fatpie42

(1) Dawkins gave you nothing original. Dawkins popularises other people's theories.

(2) Dawkins method of popularising theories means that the only people he convinces are those who already agree with him. Calling religious views delusion does not endear them to you. Telling evolutionists that evolution is true tells them nothing they did not already know.

Where Dawkins has explained evolution he has done a good job. Where he has criticised religion he has done little more than be an embarassment.

However, in the light of the SECOND part of Dawkins television programme along with the interview with him on BBC radio about the show, I will accept that he has done a good job with this. The first part was mostly his arrogant comments about religion, but this was mainly because he expected the interviewees to be more moderate (the evangelist preacher was supposed to be fairly moderate and, of course, the jewish convert to Islam was meant to be able to give a balanced view).

I will be interested to see how the new book "The God Delusion" turns out.


One thing that does confuse me is how Dawkins is able to say that the entire group of Roman Catholic believers in a festival are 'all suffering from the same delusion' yet can claim on radio interview that the bishop of Oxford cannot be described as delusional because he is intelligent and understands scientific theories. How on Earth does Dawkins know that no one in that festival was intelligent or understands science? Does he even realise that the Roman Catholic church does not deny the truth of evolution?

Dawkins is often very arrogant. When I called him an arsehole I called him so based on his general demeanour which he presents himself with and his arrogance against ALL religious belief he appears to display. After that second episode I might be correcting my view of him as an arsehole, but I still maintain my belief that there is an arrogance to his views.

hinduwoman

If there is no religion then fundamentalists would be deprived of the shield of a higher power and be forced to acknowledge that it is their own human nature ruling them; what is more, the sheep would see that too and work to overthrow them instead of simply bleating they are not True whatever.

Oolon Colluphid

In the trade, it's called 'adding value'. Like taking something not terribly appetising -- a lump of bloody cow flesh, flour, butter and so on -- and producing beef wellington. By serving up sometimes quite complex ideas so that lots and lots of people can grasp them, he's adding value.

People pay good money for that.

I cannot see why originality has a damned thing to do with it. Would you say that a chef has given you nothing? Remind me to steer clear of any restaurants you frequent.
Nonsense. He does not tell people evolution is true, he shows you how it works. I’m damned sure I would not understand it more than slightly, despite A Level biology, were it not for The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker.
But I thought he only told people what they already knew. Which is it?
If you say so. I disagree.

If that's all you’ve got, I propose that you have not established his arseholeness in the slightest.
From what I remember of that radio interview, that’s not quite what he said. I’ll try and check this weekend.
Mere assertion; I do not see this. Perhaps arrogance is in the eye of the beholder? Or of the target of an argument? If arrogance is being certain of what you do know, and willing to put it over to others, forcefully if necessary, than that’s one club I cannot wait to join (my wife says I already have).
General demeanour? Like in that radio interview? Like in talking to Oxford? Wanna revise that? He gets 'arrogant' when people talk twaddle. Or more accurately, it is indignation. Perhaps this seems his 'general demeanour' because he is so often up against twaddle-speakers... and when an interlocutor is reasonable (like the Bish), he too is reasonable. It's a bit like saying the general demeanour of a boxer is violent. Well no shit, if you only ever see him in the ring!
If forceful determination and amazement at idiocy is arrogance, then I am too, and I welcome it, and from that position I suspect he might say, yes and what of it?
If you’ll accept that one man’s arrogance may be another’s confidence and forcefulness, than we might agree yet!

lowmagnet

He had several fundamentalists (one big-time one in Colorado among them, some in Israel both Judaic and Muslim) on the docu, and they all came across as arrogant people who think that science would be proven wrong in the long run.

Don Joe

I've seen the documentary and I have to say I'm not overly impressed. (Positive atheist here.) While Dawkins has some good points, he makes an overall weak presentation, succeeding only in annoying religious people (especially since he puts them all in the same anti-reason, anti-peace category) and telling atheists little new. I see many problems with his discourse, some of which (not necessarily in order of importance) are:

1. He validates a conception of religion that overlaps the field of science by saying these two can be competitors, while it would be much more beneficial for science (and as an accomplished scientist, this should be one of his main concerns) if he argued that religion has no say in what is objective reality and what not, just the same as science can't tell us how to feel about or cope with the immensity and mysteries of the universe. "Non-overlapping magisteria", I think it was, and it's a damned healthy idea.

2. He attacks all religion with broad statements instead of making the difference between religions which, for instance, have the god order killings and those which don't. Yes, he does focus on Abrahamic religions and these do have bloodthirsty gods (not sure about Islam, since I haven't yet read Al Qur'an, but its adherents' terrorist attacks do suggest it), but he also accuses religion and faith in a very general way (he keeps repeating that belief without evidence is bad without demonstrating this is true every time and everywhere), which does injustice to all the more benign religions. Does anyone know of any wars having been fought in the name of Buddhism?

3. He attacks religion frontally and this can only make fundamentalists more eager to "spread the good word" and forever silence voices such as his. Direct opposition only strengthens the other side's determination, I'd expect him to know that. It would be much better to make precise and selective accusations of only those types and parts of religions that have demonstrable destructive effects, while acknowledging the good parts there are. It's more important to convince people to refrain from really damaging activities than it is to direct them away from a certain philosophical position you don't agree with personally. This is the stuff that's guaranteed to keeps the theism vs. atheism conflict going for many more generations: direct attacks.

4. He focuses too much on science and free thinking. If he's to make any lasting impression on his audience, he really should use emotions more. Emotion-based arguments may not be valid from a logical point of view, but they're damned convincing. You can't expect your presentation to really reach your audience if you ignore such an important psychological aspect. If religions have taken (and still take) the freedom to use any and all conceivable means of conversion and history has shown this to be a successful approach, atheists too should feel free to make logically unsound (but very powerful) arguments once they've established rationally what opinions must be spread in order for the world to be made a better place.

fatpie42

Damn right! Here's the damage that Dawkins claims that scientists ought to be atheists have produced. Sure atheism's great and everything, but a religious view and a scientific view are not incompatible. Only certain 'literalist' religious views are incompatible with science.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/st...740393,00.html

Agemegos

We'll leave aside for a moment the fact that providing a clear and complete popular summary of a technical argument is neither trivial, not easy, nor without value. Even so, your statement is not true. Dawkins has made original contributions as an experimental ethologist: for example using evolutionary theory to predict the behaviour of digger wasps, and then demonstrating that they behave in fact as theory predicts. He has also provided original theoretical contributions, particularly with the concept of the 'extended phenotype', the evolutionary analysis of non-coding DNA (so-called 'selfish DNA', though that is not Dawkins' phrase and he thinks it is confusing), and the concept of the 'meme' (though we don't yet know whether that is going to turn out to be useful, in a scientific sense, since the field of study that concept engendered is only young as such things go). That's three fundamental theoretical contributions besides his original experimental work.