Then they came for Richard Dawkins

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

- Martin Niemöller

Universities are not what they used to be. Once they were places where students and faculty enjoyed greater freedom to express and debate their views than in mainstream society. They were sanctuaries where young people could explore the full smorgasbord of opinions and beliefs about politics, religion, morality and social mores without the constraints of traditional norms. Unfortunately this is no longer the case - they have become a different type of sanctuary, a gilded cage where people are protected from exposure to anything other than a narrow set of acceptable views. This is particularly true of the United States where recently we have seen:

• Somali-born feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali banned from giving a speech at Brandeis University because her views on Islam's oppression of women were deemed offensive to Muslims
• British pro-Trump gay activist Milo Yiannopolous forced to cancel his address at UC Berkeley because of violence protests
• American conservative commentator Anne Coulter disinvited from speaking at UC Berkeley (although later rescinded).

There have been many other incidents that demonstrate that our most fundamental right  - to hold and voice our own opinions, which is surely a prerequisite for all other rights - is now considered less important than the precept that no one should ever be offended by anything.

The latest incident is the cancellation of the appearance at an event hosted by a radio staton in Berkeley of the renown biologist and perhaps the world's greatest science writer, Richard Dawkins, because of his views on Islamist terrorism.

Several years ago I heard Dawkins speak in person and I left the presentation with two main impressions. Firstly, he does not speak as fluently as he writes. This is not unexpected as it is rare that great writers are as eloquent in their spoken words as in those they write, but what Dawkins had to say was riveting in spite of his somewhat awkward delivery style. More importantly, I thought he delivered the most complete and easily understood explanation of the biological basis for evolution by natural selection that I have ever heard or read. 

He described how the cells of all living things are made up of chains of protein molecules that are capable of curling up into an almost infinite variety of shapes, and that these shapes are determined by a digital code that is held in special molecular chains called DNA. He went on to describe what is perhaps the most important discovery in biology - but one that has never occurred to me despite my keen interest in science - that when living things reproduce by replicating from a single fertilised egg cell, they follow the whole of evolution from single-celled organisms to complex higher lifeforms. They are able to do this because all of evolution is stored in the digital code in their DNA and is simply replayed during gestation. In other words, each of us is the output of a computer programme that has stored the knowledge of three billion years of evolution, run over just nine months! This is the reason why the zygotes and early embryos of all animals look so alike - they show the point in evolution when all animals did look alike. 

Dawkins made me see that evolution is not some dry historical fact but is something that plays out in the birth of every baby. I found this fact jaw-dropping and ironically it is perhaps the closest thing I have experienced in my life to a religious revelation. It made me think that every human being needs to hear the story that this man tells so well, and that to ban him from imparting his knowledge to others is to commit a crime against human knowledge.

The political correctness stormtroopers have now come for Richard Dawkins and that makes me ineffably sad because it is precisely their ignorance and intolerance that Dawkins has spent his life trying to overcome. The radio station said it was specifically his criticism of Islam that led them to ban him. Dawkins has been a frequent critic of Christianity and his criticism of Islam is for the most part confined to Islamic extremism, but in the strange world of victim group politics it seems Christianity is fair game but Islam is a no-go area where free speech does not apply.

The size of the space that contains acceptable opinions is becoming smaller and smaller. You may think your views are safe because you are an open-minded, tolerant liberal who celebrates diversity and just wants to live and let live. You are wrong. They are coming for you because it is not so much your views that are under assault as the right to have any opinion of your own.

We all need to speak out in defence of free speech before there is no one left to defend it.

Book Review - A Universe From Nothing by Lawrence Krauss

I have just finished reading the book A Universe From Nothing by Lawrence Krauss, in which he explains through the intersection of cosmology and particle physics how the universe could have come into existence without the need for divine intervention.  It is a brilliant book, a view that is shared in all the reviews I read on Amazon with the exception of those written by disgruntled adherents to the ancient mythologies that comprise the world's religions.  The motivation of the latter reviewers is perhaps understandable, given that Krauss does not shrink from challenging the need for the ancient mythologies when one is presented with such compelling scientific evidence to explain the origin of the universe we live in.  Krauss nailed his colours to the mast when he invited Richard Dawkins, the author of The God Delusion, to write the afterword.  Dawkins explains that those of religious faith are finding there are fewer and fewer epistemological places to hide when the light of scientific knowledge exposes the redundancy of their beliefs.

Religious dogma has always been exorcised by knowledge and logic.  The only difference today compared to, say, the Catholic Church's eventual accommodation of Copernicus's heliocentric view of the planets, is that religion is finding its ground getting smaller and smaller.  If religion is the preserve of that which cannot be explained by science, it is fair to say that the physical preserve of faith is approaching in size the Planck Length (a distance of approx 1.6 × 10∧-35 metres - the smallest conceivable measurable distance in physics).

