Magic Statistics

Like macht over at prosthesis, I don't know why Richard Dawkins is so popular as an apologist (not to say evangelist) for philosophical materialism masquerading as science. To judge by his introduction to the latest issue of Natural History Magazine, he's a sloppy thinker. Perhaps he thinks he's so scintillatingly brilliant that he doesn't have to be precise and thoughtful. Or maybe, as macht says, Dawkins is philosophically naïve. Whatever the reason, it's hard for me to understand why anyone who does not already agree with him would find this latest piece at all persuasive.

This is from his opening paragraph:

The world is divided into things that look as though somebody designed them (wings and wagon-wheels, hearts and televisions), and things that just happened through the unintended workings of physics (mountains and rivers, sand dunes, and solar systems). Mount Rushmore belonged firmly in the second category until the sculptor Gutzon Borglum carved it into the first. Charles Darwin moved in the other direction. He discovered a way in which the unaided laws of physics—the laws according to which things "just happen"—could, in the fullness of geologic time, come to mimic deliberate design. Charles Darwin moved in the other direction. He discovered a way in which the unaided laws of physics—the laws according to which things "just happen"—could, in the fullness of geologic time, come to mimic deliberate design. The illusion of design is so successful that to this day most Americans (including, significantly, many influential and rich Americans) stubbornly refuse to believe it is an illusion.

First off, Prof Dawkins posits a dichotomy: "The world is divided into things that look as though somebody designed them . . . and things that just happened through the unintended workings of physics", which he then promptly rejects: Darwin "discovered a way in which the unaided laws of physics . . . could, in the fullness of geologic time, come to mimic deliberate design." So, there are things that at one and the same time "look as though somebody designed them" and "just happened". He's not off to a good start.

Then, Prof Dawkins repeatedly commits the fallacy known as "begging the question", or assuming what one has to prove. He says the laws of physics work "unaided" and in an "unintended" fashion, causing things to "just happen". How does he know this? He doesn't say. Does he expect us to believe him just because he says so?

The same goes for his labeling as an "illusion" the belief that things that "just happened" are designed. On what basis does he conclude that is indeed an illusion? If he wants to persuade someone who is not predisposed to agree with these assertions, he must offer some argument or evidence. He offers neither.

The whole article is based on those unsubstantiated assertions, so there's really nothing else that needs to be said. Either you agree with Prof Dawkins before he writes word one, or you don't. His "argument" amounts to: Take my word for it and if you don't, you're being unscientific. If this is the best in reasoned persuasion that philosophical materialism can offer, then it's got a problem.

And that's a bad thing. Unlike the United States, Canada has no public confirmation process for Supreme Court judges. If the federal Cabinet decided to nominate Mike from Canmore to our Supreme Court, the public has no recourse. There is no provision for public scrutiny of appointees. We wouldn't even be informed until it was a done deal. The PM is perfectly free to appoint any political crony warm body, and there's no one to say otherwise. As Ted Byfield points out:

For years, our judges have simply been appointed by the minister of justice. Who they are, what they think, how they have ruled on key issues in the past, what if any church they belong to — all highly relevant questions to the decisions they will be called on to make — these things are considered none of the public's business.

They're strictly confidential. Only once they're in office do we discover answers to these questions. There they make the laws — quite literally make the laws that we are to live under.

Given that the Supreme Court is now the ultimate governing body to which all other branches of our government defer, shouldn't the public have some say in who gets to wield that power? If not, the question has to be asked: In what sense is Canada a democracy?