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| "'''Viruses of the Mind'''" (]) |
"'''Viruses of the Mind'''" (]) is a controversial essay by ] using ], ], and an analogy with ] and ]es to analyse the propagation of ] beliefs. In the essay, Dawkins defines the "symptoms" of being infected by the "virus of religion", providing examples for most of them, and tries to define a connection between the elements of religion and its survival value (invoking Zahavi's ] of ], applied to believers of a religion). | ||
| The second part of Dawkins' television programme '']'' explored similar ideas and took a similar name, The Virus of Faith. | The second part of Dawkins' television programme '']'' explored similar ideas and took a similar name, The Virus of Faith. | ||
| The essay is included in the book '']'', and originated the term "]." | The essay is included in the book '']'', and originated the term "]." | ||
| The claims that "God" and "Faith" are viruses of the mind was analysed at length within a year of their original publication in ]'s 1992-3 ] lectures, written in collaboration with the Psychiatrist Quinton Deeley<ref> published as ''Is God a Virus?'' (SPCK, 1995, 274pp) He is severely critical of the claims, and of the quality of Dawkins argument, suggesting eg that "Logic never interferes with Dawkins's arguments where God is concerned" (p73). The other quotes come from p73 as well.</ref>. He suggests that this "account of religious motivation...is...far removed from evidence and data." and that, even if the God-meme approach were valid , "it does not give rise to one set of consequences... Out of the many behaviours it produces, why are we required to isolate only those that might be regarded as diseased? And who ... decides, and on what grounds, what is diseased? ... there is nothing here as objective as the observation of chicken-pox... the observer...is highly relative".<ref> An article in the Journal of Memetics in 1999 citing Bowker's book, comments that "There are two further problems with the memes as viruses school of thought. One is that it ignores Dawkins original use for memes - as the basis for a new kind of evolution, acting on top of genetic evolution. Epidemiology is not in itself evolutionary unless it asks historical questions about the viruses. The second problem is that it has not found a use for memes as such. Ideas about the spread of `foreign' ideas have been around a long time. Have they been improved by the addition of memes?" </ref> | |||
| ] in ''Dawkins's God:Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life'' is also severely critical of Dawkins analysis. In addition to suggesting that the notion of a God Meme is simplisitic<ref> McGrath op cit. p 119-138</ref>, McGrath cites a metareview of 100 studies of the effects of religious belief on health and wellbeing which shows that it has a positive effect in 79% of recent studies in the field <ref> op cit p 136 citing Koenig and Cohen ''The Link between Religion and Health'' OUP 2002</ref> | |||
| ==External links== | ==External links== | ||
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| * by John Z. Langrish | |||
| ==references== | |||
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Revision as of 15:33, 3 December 2006
"Viruses of the Mind" (1993) is a controversial essay by Richard Dawkins using memetics, epidemiology, and an analogy with biological and computer viruses to analyse the propagation of religious beliefs. In the essay, Dawkins defines the "symptoms" of being infected by the "virus of religion", providing examples for most of them, and tries to define a connection between the elements of religion and its survival value (invoking Zahavi's handicap principle of sexual selection, applied to believers of a religion).
The second part of Dawkins' television programme The Root of All Evil? explored similar ideas and took a similar name, The Virus of Faith.
The essay is included in the book A Devil's Chaplain, and originated the term "faith-sufferer."
External links
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