HelenM

Like I said, he will only undermine his own case in the end. Which is silly and unnecessary and he ought to be smart enough to know better - imo.

love
Helen

abe smith

Relax; in a C years[ if there is anything left at this astronomical locus/& of our species by then] all this will probably have been shaken-out; stay chuned. Abe

Francois Tremblay

But it is an either-or choice. Now you guys are getting ridiculous : you're slamming the guy for saying the truth.

GunnerJ

IMO, it doesn't take much balls for him to say that. Doesn't he live in England? You can get away with saying that there, over here in America, you get your car keyed and your kids tormented at school.

GunnerJ

I would imagine it would involve Galileo commenting that eight "windows" exist in the head of Mr. Sizi.

DMB

Originally posted by Helen:
How can it be undermining his case to state the truth as he sees it? Anyway, I'm not sure which case you are referring to. Is it the case for evolution? Or the case for atheism?

Even though he is a brilliant exponent of it, evolution hardly needs its case to be made within the scientific community. (What the USA clearly needs is better scientific education that would discredit YEC among the lay public.)

Although many American atheists think that the UK has it easier, it ain't necessarily so. Until very recently there was surprisingly little criticism of religion in the UK. It just wasn't the done thing. Dawkins is heavily attacked in Britain for daring to be an honest atheist.

lpetrich

I disagree; there are oodles of possibilities, such as various sorts of allegorical interpretations -- even if doing allegorical interpreations often reduces to "it's literal if we like it and allegorical if we don't." A related possibility is some form of NOMA, though NOMA often reduces to (metaphorically) leaving one's brains at the church door.

And if I had to advise RD on a posture to take, I'd recommend not being explicitly anti-religion, but instead to take the approach that Earl Doherty takes in his <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.com" target="_blank">Jesus-Puzzle work</a>. ED does not explicitly take aim at Xtianity or any Xtians; instead, he calmly states his views and acts in a fashion that some would consider "true Xtianity".

ksagnostic

Ahem. The point is, in the USA you are not going to get better science education into the schools if you give the impression that by doing so you are going to piss on the beliefs of anyone who possesses a variation of a theistic belief. Again, Dawkins can and will say what he wants. But when he implies that acceptance of evolution and atheism go hand in hand, he provides ammunition for the fundamentalist activists (like the despicable Phillip Johnson) who make that same argument. And besides which, it is not true. Acceptance of natural science does not necessarily entail embracing atheism, even though Christian fundamentalism does entail ignoring significant chunks of natural science.

[ February 04, 2002: Message edited by: ksagnostic ]</p>

Francois Tremblay

If scientists won't stand for what they do know and what they should communicate to us, who will do it ? Who'll stand for the truth ?

To me it is unconscionable for them to do otherwise than rise up and clamour against the travesty of science that passes as true amongst the masses. I think that all people, not only scientists, who know about something should speak up and not let nicety get in the way of truth.

tronvillain

I can't recall Dawkins ever actually saying that belief in evolution entails emracing atheism.