In my opinion what Dawkins writes is mainly hatespeech. Sure you can criticize Dawkins quest for what's true, why can't you? It is evil to view people as being born selfish in the way Dawkins sets out, why are you unable to criticize it?
-- Richard Dawkins, "God's Utility Function," published in Scientific American (November, 1995)
"The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference."
As numerous people have pointed out, on the superficial level which Dawkins is talking about, there is far far more apparent pleasure in Nature, then there is apparent suffering. Dawkins is clearly wrong here. But I think superficial views like those are worthless even if one is more accurate then the other.
I also notice that Dawkins actually still posits some kind of emotion at the bottom of nature, namely "blind pitiless indifference". Now actually for his article to be consistent, he should have said that at the bottom of Nature there is nothing, or zero, but he didn't do that, possibly because to say that at bottom there is nothing would be consistent with a "creatio ex nihilo" creationist view.
The positing of "blind pitiless indifference" is simply hatespeech about Nature in my opinion. But of course there is an upside to this belief of Dawkins as well. The belief in "blind pitiless indifference" at the bottom of Nature of Dawkins, directly supports his candy-belief in his personal freedom to do as he likes with Nature.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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