The God Delusion Read online

  I've speculated, in The Blind Watchmaker and elsewhere, that bats may 'see' colour with their ears. The world-model that a bat needs, in order to navigate through three dimensions catching insects, must surely be similar to the model that a swallow needs in order to perform much the same task. The fact that the bat uses echoes to update the variables in its model, while the swallow uses light, is incidental. Bats, I suggest, use perceived hues such as 'red' and 'blue' as internal labels for some useful aspect of echoes, perhaps the acoustic texture of surfaces; just as swallows use the same perceived hues to label long and short wavelengths of light. The point is that the nature of the model is governed by how it is to be used rather than by the sensory modality involved. The lesson of the bats is this. The general form of the mind model - as opposed to the variables that are constantly being inputted by sensory nerves - is an adaptation to the animal's way of life, no less than its wings, legs and tail are.

  J. B. S. Haldane, in the article on 'possible worlds' that I quoted above, had something relevant to say about animals whose world is dominated by smell. He noted that dogs can distinguish two very similar volatile fatty acids - caprylic acid and caproic acid - each diluted to one part in a million. The only difference is that caprylic acid's main molecular chain is two carbon atoms longer than the main chain of caproic acid. A dog, Haldane guesses, would probably be able to place the acids 'in the order of their molecular weights by their smells, just as a man could place a number of piano wires in the order of their lengths by means of their notes'.

  There is another fatty acid, capric acid, which is just like the other two except that it has yet two more carbon atoms in its main chain. A dog that had never met capric acid would perhaps have no more trouble imagining its smell than we would have trouble imagining a trumpet playing one note higher than we have heard a trumpet play before. It seems to me entirely reasonable to guess that a dog, or a rhinoceros, might treat mixtures of smells as harmonious chords. Perhaps there are discords. Probably not melodies, for melodies are built up of notes that start or stop abruptly with accurate timing, unlike smells. Or perhaps dogs and rhinos smell in colour. The argument would be the same as for the bats.

  Once again, the perceptions that we call colours are tools used by our brains to label important distinctions in the outside world. Perceived hues - what philosophers call qualia - have no intrinsic connection with lights of particular wavelengths. They are internal labels that are available to the brain, when it constructs its model of external reality, to make distinctions that are especially salient to the animal concerned. In our case, or that of a bird, that means light of different wavelengths. In a bat's case, I have speculated, it might be surfaces of different echoic properties or textures, perhaps red for shiny, blue for velvety, green for abrasive. And in a dog's or a rhino's case, why should it not be smells? The power to imagine the alien world of a bat or a rhino, a pond skater or a mole, a bacterium or a bark beetle, is one of the privileges science grants us when it tugs at the black cloth of our burka and shows us the wider range of what is out there for our delight.

  The metaphor of Middle World - of the intermediate range of phenomena that the narrow slit in our burka permits us to see -applies to yet other scales or 'spectrums'. We can construct a scale of improbabilities, with a similarly narrow window through which our intuition and imagination are capable of going. At one extreme of the spectrum of improbabilities are those would-be events that we call impossible. Miracles are events that are extremely improbable. A statue of a madonna could wave its hand at us. The atoms that make up its crystalline structure are all vibrating back and forth. Because there are so many of them, and because there is no agreed preference in their direction of motion, the hand, as we see it in Middle World, stays rock steady. But the jiggling atoms in the hand could all just happen to move in the same direction at the same time. And again. And again ... In this case the hand would move, and we'd see it waving at us. It could happen, but the odds against are so great that, if you had set out writing the number at the origin of the universe, you still would not have written enough zeroes to this day. The power to calculate such odds - the power to quantify the near-impossible rather than just throw up our hands in despair - is another example of the liberating benefactions of science to the human spirit.

  Evolution in Middle World has ill equipped us to handle very improbable events. But in the vastness of astronomical space, or geological time, events that seem impossible in Middle World turn out to be inevitable. Science flings open the narrow window through which we are accustomed to viewing the spectrum of possibilities. We are liberated by calculation and reason to visit regions of possibility that had once seemed out of bounds or inhabited by dragons. We have already made use of this widening of the window in Chapter 4, where we considered the improbability of the origin of life and how even a near-impossible chemical event must come to pass given enough planet years to play with; and where we considered the spectrum of possible universes, each with its own set of laws and constants, and the anthropic necessity of finding ourselves in one of the minority of friendly places.

  How should we interpret Haldane's 'queerer than we can suppose'? Queerer than can, in principle, be supposed? Or just queerer than we can suppose, given the limitation of our brains' evolutionary apprenticeship in Middle World? Could we, by training and practice, emancipate ourselves from Middle World, tear off our black burka, and achieve some sort of intuitive - as well as just mathematical - understanding of the very small, the very large, and the very fast? I genuinely don't know the answer, but I am thrilled to be alive at a time when humanity is pushing against the limits of understanding. Even better, we may eventually discover that there are no limits.

  APPENDIX

  A partial list of friendly addresses, for individuals needing support in escaping from religion

  I intend to keep an updated version of this list on the website of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science: www.richarddawkins.net. I apologize for limiting the list below largely to the English-speaking world.

