Richard Dawkins’ Final Lecture

I vividly remember the buzz around four individuals who described themselves as the “four horsemen of the atheist apocalypse”. There was an energy in the air, filling the bookstores, and going viral on social media. These four thinkers included the philosopher, Daniel Dennett, the neuroscientist, Sam Harris, the razor-sharp-witted journalist, Christopher Hitchens, and the verbose evolutionary-biologist Richard Dawkins.

These days if I ask a group of college students if they’ve heard of any of these guys, the response is usually sparse if any at all.

In his recent article with the The Atlantic, Ross Anderson recounts his recent experience attending Richard Dawkins’ farewell lecture tour. Dawkins’ swan-song-speaking circuit feels appropriate given the scope of his influence, though Anderson notes that Dawkins’ target has shrunk. “Now that mainstream culture has moved on from big debates about evolution and theism,” Anderson writes, “he no longer has a prominent foe that so perfectly suits his singular talent for explaining the creative power of biology.”

Dawkins once seemingly held captive the collective imagination of a generation. Yet, as with most things, people move on. The hyped-up-novel-atheism left a cultural mark, for sure. It’s just hard to see it in the rearview mirror any more. It’s a conversation many tired of, which now seems to inspire less interest as it ages. While atheism as an ideology is alive and well, the mainstream conversation is no longer held captive by its most celebrated spokesmen.

Anerson’s reflections on Dawkins’ farewell lecture sum up the cultural moment well. “After [Dawkins] took his last bow, the lights went out, and I tried to understand what I was feeling. I didn’t leave the show offended. I wasn’t upset. It was something milder than that. I was bored.”