Richard Dawkins’ The Superfluous Explanation

People assume scientists are honest. But scientists have certain kind of personalities, maybe a tendency to question everything beyond the point most people would be willing to go. Scientists may also be disagreeable since the very point of practicing science is to falsify previously established theories, so that we can make progress.

Dawkins uses an example to illustrate the point that God is a superfluous explanation to the theory of evolution in a debate with John Lennox.

The example is of a car moving along a path and avoiding obstacles. Dawkins insists that he car must have a driver or an agent, since a car can’t avoid obstacles on its own. But the mechanism of evolution doesn’t require an agent. But what about a car without a driver?

These days, they’re called autonomous vehicles. This vehicle contains artificial intelligence, but not necessarily an agent, that is responsible for avoiding obstacles. But does that mean that it’s logical to assume that no one created the autonomous vehicle since no agent is operating it?

Lennox says a book that is complex needs something more complex. Dawkins replies that complex things come from simple beginning, no need for complex God. But self-organization is not simple, at the subatomic and macro level.

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2. Modern Man in Search of a Soul Summary (8/10)
3. Part 2: Stir Up The Transgressive and Taboo (The Art of Seduction)
4. Chapter 19: And They Lived Happily Every After (Sapiens)