From Steven Sidley
Sir: I believe that Rod Liddle has overlooked the most powerful weaponry of the Dawkinsian approach. A faithor beliefbased system brooks no counter-argument, no matter how compelling the logic (Stalinism falls into this category as much as any religion). A scientific approach, by definition, will step down when faced with an argument of superior logic, or contra-evidence. So Mr Liddle’s proclamation of a threadbare Darwinism or other perceived weaknesses in Dawkins’s arguments may well be true, but they don’t begin to falsify the gestalt of his position — they are merely minor smudges on a large and powerful canvas. When those smudges grow enough to change the larger picture, perhaps we can retire Richard Dawkins, but until then his position remains formidable.
Falsification (of which there is no equivalent in belief systems) is the great Popperian check and balance of scientific theory. Mr Liddle will require a great deal more than a few dialectic grumps to topple Dawkins.
Steven Sidley
Johannesburg, South Africa
Not much of a terrorist
Previous page
