Review and Rant on "Language of God"
Mar. 28th, 2007 12:13 amI'm going to have to stop reading this book. It is making me very frustrated. Over and over there are basic mistakes of fact about biology and evolution. Being realistic I shouldn't get frustrated. It isn't like the writer would have changed his mind if he'd encountered the actual arguments instead of some sort of evangelical cliffsnotes version of the research into altruism and genetics by evolutionary psychologists.
Here is my understanding of where the research is at combined with my knowledge of bee biology from reading too many books on the subject because I used to keep them.
( Bees and Altruism )
Still I hoped for better from a scientist writing on god. Something that would actually challenge my atheism rather than the same arguments I'd read in Mere Christianity about how humans are different than the animals. We are, but we're on a continuum. Animals have many human traits to a lesser extent. And part of that is that we can't get inside the minds of animals to prove what they are thinking very easily. I suspect in some animals we would find they are just as generous and horrible as humans in a tribal state of existence.
Here is my understanding of where the research is at combined with my knowledge of bee biology from reading too many books on the subject because I used to keep them.
( Bees and Altruism )
Still I hoped for better from a scientist writing on god. Something that would actually challenge my atheism rather than the same arguments I'd read in Mere Christianity about how humans are different than the animals. We are, but we're on a continuum. Animals have many human traits to a lesser extent. And part of that is that we can't get inside the minds of animals to prove what they are thinking very easily. I suspect in some animals we would find they are just as generous and horrible as humans in a tribal state of existence.