An exercise in Logical Fallicies: Dawkings is apparently no Einstein (Part 1)

So I grabbed this op-ed piece written by Paul Jackson about Richard Dawkin’s "assaults" on the religious beliefs of Preston Manning and Stockwell Day. With seeming magic, I can direct you to that article right now:

ATHEIST AUTHOR NO EINSTEIN

Reading this quickly reminds me how much I despise the fucking Calgary Sun. In the following post I will attempt to reveal as many logical fallacies as I can in Jackson's editorial. I am at a disadvantage if only because I am not very familiar with Dawkins' work at all. Though I know he is, what many would consider, an "activist atheist." From what I've heard, I believe I disagree with his views on several points. Primarily, Dawkins has set out to prove that God does not exist. And that all who continue to believe in Him are delusional. My own personal opinion is that people can believe whatever the fuck they want to believe. Any attempt to tackle an issue as big as God is, in my opinion, pointless. Whether attempting to logically or scientifically prove or disprove the existence of God is completely useless because these questions always come down to a deeply embedded personal value decision. In the end, believers will always believe, and disbelievers always disbelieve.

But to the good stuff.

Jackson starts off by stating that Dawkins' big seller, The God Delusion, has "allegedly sold one-million copies," then adding, "pretty insignificant number considering how many copies of the Bible, Talmud, an Qur-an are sold each year." Now, it turns out to be somewhat difficult to get exact (or even estimated) sales of a book from off the Internet. The easiest way one can get an idea of how well a book is doing is by checking its position on several prestigious top-sellers lists. The New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction Best Seller list is one, where, according to Wikipedia, it peaked at #4 after nine weeks on the list, and dropping to where it is now--number 10--after a total of twenty-nine weeks on the list. Amazon.com has it currently ranked as #48, after peaking at #2 in November 2006. And the book was only published a little earlier in 2006.

So, it seems to me at least, that The God Delusion is not doing too bad. In fact, when I was checking these sites I did not see one edition oof the Bible, Talmud, or Qur'an even once. Striking, since an astounding 5 to 6 billion bibles have been sold throughout all of history. That makes it the number one in Wikipedia's list of estimated best sellers. The Qur'an comes in number 3 with 800 million total sales. Curiously enough, the Quotations from Chairman Mao--a collection of quotes from the founder of China's devoutly atheistic communist society--comes in second with 900 million total sales. (By the way, if you look at Wikipedia's List you'll also notice the J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books come up six times in the top 20!) The point is, if you want to make a book look like its doing really poorly, compare it to the Bible. Or, better yet, compare it to the sales of the Bible, Talmud, and the Qu'ran! Books that have been around for several millenia!! Take that Dawkins.

I think here Jackson is committing the non-sequitur fallacy. This fallacy (which means "it doesn't follow") occurs when one attempts to draw a conclusion from an argument that does not logically connect. Jackson is saying that The God Delusion does not sell as many books as the religious texts from the world's three leading religions, and so--presumably, we haven't really gotten there yet--something is fundamentally flawed with Dawkins' book: that it is insignificant.

Jackson continues with the non-sequitur fallacy as he gets into the meat of his editorial. Jackson states that "Albert Einstein--assessed by many to have had the greatest intellect of any human being ever born...did believe in God."

First off, I'm going to suggest that Einstein was not the smartest human being ever born. How could we possibly ever know that? I do agree that he was the greatest physicist of all time. That is entirely sure. But human being? Intellect is largely a social construct, and its definition and evaluation changes with a culture and technology. Was every human being who lived before the twentieth century less intelligent than us simply because they had not yet fully understood the speed of light?

Jumping back to the Einstein comparison, it appears as if Jackson himself "hasn't read much about Albert Einstein." A brief look on Wikipedia explains that, while Einstein considered himself deeply religious, he himself wrote that "I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." For Einstein, God was found in the greater clockwork-like machinery that propels the universe so perfectly and beautifully. The last years of his life, which were spent on attempting to discover a unified field theory, was his idea of searching for God. I bet Jackson doesn't feel the same way--we'll find out soon.

Oh, and I don't agree that Einstein's "theory of relativity changed the way we look at science." I'd go as far as to say that it changed the way we look at the world--this concept that all energy and matter in the universe were deeply related. But "changed the way we look at science"? It surely allowed for many great advances in science and technology (nuclear fission and the atomic bomb, for example) but even after the discovery of e=MC², science was done in the exact same way as it was to even discover that formula. The scientific method has not changed. Maybe I'm just being picky about semantics.

The next part is gold, though. In following the claim that Einstein, the man who changed the way we look at science, believed in an Intelligent Designer, Jackson writes

"Dawkins doesn't think so.
There is no God, no Heaven.
Where is this guy coming from?
Does he think he is more intelligent than God?
Apparently so.
Has he ever been over to the Other Side?
I'll bet you 1,000-to-1 he hasn't."

Now, I've been waiting to say this. I'd be so confidant to bet a billion to one that Dawkins has not "ever been over to the Other Side." Nor has Jackson. Fuck. Nor has anyone! Is Jackson completely oblivious to the existence of logical fallacies?! I don't even know what the hell he is trying to say here. First of all, Jackson is calling Dawkins, and every other atheists for that matter, ridiculous for believing that "[t]here is no God, no Heaven." SOMEHOW, from there he supposes that Dawkins believes "he is more intelligent than God." But--I'm only guessing here--obviously Dawkins can't be more intelligent than God because... he hasn't "been over to the Other Side?" Is that why?

I believe that the most prevalent logical fallacy committed here is the use of a tautology (otherwise known as "circle reasoning" or "begging the question"). Basically, Jackson is requiring us to accept his conclusion--that God exists--to follow his argument that Dawkins is wrong about God not existing. These are usually tricky to detect, but in questions about God like this one they tend to stick out. I think that Jackson is arguing that Dawkins has to be wrong because

-> (Assumption) God exists.
-> (Assumption) You have to be smarter than God to prove He doesn't exist.
-> Dawkins does not believe God exists.
-# Therefore, Dawkins believes he is more intelligent than God.

-> (Assumption) God, by definition, is the most perfect, most intelligent being in the universe.
-# Therefore, Dawkins can't be intelligent enough to disprove His existence.

Of course, this is how I have constructed the argument to make sense to me. I had to leave out some of his prepositions for me to make even a feeble argument! Somehow, having been over to the "Other Side" is also a part of this argument. Of course, this part does make sense if we were to assume that Jackson is trying to claim that since Dawkins has never been to the "Other Side," he cannot prove that it does not exist.

I'm going to conclude here because I've been ranting for quite a while and actually have stuff to do today. The problem with this last preposition is that science does not set out to prove a negative. Jackson is here going with the mantra that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." And that's entirely true. Science, that thing that Dawkins is kind of doing, intends only to explain the observable universe. And hell, even he explicitly states that there is a possibility that God exists (I'll have to find this source again). It's just that we can NEVER know. And, like any good critical thinker, he bases his view of the world on hard, conformable facts. And those facts suggest that, sorry, there is no God.

(Believe it or not, we're only half way through this editorial. Check in soon to read part 2)