Richard Dawkins, arguably the world’s most famous living evolutionary biologist, was in Toronto on September 29 to promote his latest literary offering, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, released on September 22.
Held at Isabel Bader Theatre and sponsored by Indigo, Dawkins spoke briefly, read a series of excerpts from his book, and went on to take nearly 30 minutes of unmoderated questions from the audience.
Dawkins’ previous works, such as The Selfish Gene (1976) and The God Delusion (2006) assumed that evolution is a fact but did not explicitly provide evidence in support of it. While reading an excerpt from his new book’s first chapter, Dawkins said, “Evolution is a fact and this book will demonstrate it. No reputable scientist disputes it. No unbiased reader will close the book doubting it.”
While his readings definitely whetted the appetites of those not already working their way through the book, it was the subsequent Q&A period that made the event memorable.
It was obvious that Dawkins was “preaching to the converted” as the audience’s support was palpable—nearly every question asked revealed a firm belief in the speaker’s core tenants. There were no protesting creationists in the lobby and no shouts of “liar!” from saboteurs in the audience. In fact, questions quickly migrated away from the evidence for evolution toward the coexistence of atheists and the religious.
One questioner asked for Dawkins’ opinion on Ray Comfort’s plan to distribute to various U.S. colleges copies of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species with a 50-page, pro-creationist introduction. For those unfamiliar with him, Comfort is a controversial evangelical Christian minister based in California. Dawkins first responded by re-enacting a significant portion of the infamous Comfort and Kirk Cameron “banana video” for the benefit of those who have missed it, likening the video to a Monty Python sketch (if you haven’t already, check YouTube for this gem). “I can’t really get that excited about it. Presumably, the people in universities are capable of seeing through that kind of thing and I imagine they would be rather flattered to be given a free copy of the Origin of Species. Just rip out the 50 pages […] and use the pages for the purpose they’re best suited,” said Dawkins. His defence of Charles Darwin’s work is why many refer to Dawkins as “Darwin’s Rottweiler.”
One questioner asked, “Will [religion] die with a bang or with a whimper?” To this the former Oxford professor replied, “There are people whose dedication to religion, probably largely based on childhood indoctrination, is so strong that they seem to be literally immune to evidence. Some of them, the more extreme ones, will even explicitly say, ‘I don’t care what the evidence shows.’” Addressing the idea of religion dying with a bang (interpreting “bang” to mean the possibility of armed conflict), Dawkins said, “I hope it doesn’t come to that. If it ever did, I don’t know whether it’s any consolation that presumably [the scientifically inclined] would have everybody who knows how to actually design weapons.”
Only one question touched upon the role of God in evolution by proposing that God created the evolutionary process itself and then allowed it to run its course. Dawkins replied, “This is a point of view which is quite popular. If you think about it, evolution by natural selection is not a process that needed inventing at all. The whole point of it is that it just happens. It doesn’t need an ingenious inventor to put it in motion. It happens without invention. It happens without planning. That’s what it’s all about. That’s how it works. So if God decided to do his creating by inventing evolution by natural selection, he was doing it in a way that made himself superfluous and I find it, to say the least, unpersuasive.”
Dawkins’ demeanour throughout was cordial and humorous. Given the grim personality often ascribed to him in the media, this came as a surprise to some attendees. “He was actually pretty funny,” one attendee stated, while waiting to have her book signed. Prompted by one questioner to discuss the public perception of atheists, Dawkins remarked, “The image of an atheist is somebody rather grim, who never laughs, has no sense of humour, that sort of Scrooge-like figure.”
It remains to be seen if The Greatest Show on Earth will find its way into the hands of lay readers who are unaware of the evidence for evolution and it is unlikely that the author’s entrenched critics will allow themselves to be swayed. In response to a question regarding the communication of his message to such individuals, he said, “I have worked hard, and I hope effectively, to achieve what [I set out to do]. I may have failed, in which case I will have to give it another go.”
Evolutionary biologist and author, Richard Dawkins, at the Isabel Bader Theatre promoting his latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.
