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Darwin's Child: Interview with Richard Dawkins
« on: 2003-02-12 06:10:44 » |
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Darwin's child
He believes fervently in the survival of the fittest and that we are pre-programmed by our genes. But Richard Dawkins also believes that life is much more interesting when we rebel against them
Simon Hattenstone
Monday February 10, 2003
The Guardian
I feel uneasy approaching Richard Dawkins' house in Oxford. The strange thing about reading his latest book, A Devil's Chaplain, is that I agree with virtually everything he says, but find myself wanting to smack him for his intolerance. The book is a collection of essays written over the decades in which he addresses a variety of subjects - genes and memes, friends and family, the rational and the irrational, science and quackery. Twin obsessions inform virtually every piece - Darwinian evolution (hurrah!) and religion (boo!).
Dawkins has tended Darwin's sacred flame for more than a quarter of a century. In 1976, the little-known biologist published The Selfish Gene, in which he explained how we were not much more than robots programmed by our genes to survive at all costs: Sam Beckett couldn't have come up with a more depressing worldview.
The book was read by millions. Dawkins wrote with clarity, beauty and originality - a rare combination for a scientist. He went on to become professor of public understanding of science at Oxford. Dawkins interpreted the role as simplifying and "de-scarifying" science. Indeed, at times he has done it so brilliantly that his views have verged on the simplistic.
While he is quick to dismiss homeopaths for refusing to abide by the rules of science - double-blind tests for every new panacea, please - he is not always so rigorous in his own application of objective criteria. He tells us that 40% of scientists don't believe in God, and that among the cream of American scientists, only a "shattering" 7% believe - draw your own conclusion. In one of the letters that he regularly fires off to newspapers, he suggested that child sex abuse in the Church "unpleasant as it is, may do less permanent damage to the children than bringing them up Catholic in the first place".
Then there is the letter he sent to his daughter, Juliet, on her 10th birthday, which concludes A Devil's Chaplain. He tells her of the wonder of "evidence" and warns her against the corrosive influences of "tradition", "authority" and "revelation". The letter highlights his own complex, often contrary, nature - it is intimate and coldly impersonal, humble and pompous, innocent and calculated, chummy and authoritarian.
A tall woman answers the door - Dawkins' assistant. He seems to be hiding behind her; a slight, attractive man. He leads me into the lounge, which looks more like a playful library. In between the walls of books, there are masks, model rabbits, birds' nests and wooden horses rescued from an ancient carousel.
Dawkins was born in Kenya 62 years ago. His grandfather and father were in the colonial service - a forester and agriculturalist respectively. He talks about the wonder of those early years in Africa, and says the landscape haunted him after he left. At six, he used to bore his younger sister with myriad facts about the planets.
Did he have a sense even then that the world was a rational place? "Gosh! I suppose if you look back to your early childhood you accept everything people tell you, and that includes a heavy dose of irrationality - you're told about tooth fairies and Father Christmas and things." When the family returned to England, he went to a C of E school, was confirmed, and embraced Christianity until his mid-teens.
So what changed? "I suppose that by that time the main residual reason why I was religious was from being so impressed with the complexity of life and feeling that it had to have a designer, and I think it was when I realised that Darwinism was a far superior explanation that pulled the rug out from under the argument of design. And that left me with nothing."
It sounds as if he felt a sense of betrayal? He shakes his head. "Oh no, it was a very positive feeling - Darwinism is a very beautiful, very positive explanation and the world suddenly starts looking a lot more exciting." He sits on his sofa, clutching his feet with his hands as he talks.
But, of course, Darwinism is also ferociously savage - the weeds die out, the fittest survive, there is no moral universe because all is pre-programmed and we have no free choice. Yes, he says, explaining the title of the book: "What Darwin said is 'what a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low and horridly cruel works of nature.'" Dawkins stresses that he doesn't see himself as a devil's chaplain because he regards the world more optimistically.
Why? Your version sounds pretty revolting to me, I say. Ah no, he says, this is where life becomes even more fascinating, even more awe-inspiring - because humans, with their little acts of kindness, are rebelling against their genes. So our humanity is a form of virus in the genetic body? "It's a nice way of putting it," Dawkins says.
You can see why students would love him. He has an easy charm - a way of making you feel good about yourself. "There is a real sense in which I think, 'Yes, we are rebellious tossers of spanners in the works of the original Darwinian purpose for which people came into the world'. If you could imagine the book written by the genes, they'd say, 'Well, everything was going fine till humanity came along and screwed things up. My personal, aesthetic position is that I'm delighted that's screwing up; that's what humanity should be doing.'"
The assistant brings in a cup of tea. We happily talk about genes and memes (a word he invented to explain the cultural equivalent of genes - say, songs or stories taught rather than inherited). Dawkins is obviously proud that meme has become part of the lexicon.
What does he think his most important contribution to science is? "The extended phenotype," he says instantly. He explains that a phenotype is the manifestation of a gene in a body - blue eyes, for example. Well, Dawkins took it one stage further and labelled the extended phenotype - the manifestation of a gene outside the body. He wanders over to the other side of the room and returns with a bird's nest that he picked up in Africa. "It's clearly a biological object." His eyes light up. "It's clearly an adaptation. It's a lovely thing." He says that birds do not need to be taught to make nests, they are genetically programmed to do so.
