Richard Dawkins – Rationalists, Paranormal and Dogmatism

“Those people who leap from personal bafflement at a natural phenomenon straight to a hasty invocation of the supernatural are no better than the fools who see a conjuror bending a spoon and leap to the conclusion that it is ‘paranormal’.”                     Richard Dawkins in ‘God Delusion’

“I’d say my view is very close to Darwin.  Richard Dawkins’ view, oddly enough, isn’t very Darwinian, it’s ‘neo-Darwinian’. What makes it different is the denial that there can be any kind of memory or spontaneous creativity in species. I think the scientific community has a diversity of opinions regarding telepathy. Many scientists are open-minded to the idea, partly because they’ve had these experiences themselves.  But, there are a group of scientists and non-scientists who are adamantly opposed to the idea, not because they’ve studied the evidence, but because they haven’t”                            Biologist Rupert Sheldrake

Richard Dawkins is one of the leading rationalists in the world today. An evolutionary biologist he has gone about debunking religions especially the god centered monotheistic religions. Dawkins brings about a much needed balance in the world where there is an increase in religious sectarianism and religion based terrorism. I have liked his writings and have read his works right from ‘The Selfish Gene’ to the recent ‘God Delusion’. My favorite book of Dawkins is ‘Unweaving the Rainbow’, where he is at his poetic best and he tries to prove that science and rational enquiry are no less wondrous than poetic and mystical raptures. 

Dawkins gets his rock solid intellectual position from Darwin’s theory of evolution, which explains that complex life forms and natural processes are evolved from simple ones. And prior to that life itself evolved from non-life. This leaves no scope for any intelligent design  and the theory by the same name propagated by the Christian fundamentalists in America. In the ‘God Delusion’, Dawkins attacks the different arguments in favour of God from Thomas Aquinas’s proof, to the ontological and the a priori argument, the argument of God through beauty, from personal experience, from scriptures and all the other well known theories used by religious apologists. He also attacks the agnostics and the poverty of agnosticism and extols that agnostics need to be decisive and make their stand clear.  This leaves no room for any other divergent views and we are left to accept the almighty views of Richard Dawkins or else risk ourselves to be labeled as  heretics from the church of science. He does a good job dismissing the religious fundamentalists and we are left gaping in admiration when he takes them head on and dismisses them. Dawkin’s position is that there is nothing which religion can explain which science cannot.

In the process of adhering to his firm rationalistic stand, a view which does not allow belief in any phenomenon without empirical evidence, Dawkins overlooks many aspects of the  paranormal phenomenon like telepathy, premonition, clairvoyance and synchronicity. I am not here talking about outlandish miracles like bending spoons or materializing objects but some simple psychic phenomenon like you think of a long lost friend and suddenly you get a phone call from that person.  The only plausible explanation for these phenomenons according to Dawkins is that they are all accidents for which many meanings have been extraneously associated. Being a staunch materialist he dismisses all paranormal activities as bunk. This is an extremely rigid stand for a professed rationalist to take. A skeptic if he is true to his name should be a fence sitter who is willing to change his views based on the evidence that becomes available. A skeptic worth his salt can’t afford to be dogmatic. Dawkins sometimes stoops to the level of his opponents, the obnoxious religious fundamentalists, whenever he professes his rigid stance towards anything not yet known to science. This is the very anti-thesis of scientific temper which he claims to further in his readers and audiences. Most scientific theories have come about by challenging existing scientific assumptions and axioms. A scientist just cannot afford to be dogmatic.  

I think it is a fair question to ask what is Dawkin’s experience in the area of psychic and paranormal research  and how can he be so dogmatic about it.  Dawkins escapes from any explanation or proof for the existence or non-existence of psychic phenomenon by claiming that the burden of proof is on the claimants or the believers of these phenomenon. It is a fair premise for Dawkins to take because it is too burdensome to debunk so many different beliefs of different people on different gods like yahweh, allah, brahma, zeus and the great juju up the mountains. Russel’s teapot and the flying sphagetti monster takes care of all of these gods. But what about the psychic phenomenon. 

For starters Dawkins can experiment on the mental processes and how states of thinking affect the external circumstances and the environment. I am sure empirical proofs for such phenomenon can be got but one needs to create an elaborate method of obtaining objective data in an area which is dismissed as a completely subjective experience. Any person with an iota of sensitivity cannot just dismiss the mysteries of the mind. The practices of Yoga, Tantra and other mind manipulation techniques are to a great extent atheistic but they do not dismiss these phenomenon which can be reproduced by certain practices. There are many outlandish and hyperbolic claims of miracles in these traditions but the students of science can study the simple psychic phenomenon  using some to the methods available within these systems. Being a dogmatic materialist it is quite possible that Dawkins would dismiss these phenomenon and dismiss all the methods and insights through which these phenomenon is explained in traditions like yoga, tantra, buddhism and other related schools of thoughts. But would that make his position correct. Although the burden of proof is on the claimants, a scientist and rationalist cannot just dismiss paranormal phenomenon without any effort to research and disprove them. Most of these so called research or debunking of the psychics is done by ex-magicians and professed rationalists who try to simulate the so called miracles using their magical tricks like sleight of hand and other physical process. Houdini, PC Sorcar and many others have become popular in debunking the miracles. But about  paranormal phenomenon like telepathy, premonition, clairvoyance and synchronicity the debunking is gross and borders on exhibitionism and entertainment rather than sound application of the scientific method. There are many debunkers of sorcerers out there but are they really honest, don’t they have a chip on their shoulders to prove their own pre-determined convictions.  

Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experiments to test these hypotheses. These steps must be repeatable in order to predict dependably any future results. Has there been any research done in a free and fair way through the scientific method on what is known as parapsychology. Personally, I have experienced many many such phenomenon. But for want of empirical evidence and research I would not bring it up against the arguments of Richard Dawkins and the so called rationalists. I also appreciate the scientific method and I am wondering whether there are any scientists out there who have done any exhaustive and unbiased research in these areas. As a lay man and a non-scientist,  I am in no position and have neither the resources and inclination nor the education for conducting such research in laboratories.  Hence I feel the burden of proof rests on the people who profess to have definitive views in this area. However I feel there might be many who are interested in this line of research and but for lack of proper funding and resistance from the scientific community they might have shied away from this field.  It is not politico-scientifically correct in this age if someone mentions that they are researching the paranormal. They will be dubbed as new age religious junkies. I am an atheist as far as so many different gods are concerned including the god of dogmatism but I certainly do not have rigid positions about psychic phenomenon as my personal experience says otherwise. I might be accused of suffering from delusion, solilopsism and even be excommunicated by the hallowed church of science as a heretic but the reality of these experiences do not correspond to the explanation of the so called rationalists and materialists.

I am searching for the proof on the paranormal from those who are working in the areas of research on the Mind. I am not sure if there is any subject by that name even.  We have neurobiologists and brain scientists like Vilayathur Ramachandran of the ‘Phantoms in the brain’ fame. They have mapped brain functions to some psychological states  and deduce that God and the mystical experience are present in the limbic system of the brain. We are made to believe that we don’t need to go any where further to look into and when Ramachandran and his colleagues map all thoughts and emotions to specific brain cells we will know everything that needs to be known about the mind.  With respect to brain research , the difference between the areas that they know and the areas that is still unknown is very vast.   Especially on the topic of ‘connectivity’ between ‘brains’ or ‘minds’ they might not even be looking into it. In their enthusiasm people like Ramachandran and Dawkins have come to premature conclusions and have started preaching their views as gospel truth.