Dawkins Brights and Dulls.

Hi Igs

I agree that he perhaps shouldnt be taking on philosophy....to be a philosopher calls for a mind that is open to challenge and change and I dont believe he can do that. As you say, he is too much a scientist!

That doesnt take away the huge amount of respect I have for his scientific work, he does have a brilliant mind. But a brilliantly unchangeable mind.

Actually, to rush to Dawkins' defence again. . . He does state in his book that the difference between a scientist and the religious is that they are open to change and the idea they could be wrong.

He believes in gravity, for example. He believes implicitly in its powers and properties that hold the universe together.

And yet if someone came along and said that, actually, it's not gravity but it's this invisible glue paste that's been keeping things ticking over all this time - and had proof for it - Dawkins once accept this new 'truth' willingly.

The point about a belief in God is that it doesn't require proof. (So the argument goes, that's the whole point!) And that's what Dawkins has a problem with. Belief without proof or evidence. I think philosopy and science are, rightly, not at all in the same bracket.

Philosophy has more to do with art than science, for me.