Masters of the universe

I really like the review that I linked in the title, and I recommend reading it in it's entirity. So much so, that I wrote to Tim Adams and told him so. Here are some segments that I cut out and they might not be in perfect context, much-less the correct sequence:


TheObserver Review

by Tim Adams

What is the purpose of existence? Is there an afterlife? Is there anyone else out there? It's not every day we confront the big questions about life, the universe and everything. But, seizing on our increased interest in this search for meaning, three of our finest thinkers - scientist Richard Dawkins, cosmologist Paul Davies and playwright Michael Frayn - are getting to grips with these existential dilemmas in their new books. Could Tim Adams find the answers?

From The Goldilocks Enigma by Paul Davies:
I do take life, mind and purpose seriously, and I concede that the universe at least appears to be designed with a high level of ingenuity. I cannot accept these features as a package of marvels which just happen to be, which exist reasonlessly. It seems to me that there is a genuine scheme of things - the universe is 'about' something. But I am equally uneasy about dumping the whole set of problems in the lap of an arbitrary god, or abandoning all further thought and declaring existence ultimately to be a mystery.

I went to see Richard Dawkins to talk about some of this at his home in Oxford.

Speaking to Dawkins you have the sense that religion has become a persistent kind of affront to him. When I put this to Paul Davies on the phone in Arizona, where he now works, he suggests that part of that is no doubt a fact of Dawkins's discipline: 'Biologists have a particular problem with the crazy Intelligent Design people [the 'American Taliban' as Dawkins has it, who persist in believing that nature is the work of a Creator] because the argument goes to the core of their subject, and it has become so politicised that it has to be constantly shot down.

I thought that this was very interesting though:


From the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins:
Darwinism teaches us to be wary of the easy assumption that design is the only alternative to chance, and to seek out graded ramps of slowly increasing complexity


STOP THE BUS!!! "Alternatives to chance" are not accidental, Richard, so are you admitting that there is a natural *HIGHER* purpose to these graded ramps? I didn't think so, it's called "double-speak" and you aren't being honest with yourself. What's new?


Davies can see a point where scientific theory of the universe and religious faith might meet, though he draws a very clear distinction between what he calls religious practice and religious philosophy. He is happy to sit down and talk with professors of theology, or accept the highly lucrative Templeton Prize (to Dawkins's scorn) which seeks to reward 'research or discoveries about spiritual realities'.

But, he says, he has no need of religion himself, beyond his sense of life-affirming laws: 'Sentient beings have a certain meaning and that lies in interpreting the observable world,' he says. 'And for me that is purpose enough. We have a partial understanding at least of how it all works. We are not the pinnacle of creation but neither are we completely insignificant either.