richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion
T H E G O D II Y P O T H E S I S 69up the good work on behalf of intelligent design, Buntingand Ruse fall for it! 'Oh golly, Brer Fox, your forthrightassertion - that evolutionary biology disproves the idea ofa creator God - jeopardises the teaching of biology inscience class, since teaching that would violate theseparation of church and state!' Right. You also ought tosoft-pedal physiology, since it declares virgin birthimpossible .. . 42This whole issue, including an independent invocation of BrerRabbit in the briar patch, is well discussed by the biologist P. Z.Myers, whose Pharyngula blog can reliably be consulted for trenchantgood sense. 43I am not suggesting that my colleagues of the appeasement lobbyare necessarily dishonest. They may sincerely believe in NOMA,although I can't help wondering how thoroughly they've thoughtit through and how they reconcile the internal conflicts in theirminds. There is no need to pursue the matter for the moment, butanyone seeking to understand the published statements of scientistson religious matters would do well not to forget the political context:the surreal culture wars now rending America. NOMA-styleappeasement will surface again in a later chapter. Here, I return toagnosticism and the possibility of chipping away at our ignoranceand measurably reducing our uncertainty about the existence ornon-existence of God.LITTLE GREEN MENSuppose Bertrand Russell's parable had concerned not a teapot inouter space but life in outer space - the subject of Sagan'smemorable refusal to think with his gut. Once again we cannot disproveit, and the only strictly rational stance is agnosticism. But thehypothesis is no longer frivolous. We don't immediately scentextreme improbability. We can have an interesting argument basedon incomplete evidence, and we can write down the kind ofevidence that would decrease our uncertainty. We'd be outraged if
70 T H E G O D D E L U S I O Nour government invested in expensive telescopes for the solepurpose of searching for orbiting teapots. But we can appreciate thecase for spending money on SETI, the Search for ExtraterrestrialIntelligence, using radio telescopes to scan the skies in the hope ofpicking up signals from intelligent aliens.I praised Carl Sagan for disavowing gut feelings about alien life.But one can (and Sagan did) make a sober assessment of what wewould need to know in order to estimate the probability. Thismight start from nothing more than a listing of our points ofignorance, as in the famous Drake Equation which, in Paul Davies'sphrase, collects probabilities. It states that to estimate the numberof independently evolved civilizations in the universe you mustmultiply seven terms together. The seven include the number ofstars, the number of Earth-like planets per star, and the probabilityof this, that and the other which I need not list because the onlypoint I am making is that they are all unknown, or estimated withenormous margins of error. When so many terms that are eithercompletely or almost completely unknown are multiplied up, theproduct - the estimated number of alien civilizations - has suchcolossal error bars that agnosticism seems a very reasonable, if notthe only credible stance.Some of the terms in the Drake Equation are already lessunknown than when he first wrote it down in 1961. At that time,our solar system of planets orbiting a central star was the only oneknown, together with the local analogies provided by Jupiter's andSaturn's satellite systems. Our best estimate of the number of orbitingsystems in the universe was based on theoretical models,coupled with the more informal 'principle of mediocrity': the feeling(born of uncomfortable history lessons from Copernicus,Hubble and others) that there should be nothing particularlyunusual about the place where we happen to live. Unfortunately,the principle of mediocrity is in its turn emasculated by the'anthropic' principle (see Chapter 4): if our solar system really werethe only one in the universe, this is precisely where we, as beingswho think about such matters, would have to be living. The veryfact of our existence could retrospectively determine that we live inan extremely unmediocre place.But today's estimates of the ubiquity of solar systems are no
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70 T H E G O D D E L U S I O N
our government invested in expensive telescopes for the sole
purpose of searching for orbiting teapots. But we can appreciate the
case for spending money on SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence, using radio telescopes to scan the skies in the hope of
picking up signals from intelligent aliens.
I praised Carl Sagan for disavowing gut feelings about alien life.
But one can (and Sagan did) make a sober assessment of what we
would need to know in order to estimate the probability. This
might start from nothing more than a listing of our points of
ignorance, as in the famous Drake Equation which, in Paul Davies's
phrase, collects probabilities. It states that to estimate the number
of independently evolved civilizations in the universe you must
multiply seven terms together. The seven include the number of
stars, the number of Earth-like planets per star, and the probability
of this, that and the other which I need not list because the only
point I am making is that they are all unknown, or estimated with
enormous margins of error. When so many terms that are either
completely or almost completely unknown are multiplied up, the
product - the estimated number of alien civilizations - has such
colossal error bars that agnosticism seems a very reasonable, if not
the only credible stance.
Some of the terms in the Drake Equation are already less
unknown than when he first wrote it down in 1961. At that time,
our solar system of planets orbiting a central star was the only one
known, together with the local analogies provided by Jupiter's and
Saturn's satellite systems. Our best estimate of the number of orbiting
systems in the universe was based on theoretical models,
coupled with the more informal 'principle of mediocrity': the feeling
(born of uncomfortable history lessons from Copernicus,
Hubble and others) that there should be nothing particularly
unusual about the place where we happen to live. Unfortunately,
the principle of mediocrity is in its turn emasculated by the
'anthropic' principle (see Chapter 4): if our solar system really were
the only one in the universe, this is precisely where we, as beings
who think about such matters, would have to be living. The very
fact of our existence could retrospectively determine that we live in
an extremely unmediocre place.
But today's estimates of the ubiquity of solar systems are no
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