (in as much as anything can be proven in science). Even if there *was* a flaw that necessitated a re-write, this re-write would be very similar to the current version, as it must account for all of the above observations.

 

Anyhow, the point is that from a purely empirical POV, all the known causes of evolution have caused it in empirically observed instances, and can thus be regarded as factual.

 

Mokele

[Severian]

Nothing in science is 100% proven since every measurement has errors and/or assumptions inherent in them. I just felt that it was a bit of an absolute statement. 99.9% proven I would have been happy with, but maybe I am being pedantic.

 

I don't know how it is in biological science but every assertion in particle physics has a confidence associated with it so that you know exactly how supported by data it is. Of course, a lot of these confidence levels have assumptions in them too, but even I am not pedantic enough to ask for the error on the error.

 

But while I am here (I only ever get dragged here via the admin subforum), let me ask a question. It is very clear that evolution (as in change in gene frequency) really happens and evolution by natural selection has been seen in the laboratory in organisms with short generations. But what is the real evidence of gene change by natural selection at very long time scales? Clearly it is the best mechanism we have, but is there more concrete evidence? How far back can they sample gene content? Could there be any other mechanisms at work, perhaps complementing or enhancing natural selection?

 

(I always think 'evolution' in its modern biological usage is rather an inappropriate word. Really anything which changes 'evolves' and it would have been much better if someone had come up with a better term for gene changes.)