"Richard Dawkins has now doubled down. Over the weekend at the Dissident Dialogues gathering in New York, he participated in a dialogue with former New Atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
From UnHerd:
Richard Dawkins has an endearing habit of rewriting history.
"Both agreed… on the threat posed by Islam… Since identifying as a cultural Christian earlier this year, the evolutionary biologist went further during Saturday’s talk by saying that he considers himself on “Team Christianity”."
Richard Dawkins has an endearing habit of rewriting history.
---For almost four decades, from the mid 1970s onward, he wrote of
the human genome as mainly junk. It suited his Darwinism.
---And then in the early 2010s the results of the ENCODE project were announced, showing that hardly any human DNA, and perhaps none of it, was functionless. And so Dawkins claimed that this result — showing an overwhelming absence of junk in the genome — was consistent with Darwinian evolution. Natural selection, it seems, was more efficient and less messy than previously suspected.
---And then in the early 2010s the results of the ENCODE project were announced, showing that hardly any human DNA, and perhaps none of it, was functionless. And so Dawkins claimed that this result — showing an overwhelming absence of junk in the genome — was consistent with Darwinian evolution. Natural selection, it seems, was more efficient and less messy than previously suspected.
Dawkins’ flip-flop regarding junk DNA pales when compared to his flip-flop in recent weeks regarding Christianity. He now calls himself a “cultural Christian,” saying he prefers Christianity to Islam, and especially enjoys Christmas carols. And while he cheers the waning of Christian faith as such, he intimates a longing for things Christian that are disappearing from the culture.
Critics have been quick to jump on the irony here since Dawkins, as the leading voice for atheism in the English speaking world, if not in the world as a whole, has helped bring about this waning of Christian faith.
Dawkins’s softening attitude toward Christianity is more curiosity than substance. It makes no difference toward undoing the damage he did in promoting atheism or toward restoring credibility to the Christian faith.
---Dawkins is these days attempting to stand against the woke subversion of the academy, and of science in particular. Increasingly, Dawkins is casting himself as a defender of traditional academic virtues (reason, merit, free discourse, etc.).
And yet, a compelling case can be made that precisely because of the materialist ideology that he has promoted in the name of science all these years, he has helped bring about the state of affairs in the academy that he is now lamenting — in which woke ideology subverts all that he deems precious in the academy and science (and, as we’ve seen, also in cultural Christianity)."
EN&V