"Anyway, we shouldn't be talking about things I did 20 years ago," he says suddenly, sharply. I stop, surprised. Fine, what would you like to talk about? He seems embarrassed. "Well, I suppose the book. But it's up to you, you're in charge."
So I tell him that I am astonished by how aggressive he is towards religion. "In print?" he asks. I nod. "Yesssss... I need to reply to that because you're not the first person to have said it. I care about what's true, I'm in the business of science. It's a difficult business, finding out what's true about the world, the universe. There's a lot of ignorance about, and that's OK, we have to live with that. I see religion, however, as a kind of organised misconception. It's millions of people being systematically educated in error, told falsehoods by people who command respect."
Does he think he's as aggressive in life as in print? "Erm, no, I don't feel particularly aggressive. Sometimes I think it's possible to mistake desire for clarity and talking in a no-nonsense way for aggression. I don't know what you've read which has struck you as particularly pugnacious." Actually, he says, he can think of a good example for me. "I once wrote that anybody who believes the world is only 6,000 years old is either ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked. Now, that sounds aggressive, that sounds fundamentalist, that sounds fanatical, but if you actually analyse it, it's inescapable."
Well, I say, the bit I was thinking about was when you said how you hated it when young children are described as Muslim or Jewish or whatever when they've had no say in the matter. He grins, and says it's pure Monty Python. "It's like saying the three-year-old child is a neo-Gramscian Marxist child, we wouldn't do that." Good point.
Does he think he would have got on well with Darwin? He tells me that he once appeared on television talking to an actor playing Darwin and he felt daunted in the presence of genius. "Darwin was not only the founding father of my subject, he was terribly gentle and self-effacing, unlike Huxley, who was pugnacious and went out fighting Darwin's battles for him."
Who does he think he has more in common with? "I know you want me to say Huxley... " No, I say, I don't want you to say anything, and I think you're probably a mix of both anyway. "Yes, I hugely admire Darwin's gentleness and humility, and erm, maybe I should imitate it more."
Dawkins' wife, Lalla Ward, walks in, weighed down with bags of shopping. Lalla, his third wife, is 10 years younger than him, used to be married to the actor Tom Baker, whose assistant she played in Dr Who. She now illustrates Dawkins' books. "You all right?" Dawkins asks.
"No, I'm not all right," she says tenderly. "I've been buying things for Richard's daughter," she explains to me.
"Well done! Thank you!" he says.
"She's going off to Africa for her gap year. Uhuhuhuhuh." Lalla leaves the room making a strange, exhausted Jimmy Savile noise. Juliet is his only child, from his second marriage.
In the corner of the room is what looks like a white marble bust of Einstein. "Move around a bit and see how it follows you," Dawkins says. "Just sort of crouch down. Does it move?" Yes, I say. Is it a hologram? "No, it isn't." He's almost yelping with enthusiasm. "Actually, it's dead simple. It's just a hollow mask, it shows the power of the brain to construct a model of a solid head. Keep your eyes on it, and let me just twist it. Any mask works like this... it's all in the brain."
Are you a romantic? "I love romantic poetry. Is that what you mean?" Interpret it how you want, I say. "Kind of, I think. Yes! There's a romance in science and that's the aspect of science I try to push. There's a school of communication about science that thinks the main thing is to make it homely and ordinary and familiar. It's what I call the non-stick frying-pan school of science. And that's never been my way. I've always preferred the romance, I've always preferred to talk about the universe, and the immensities of geological time."
The words he uses to describe science verge on the religious.
I visit the toilet. The walls are covered with awards celebrating his achievements - doctorates, humanist book of the year and a certificate from the Universal life church: "This is to certify that Reverend Clinton Richard Dawkins... " I rush back into the lounge and ask him what it's all about. He giggles, and says he got it off the internet and it allows him to absolve sins and officiate at weddings.
I tell him I've been thinking about his point that children should not be defined by religion, and that I have a solution. Why not ban religion till you're 18? I expect him to be delighted by my initiative, but he looks horrified. "Oh no. I don't want to lay down a law that says when you get a driving licence, you can call yourself anything you like. It's a consciousness-raising issue."
What would he do if he had the powers of a dictator? He looks positively frightened now. He starts to stutter. "I, I, I don't want to be dictatorial about this, I don't want to legislate about this, I do think the nearest approach I would get to being, if you put me in the position of being a dictator, I would certainly abolish... " He pauses, and starts again. "I think I would abolish schools which systematically inculcate sectarian beliefs." But you've still got parents infecting the kids with their dogma, I say, playing devil's chaplain. "Well, I wouldn't want to have the thought police going to people's homes, dictating what they teach their children. I don't want to be Big Brotherish. I would hate that." He's talking faster and faster. "So I don't want to legislate about this, I keep coming back to this consciousness-raising thing. All I can do is write books and write articles."
· A Devil's Chaplain is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £16.99.
Extract
08.02.2003: A Devil's Chaplain by Richard Dawkins
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