Mawkish Moments of Dawkins

It has been an intellectual pleasure to read exquisite bestsellers by English biologist Richard Dawkins. His profound knowledge of evolution theory deserves the highest appraisal. His passionate crusade for the rights of atheists is also praiseworthy. But, being a mainstream author, he has to make certain concessions to the Big Brother, the New World Order, etc. Mr. Dawkins, I regret to mention it, has staunchly supported homosexuals. He sees nothing wrong in abortions. In a word, he has to promote neo-Malthusian agenda, whose antihuman message is «depopulation» by any possible means: sexual deviations, birth control, malnutrition, local conflicts, etc. Mr. Dawkins has been straightforward. In his famous treatise, The Selfish Gene (1976), he openly professes that «mankind is having too many children… if the population continued to increase at the present rate, it would take less than 500 years to reach the point where the people, packed in a standing position, formed a solid human carpet over the whole area of the continent». This is a gross exaggeration, typical of alarmists who justify any measures to check population growth. Make no mistake. We will find way out: for one thing, ocean and space exploration is promising enough. But, don’t you dare regulate us as livestock. Okay?

As a positivist, Mr. Dawkins at times has a problem to grasp broader picture of reality. For example, in The Blind Watchmaker (1986) he expostulates on linguistics among other things: «The genetic dictionary has 64 DNA words of three letters each. Every one of these words has a precise translation into protein language (either a particular amino acid or a punctuation mark). The language appears to be arbitrary in the same sense as a human language is arbitrary (there is nothing intrinsic in the sound of the word ‘house‘, for instance, which suggests to the listener any attribute of a dwelling)». Well, it is another irrelevant instance of scientism, which tries to impose its specific methods on other fields of knowledge. Languages are known for their property to transform sounds of nature into meaningful words. As an illustration, children across the world often use basically the same words to denote certain notions. A Chinese noun 媽媽 (māma) means «mother». Its English and Russian analogues sound similarly: «mamma» and «мама» (mama), respectively. Another Chinese noun 爸爸 (bàba) means informally «father». Its Kazakh analogue «баба» (baba) means «great-grandfather». Such examples have been by no means arbitrary and they definitely have some intrinsic qualities.

Despite his usual open-mindedness, he sometimes has yielded to arrogant attitudes toward different cultures. For instance, in The God Delusion (2006) Mr. Dawkins praises freedoms, apparently present in Denmark: «Danes just live in a country with a free press, something that people in many Islamic countries might have a hard time understanding». Of course, this country, as well as many other Western states, has certain degree of the freedom of speech. But, as a rule, one can express his political opinions in mainstream media of the West only if he has some advertising budget, support of a powerful political party, connections among media moguls, etc. You can’t simply submit your article to be instantly brought into the limelight. Moreover, Western media have been known for their bias and prejudices. For example, a US policeman Steven Rankin murdered an innocent Kazakh migrant Kirill Denyakin in 2011. The bloodthirsty policeman was acquitted all right, as though he had exterminated vermin, not a fellow human being. Major news outlets, like CNN or The New York Times, went surprisingly silent on this grave case. If they had interfered with all their clout, the verdict would have been much more just and relevant. On the other hand, when a bunch of Zionist filmmakers knocked off a libelous and low-grade movie, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), Western journalists were more than happy to cover this disgusting production.

The God Delusion also endorses unnatural sexual proclivities. It says that «private sexual inclinations such as homosexuality, which didn’t interfere with anybody else’s life». Well, sexual deviations are not just some sort of queer, but innocuous, activities like someone’s hobby. When one indulges in fruitless passions of homosexuality, he also disfigures his personality, negatively affects his society. Those, who betray the nature, can betray the homeland. Absolutely any culture throughout the ages has approved love relations between a man and a woman. Absolutely any country in any historical epoch encourages child-bearing and rearing. Because, these are completely natural activities, laying the very foundations of our life. But, homosexualism is a blind alley, leading nowhere. It is a freakish pastime of an idle bourgeois or a perverted artist. Mr. Dawkins vehemently advocates for abortions in this book. He even manages to make a macabre inference: «I am not sure what to make of my admittedly anecdotal observation that many of those who most ardently oppose the taking of embryonic life also seem to be more than usually enthusiastic about taking adult life». Well, his standpoint is clear enough. If we are to extrapolate it further, then we could lawfully postulate that, since a newborn baby is as intelligent as a puppy, the newly created human being has roughly the same price tag as an animal’s young.

It is a pity that vast knowledge of Mr. Dawkins and his scientific achievements, which deal with complex problems of living matter, have produced quite perfunctory and mechanical philosophy, a stillborn dogmatism.

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