1. Comment #1105 by Randy Ping on October 9, 2006 at 4:51 pm

Hoozah, Richard. Keep at it.

2. Comment #1115 by Anonymous on October 9, 2006 at 9:33 pm

Very Firey debate. Good job Dawkins. That other guy tried to say, "because we dont know where matter came from yet, God made it." That is a silly argument. The same rationalization that our ancestors used. "We dont know where the lighting comes from, God made it." Can you not see the absurdity of that argument? That is an intellectually week position to hold. Just because we do not know the natural causes for something does not mean we have to attribute it to supernatural causes.

-Chairman Mike

3. Comment #1136 by Kevin Ronayne on October 10, 2006 at 3:11 am

Christian J Burnham wrote:

"The other guy was pretty obnoxious"

Background information: the 'other guy' is David Quinn, one time editor of a newspaper called the Irish Catholic. He now works as a columnist for the Irish Independent newspaper. I used to respect him as a moderate, reasonable and perceptive commentator. All of that went clean out of the window after hearing this debate. It was an absolute joke to hear the nonsense that he came out with! Obnoxious? I would also add smarmy, glib, arrogant, overbearing and a few other terms as well.

Now here's the important point as I see it: we might have no problem seeing this guy and his arguments for what they are, but I wonder what impression the general public might have? The radio show in question is a pretty middle-of-the-road in terms of content, and its regular audience might not be in a position to judge the debate as You or I might. Contrary to what some people might say, Richard Dawkins is usually very polite in conversation and debate, and can come across as somewhat diffident and even unsure in certain circumstances.

Then again, I wouldn't want people to be convinced of anything important simply by force of oratory, personal appeal or clever arguments. It's substance that matters, and that can take a lot of time and effort to get across - about 400 pages worth, if You get my meaning.

P.S. if you see: 'Comment by strong' in front of my name, it is some sort of glitch - try as I might, I can't get rid of the 'strong' bit from the preview.

4. Comment #1143 by Hylo on October 10, 2006 at 4:28 am

That was entertaining. That David Quinn guy was an arrogant, obnoxious *******, not to mention idiotic aswell but I think, and it saddens me to say it, that the majority of people who listen to that show would probably come away thinking David Quinn won the debate. His arguments were nonsensical but in the minds of a religious person they're sound and Richard really didn't get in and rip his arguments to shreds. He kinda evaded answering the question of free will and he didn't really push how idiotic it is to assume that just because the universe exists, God must have been the one to create it. Nor did he really do away with Quinn's "all atheists are evil, immoral wild animals because of Stalin and our genes" theory.

I would hope rational people listening to the show, whether religious or not, would easily see through David Quinn's arguments and see the logic in what Richard was saying but I can't imagine any religious person would be reconsidering their belief in God after hearing this. And as I said earlier, as depressing as it is to say, I think many of them will have had their faith shored up by David Quinn.

5. Comment #1146 by Hylo on October 10, 2006 at 4:58 am

I got the impression that he meant in the context of that interview, as it pertained to the question of the existence of God, free will really is neither here nor there. He said himself when Quinn first raised the question that it was a very deep question and a philosophical one that has nothing to do with religion, and we are in no way run soley by our genes.

I think he certainly could've answered it better, it did seem that he cowered away from it as he couldn't answer it, not that I believe that's the case, but I imagine some people would've gotten that impression.

6. Comment #1147 by Kevin Ronayne on October 10, 2006 at 5:12 am

If you were to do a name association test with 'Richard Dawkins', then most people would respond with the 'Selfish Gene' - that's assuming that they had heard of him at all, as there is still a distinct lack of general public awareness when it comes to science and scientists. Many people still labour under the completely mistaken belief that he stands for genetic determinism. It is probably a tempting line of attack for any opponent in an interview/debate situation like this, even when they themselves know it to be false.

For that reason alone, I think Richard needs to be able to respond to this sort of attack with a clear and well-defined (even pre-prepared) response about free will. That does not, of course, mean that he has to adopt a dogmatic position about it.

7. Comment #1156 by Brian on October 10, 2006 at 7:57 am

Well, we *know* where most matter comes from, everything apart from hydrogen, helium (and lithium?) is formed by nuclear fusion in stars. The lighter elements were formed in the big bang itself.

8. Comment #1159 by Riley on October 10, 2006 at 8:22 am

Kevin Ronayne wrote (describing David Quinn): "Obnoxious? I would also add smarmy, glib, arrogant, overbearing and a few other terms as well."

Unfortunately this is exactly how the evangelicals from the U.S. (by whom I'm surrounded)describe Richard Dawkins!

-------------------------------------------------

I enjoyed listening to the debate, but I'm afraid that moderate "believers" would probably have agreed more with the points of David Quinn than of Richard in this particular debate/interview.

The problem I think was that Quinn successfully tagged "atheism" as a type of religion.

I think Richard needs to isolate "faith" as *THE* problem of religion, and not get caught-up in attacks against "religion" itself, as this is the opening for obvious retorts which take advantage of vague semantics.


------

9. Comment #1160 by Riley on October 10, 2006 at 8:29 am

Kevin Ronayne wrote (describing David Quinn): "Obnoxious? I would also add smarmy, glib, arrogant, overbearing and a few other terms as well."

Unfortunately this is exactly how the evangelicals from the U.S. (by whom I'm surrounded)describe Richard Dawkins.

I enjoyed listening to the debate, but I'm afraid that moderate "believers" would probably have agreed more with the points of David Quinn than of Richard in this particular debate/interview.

The problem I think was that Quinn successfully tagged "atheism" as a religion.

