Malgwyn’s Views

examining origins

Darwin’s Rottweiler

Dawkins et al and the media

In an interview with Professor Richard Dawkins in the Sunday Times of 24 December 2006, Giles Hattersley told us, “It was Charles Simonyi, the man who invented the Word and Excel programmes for Microsoft and funds Dawkins’ current gig at Oxford, who dubbed him ‘Darwin’s Rottweiler’.” However, the Albert Mohler website claims, “It was Oxford theologian Alister McGrath who first identified Dawkins as ‘Darwin's Rottweiler.’ The label has stuck because Dawkins plays the part so well.” Whoever invented the title, it is how Richard Dawkins has come to be known. In The Radio Times interview of Richard Dawkins (7-13 January 2006), the subtitle to the interview said, “Hugh Costello asked ‘Darwin’s Rottweiler’ why he is sounding the alarm.”

The interview was part of the publicity for Richard Dawkins’ two-part film claiming religion to be “The Root of all Evil,” broadcast by Channel 4 on January 9 and 16, 2006. Dawkins claimed that the title was Channel 4’s choice and not his own, Channel 4 wanting something controversial for audience appeal. It shows how the media view Dawkins for publicity purposes. This was followed by the Ipsos MORI Poll of 26 January 2006, the results of which surprised the scientific community. The readers’ letters response to the following issue of The Radio Times read, “Predictably, we could have filled Westminster Abbey with your responses to Richard Dawkins, 90 per cent of which took issue with him.” It is his aggression, and the support of his allies against religion and Christianity in particular that makes Professor Dawkins deserving of the title, ‘Darwin’s Rottweiler’.

It does seem that reviews of Dawkins work reveal a history of belligerence. Going back to the ‘Sunday Times’ Culture magazine (12-11-00), John Cornell’s book review of Man, Beast and Zombie by Kenan Malik has the long title heading, “Ultra-Darwinists think of humans as little more than genetic machines. Whatever happened to free will and reason?” In an inset he provided a description of “Darwin’s Warriors,” Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and E. O. Wilson. He says all have a talent for confrontation but the “most combative of all is Dawkins, a passionate atheist. . . .’”

Richard Dawkins has his critics, both Christian and fellow atheists. He is well known for his open hostility to anything with which he disagrees especially on the religious front. Mary Warnock in The Times 12th February 2003, p.17, in reviewing Dawkins’ book, A Devil’s Chaplain, made the comment: “The other thing that irritates (indeed it is intended to) is Dawkins’ hostility to all religions.”

In a review of the same book in the ‘Sunday Times’ Culture magazine, John Carey titled his review, ‘Missionary zeal.’ He said, “denouncing religious zealots, Dawkins can sound strangely like one himself. Since as he admits, the existence of God cannot be disproved, the appropriate scientific response would presumably be to suspend judgment. His vehement atheism is an act of faith, just as surely as reciting the apostle’s creed would be. Seeking to discredit religions, he suggests they are caused by self-replicating parasites (memes) that infect the mind like computer viruses.” “That,” says John Carey, “is very much in the style of medieval bigots who insisted that those who disagree with them were possessed of demons.”

In the making of ‘The Root of all Evil?’ one of Dawkins’ prominent critics, Oxford Professor Alister McGrath was invited by Channel 4 to debate with Richard Dawkins in the studio. Dawkins apparently seemed uncomfortable by the debate. McGrath says, “I was not surprised to be told that my contribution was to be cut”. ‘The Root Of All Evil?’ was subsequently panned for its blatant unfairness. “Where”, the critics asked, “was a responsible, informed Christian response to Dawkins?” The answer: “on the cutting-room floor,” says McGrath. It obviously did not suit Channel 4 to have discovered someone who was equal to Dawkins. It does appear that Christians are not on a level playing field in the media when it comes to a right of reply to atheism’s attacks.

