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Chief Rabbi makes peace with Richard Dawkins
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This is good - catch it while you can (available until 19 September):http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mqvmv/Rosh_Hashanah_Science_vs_Religion/"Religion and science are frequently set up as polar opposites; incompatible ways of thinking. The Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks begs to differ. For him, science and religion can, and should, work together. To mark Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, he puts his position to the test. He meets three non-believing scientists, each at the top of their field: neurologist Baroness Susan Greenfield, theoretical physicist Professor Jim Al-Khalili, and the person best known for leading the scientific attack on religion, Professor Richard Dawkins. Will the Chief Rabbi succeed in convincing the militant defender of atheism that science and religion need not be at war?"
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Excellent. He puts it very well - a long overdue corrective to the diet of antagonism. Many thanks Anthony.If I have a quibble, it is that I don't think Sacks really got into what he said he would with Dawkins, i.e. to get him to admit there is more to the experience of life than science. For his part Sacks danced around the question of whether the story of Isaac and his son was or was not historical - I suspect Dawkins would have nailed him on this, so maybe Sacks cut it. I was amused by Susan Greenfield's dismissal of arrogant scientists who say that science has all the answers. As you may know, she is the ex-wife of Peter Atkins, who holds exactly this view! She is Jewish by background of course.
