I did not expect the Jaipur Literature Festival would be such a mother lode for me. In its January 25, 2012 edition Hindustan Times carried a story titled ‘Don’t waste time, there is no God’, all in screaming capital letters, but on page 13 (some incongruity, wouldn’t you say?). It is about what Prof. Richard Dawkins said at the event on an issue that had been flogged to death.
Assuming you asked what right did the good professor have to be at the literature festival, let me give you some background.
When the Royal Society was established in the 1600s, the word ‘science’ had not been coined; the subject matter went under the rubric of natural philosophy. This is the oldest so-called learned society in the world. Its website gives the game away as to what it focuses on when it says, “As a learned society, the Society publishes nine peer-reviewed journals, including Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the world’s oldest scientific title.” And, Prof. Dawkins is a Fellow of this society. But, why is he at the literary festival? What has science got to do with literature?
Some more background. The Royal Society of Literature was set up in 1820. As the name of this learned society is explicit, we know it is for promoting literature. And, Prof. Dawkins is a Fellow of this one also! After all, then, he has the right to be at the Jaipur Literature Festival, one of the few scientists among a horde of non-scientists.
And, there is a risk in that. As per the newspaper report, Prof. Dawkins ended with the following flourish, addressing the gathering to “debate on whether man has replaced god”: You are utterly wasting your time – all of you who are indignant at being attacked about your god – because there is no god.
When I read the above, I was almost aghast. How could he have said that, I kept asking myself. After all, a few years ago, he helped in authoring a slogan to be carried by a few of London’s bendy buses that read, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
That crucial disclaimer “probably” was missing in Prof. Dawkins’s line at the JLF. I know– as well as any serious atheist does – that denying the existence of God is alien to an atheist, as the proof of burden shifts onto her. If you recall, Prahlad claimed that the Lord was in the pillar and the self-same God emerged, obliging his disciple. What can an atheist claim in an antithetical situation? There is no God in the pillar? And then go on breaking up all the pillars everywhere to prove his point? No sireee!
Did Prof. Dawkins slip? I do not think so. He was not talking to the philosophically minded who parse every word, the mathematically astute who seek proof, or the scientifically inclined who are never certain. He was not even talking to laymen. He was talking to litterateurs, that special breed that claims to be interested in the generic yet definitive “human condition”.
There is no probability in the human condition - it is all there is, no ifs and buts. Had he used the word “probably”, the literary minded would not have spared him. They would have charged him of being wishy-washy. He would have been driven off the stage and also out of India in a trice for not having been definitive. I would not have liked that. I would have been offended. I would have staged a demonstration and gathered a gaggle of goons. It is only to avoid that sequence of events Prof. Dawkins delivered his statement in the definitive form.
We must then understand the context in which Prof. Dawkins said what he did say. He was a scientist speaking the language of the litterateur, in a literary forum with the authority of being a litterateur. It was prudent of him to have worn his literature hat in this instance. He stands excused.
Raghuram Ekambaram
4 comments:
But, Raghuram, literature and science are not disjoint sets; there's some intersection at least. There are excellent novels (eg. Huxley's Brave New World) that bring a lot of science into literature (sometimes showing the limits and limitations of science, no doubt, even as Huxley does!)
At any rate, Dawkins would not have (could not have) used the word 'probably', being such a staunch atheist.
I agree with matheikal. The bus "probably" was probably added or insisted upon by someone else on the committee.
Does Dawkins claim to be an atheist ot an agnostic? Agnosticism seems to me to be the only intellignet stance. Atheism is as dogmatic as any theism, and by dogmatic I mean faith-based.
Matheikal, there had been, and probably continues to be strong exception to acknowledging science writing as lierature and I had posted on this a few years ago. This "limitations of science" is a total misunderstanding. With the exception of "sceintists", no one claims that science can solve - I mean, SOLVE as in FIND A SOLUTION FOR - any social problems. Science only explains natural processes to the extent that further behavioor of natural systems can be predicted to some level of confidence, and never fully accurate.
If you read "Future f life" by E O Wilson, a top-notch biologist and ant expert (another double Fellow, of RS and RSL), I am sure you would find him a scientists and a litterateur also. But the literary word only begrudgingly accepts such talents within its folds.
RE
No anon, atheism is the only logical stance, but it stops short of denying the existence of God. The problem with agnosticism is it posits itself as at the middle of the road, where, as a saying goes, one finds only yellow stripes or dead armadilloes! Agnosticism will become a valid position only when it begins divorce proceedings against theism, wich it will never do.
Richard Dawkins situates himself as close as possible to the atheist position as it is possible but without asserting, "There is no God." The "probably" in the bus campaign was added - and you are right in that - as otherwise the slogan will claim something that cannot be tested - truth in advertising! But, the other side has never been taken t court on this issue. This sticks in the craw of atheists.
When an atheist cllaims, "There is no God," the probability aspect is implied (David Hume's logic), as one cannot disprove the claim that a glove that sliped off the hands of an astronaut is not circling the earth! This is the reason I wrote that an atheist Prahlad would have had to break all pillars to prove God does not exist!
Thanks for engaging yourself on this.
RE
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