In hmolscience, Richard Lewontin (1929-) is an American zoologist noted generally for his anti-reductionism arguments and social commentary, e.g. in his 1983 “The Corpse in the Elevator”, he argues there are limits to the reductionist approach, i.e. Cartesian reductionism, and that we will never be able to explain some biological processes in mechanistic terms. (Ѻ)
Religion | Faith
Lewontin, supposedly, defines himself as a Marxist (Ѻ), which would lean him towards atheism.
In 1997, Lewontin, in his “Billions and Billions of Demons” (Ѻ), a review of Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark — which he says is mostly devoted to chapters of “exhortations to the reader to cease whoring after false gods and to accept the scientific method as the unique pathway to a correct understanding of the natural world” — seems to give the impression of an curious agnostic, albeit leaning slightly to the left. He comments, after digressing on Newton’s god as prime mover, and the Napoleon Laplace anecdote, and Sagan’s circumspect suggestion that we should “even-handedly examine the god hypothesis”, he comments: “I doubt that an all-seeing god would fall for Pascal’s Wager, but the sensibilities of modern believers may indeed be spared by this Clintonesque moderation”. Possibly Lewontin is a closet theist, which is common among anti-reductionists. More quotes from this review, to note, are cited (Ѻ) by Creation.com.
Quotes | On
The following are quotes about Lewontin:
“Lewontin visited an economics class a few years ago to talk to the students. In a kind of neo-Darwinian jockeying, he said that evolutionary changes are due to the Fisher-Haldane mechanisms: mutation, emigration, immigration, and the like. His elaborate cost-benefit mathematical treatment was devoid of chemistry and biology. I asked him why, when he himself was pointing to serious flaws related to the fundamental assumptions, did he teach such nonsense? His response was that there were two reasons: the first was ‘P.E.’ I asked. What is ‘P.E.’, he replied, P.E. is ‘physics envy.’ His second reason was even more insidious: if he didn't couch his studies in neo-Darwinian style, he wouldn't be able to obtain grant money that was set up to support this kind of work.”
— Lynn Margulis (1995), The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (Ѻ)
Quotes | By
The following are representative quotes:
“There is a story about a wonder-rabbi, who on his deathbed whispers to his chief assistant, “Life is like a bagel.” The word spreads through the crowd waiting outside the rabbi’s house, “Life is like a bagel; the rabbi says life is like a bagel,” until finally, at the edge of the crowd, it reaches the town fool, who asks, “What does it mean: life is like a bagel?” The question spreads back through the crowd, “What does it mean, life is like a bagel?” until it reaches the bedside of the rabbi. “Rabbi,” his assistant asks, “What does it mean, life is like a bagel?” “Nu,” the rabbi says, weakly shrugging his shoulders, “so life is not like a bagel.”
— Richard Lewontin (1983), “The Corpse in the Elevator” [1]
“Many biologists believe in some mysterious force or inner will contained in living stuff.”
— Richard Lewontin (1983), “The Corpse in the Elevator” [1]
“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute and we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.”
— Richard Lewontin (1997) [2]
References
1. (a) Lewontin, Richard C. (1983). “The Corpse in the Elevator” (Ѻ), New York Review of Books, Jan 20, Jan.
(b) Foley, Michael. (1990). Laws, Men and Machines: Modern American Government and the Appeal of Newtonian Mechanics (pg. 85). Routledge, 2014.
2. (a) Lewontin, Richard. (1997). “Billions and Billions of Demons”, New York Review of Books (pg. 31), Jan 9.
(b) Wynn, Charles M. and Wiggins, Arthur W. (2011). And God Said, Let There Be Evolution!: Reconciling the Book of Genesis, the Quran, and the Theory of Evolution (abs) (Amz) (pg. 160). All Things That Matter Press.
External links
● Richard Lewontin – Wikipedia.
