Dawson and other general community of atheists is usually reacting to social pressure of authority, whether church or merely parents as in case of India, to defy them and assert oneself in that if it is not perceivable and reasonable or provable, one would not go with a blind belief; this is perfectly reasonable.
But often they stumble further, and assert not only this much but that if they do not see it or are not given scientific proof of it (whatever it is), it is thereby impossible and proved false. This is scientifically incorrect thinking, but no one in science is usually likely to point that out, most are busy fighting church authority. (Or trying to not look ridiculous to those that might look down on anyone from India.)
A true scientific spirit does not go "this is not possible, therefore it cannot be, because nothing I know can justify this". Unfortunately many supposedly rational or scientific thinkers do this and do not realise how unscientific this logic is.
A true scientific spirit is to observe reality and gather data and find corelationships, possibly with a new theory or even with a discarded one that one might have not agreed with, but not by throwing out data that does not fit pet theories.
When a final, conclusive, decisive proof one way or another is not yet at hand, a scientific spirit leaves it as undecided and unknown, the only possible respectable scientific conclusion, and perfectly acceptable.
So a true scientific spirit could very truthfully say "I don't know, but neither do most" when it comes to theism vs atheism; after all belief is not something unfamiliar to anyone, if only one gives a moment of thought to something no one would like to think about.
Belief in the knowledge of one's blood is what most of us (those not geneticists) can affirm, not knowledge, actually; only a geneticist could possibly really know who one's parents are. As for the rest they have to take someone's word for it. If this were not so, anyone expressing doubts about one's parents would not involve anger or worse. One does not get angry if someone says "hey, you have only two fingers" when one can perfectly well see and hold out ten.
This is true about much of knowledge discredited, whether evolution by creationists or homeopathy by scientists of west. Ayurveda, Acupuncture, Yoga, Astrology, ... reincarnation, .... Gods, ....
At one pole of possibilities Dawkins does not know, and if and when he does he will be reasonable about it. At the other he could be right. Doubt the latter but that does not diminish his logic and scientific methods applied to thought and perception.
The story about a normal person tumbling into a valley where everyone is blind, and finally needing to escape few days before his wedding to someone (he had decided to stay on due to falling in love), because they mandated he needed to be normal like them and not delusional about this thing he called sight which was impossible, comes to mind. So the one with sight escaped before they could remove his eyes with surgery.
While it seems unbelievable they could do surgery without sight, what we consider normal might still be able to inflict a great deal of harm to people they perceive as extraordinary in any way, because people usually don't tolerate anyone superior.
A colleague of mine who was of the supposedly rational mind (did not believe anything that could not be proved scientifically, and asserted it was impossible, out of question) once was asked "what if I told you there is someone who can block off a part of your brain (without any touch of anything physical, just with use of mind)?" and he promptly with not an instant's hesitation replied hotly "I will break his head".
I laughed and asked if he realised that this meant he thought it was possible, else he would not have this reaction, and simply would laugh and shrug it off, or even better, invite anyone to try. (Better only in the sense of how strong his belief in impossiblility of scientifically not proven things was, not in the sense of someone blocking his brilliant mind. ) ...
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4 February 2018 at 01:30
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