The 2006 publication of his book, The God Delusion, gave full expression to Dawkins’ passion in his atheistic ‘crusade’ against religion and Christianity in particular. In his rather lengthy review of Dawkins’ The God Delusion, Manchester University’s Terry Eagleton titles his review of Dawkins’ book, “Lunging Flailing, Mispunching.” Dawkins’ major ‘sparring partner’, Oxford’s Professor Alister Macgrath, in, The Times 10 February 2007 declared Dawkins to be, “Britain’s grumpiest atheist.”. In the review section of the Mail on Sunday, 4 February 2007, McGrath had an article chiding Dawkins titled, “Do stop behaving as if you are God, Professor Dawkins.” One paragraph in that article said, “the dogmatism of the work has attracted wide criticism from the secularist community. Many who might be expected to support Dawkins are trying to distance themselves from what they see as an embarrassment.” Dawkins responded in a letter to the editor of The Times, 12 February 2007, entitled ‘“My critics are wrong to call me dogmatic,’ says Dawkins.” Was it Dawkins or was it the editor with tongue in cheek who titled Dawkins’ letter?

McGrath has published the book, The Dawkins Delusion, in response to Dawkins’ publication, The God Delusion. If Dawkins has taken the gloves off, he is not short of opponents. In his review of The God Delusion Terry Eagleton says, “But Dawkins could have told us all this without being so appallingly bitchy about those of his scientific colleagues who disagree with him, and without being so theologically illiterate. He might also have avoided being the second most frequently mentioned individual in his book – if you count God as an individual.” And that from someone described by Ruth Gledhill in The Times (10.03.07) as “an unrepentant Marxist revolutionary”!

An interesting comment from an article by Brian Appleyard on museums of the world in The Sunday Times Culture magazine, is revealing on where Richard Dawkins is viewed by some on the spectrum of the anti-religious: “Nobody by choice, Richard Dawkins aside, is mad enough to advocate the destruction of local faith in the name of universal science. And nobody but Osama Bin Laden aside, is crazy enough to want to impose a uniform theocracy on the world.” Richard Dawkins is Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford. One may wonder, from what his critics say of him, if Dawkins’ extremism against religion is becoming as much an embarrassment to Oxford as Osama Bin Laden has to moderate Islam.

Andrew Billen in his review of Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale, describes Dawkins as a quiet, shy man in private, but “in public debate Dawkins can be vicious. His mauling of Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford and a former scientist, during a debate on the compatibility of religion and science is still bitterly or admiringly recalled.” In a walk on part in “The Root of all Evil,” Dawkins converses with the former Bishop of Oxford. Harries saw the Scriptures as texts which should be read in the context of the time they were written, and interpreted in the light of modern insights. Dawkins chided the bishop for his liberal Christianity: if we can pick and choose from the Bible, why do we need it at all? For Dawkins, being able to pick and choose what you want from the Bible implies that there is a higher standard than the Bible, so why not just use that? The viewer got the impression that Dawkins had used the bishop for his own ends and so embarrassed him once again. Although considered a friend of Dawkins Harries felt he had to make a reply in The Observer (Sunday 16 April) repudiating Dawkins’ atheism.

Dawkins publicly embarrassing Bishop Harries reminds us of Mary Warnock’s review of A Devil’s Chaplain. In it Mary Warnock says of Dawkins, “There is much to be learnt from this collection, one of which, alas, is how not to make friends and influence people. That is a pity for one whose intention is to build up trust between science and the public at large.”

The Anglican chaplain, Kevin Logan authored the book, Responding to the Challenge of Evolution. He titled the first chapter, ‘Battle Lines are Drawn.’ The truth of Logan’s claim of “Battle Lines” can be seen in the stream of books being written on both sides, as well as articles in the news media, and in presentations on TV here in the UK. It even brought a vehement defence for the Christian ethos adopted at Emmanuel College, Gateshead in the ‘Thunderer’ column of the Comment page of The Times (28-04-03) from columnist, Stephen Pollard. Pollard’s defence was not for Christianity, but for democratic freedom.

