{"id":273,"date":"2010-01-06T17:35:26","date_gmt":"2010-01-06T17:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/kingdomofpriests\/2010\/01\/the-cowardice-of-richard-dawkins.html"},"modified":"2010-01-06T17:35:26","modified_gmt":"2010-01-06T17:35:26","slug":"the-cowardice-of-richard-dawkins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2010\/01\/the-cowardice-of-richard-dawkins.html","title":{"rendered":"The Cowardice of Richard Dawkins"},"content":{"rendered":"

I realize my earlier post<\/a> on Dawkins’s defense of evolution, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution<\/a><\/i>, was on the long side so let me crystalize my point briefly here since not one<\/i> of the Dawkins-defenders in the comments thread there has chosen to respond other than irrelevantly. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
In his book, atheism evangelist Dawkins argues with Scriptural literalists and Darwin-doubters who make no claim of speaking on the basis of scientific or other appropriate academic training. This is picking on children. The real evolution debate going on pits Darwinism versus intelligent design, which contests the evidence for evolution. There, an argument is being conducted not about the age of the earth or whether the fossil record exhibits change over time but about whether unguided Darwinian natural selection — the heart of evolutionary theory — can explain the history of life, how it started and how it got to be the way it is. ID theorists, whatever you think of them, make their case from science, not Scripture. They have scholarly training no less serious than Dawkins’s own. They may be wrong but they aren’t children or naifs.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Dawkins argues at great length with the lady who’s president of Concerned Women for America, and even reprints the transcript since he’s so proud of it, but in the index of his book you will not find the name of a single ID advocate or other scientifically trained Darwin doubter. He says ID hasn’t “earned it.” So apparently Mrs. Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America has “earned it” while Stephen Meyer (PhD, Cambridge University), Doug Axe (PhD, Caltech), William Dembski (PhD, University of Chicago), Jonathan Wells (PhD, UC Berkeley), and David Berlinski (PhD, Princeton) haven’t? Now, dear Darwinists, tell me why avoiding the argument with ID is not cowardly on his part and why positioning his book as a defense of “the evidence for evolution” is not fraudulent?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Try to stay on topic this time.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I realize my earlier post on Dawkins’s defense of evolution, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, was on the long side so let me crystalize my point briefly here since not one of the Dawkins-defenders in the comments thread there has chosen to respond other than irrelevantly.  In his book, atheism evangelist Dawkins argues…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifes-origins-evolution"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Cowardice of Richard Dawkins - Kingdom of Priests<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2010\/01\/the-cowardice-of-richard-dawkins.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Cowardice of Richard Dawkins - Kingdom of Priests\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I realize my earlier post on Dawkins’s defense of evolution, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, was on the long side so let me crystalize my point briefly here since not one of the Dawkins-defenders in the comments thread there has chosen to respond other than irrelevantly.  In his book, atheism evangelist Dawkins argues…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2010\/01\/the-cowardice-of-richard-dawkins.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Kingdom of Priests\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-06T17:35:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David Klinghoffer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Cowardice of Richard Dawkins - Kingdom of Priests","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/kingdomofpriests\/2010\/01\/the-cowardice-of-richard-dawkins.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Cowardice of Richard Dawkins - 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