On a weird misreading of my book

I’ll say one more thing about the whole Martin Cohen review thing and then shut up about it, as I realize I’m getting obsessive. In the comments under his THES review, Cohen yesterday explained his case for saying, in his review:

“Do you believe in God? Or even wonder if there might be a purpose to the universe?…Then you believe in bullshit. That is the uncompromising message of Stephen Law’s new book.”

I denied that I ever said this. In fact I don’t even believe it. To support his case that I am, nevertheless, committed to it, Cohen now comments:

[EXTRACT FROM COHEN BEGINS]

1. God

Do you believe in God or think that the universe might have a purpose? = Bullshit

A section on p49 entitled ‘Scientific refutation of God claims?’ starts:’Let’s now turn to the claim the God exists’. To do this, Law quotes and discusses at length the book ‘the God Delusion’ by Dawkins. He explicitly supports Dawkin’s view saying, for example, on p52

“…postulating a God doesn’t solve the problem of the complexity of the universe. Rather with god [sic], we merely postpone the problem of accounting for such complexity.”

A few lines later he adds:

“While there are theists who have responded to Dawkin’s argument in a fairly intellectually rigorous and straightforward way, others have instead reached for the usual bag of immunizing tricks, in particular “Ah, but this is beyond the ability of reason and/or science to decide!”

[EXTRACT FROM COHEN ENDS]

Got that? – Cohen bases his case that I explicitly support Dawkins on just two quotes taken from page 52 of my book. Now look at the text of page 52 below, from which Cohen’s quotes are both taken, and notice how Cohen’s first quote is taken from five lines before I explicitly say I am not endorsing Dawkins, and his second quote is from immediately after where I say that. The bit where I explicitly distance myself from Dawkins’s argument is marked in bold. The bits Cohen quotes in support of his claim that I explicitly endorse Dawkins are in italic. Here it is:

[EXTRACT FROM MY BOOK BEGINS]

However, let’s set this problem to one side and get back to the issue at hand, which is Dawkins’s criticism of such arguments. Dawkins argues that, when theists appeal to god to explain such… [end p51]

[start p52]. …otherwise supposedly improbable features of the universe, they overlook the fact that the god to which they appeal must be at least as complex, and thus at least as improbable, as that which he is invoked to explain:

{[DAWKINS QUOTE]A designer god cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any god capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right. God presents an infinite regress from which he cannot help us escape}9

If the existence of the universe having such organized complexity is highly improbable, then, says Dawkins, the existence of any god having the kind of complexity to account for it must be even more improbable. So postulating a God doesn’t solve the problem of the complexity of the universe. Rather, with god, we merely postpone the problem of accounting for such complexity. But then the complexity we observe in the universe provides no justification for introducing god. Worse still, if the theist is right and the probability of such complexity just happening to exist is very low, then surely the probability of god existing must be even lower.

Dawkin’s argument is intriguing and worthy of closer study. However, I won’t assess its cogency here. My focus is not on whether Dawkins’s argument is any good (I’m not sure it is) but on some of the dubious moves some theists have made in response to it. While there are theists who have responded to Dawkins’s argument in a fairly intellectually rigorous and straightforward way, others have instead reached for the usual bag of immunizing tricks, in particular “Ah, but this is beyond
the ability of reason and/or science to decide!”

[EXTRACT FROM MY BOOK ENDS]

How peculiar is that?

[P.S. In any case, even if I did endorse Dawkins’ argument (which I obviously don’t) it still wouldn’t follow (obviously wouldn’t follow, in fact) that my view is if you believe in God, or wonder if there’s any purpose to the universe, “then you believe in bullshit”.]

P.P.S. I am now away for a month, so posts will be infrequent, and possibly non-existent, during that time.