Eagleton on Dawkins

Rob,
I'm not going to play this silly word game. There are plenty of historical works which show Dawkins errors, as well as plenty of qualified atheists and believers (in fields of science, philosophy and history) who have criticized the immaturity of his arguments. It doesn't take long to find solidly thorough rebuttals. Dawkins may call them "fleas," but the enormous numbers of responses (from atheists and believers alike) may actually be due to the fact that he made poor arguments.

I'll give a brief example of a historical myth that Dawkins continues to promote because it serves his agenda. Dawkins continually pits the history of faith against reason, and science. He frequently argues that Christianity suppresed scientific progress. He even pulls out the old "Christianity would have stopped Kepler and Galileo if it could" argument. Has he read anything on the true story behind these events? If not, then I will excuse his ignorance. If so, then he is purely dishonest. Why not ask a Harvard historian of science like Owen Gingerich about the actual facts of the matter? Is he too afraid that the actual situation was much more complex and that probably as many Christians were in support of Galileo as against him? Is he afraid to find out that the situation was more political than religious? In fact, without the Christian worldview, they would not have even been making their speculations. His typical response of "well, in that period everyone believed in God" is neither a true historical representation nor a solid argument. The underpinnings of the worldview provided the ethos for scientific exploration. Remove the underpinnings and you remove the possibility of exploration.

Thus, in this regard, Dawkins shows great historical ignorance. For instance, he appears to be ignorant of the majority of historical work in the last 100 years (dating back to A.N. Whitehead and even before) helping define this cultural mileu that led to science. He can attempt to use rhetoric to chase away the historical realities of the Christian underpinnings in the rise of science, but it doesn't change the facts (something you think Dawkins would be concerned with). The reality is that it was the Christian worldview, and the massive amounts of progress during the so-called (but mythical) "Dark Ages" that led to the scientific revolution.

Historian and Sociologist Rodney Stark (who was agnostic at the time of writing) ends his book "The Victory of Reason" with a pertinent quote. He says:

"Christianity created Western Civilization. Had the followers of Jesus remained an obscure Jewish sect, most of you would not have learned to read and the rest of you would be reading from hand-copied scrolls. Without a theology commited to reason, progress and moral equality, today the entire world would be about where non-European societies were in, say, 1800: A world with astrologers and alchemists but no scientists. A world of despots, lacking universities, banks, factories, eyeglasses, chimneys, and pianos. A world where most infants do not live to the age of five and many women die in childbirth - a world truly living in the 'dark ages.'"

Therefore, based on the work of Stark and countless other historians from the last 100 years, without Christianity, Dawkins would be out of a job, because there would be almost certainly be no biology department at Oxford University.

Kyle; You wrote :
I'll give a brief example of a historical myth that Dawkins continues to promote because it serves his agenda. Dawkins continually pits the history of faith against reason, and science. He frequently argues that Christianity suppresed scientific progress. "

I am curious that in the paragraph 'Faith and Christianity" seem to be interchangeable terms.

Does Dawkins alone do that?
Is it accepted on all sides that 'faith and Christianity' can easily be interchanged?

The reason I ask is because it is my experience that one can adopt a Religion and yet have a wide range of understanding and acceptance as to 'faith' as expressed in that religion.
One can accept the tenets and dogma, and perhaps the theology of the religion at many different levels from ultra-orthodoxy to fringe liberal.

I guess I am asking is: What historically has been the 'foe' of science; has it been 'faith' versus reason or Religions with power and influence versus science or anything that may 'threaten their power and influence?

G.,
Great question! Since this is a site about orthodox Christianity, I used the term interchangeably. Often in Western society the two have been interchangeable, and much history has been written to ask why science emerged in a Christian context (in different locales), while not in Taoist, pagan, etc.

Based on the inference of your final question I would say that the foe of science would be any power structure that uses its power and influence to hinder research due to fear. I would also say that faith has often been hindered by power structures that use their power and influence to hinder belief due to fear (my personal experiences in China confirm this).

I wonder as well how much scientific research has been hindered by power structures within itself that fear new research which might conflict with its already "settled" paradigms. I have read enough to know the vast influence of political groups and pharmaceutical companies over American scientific research, but I wonder if this was also true in previous generations. One of these days I'm going to get around to reading Kuhn, haha...