Steve Paikin interviewed Richard Dawkins earlier this week. While I generally love the show, this one was underwhelming. Dawkins was, as usual, amiable, patient and startlingly lucid. Paikin was not his usual self, and spent far too much time probing Dawkins on whether he was sufficiently tolerant of and considerate to religionists (other critics were far less forgiving). The panel that followed was – for what it was – unmitigated nonsense. As a contrast to Dawkins’ lucidity and erudition, though, it was a delight.
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Actually, I thought the psychology prof had an interesting theory: that religious belief might have a Darwinian explanation, in the sense that it might fulfill some larger evolutionary purpose. Of course, all the various massacres and wars that religions have caused would seem to argue against that, I suppose :-)
Well, I pretty much assume everything has an evolutionary purpose now. :)
It must drive the intelligent design-ists crazy that some folks believe there’s an evolutionary purpose to their belief that if anything the evidence of evolution is evidence of a designer.