Madam, - I found William Reville's piece today (August 25th) fascinating. I was also intrigued by his use of quotes from Bertrand Russell and Noel Browne, two trailblazers in their own spheres.
Dr Reville chose two areas of human activity to tar with the fundamentalist brush: left-wing politics and science (secularism gets a black eye later). Noel Browne's "omelette and breaking eggs" aphorism was used to intimate that Browne (as well as JD Bernal and GBS) was blind to Stalin's atrocities.
In this regard, killing of human beings as a method of effecting political change is practised world wide, whether in Iraq, in the former USSR or in the streets of Belfast or London. Fundamentalism is all around us. Why be selective? Is Dr Reville being fundamentalist in his choice of targets?
In relation to dogmatism and fundamentalism in science, to assert that scientific hypotheses are immutable is to misunderstand the nature of science and what it purports to do.
A scientific hypothesis must always be open to change and is considered to be "true" for the time being and until evidence pointing in another direction emerges. Dr Reville "fully accepts the fact of evolution".
This statement itself suggests fundamentalist leanings on his part. It is dangerous folly to close doors: we may yet see the Darwinian hypothesis blown to pieces and I'm no creationist.
And then there's secularism. Secularist dogma is no more or less intellectually sustainable than those fundamentalist dogmas propounded by the great religions (and the not so great). When one condemns the secularists or left-wing politics or Dawkins on fundamentalist grounds one must, to be consistent, condemn all fundamentalism, whether this derives from Rome, New York or South Armagh.
And as for Russell, one must be aware of the history of his appointment to teach at City College, New York in 1940.
Bishop Manning's crusade against Russell won the day, the secularist lost. It was all about power and not high ideals. A huge injustice had been done. - Yours, etc,
MARTIN KNOX, Ballynacally, Co Clare.
Madam, - Could I ask Prof William Reville some simple questions related to his recent article? Has "compromise" any place in science? Is a mathematician, a chemist or a physicist not obliged to be a fundamentalist by Prof Reville's own definition of what a fundamentalist is?
Can you be an a la carte mathematician? Would he fly in a plane built by a non-fundamentalist engineer? A major difference between William Reville's view of reality and Richard Dawkins's is that Dawkins can prove what he says. Can William Reville prove anything he says?
Prof Reville says, "I don't believe that science can explain absolutely everything about humanity."
Has he any evidence or proof that this is so? Is science "not entitled to denounce thoughtful religious thinking as backward nonsense", if it is? Does William Reville not accept that he is a Christian simply because he was brought up in a Christian society? Does he not accept that he would probably be a Hindu if brought up in India or a Muslim if brought up in Saudi Arabia, or in fact a worshipper of the Sun God Ra if brought up in ancient Egypt? How can Prof Reville dump all his revered scientific principles when it comes to the subject of religion and still call himself a scientist? - Yours, etc,
WILLIAM GROGAN, Wilton, Cork
Madam, - William Reville's article on liberal fundamentalism and political correctness (August 25th ) is worthy of comment in at least the following respects.
Fundamentalism can indeed be practised in science and left-wing politics.
It needn't be a bad thing in either of these areas, depending on what the fundamental beliefs in question are. If they include a commitment to tolerance and reasoned argument in the forming of political positions, I cannot see what objection one could have to a fundamentalist adherence to them.
The case of Rocco Buttiglione was not a matter of left-liberal MEPs rejecting a Catholic candidate for the EU Commission on grounds of his religious or social beliefs.
The issue was whether Mr Buttiglione's claim that he would separate his private convictions from his public role was credible, in light of his record.
Whether or not the MEPs made the right decision is a moot point, but they didn't act as a "thought police".
The fact that science may not be able to explain everything about humanity does not legitimate religion.
There may be meaningful and important discourses other than science, but one requires a further argument to show that religion fits into this category.
The claims Prof Reville makes concerning the power of the liberal media and middle-class political correctness are without empirical support.
He doesn't even define the terms "liberal" or "political correctness", which I would have assumed would be a prerequisite for discussing their importance in society.
All in all, this is a curiously unscientific article for your science columnist to have penned. -
Yours, etc,
DONNCHADH Ó CONAILL, Bishopstown, Cork.
Madam, - Prof Reville has once again been using the science page to promote his personal religious views (August 11th and 25th), in this case the theory of intelligent design, the territory to which creationists have retreated in the face of overwhelming evidence for evolution by natural selection. He also suggests that "science" should have nothing to say on the subject of that or any other supernatural explanations for observed phenomena. He is right to decry the kind of frothing, vitriolic attacks on religion that Richard Dawkins makes from time to time. These are neither intellectually compelling nor helpful in promoting a rational view of the world that does not invoke the supernatural. Many supernatural explanations are the products of our intuitive psychology of how the world operates, and intelligent design is no exception.
The intelligent design theory states in essence that there is so much complexity in the natural world, especially in our own wondrous existence, that it could not possibly be the culmination of a series of unguided chance events and must therefore be evidence of design by an intelligent entity (whether this refers to God is usually not explicitly stated so the theory can not be branded "religious").
This theory is appealing to our intuitive sense that the emergence of order requires work, in a thermodynamic sense and is thus unlikely to occur by chance.
It misses the main point of evolution by natural selection, however, which is that natural selection, by maintaining the fittest organisms that emerge through mutation in each generation, provides a ratchet to gradually increase complexity over millions of years. By chance, many mutations may be detrimental and only a few will be beneficial to an organism. Mutation alone could not therefore explain the emergence of complexity - quite the opposite in fact.
But mutation coupled with natural selection means that complexity does not emerge simply from a series of chance events but rather by the maintenance and gradual accumulation of those events that increase fitness.
Like the caller in a game of "hot and cold", natural selection automatically tells the blindfolded player making random turns when they're getting hotter or colder and the result is a directed trajectory.
If the Rev Reville wants to believe that God is the caller in that game that's his business, but there is no need to invoke a higher power when the simple mathematics of variation and selection will produce the same result. - Yours, etc
KEVIN MITCHELL Ph.D. Lecturer in genetics, Trinity College, Dublin 2
Madam, - Should we really have professors given the job of helping the public understanding of science?
There we have Richard Dawkins, professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford, banging on and on about the one thing; base your beliefs on evidence; and just when I thought I understood that, along comes William Reville, associate professor of biochemistry and the public awareness of science officer at UCC, telling me that Dawkins is wrong and that I can believe anything that I want to. I'm more confused than ever. Maybe the Rose of Tralee could do a better job. - Yours, etc,
BRIAN MULLIGAN, Kevinsfort, Sligo.