http://beyondcommonsense.com:80/2007/05/05/1178402100000.html Midgley's critique of The God Delusion in the October 7-13, 2006 edition of the New Scientist magazine can be summarized as an embarrassing display of lack of understanding of Dawkins&rsquo; central arguments. en Ephraim Tekle Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:14:31 GMT Pebble (http://pebble.sourceforge.net) http://backend.userland.com/rss http://beyondcommonsense.com:80/2007/05/05/1178402100000.html#comment1275881751038 Ephraim, you have made a good point here in your critique of Midgley's critique of Dawkins, which is that she tends to read Dawkins with an agenda of sorts in mind -- one that she develops through all of her work, and which is by no means unique to her critique of The God Delusion.<br /> <br /> But that is by no means to say that her critique is 'mumbo-jumbo', as you put it. Rather, there is a rigorous logic to her critique of 'scientism', which Dawkins's work represents, but this is a critique that requires a broader understanding of Midgley than what we can get from two pages in New Scientist. In very general terms, her argument is that science -- and Dawkins in particular -- is just as susceptible to the kind of dogmatic and irrational 'thinking' as are the 'religious' people that he is so quick to attack -- and indeed, that characterising all religious people as having the same 'religious mentality' as those fundamentalists who responded so egregiously to the publication of the cartoons of Mohammed in Denmark is itself an absurd claim to make!<br /> <br /> I bring this up not to provoke an argument here, but only to point out that just as there is much more to say about this from Dawkins's side, so too is there much more to it from Midgley's side. And the point they both want to make, I think, is that it does a great disservice to both sides if we reduce their arguments to the kinds of simplistic formulations we all to often get on the Internet.<br /> <br /> Nevertheless, thanks for the provocative article!<br /> Andrew. Andrew Padgett http://beyondcommonsense.com:80/2007/05/05/1178402100000.html#comments http://beyondcommonsense.com:80/2007/05/05/1178402100000.html#comment1275881751038 Mon, 07 Jun 2010 03:35:51 GMT http://beyondcommonsense.com:80/2007/05/05/1178402100000.html#comment1178404006931 For previous Midgley-Dawkins encounter, read <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Midgley">Midgley and Dawkins</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Midgley">here</a>. Ephraim Tekle http://beyondcommonsense.com:80/2007/05/05/1178402100000.html#comments http://beyondcommonsense.com:80/2007/05/05/1178402100000.html#comment1178404006931 Sat, 05 May 2007 22:26:46 GMT