Comments on: Richard Dawkins Takes The Crotchety Old Man Tactic To Communicate Science To Rick Perry. Will It Work?

By: Butch

Butch — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 01:21:54 +0000

fight fire with fire, huh? The only thing that Dawkins (or the devil for that matter) can’t bear, is scorn. He is such a proud spirit, so much more grounded in truth than the rest of us minions. His is such a high and lonely destiny, born out of his infinite wisdom. To human beings, educated or uneducated, the use of scientific buzzwords might as well be written in Greek. To listen to ivory towered scientists debate, (like Dawkins) is like watching paint dry. But Dawkins debates like a child. And he sounds like a religious fanatic, which he is. He really should be made to wear a clown suit in public. Anyone who oozes that much pride and condescension is irrelevant, regardless of what his opinion is. Instead of challenging people, he makes them angry. Just like many religious fanatics for Christianity.

By: Michele Busby

Michele Busby — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 16:42:30 +0000

Nice post!

I would add that Dawkin’s rantings tends to paint Christians with a single brush.

In reality, creationism also contradicts the beliefs of a lot of Christians. For example, the kind of Biblical literalism and creationism that Perry advocates is NOT consistent with the Vatican’s teachings. The Vatican has said it has no problem with evolution, and about a third of Texans are Catholic. See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/4588289/The-Vatican-claims-Darwins-theory-of-evolution-is-compatible-with-Christianity.html

The way Dawkins and Perry have framed his arguments sets up a false battle line between believers and non-believers. The line should be really be drawn between people who want religion in public schools, and those who don’t. And the best argument may be that the separation protects faith, not that it fights it.

By: Anthony McCarthy

Anthony McCarthy — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 09:47:59 +0000

Richard Dawkins Takes The Crotchety Old Man Tactic To Communicate Science To Rick Perry. Will It Work?

No. It never has before, it won’t work now.

People who keep doing things that have failed for the best part of a century and expect it to work now are delusional.

I don’t think Dawkins or his fans really care about preventing the disaster of a Rick Perry presidency or even the promotion of evolutionary science, they are interested in promoting their clique. We can’t afford to be associated with them. Another Republican presidency will be a catastrophe and the only candidate who can prevent that has done a pretty lousy job of holding on to the people who voted for him against a pretty ineffective candidate.

By: Jonathan Figdor

Jonathan Figdor — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 22:15:13 +0000

Jamie, this was a good article, but you draw the wrong conclusion. Yes, it is true that many people simply “turn off” when they are confronted with an opposing argument. And yes, it is true that people like Perry crave answers to all the so-far unanswered questions (even answers to silly questions like, “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”). But why does this mean we should indulge them?

Also, a 2.22 from Texas A&M is absolutely pathetic. This is evidence of the need for better education.

By: James Hanley

James Hanley — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 23:56:52 +0000

There’s nothing I can actually add to this argument that’s new. I just want to publicly cast my vote on the side of Dawkins and against this “let’s not dare offend our opponents” nonsense.

By: Kagehi

Kagehi — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:29:08 +0000

Also, I don’t doubt that, if the pancake vs. other cakes debate was “religious” in nature, we would see people staking their political carriers on their holy book stating that pancakes are evil, and this arguing that the All-Cakist theory of cake making was wrong, and must be apposed, because they dare to claim that pancakes and cupcakes are “derived from the same origins”. This, and the BS stance that we need to be nice to the lunatics that present such arguments about the natural world, are precisely why being “nice”, and trying to find a “middle ground”, is unproductive, often impossible, and almost always ludicrous, when dealing with such *vast* differences of opinion on such clearly one sided, in the sense of who is talking about reality, arguments. The middle ground between a bottle of water, and a bottle of poison, isn’t some of both. The middle ground between science and nonsense is not, “some of both”, either.

By: dephlogisticated

dephlogisticated — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:22:56 +0000

Dawkins is not writing about some Joe Shmoe out there, he is talking about someone that is attempting to become the next President of the United States of America!

Yes, we know Perry bows down to corporations and the wealthy, and wears Christianity on his sleeve. And yes, we know that the masses that are following him, like Bachmann, are Authoritarian followers, per Altemeyer’s RWA scale.

When one refuses to accept empirical evidence , along with logic and reason, there is no reason to be polite, or kind, especially to someone seriously running for the Presidency.

If one chooses to refuse the above, how can anyone in their right mind think that he’ll be able to logically and rationally deduce the course of action for any form of national policy?

Do you want a bunch more of these? http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/aug/10/religion-george-bush

By: Collide-a-scape » Blog Archive » Collide-a-scape >> Accomodationists, Evolution, and the Climate Debate

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 21:17:28 +0000

[...] is a fact doesn’t come until much farther down, leading Jamie Vernon at Discover magazine to lament: In one short paragraph, Dr. Dawkins has violated nearly everything we have come to know about [...]

By: Brain Hertz

Brain Hertz — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:39:57 +0000

Bob K wrote:

To call evolution a fact as firmly established as something like gravitational attraction…

The Newtonian version? The Einsteinian version? The MOND version? Possibly some other version?

How can you call “gravitational attraction” a firmly established fact when there are so many competing versions?

By: ChasCPeterson

ChasCPeterson — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:50:20 +0000

The point of this article is to make science communicators aware of Dawkins’ failure to recognize recent developments in the science of communicating science.

I must have missed the science-of-communicating-science communication to science communicators there…all I could find was a clip of Penn on CNN and the assertion that “It has been documented here at the Intersection countless times…” Would you mind pointing explicitly to the science-communication science you were trying to communicate to science communicators? Thanks; I r one.