  USA

  American Atheists

  PO Box 5733, Parsippany, NJ 07054-6733

  Voicemail: 1-908-276-7300

  Fax: 1-908-276-7402

  Email: [email protected]

  www.atheists.org

  American Humanist Association

  1777 T Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009-7125

  Telephone: (202) 238-9088

  Toll-free: 1-800-837-3792

  Fax: (202) 238-9003

  www.americanhumanist.org

  Atheist Alliance International

  PO Box 26867, Los Angeles, CA 90026

  Toll-free: 1-866-HERETIC

  Email: [email protected]

  www.atheistalliance.org

  The Brights

  PO Box 163418, Sacramento, CA 95816

  Email: [email protected]

  www.the-brights.net

  Center for Inquiry Transnational Council for Secular Humanism Campus Freethought Alliance Center for Inquiry - On Campus

  African Americans for Humanism

  3965 Rensch Road, Amherst, NY 14228

  Telephone: (716) 636-4869

  Fax: (716) 636-1733

  Email: [email protected]

  www.centerforinquiry.net

  www.secularhumanism.org

  www.campusfreethought.org

  www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=aah&page=index

  Freedom From Religion Foundation PO Box 750, Madison, WI 53701 Telephone: (608) 256-5800 Email: [email protected] www.ffrf.org

  Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia PO Box 242, Pocopson, PA 19366-0242 Telephone: (610) 793-2737 Fax: (610) 793-2569 Email: [email protected] www.fsgp.org/

  Institute for Humanist Studies 48 Howard St, Albany, NY 12207 Telephone: (518)432-7820 Fax: (518) 432-7821 www.humaniststudies. org

  International Humanist and Ethical Union - USA

  Appignani Bioethics Center


  PO Box 4104, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10162

  Telephone: (212) 687-3324

  Fax: (212) 661-4188

  Internet Infidels

  PO Box 142, Colorado Springs, CO 80901-0142

  Fax: (877) 501-5113

  www. infidels. org

  James Randi Educational Foundation

  201 S.E. 12th St (E. Davie Blvd), Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316-1815

  Telephone: (954) 467-1112

  Fax: (954) 467-1660

  Email: [email protected] www.randi.org

  Secular Coalition for America

  PO Box 53330, Washington, DC 20009-9997

  Telephone: (202) 299-1091

  www.secular.org

  Secular Student Alliance PO Box 3246, Columbus, OH 43210 Toll-free Voicemail / Fax: 1-877-842-9474 Email: [email protected] www.secularstudents. org

  The Skeptics Society

  PO Box 338, Altadena, CA 91001

  Telephone: (626) 794-3119

  Fax: (626) 794-1301

  Email: [email protected]

  www.skeptic.com

  Society for Humanistic Judaism

  28611 W. 12 Mile Rd, Farmington Hills, MI 48334

  Telephone: (248) 478-7610

  Fax: (248)478-3159

  Email: [email protected]

  www.shj.org

  Britain

  British Humanist Association

  1 Gower Street, London WC1E 6HD

  Telephone: 020 7079 3580

  Fax: 020 7079 3588

  Email: [email protected]

  www.humanism.org.uk

  International Humanist and Ethical Union - UK 1 Gower Street, London WC1E 6HD Telephone: 020 7631 3170 Fax: 020 7631 3171 www.iheu.org/

  National Secular Society

  25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL

  Tel: 020 7404 3126

  Fax: 0870 762 8971

  www.secularism.org.uk/

  New Humanist

  1 Gower Street, London WC1E 6HD

  Telephone: 020 7436 1151

  Fax: 020 7079 3588

  Email: [email protected]

  www.newhumanist.org.uk

  Rationalist Press Association

  1 Gower Street, London WC1E 6HD

  Telephone: 020 7436 1151

  Fax: 020 7079 3588

  Email: [email protected]

  www.rationalist.org.uk/

  South Place Ethical Society (UK)

  Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL

  Telephone: 020 7242 8037/4

  Fax: 020 7242 8036

  Email: [email protected]

  www.ethicalsoc.org.uk

  Canada

  Humanist Association of Canada

  PO Box 8752, Station T, Ottawa, Ontario, K1G 3J1

  Telephone: 877-HUMANS-l

  Fax: (613) 739-4801

  Email: [email protected]

  http://hac.humanists.net/

  Australia

  Australian Skeptics

  PO Box 268, Roseville, NSW 2069

  Telephone: 02 9417 2071

  Email: [email protected]

  www.skeptics.com.au

  Council of Australian Humanist Societies GPO Box 1555, Melbourne, Victoria 3001. Telephone: 613 5974 4096 Email: [email protected] http://home.vicnet.net.au/~humanist/resources/cahs.html

  New Zealand

  New Zealand Skeptics

  NZCSICOP Inc.

  PO Box 29-492, Christchurch

  Email: [email protected]

  http://skeptics.org.nz

  Humanist Society of New Zealand PO Box 3372, Wellington Email: [email protected] www.humanist.org.nz/

  India

  Rationalist International

  PO Box 9110, New Delhi 110091

  Telephone: + 91-11-556 990 12

  Email: [email protected]

  www.rationalistinternational.net/

  Islamic

  Apostates of Islam www.apostatesofislam.com/index.htm

  Dr Homa Darabi Foundation

  (To promote the rights of women and children under Islam)

  PO Box 11049, Truckee, CA 96162, USA

  Telephone (530) 582 4197

  Fax (530) 582 0156

  Email: [email protected]

  www.homa.org/

  FaithFreedom.org www.faithfreedom.org/index.htm

  Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society Email: [email protected] www.secularislam.org/Default.htm

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