I have heard Krauss debating cosmology with the religious faithful.  The latter usually resort to the argument that only God could truly create something from nothing.  In response to Krauss's argument that quantum physics allows precisely that, they simply retreat an order of abstraction by asking, who created the conditions or rules that allows quantum physics to do that?  Dawkins is perhaps better at Krauss at dealing with these specious arguments and his response is: if God created the conditions for quantum physics to create the universe, then who created God?  But God has existed forever, the theologians reply.

I have my own response to this theological question of First Cause, as it is known.  If God has existed forever, and if he is omniscient and omnipotent (not to mention omnipresent), why did he need to create the universe at all?  For his own amusement?  That hardly seems consistent with an omniscient and omnipotent being.  After all, if he is omniscient, he has perfect knowledge of everything that will ever exist and watching the universe unfold would contain all the amusement of watching an infinite number of reruns of a television soap opera.  And what was God doing before he created the universe?  If, as theologians assert, God has existed forever, he must have existed for an infinite amount of time before he created the universe.  Whether the universe was created 13.72 billion years ago (as Krauss and others have proven) or 6,000 years ago (as Creationists believe), it was an infinitely short time ago compared to the time God has supposedly existed.  So it appears he was sitting around for eternity doing absolutely nothing and suddenly decided to create the universe.  Was he bored?

Such theological arguments depart from the main argument of Krauss's book - that science can explain how the universe came into existence.  He does this more effectively that any other popular physics writer I have read (and I've read many) and does it in a way that makes you proud to be part of a race that can finally answer many of the big questions about its own existence.

There is one aspect to Krauss's conclusions that left me feeling dissatisfied, however.  In the final chapters, Krauss postulates a future where physicists will be unable to arrive at the same conclusions - about the Big Bang, Inflation and the existence of Dark Energy - as he does.  This is because the universe will have expanded to the point where only our local group of galaxies will be visible and even the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (which is part of the evidence of the Big Bang) will not be visible.  Future scientists will be literally in the dark regarding the origins of the universe.  Ultimately, the universe will die a cold death or collapse back into a singularity.  Krauss misses one important point, in my view - future scientists will know the history of the universe because they will be able to read about it in a book (of some form or other).  This is because human intelligence has reached a point where its survival is almost guaranteed, irrespective of what happens to human biology, the Earth or our galaxy.  Our descendants, who will certainly have transcended our biology to become something approaching pure knowledge or energy (and they are pretty much the same thing in physics), will endure for billions or even trillions of years.  They may even be able to save our universe from its eventual destruction or make the jump to another universe in the multiverse.  I am more optimistic than Krauss.

Richard Dawkins - Doing God's Work

It is Sunday evening and it seems appropriate that I am finishing the day reading Richard Dawkins' wonderful book on evolution - The Greatest Show on Earth. Dawkins finds it necessary to do battle from time to time with the fools who deny one of the greatest achievements of human inquiry - that of understanding how we evolved to have brains large enough to ponder this very question. To illustrate what he is up against in these anti-knowledge nuts, I will quote an anecdote from the book.

"My colleague Dr John Endler, [who] recently moved from North America to the University of Exeter, told me the following marvellous - well, also depressing - story. He was travelling on a domestic flight in the United States, and the passenger in the next seat made conversation by asking him what he did. Endler replied that he was a professor of biology, doing research on wild guppy populations in Trinidad. The man became increasingly interested in the research and asked many questions. Intrigued by the elegance of the theory that seemed to underlie the experiments, he asked Endler what that theory was, and who originated it. Only then did Dr Endler drop what he correctly guessed would be his bombshell: 'It's called Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection!' The man's whole demeanour instantly changed. His face went red; abruptly, he turned away, refused to speak further and terminated what had hitherto been an amiable conversation."

This shows the close-mindedness of those who blindly maintain their belief in the ancient myth of creation when confronted with the overwhelming modern scientific evidence for evolution. I think the most interesting thing about such blinkered thinking is the obvious fragility of the person's religious faith. Surely, if their faith was solid, they would welcome the ability to test it against the scientific evidence and not turn away from the debate?

Ironically, Dawkins is surely doing God's work - if there is a God. Ask yourself whether, if you assume that a supreme being exists, He would rather have His most intelligent biological creations sitting around blindly mouthing obsequious platitudes to Him (i.e. praying) or using that great brain He gave them to understand the true wonder of what He has accomplished. I'm pretty sure He would be handing out points to those like Dawkins, who honour Him by using their gift of intelligence, rather than those who shut down their brains when presented with the overwhelming scientific evidence. If heaven exists, then I'm sure St Peter will usher Dawkins to the very front of the queue!