A Study of Richard Dawkins’s Cumulative Argument with Emphasis on Keith Wards’ Views

Document Type : Research Paper

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Abstract

Some scholars of natural sciences, including Richard Dawkins, believe that material world is “self-explanatory” in the process of nature formation and creation of living creatures and that natural selection which is a cumulative process can alone explain the formation of this world form its initial simple composition to current complex one, with no need to assume a clever origin in the process of evolution. On the contrary, some theosophists, including Keith Ward, believe that cumulative selection alone as a blind and aimless process is unable to provide a comprehensive and precise explanation about evolution process, its outcomes and vital stages and that the best explanation for evolution is to take for granted a clever origin as the designer of evolution process. Given the explanatory inadequacy of mere natural selection in explaining the process of evolution, the present paper seeks to prove that, first, Dawkins’s materialistic approach in cumulative process argument is based on a set of philosophical mistakes; and second, if a precise explanation of the theory of cumulative natural selection is provided, this theory will not negate the existence of God; rather it will be another proof for theism.

 

Full Text

 Richard Dawkins, Keith Ward, evolution, natural selection, cumulative process.

References

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    ---------- (1996). God, Chance and Necessity, Oxford: Oneworld

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