Richard Dawkins: an end to mythmaking?

So Paxman can dub myths 'hogwash', but not religion. Surely all myths do a similar job – it's just scientific ones don't last as long
richard dawkins
Richard Dawkins's myth of the selfish gene needs replacing with one allowing for human altruism. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian Murdo MacLeod/Guardian

Richard Dawkins is a master mythmaker. His best fiction is that of the selfish gene. His great book of that title, published 35 years ago, described human beings as lumbering robots driven by immortal genes. It even had a brilliant, final twist. Sometimes, the myth promised, we can overcome the tyranny of the biological imperative inside us. Inevitably – though perhaps more quickly than many anticipated – his myth is going the way of the world. It spoke powerfully of what was taken to be truth for a time. But subject to the inexorable shifts of human knowledge, the myth is now starting to look outdated.

A crucial moment came in August 2010, when Martin Nowak, Corina Tarnita and Edward O Wilson published an article in Nature. They argued that the mathematics behind the idea that Dawkins had so successfully popularised doesn't stack up. It was wrong, Wilson insists – and he should know as one of the few people who originally did the maths. He now prefers evolutionary theories that speak about altruism, based upon group selection. The next generation awaits a mythmaker of Dawkins's stature to tell us this new story about life.

Now, I know what you are thinking. Is it not overly provocative to refer to the selfish gene as a myth, even though the dictionary definition of "myth" seems quite precise? My dictionary includes definitions such as "false belief" and "fictitious thing". It will be thought inflammatory because, unfortunately, naming something a myth carries these pejorative overtones in our times. It is as if myths are straightforwardly untrue, and those who believe them are ignorant and foolish.

Ironic, then, that following complaints made to the BBC because a conversation between Dawkins and Jeremy Paxman caused offence, that the BBC Trust excused Paxman's use of the word "hogwash" because he said it of myths rather than religion. Much to his credit, Dawkins was strikingly complimentary about myths in the interview. He confessed to finding Aztec myths amusing and loving the myths that begin the book of Genesis. A tremendous writer, he understands their power, all successful popularisers of science do. His latest book, which prompted the Paxman interview, trades on the genre in its very title: The Magic of Reality. The book describes many myths, religious ones as well as scientific. Myths are powerful because they fire the imagination, encourage play and make great poetic stories. They can only do so when there is something true in them.

There are, of course, differences between scientific and religious myths. For one thing, scientific myths are far less long-lived than religious ones. The great faiths of the world daily turn to myths that are thousands of years old and find truth leaping off the page as they read them. Scientific myths, on the other hand, do well if they last more than a century. Who today reads Newton? Both kinds of myth seek evidence in their support. The difference here is that scientific stories seek empirical evidence – and when the empirical evidence fails, the myth fails too, which is what appears to be happening to the selfish gene. Conversely, religious myths seek proof of a more personal kind. These myths work when they speak in their details about the truths of life.

Take a myth like that of Narcissus. It tells the tale of a beautiful man whose looks made him the centre of attention. Everyone fell for him and, as a result, his heart became swollen with pride, his demeanour hard and aloof. He became lost, then alone, and eventually died. Such is the troubled life of the narcissist. But the proof of the myth is not established by trying to find a man called Narcissus and seeing whether his heart became empirically swollen and his visage literally hard, everyone knows that. So why is it that many religious people are as wary of myths as Paxman appears to be? Is it because they agree with Paxman that the scientific accuracy of millennia-old myths can be readily knocked down? Don't they see that saying that is like saying Shakespeare should not be taught in schools because Romeo and Juliet never existed? Religious people should be masters of myth, like Dawkins, for the greatest myths convey the truth of things to us, be that spiritual or scientific.

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