Interview: Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins is well known for his vigorous stance against – as he puts it – the ‘God Delusion’. Able magazine recently spoke with the man to find out about the use of ‘faith’ in a scientific context.

Speaking with Richard Dawkins is rather like swimming with a shark. Elegant and sleek, his movements are precise – and if you begin to splash aimlessly about in the shallows, he’ll have you for breakfast!

As a result I found myself moving carefully when I asked him about the idea that faith is used by some – if not many – disabled people to help them through difficult times. “Faith means believing in things for which there is no evidence,” he said, deconstructing my question. “That seems to me to be a very bad reason to believe in anything if what you care about, is what’s true.

“However, you raise the alternative possibility that there might be benefits in believing something which isn’t true if that belief helps you to overcome an obstacle, if you think of it as a sort of psychological therapy,” he continued. “Having the willpower to do that could come from all sorts of inner resources and I could imagine that believing in some falsehood about the universe could indeed inspire you. All sorts of things could inspire you. I guess it is a possibility.”

PLACEBO EFFECT
An immediate parallel is with the placebo effect – the measurable, observable, or perceived improvement in health attributable to someone’s belief in a medication or treatment that has no actual physiological effect. Is this another example of mainstream science, and in particular medicine separating itself from a different type of faith?

“Firstly, there is good evidence that the placebo effect works and even good hypotheses as to how it works,” Dawkins explained. “I don’t think that’s a terribly good defence of particular systems of alternative medicines like homeopathy. Some people have tried to say: ‘Well, of course, homeopathy doesn’t work. Nevertheless, because of the placebo effect people think it works, and that means that, in a kind of a way it does.’ That’s all very well, but I do think there’s something wrong with making lots of money selling people ‘water’.”

Aha! So ‘faith’ in certain situations works. Digging a little more, I ventured to ask if Dawkins thinks that faith had helped scientists to advance towards unknown discoveries. “There’s a lesser kind of faith, which scientists very often have – a passionate belief in some theory, and they’ll pursue it,” he said. “Ultimately, that type of faith has to be tested against experiments and observation and it’s a very bad scientist that allows faith to drive him beyond the point where evidence supports it.”

STRANGE FRUIT
It feels rather weak to put the point to him that some people choose to see miracles, where others see a misdiagnosis. “I wouldn’t wish to kick the crutch out from under them,” he insisted. “If somebody gets genuine comfort out of it I wouldn’t wish to be the one to kick it away.

“On the other hand I would vigorously resist anybody that says that this somehow justifies the truth of religion,” he added. “Of course it doesn’t; and if they think that the improvement that has happened to them is a miracle, they are deluded.”

Intent on correcting me further, Dawkins added: “You’re talking about a more philosophical point. Do you need faith that the world is ultimately rational at all? I suppose that there is a sort of grain where that’s true but it doesn’t only apply to science. You can put a book down on a table and it’ll stay there until somebody moves it. So we all, as a matter of fact, implement that kind of faith but I’d rather not call it faith. I would prefer to call it ‘evidence based’, which is what the whole of science is.”

FACE TO FACE
Dawkins is a past master at the art of polite persuasion. Pressing again, I suggest that science hasn’t always been used in an ethical manner and that the policing of it could well be done through a moral framework based on religious ideas of ‘right and wrong’. Dawkins will have none of it.

“Morality doesn’t come from religion,” he insisted. “The policing is going to come from moral philosophy, from politics, from law and discussions in the public square about the kind of society in which we want to live. You cannot seriously claim that we get any morals out of religion because, if you actually look at the Bible or the Koran or any other holy book, there are some verses that are absolutely appalling.”

So, what’s the alternative? “I think that the scientific world view is just so much more exciting than anything that religion has to offer,” Dawkins insisted.

SICK CHILD
“Obviously we should not eliminate disabled people once they’ve been born,” he said. “If you do IVF and you know, from genetic studies, that a particular couple are vulnerable to producing a terrible disease like Huntington’s chorea… instead of choosing one of those half dozen embryos at random – which is what’s done at present – you choose one that doesn’t have the gene. That is an obvious benefit, and I can’t imagine anybody seriously objecting to that.”

I point out that disability doesn’t have to define a person completely and that there is a certain culture and community amongst disabled people. “I can see that they do have a cultural identity but I can’t imagine that any truly moral person would choose to bring a child into the world who shared the same disability,” he responded.

It’s fair to say that Dawkins’ view of science as a higher form of thinking appears to leave little room for faith or spirit, the absence of which can cause suspicion and fear among even fellow atheists. Take, for instance, the fact that – a couple of days after our interview – we learned of his plan to perform a ‘citizen’s arrest’ on Pope Benedict XVI when the head of the Catholic Church arrives in Britain this summer.

Dawkins has consulted with a lawyer regarding constructing a case of the Pope’s deliberate hiding of evidence relating to sexual abuse of children by priests in his charge. It’s difficult to see how Dawkins hopes that such an action will advance his cause as a ‘scientist’. I’m certain that he won’t thank me for saying this, but, ‘God help him’ if he tries it.