Why Richard Dawkins Needs to Get His Science from iCarly

I was recently watching a rerun of the preteen television show iCarly with my children, and lo and behold Albert Einstein was quoted by Spencer:

The thing that can't be proved is the scientific nature of science itself.

I couldn't believe my ears, and I thought I would have to wander through the rest of my life wondering if I had really heard Einstein quoted on a preteen pop-culture tv show. Then I remembered we had just acquired the modern technological marvel called DVR. So I grabbed the remote from my kids and re-round iCarly. They thought I was going to change the channel. So when my seven year old daughter's cries of protest changed to surprise: "What are you doing dad?" I realized that I actually had heard Spenser quote Einstein.

This just goes to show you the relevance of pop culture to those still stuck in modernity.

I say this because Richard Dawkins, whose stuck in the Enlightenment, obviously needs to get his science from iCarly. This is because he and his friends, like Christopher Hitchens, seem to assume that science does not involve faith. But it is really an act of faith to rely on our sense perceptions.

The scientific method proceeds by observations from our senses, and these are interpreted by our minds. To accept that these are reliable impressions of reality and that our mind interprets them accurately is to assume a lot. It is again an act of faith. This faith is justified, I would argue, if and only if our sense perceptions were designed to interpret reality. Otherwise faith in our sense impressions and our interpretations of them is unfounded. Thus, Dawkin's position is not only based on faith, but on an unfounded faith.

So what if Richard Dawkins was made to sit down and watch a kids show, and all of a sudden he thought he heard Einstein being quoted. Could he "believe" his ears? Yes, but only if they were designed to pick up sound waves, and if his brain was designed to interpret the meaning intended by the source of those sound waves. But this kind of confidence in science would lead to the God of Christianity, and that would be unbelievable, wouldn't it?