LAST week, Professor Richard Dawkins, formerly the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science, argued on
Radio Four's Today program that humans should apply rational thought when trying to solve the
world's problems to which the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby responded on
Monday that acting out of love and through emotion is an important part of what
makes us humans.
Speaking on the on the
TODAY program last week, Dawkins had said people
should avoid voting with their gut and adopt a more scientific
approach.
'Of course, we all think with our gut a lot of the time.
But when we’re making important decisions, like when we’re voting
[or] when we’re taking important business decisions, don’t think
with your gut, think rationally. Look for the evidence one way or the
other; weigh it up.'
Dawkins said the scientific method should be applied beyond the
lab, adding that
'evidence is the only reason to believe anything
about the real world'.
However, responding to the good Professor Dawkins, the Archbishop of Canterbury, JustinWelby has said that the scientific method alone could not answer all of the big
questions:
'The world is not entirely materialism. It’s not
entirely made up of what you can experiment with. There are things we
deal with every day – emotions around love, around the value of
people, around how we treat those who are weaker and stronger –
where mere rationality, even evidence-based rationality, which I hold
to as a really important thing, does not answer the whole question
adequately.'
The archbishop of Canterbury has spoken of his deep sympathy for the family of
Charlie Gard,
the 11-month-old boy who died last week after a long legal battle, as
well as the medics who treated him and the judges who presided over his
case.
Justin Welby evoked the memory of his own daughter, Johanna, who died when she was
less than a year old as he said the world could not be explained by
rationality alone.
Welby was commenting on Prof Richard Dawkins' insistence last week
on the primacy of evidence and reason, not emotion, when making big
decisions.
'It’s quite well known that one of our own children died and we had
to stand by the bed and they died when the life support was withdrawn.
And I think that, in a case like that, I’m not going to say anything
except that my heart breaks for the parents,' Welby told BBC Radio 4’s
Today programme on Monday.
While he said evidence-based decision-making was important to him, he
cited the Gard case as an example of where it could only be a part of
the right approach.
Speaking on the same programme last week, Dawkins said people should
avoid voting with their gut and adopt a more scientific approach.
'Of
course, we all think with our gut a lot of the time. But when we’re
making important decisions, like when we’re voting [or] when we’re
taking important business decisions, don’t think with your gut, think
rationally. Look for the evidence one way or the other; weigh it up.'
Dawkins said the scientific method should be applied beyond the lab,
adding that
'evidence is the only reason to believe anything about the
real world'.
However, Welby has said it alone could not answer all of the big
questions.
'The world is not entirely materialism. It’s not entirely
made up of what you can experiment with. There are things we deal with
every day – emotions around love, around the value of people, around how
we treat those who are weaker and stronger – where mere rationality,
even evidence-based rationality, which I hold to as a really important
thing, does not answer the whole question adequately.'
Referring
to the Gard case, which was at the centre of a long-running legal
battle over the child’s care, Welby said any parent would
'fight for the
life of their child as long as they could', adding:
'We know what
that’s like.'
The judges and doctors who were treating Charlie at Great Ormond
Street hospital came in for abuse as the case progressed through the
courts, but the archbishop said that each person involved was worthy of
sympathy because they wanted the best for Charlie.
'I’m sure they cared to the depth of their being about doing the
right thing and it’s a very good example of where sometimes rational,
evidence-based thinking is not the whole story. The medics weren’t
operating on that. They grieve when they lose a patient and particularly
a child.
'I just feel deeply sorrowed by the whole thing and feel deeply,
deeply, deeply for Charlie Gard’s parents and for all the rest of the
people involved in the most tragic case. Sometimes, we want to come to
clean, quick conclusions and it’s right just to pause and grieve.'
It must be extremely irritating for a passionate rationalist Professor like Professor Dawkins to cope with current political developments and the nature of human behaviour as it is being played out in the real world. The scientific method of decision making is clearly not uppermost in most people's minds.
In a study published today on the 2017 General election by
Prof Ed Fieldhouse & Dr Chris Prosser of the
University of Manchester, found:
'Despite Mrs May's claim that her reason for calling an early election
was to get a mandate for the Brexit negotiations, the issue of Brexit
itself had a relatively low profile during campaigning.
For much of the campaign, both the Conservatives and Labour focused on other issues.
But
in the minds of the voters at least, the 2017 election was - as it
promised to be ever since the referendum of June 2016 - the Brexit
election'
The report says
'in the minds of the voters' but in the answer to the question:
'As far as you're concerned, what is
the single most important issue facing the country at the present time?'
This research shows that more than one in three people chose Brexit or the EU, compared
with fewer than one in 10 who mentioned the NHS or one in 20 who
suggested the economy.
It would seem that the driving force here as so often elsewhere in political decision-making is gut reactions rather than the ponderings of the scientific method as recommended by Prof. Dawkins.
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