The Root: Dr. Richard Dawkins

This is my compilation of few thoughts I gathered from a documentary by Dr. Dawkins about the possibility of morality as a consequence of Darwin's theory of evolution. I have this documented here just to keep track of various thoughts of scientists on various interesting topics. I do not have any specific thoughts on this myself, I am too busy with my studies and career to be thinking of these by myself. Of course, when ever there is an opportunity to learn a new way of thinking, I am interested in putting in my blog for reference, in case I am interested in getting back to this topic.

Irrational faith as thought by Dr. Richard Dawkins feeds the feeling of intolerance through out the world. According to Dr. Richard Dawkins, faith can lead to warped sense of morality. The author tries to get answers to the question if ancient mythologies should be taught in the society as truth, especially to impressionable children. Dawkins asks isn't it wierd to label a child's faith to be that of his/her parents? Just like nobody labels the political views of parents to their children. Children and of course too young to form opinion about politics, why isn't the same true about the question of faith about nature/universe.

All living/non-living things are effected by their surroundings. In this documentary the author asks the validity of justifying the cause of AIDS based on moral values (AIDS being the sins of wrong doings as per faith), the author asks a question about the justification of mixing health education with moral education. Here, I was reminded of a TV documentary on the effect of faith-based beliefs in a country "Papua New Guinea" and its effect on the children of that country being abandoned by families (for the fear propagated by their faith). I wasn't able to get the name of the movie in this country that fueled the child abandonment based on their faith.

The author says that, a child is genetically pre-programmed to accumulate knowledge from the figures of authority around it. For evolutionary reasons a child's brain is set up to believe what its told by its elders. This is because, there is just isn't any time for the child to experiment with warnings like don't go near fire, cliff-edge, unknown water body, etc. Any child that tries to apply his curiosity to these suggestions might put himself at risk. May be that's why its called its best to catch them young. So naturally, any child is likely to believe any thing that its being told even if its nonsense. May be in generations to come the same child will pass on the same un-questioned beliefs to its peers and its next generations.

One needs to be allowed to be heard and exposed to different perspectives, to investigate, and to develop the critical faculties to enable them to chose their best point of view from a set of presented views.

Can the idea of "hell" be used for moral policing, the author asks. Is it required to scare oneself for keeping them moral? Can there be faith-liberal/free moral belief system? if yes, how does one person decide what one should believe and otherwise? Can science reveal the true roots of morality? The author argues that, morality stems not from any old existing philosophies but from altruistic genes which got naturally selected from human evolutionary past.

Chimpanzees are like MS DOS and humans are MS Windows, that's interesting view point as far as morality is concerned. It was perhaps better to do good things for our own sake rather than as a way of following some passed-on philosophy. Kindness, generosity are thought to be innate to human nature. The author thinks there is a Darwinian explanation for this. The author claims that through human history we were exposed to conditions/environments that favored altruistic genes. Gene survival depended on nurturing ones family and on doing deals with our peers. Basically, its "I will scratch your back if you scratch my back" principle at work all the time. Morality is perhaps much older than religion itself, the author comments.

In chimpanzees; they live in family groups, the mothers look after their kids, they work in teams. In particular the chimp groups, they are particularly good in competing for status through public services. They compete for status by being good leaders, by settling disputes in their groups. Working together often produces mutual benefits for all those involved in the group.

Perhaps this is the reason why a group of people without any affiliations with any established thoughts of morals seem to find a common ground of living morally, having mutual empathy. Its probably driven by improved education, news paper editorials, news channels, novels, books. We have a marvelous gift of becoming aware of the fact that other people have minds just like ours. The gift of empathy is perhaps the foundation of morality from the scientific point of view. Where as established faiths/philosophies teaches one to be satisfied with passed-on thoughts/answers (which are not answers at all). Such thoughts discourage and cut-off the source of wonder present in the nature by giving very imaginative crude answers in the form of extra-terrestrial power/being.

Here, and now is all we have; an inspiration and an opportunity to make the best of our current opportunity of life. Make the best of the our time in this world. Get out and explore!