Richard Dawkins vs Jordan Peterson: The Odd Couple of Science and Symbolism

The Middle Ground These Two Might Need is Dr Iain McGilchrist

Unlike their previous encounter, this has been a riveting conversation. It succeeds in highlighting their contrasting worldviews and, one may add, their attitudes towards each other. Moderated by Alex O’Connor, who aptly and humorously compares his duty to the corpus callosum, the audience gets a feel of something close to watching a rationalist walk into a Jungian bar or a rap battle between data and dragons.

I sensed that Dr Peterson hopes to reconcile the memetic and the archetypal, potentially seeking Professor Dawkins’ validation. They both agree on the Baldwin effect as an organising framework for their stances but I’m not convinced it offers the type of reconciliation that Peterson hopes for. Dawkins’ acceptance of the framework appears more like acknowledging a coincidence rather than embracing Peterson’s view, especially when it comes to symbolism and mythology. It isn’t obvious that Dawkins would accept the Petersonian axiom that symbolism or the mythical is as true as, say, mathematical fact.

The interview shows how these gentlemen represent different modes of knowing. Where Dawkins is all about facts, science, and material reality, Peterson deals with symbols, emotions, and metaphors. These proclivities determine their attitudes towards each other and science. I believe that Dr Iain McGilchrist’s thesis — on the left-brain and right-brain dynamics — is a more fitting understanding of the contrasting views.

While McGilchrist doesn’t necessarily elevate one side above the other, he places a type of premium on a right-brain orientation, which, reasonably, has a more holistic way of looking at the world as opposed to the reductive, cherry-picking and rigidity of the left-brain. This may explain Peterson’s frustrations with such questions as whether the virgin birth or the resurrection are biological or historical facts. It often seems to corner him into accepting only rationalistic propositions and, if he does, forces him to defend why he could admit anything otherwise. I don’t think he will make any progress if he plays this card with the rationalistic types. McGilchrist makes it clear that the left brain, convinced by its reductive convictions and evidence cannot see anything outside its view while the right brain accepts the possibilities outside its view INCLUDING the one the left brain holds.

Perhaps, we should aim for an understanding and not a reconciliation of these sides. It’s in the same mode that the Peterson types should not get too carried away by Dawkin’s claim of being a cultural Christian. He’s merely accepting his early cultural and childhood worldviews. Nothing deeper. Much like appreciating the fruits of Christianity without necessarily accepting its doctrines. We do that with even non-religious matters.

That said, I would dream that these men co-author a book or lecture series wherein they, separately, explore their match towards eternal/scientific truths juxtaposed against the other person’s contrasting notions.

And, maybe then, McGilchrist would be the moderating corpus callosum. Sorry, Alex O’Connor.