Richard Dawkins and the meming of life

Having disposed of God, Darwin's Rottweiler has taken to barking at fairies. 

Come January, London buses will be emblazoned with the slogan “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” This new form of atheist evangelisation has received public support from Richard Dawkins, Oxford University's Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, and the renowned author of The God Delusion. He has put his money where his mouth is and agreed to match all donations to the cause (up to a maximum of £5,500)

Professor Dawkins is backing the campaign because it "will make people think – and thinking is anathema to religion." But has he thought enough about his own missionary zeal? The ever increasing urgency with which Dawkins now fights the monsters of ignorance and superstition has even led him to abandon his Oxford chair in order to do battle with fairies. He plans to write a children's book warning them against believing in "anti-scientific" fairytales.

The Quixotic nature of a man who tilts at windmills is not lost on Chris Hedges, author of I Don’t Believe in Atheists (Free Press, 2008). He sees Dawkins as a mirror image of the fundamentalists he is writing against: intolerant, chauvinistic, utopian, dogmatic. That old atheist campaigner Friedrich Nietzsche had some sage advice: whoever fights monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster.

Nowhere does Dawkins’ fundamentalist dogmatism show itself more clearly than in his continued support for the theory that religion is just a virus in the brain. An extract from his 1976 hit The Selfish Gene is indicative of how Dawkins turns cultural and religious transmission into something that has as much scientific proof as, well, ahem, a fairy.

“Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passed it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain.”

For the author of The God Delusion, religion is just one more meme, albeit a pernicious one. Dawkins equates it with child abuse. In response he has sought to drown evil in an abundance of good and spends his energies passing on healthier memes. A pity that he stops short with mere bus slogans. To really get the word out he should rewrite the Bible. To get the ball rolling, I leave Richard Dawkins with a draft of the first chapter.

A narration from the Book of Genesis

In the beginning the laws of physics created the heavens and the earth. Quarks moved in waves and the transfer of energy into mass hovered over the dark matter.

And the laws of physics determined that there would be light. And so there was! An incredible explosion of ever-accelerating hot light. To have squeezed a whole universe out of an atom may have seemed to be a marvel of efficiency. This was not so. For the maintenance of biological life, our universe is an overstatement. Science proceeded, religion receded. The first stage.

Then the laws of physics achieved a most improbable combination of finely tuned constants throughout the universe. This was so at a very big level and at a very small level. The laws of physics seemed to be constructing the universe according to a genethropic principle. Science proceeded, religion re-heeded. The second stage.

And the laws of physics concocted a gene out of the sunlight and seawater. It was a very, very selfish gene. It wanted to replicate itself but, vanity of vanities, it was subject to mutation. The laws of physics bid it to fill the seas and the land with clusters of itself. The better mutations prospered. And it was seen to be good. Science proceeded, religion conceded. The third stage.

And the laws of physics generated memes, which were parasites on men’s brains. Gene clusters could replicate memes in wholly new and cunning ways. Catholic memes and Muslim memes swept the world encouraging large family sizes and wiping out rival religious memes. No matter how unselfish and sacrificial the memes of individual priests, imams, nursing sisters or soldiers might seem to be, they were actually part of a greater replicating plan that was dictated by memes. Science proceeded, religion pleaded. The fourth stage.

Some memes turned cancerous. The illusion of human freedom spread through women’s groups and gene replication was sorely reduced through abortion, contraception, homosexuality and an unwillingness to adopt out one’s children to others. Was this bad? Nay, not at all. The other side of the coin to success is failure. Mutations are blind, the laws of physics have no real driving purpose. Genetic metaphysics is inherently unfalsifiable anyway. Blessed be ambivalence. Science proceeded, religion not needed. The fifth stage.

Then the laws of physics decided on paradox. Let us make memes in our own image. And it was so. The evolution of man’s thought threw up from Richard Dawkins the meme of ‘the meme’. And this was very good. “The meme” replicated itself through book sales, conventions and Youtube as fast as any religious meme. The belief rapidly took hold that, rational or not, our beliefs are merely illusions created by virus-like memes. Science proceeded, religion re-creeded. The sixth stage.

And so the laws of physics came to rest. They, too, are no more than a virus in the mind. Some men resisted this and said that it spelled the end of rational progress. These fools said in their heart “there is no meme”. Yea, though we alone among the genes’ creations rebel against our “self-replicating” creators, this proves the reality of the meme “that we have no memes”.

By the seventh stage Richard Dawkins had finished the work he had been doing; in this seventh stage he rested from his work. He looked back upon all his genius and blessed it and made it accessible on the web. Then he retired from the Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science Chair and set about writing books for children to warn them off Harry Potter. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

Dr Richard Umbers is a Catholic priest. He lectures in philosophy in Sydney.