WIRE IN THE BLOOD AND SOIL:

Divine intervention from the scientists (George Pitcher, 07 Sep 2009, Daily Telegraph)

[I]'m taken slightly off‑guard by two stories emerging this Monday that suggest that sensible and important scientific people are taking religion seriously, even promoting it. [...]

The first comes courtesy of Professor Bruce Hood of Bristol University, who will present research to the British Science Association's annual meeting this week that shows the human brain is hard-wired by evolution to believe in God.

His cold, scientific analysis supposedly shoots celeb-atheist Professor Richard Dawkins's Darwinian fox, because Prof Dawkins has long held that religious beliefs are the consequence of poor education and childhood indoctrination (he's keen on that kind of tautology). But I'll come back to that in a moment. [...]

For a start, Prof Dawkins could argue, and undoubtedly will, that just because our brains have a capacity for the supernatural, that doesn't make a case for religion. To sense the divine doesn't prove there is a God. My brain might tell me there's chocolate in the fridge and I might believe it, but it doesn't mean it's there. And there could be any number of naturally selective reasons for the brain's God department; getting along together and being happy, for instance.

It will, nevertheless, be great fun to see Prof Dawkins & Co take on these new findings. Will they approach it with the reverence they profess to possess for all scientific discovery? Will they heck. They are ideologues, religious about their disbelief. And to accept that there is a scientific premise for religiosity would mean all is lost, not least some lucrative careers.

Except that the real problem for the Dawkinsists is that faith preceded the invention of Darwinism, which is a rather modern affectation. It is their beliefs that appear to be mere products of evolution and an evolutionary dead-end at that. Mr. Dawkins resembles nothing so much as the last dodo proclaiming himself to be one of life's big winners.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 7, 2009 7:10 AM