Dawkins-vs-Mackay

DAWKINS TV INTERVIEW WITH MACKAY REVIEWED "The Genius of Charles Darwin: Richard Dawkins, Channel 4 (UK), Monday 18th August 2008. In the third episode of a three part series Richard Dawkins interviewed John Mackay, International Director of Creation Research. The 3½ minute segment was put together from a 30 minute interview recorded before one of John's meeting in London during November 2007. It also included excerpts of the first part of that meeting. Considering we recorded around 30 minutes of a public clash - we received a reasonably fair treatment at Dawkins hands - they also used a good promotional shot of John in a pulpit with banner stating "Jesus Christ is Lord" over the top of John - now all the UK can read the truth no matter what Dawkins said. Keep praying for this Professor of Science.

The producers of programmes like this have a great amount of freedom to use the material gathered in any way they wish - that is part of the risk anyone takes when agreeing to be interviewed. We suspect Dawkins hoped John would sound ridiculous to viewers when he told the TV audience that "kill or be killed; survival of the fittest; nature red in tooth and claw" had no part in The God's world when it was created 'very good', the result has been that now many more millions of people have been made aware of a simple but important truth which includes that they will not die because they get old, but because they are sinners. Death is not natural whether it occurs peacefully in old age, or violently at the claws of a vicious predator. Death in every form is the direct result of human rebellion against God. It is our fault and we cannot blame Him or, as Dawkins does, use it as an excuse to deny Gods existence.

All that was shown before the face to face exchange between what Brian Viner, self-confessed Dawkins admirer, described in the following morning's Independent as "the irresistible force of his [Dawkins] argument" hitting "an immovable object, as embodied in last night's programme by a celebrated Australian creationist called John Mackay, who rejects Darwinism as hocus-pocus." It was obvious that Dawkins did not like the implications of having to acknowledge that evolution is unobserved and it is a wonder that he allowed the producers to include it - or perhaps they pulled rank. John made it clear that "What you don't see happening is not science." John responded to Dawkins' defence of why the unobserved is science by saying that his arguments actually mean, "you have a faith position, and you need to admit it..." adding later that he needed to "call what you are teaching philosophy or atheism if you are really going to be honest." In the programme Dawkins went on to illustrate the truth of John's statement, by expressing his frustration at, and ridicule of, state school science staff for not teaching atheism in their classes!

After meeting Dawkins, John Mackay commented that the Professor "was not good at thinking on his feet" so perhaps we should take more notice of how he responded later to the interview in his unopposed and scripted right of reply which followed in the same segment. Here is all that he said. "The refusal to believe in anything you can't see yourself is absurd. Think about it, I never saw Napoleon with my own eyes, but that doesn't mean Napoleon didn't exist. John Mackay can't see a cell or an atom or weather systems on the other side of the world. Does that mean they don't exist? Darwin didn't just trust his own eyes, he checked his theory through evidence gathered through extensive correspondence with naturalists across the world. Mackay, it seems to me, misunderstands
science at a deep level: science is precisely not limited by what we can see with our own eyes in one lifetime. The whole wonderful endeavour of science is to investigate phenomena beyond human experience - from far off galaxies to microscopic bacteria."

Do we need to go any further than his opening grievance? Have Christians not been telling him and other atheists for years that their refusal to believe in anything they cannot see is absurd! Do we need to point out the obvious? Yet Dawkins and his fellow unbelievers insist we are the fools for doing that very thing. Excuse us Richard Dawkins, we do believe in what we cannot see. We call that faith, though it is based on facts - you call what you do not see science, even though it is an imaginary story imposed on the facts. You will have noticed he also accused John of not understanding science "at a deep level", adding that the "wonderful endeavour of science is to investigate phenomena beyond human experience." Let us remember here that Dawkins holds the Oxford University Chair for the Public Understanding of Science, so perhaps he should be able to explain what science is to the man in the street. Perhaps one day he will be able to explain to people how they are able to investigate something which is beyond their experience. Galaxies and microbes are within our experience, even though we need lenses to get good views of both. Should he not be telling the public that science is empirical? That is, based on xperiment, observation and experience, rather than on theory? Isn't
that what creationists are often accused of ignoring?

It is difficult to give a summary of the whole programme, but it certainly was a promo for atheism. Dawkins spent time applauding Darwin for standing up to his 'religious' wife. In interviews I think he did not get the better of Wendy Wright (Concerned Women for America). Rowan Williams (Archbishop of Canterbury) lost the intellectual dual between them. The C4 own outline of the programme does not say much:

Another reviewer wrote: Dawkins' first program includes the Notable Quotable "Nobody has actually seen evolution take place over a long period but they have seen the after effects, and the after effects are massively supported. It is like a case in a court of law where nobody can actually stand up and say I saw the murder happen and yet you have got millions and millions of pieces of evidence which no reasonable person can possibly dispute."

Those in the UK who watched the first program report that although Dawkins kept saying evolution was an indisputable fact, he did not present any observed evidence to support evolution from one species to another. What did come through time and again was his militant atheism and disgust that 40% of the UK population believe in some form of intelligent design. Details http://www.channel4.com/science/

When they met, John Mackay invited Richard Dawkins to debate him next February to mark Charles Darwin's bicentenary. Dawkins declined, acknowledging that he was no good at debating. If Darwin was the genius Dawkins believes he was, then surely he or one of his atheist friends who is good at debating should be able to defend evolutionary science with no trouble at all. To date none of
them have stood up to be counted, so the good news is that if Richard wants to change his mind, the door is still open for him to accept John Mackay's invitation.