Richard Dawkins was greeted with laughter, applause and one outburst that led to a security escort outside at his Friday night lecture at McCasland Field House.
Dawkins’ lecture, titled “The Purpose of Purpose,” drew thousands who waited in line for hours to see the author of the controversial bestselling books “The God Delusion” and “The Selfish Gene.”
The event went smoothly except for an outburst from an angry audience member during the question and answer session.
“You sir, are a fraud!” he yelled as security guards dressed in yellow escorted him outside.
Dawkins opened by scoffing at a bill proposed in the state legislature that opposed Dawkins’ campus visit.
“I don’t mean to blow my own trumpet, but it isn’t everybody who is the subject of legislation in Oklahoma,” he said.
House Resolution 1015 states Dawkins should not be allowed to speak on campus because his beliefs conflict with those of most Oklahomans.
His speech focused on the difference between archeo purpose — derived from centuries of evolution — such as a bird’s tail which adapted to stabilize flight, and neo purpose — something designed to do something specific — such as a plane or a computer.
Something has archeo purpose when it is the end result of generations of gradual adaptation through natural selection while something with neo purpose was made usually by a creator at a specific time with a specific purpose.
Dawkins said humans subvert archeo purpose and natural selection by adapting to needs that are not required for survival. Things like contraception, adoption and strict adherence to religion dilute the power of “survival of the fittest” among humans, he said.
This separation from archeo purpose separates humanity from the animal world.
After the lecture, Dawkins, an outspoken atheist, took questions from the audience, and the discussion quickly moved to more controversial topics like religion and morality.
Around the world, moral standards are becoming more uniform and are actually more moral than in centuries past because advances in technology and communication have increased global accountability, Dawkins said.
Students responded enthusiastically to the lecture.
“He reaffirmed what I knew he was going to say and also what I believe,” said Ben Pawlowski, aerospace engineering junior.
Other students left disappointed with Dawkins lecture.
“It was a nice talk, but it wasn’t at the center of what he argues in his books,” said Megan Vance, mathematics junior.
Dawkins will have a new book out in September called “The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.”
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mythman 3 years, 2 months ago
Dawkins was brought to campus to present his views on evolution, not atheism, and his lecture followed suit. Evolution and science are at the center of his books, but so many people seem more obsessed about the God Delusion than anything else he has to say.
ethios4 3 years, 2 months ago
I was at the Dawkins lecture Friday night and found him to be something of an intellectual hypocrite. If someone argues against evolution claiming that "the theory of evolution says humans randomly evolved from mud", the evolutionist would rightly claim they are misrepresenting evolution. Yet Richard Dawkins presents only the most juvenile, simplistic, and outright inaccurate portrayals of Christianity as the objects of his assault. If he were a more honest thinker he would argue against the strongest case for Christianity he could find.
Furthermore, Dawkins skirted around one of evolutionary theory's weakest points - it's total lack of a verified explanation for how life arose in the first place. He only addressed it by acknolwedging the possibility that life may have only arisen here on earth, and that if life is indeed that improbable, it seems like a waste of time trying to figure out how it happened. That's a strange thing for a man to say who has just spent the last 90 minutes going on about how we must seek explanations for complex things.
His refutation of the cosmological argument for the existence of God was equally flaccid. Dawkins claims that if God is simple (as the cosmological argument describes) then God cannot be the complex being who creates a universe, is crucified, saves people, etc. He is making the rather obvious mistake of putting God's characteristics in the same category as God's effects. Similarly, the characteristics of evolution are quite simple, but its effects are very complex.
Evolution and Christianity are compatible beliefs, regardless of what Richard Dawkins says. He apparently fails to see that atheism does not follow logically from evolutionary theory anymore than theism does. he has chosen atheism as a worldview and interprets the conclusions of science through that worldview, the same as anyone else. Dawkins finished the Q&A with a story about a letter he wrote to his daughter about Santa Claus, telling her that she should decide what she believes based on evidence instead of authority or tradition. I wish that everyone present at the lecture would truly take those words to heart.
DrFuego 3 years, 2 months ago
To ethios4: You, sir, are a fraud.
wade2453 3 years, 2 months ago
In response to your comment:
"...Dawkins skirted around one of evolutionary theory's weakest points - it's total lack of a verified explanation for how life arose in the first place."
Evolutionary theory addresses the differential, non-random survival of living things via natural selection. It does not address the beginning of life, nor does it need to.