Opposition to Christianity, especially Creationism and Intelligent Design, can carry much more religious fervour than one might see in either. The biochemist, Michael Behe, interviewed by Lee Strobel in his book, The Case for a Creator, describes well the temper of some newspaper articles and views expressed on the Internet when he says, “If I say, ‘I don’t think natural selection is the driving force for the development of life; I think it is intelligent design,’ people don’t just disagree; many of them jump up and down and get red in the face. When you talk to them about it, invariably they’re not excited because they disagree with the science; it’s because they see the extra-scientific implications of intelligent design and they don’t like where it’s leading” (p. 215). Patrick West confirms Behe’s observation when he says, “As a liberal atheist, I sympathise with those on the militant wing of the humanist movement; the likes of Richard Dawkins, Ludovic Kennedy and A. C. Grayling, who at the mere mention of religion, go red in the face, start banging fists on the tables and throw furniture around the room” (The Times, 10-04-04).

The Sunday Times (News Review, p.3) 1 August, 2004, came to the evolutionary debate with a review by Bryan Appleyard of Frances Crick following his death at 88 years of age. In reviewing Crick’s achievement in the discovery with James Watson of the structure of DNA in an article titled, “Life, the universe . . .and nothing,” Appleyard reminded us that it was in The Eagle pub in Cambridge that Francis Crick proclaimed, “We have found the secret of life.”

Moving on in his story Appleyard said, “In addition we have had the hard scientific propaganda of Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins. The latter’s ‘selfish gene’ hypothesis turns the human being into a mere gene-replicating machine. Such strange fetishism of the gene has proved to be one of the most bizarre and implausible post-Christian cults.”

Speaking on genetics Appleyard goes on to say, “The American geneticist Craig Ventor told me that we could not have designed this system and neither could evolution. Francis Collins, head of the American human genome project, is a born-again Christian. Despite the best efforts of Watson and Crick, God seems to have entered through the back door of genetics. Almost all the claims for the discovery of ‘the gene for’ homosexuality, alcoholism, indeed almost any human trait other than strictly single-gene disorders, have been quietly withdrawn.”

So zealous and enthusiastic is the British Humanist Association to demean Christianity that The Times (25-04-03) reported that one ‘assault’ resulted in the resignation of a reviewer and member of the editorial board of the New Humanist magazine! It was due to the over offensiveness of a cartoon. The Times caption read, “Religious cartoon draws the anger of atheist writer.The Times correspondent reported, “You might have thought it was quite hard to offend the religious sensibilities of an atheist, but it appears that one cartoonist has succeeded.”

In his review of The Ancestor’s Tale in The Sunday Times Culture Magazine, 8 September, 2004, pp. 41,42. John Cornell remarks, “It would not be a Dawkins work of course, if he did not have a go at religion.” Quoting Dawkins, “‘My objections to supernatural beliefs,’ he growls at the end of the book, ‘is precisely that they miserably fail to do justice to the sublime grandeur of the real world. They represent a narrowing down from reality, an impoverishment of what the real world has to offer.’”

Cornell protests that, “this is twaddle. Throughout the history of humankind it is precisely the sublime grandeur of the real world that has raised the minds and hearts of poets, musicians, mystics and religionists of every kind towards intimations of something beyond. . . . Had Dawkins taken a leaf out of Chaucer’s book on the question of religion, he might have tempered his detestation with just a small degree of enlightened patience, if not understanding.”

Whatever, the antagonism against Christianity, and against scientists promoting Creationism and Intelligent Design as displayed in the documentary, The Root of all Evil, gave surprising results in the MORRI Poll that followed it. The results from the January 26 2006 MORRI Poll surprised the scientific community that so many would be in favour of creationism and Intelligent Design being taught in schools. And so did the results of the survey in The Guardian report of 15th August, 2006, that 30% of British students are reported to be in favour of creationism and ID!

There are other factors for the increasing interest in Creationism and Intelligent Design. Says Kevin Logan on pages 94-95 of his book Responding to the Challenge of Evolution, “amazingly, leading atheist Richard Dawkins, and similar media scientists may have been an inspiration to creationists. A reaction set in against Professor Dawkins’ reduction of humans to ‘nothing more than . . . throwaway survival machines’ for genes. His militant atheism, often dismissive of, and offensive to, caused the very thing he sought to eliminate – a creationist revival.” Alister McGrath suggests in the Mail on Sunday, 4th February 2007, that could well be the results from Dawkins’ most recent publication. Says McGrath, “The God Delusion might turn out to be a monumental own goal – persuading people that atheism is just as intolerant as the worst that religion can offer.”

Revised 18/03/07