I think Richard needs to isolate "faith" as *THE* problem of religion, and not get caught-up in attacks against religion itself. "Religion" is ill-defined and as such provides the opening for the: "atheism is no better" argumentation.

------

10. Comment #1164 by Yorker on October 10, 2006 at 9:00 am

Quinn seems to be the kind of person who has some intelligence but is unable to rid himself of the "god virus" that shackles his mind. This defect causes him to make silly statements like "matter was made by God" without even attempting to give any evidence for it.

Richard Dawkins must be getting bored with idiots who say atheism is a religion, you'd think they'd learn the basic meaning of words before spouting drivel.

11. Comment #1166 by Robert on October 10, 2006 at 9:16 am

It's almost impossible to have a reasonable debate, or debate at all, with someone who thinks that merely increasing the their volume and trampling over the spoken words of their opponents constitutes "winning" the debate. Unfortunately, this approach prevented Richard from being able to be as effective as he usually is. The moderator is at least as much at fault as Quinn. Someone like him cannot be convinced, one can only offer counter arguments, if you get a chance to state them.

12. Comment #1178 by Kimpatsu on October 10, 2006 at 10:19 am

I can't find the file. The link provided takes me to a bunch of radio shows, none of which list Richard as bing on them. Can anyone help?

13. Comment #1187 by Kevin Ronayne on October 10, 2006 at 11:03 am

Kimpatsu wrote:

"I can't find the file. The link provided takes me to a bunch of radio shows, none of which list Richard as bing on them. Can anyone help?"

Look for this link on the page:

Monday 9th October - Click here

For some reason, the contents of this show are not listed on here at present. As noted above, Richards's interview starts after about 8 minutes.

14. Comment #1189 by Kevin Ronayne on October 10, 2006 at 11:27 am

I've got to agree with all of the recent comments about the interview/debate/confronation. When I heard that Richard Dawkins was appearing on this show, I assumed that it was going to be a straight one-to-one interview. Take it from me: Ryan Tubridy simply does not have what it takes to keep someone like David Quinn under control during a debate. For that, you would need a hardened news broadcaster, not someone who presents what are basically light entertainment shows.

The aim of someone like David Quinn in this situation is basically damage limitation by sound bite - the louder the better. He knows he can't beat Dawkins in a fair fight, and he took full advantage of a very weak moderator. As Andy Lewis says "Richard's book is the refutation of Quinn's arguments". The aim of these media situations is to try and coax people to read it, and Quinns only real aim was trying to prevent that.

15. Comment #1199 by Laurence Boyce on October 10, 2006 at 12:25 pm

David Quinn - what a moron. Well done Richard, you just about held it together. Maybe go back to debating creationists - you'll get more sense out of them!

16. Comment #1254 by Ryan on October 11, 2006 at 3:08 am

Disappointing that the host allowed this to turn into a nonsense sling-a-thon, which meant Dawkins couldn't effectively rebutt the points raised. I fear he "lost" on on volume rather than content.

One thing I find with Dawkins, is in certian circumstances he isn't plain enough or assumes a level of intellect that can't be assumed. Unfortunately, arguments sometimes need to be dumbed down.

On a side note, I've always thought of Deism as the last bastion of the faithfully. The only place left for them to hide from Science.

17. Comment #1390 by SteveN on October 12, 2006 at 12:05 am

(First of all, to avoid confusion I would like to point out that I am registered in the RDF forum as 'SteveN' and am not the 'Steven' who has already posted in this thread. Maybe I should have chosen a more unique nickname.)

Having listed to the 'debate' on the way to work this morning, I must say that I found it astonishing that someone as obviously intelligent and eloquent as Quinn can be so deluded as to make the so-called arguements he did. The guy seems to be truly incapable of rational thought. My irony meter almost exploded when he accused Richard of setting up a strawman view of religion and then proceeded to rehash common strawman arguments concerning Richards point of view. The classic (to paraphrase) 'you think that we are slaves to our genes and have no free will' is diametrically opposite to Richard's view as clearly stated in the closing paragraph of 'The Selfish Gene'.....

"We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism -- something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our own creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators."

This is clearly yet another case of a critic basing his arguments on the title and not the contents of a book.

He clearly didn't grasp the obvious difference between a person with a particular belief doing evil and a person doing evil because of their belief. The morality question and the origin question were all dealt with in 'The God Delusion' and yet Quinn presented them as some killer argument that Richard hadn't yet thought of. I really doubt that he had actually read the book.

As others have pointed out, Richard is sometimes too polite for his (our) own good, a trait I adimire but which is a clear disadvantage in an uncontrolled debate setting. I annoys me that Richard is generally believed, particularly in the USA, to be an arrogant and dogmatic person. I have read all of his books and most of his articles, listened or watched many of his interviews, heard him talk publicly and have spoken to him personally. I am unaware of any incident that could objectively be interpreted as 'arrogance'. Indeed, his talks are littered with phrases such as "better scientists than I have shown...." or "I am not expert enough to address this.." etc. In this interview he allowed himself to be constantly interrupted by a rude, ignorant and arrogant opponent and I think Tubridy should have controlled the situation better.

There may be a silver lining however. Moderate theists with an open mind and closet atheists may have seen what a fool Quinn made of himself compared to Richard and be inspired to read the book.

18. Comment #1391 by SteveN on October 12, 2006 at 12:06 am

(First of all, to avoid confusion I would like to point out that I am registered in the RDF forum as 'SteveN' and am not the 'Steven' who has already posted in this thread. Maybe I should have chosen a more unique nickname.)

Having listed to the 'debate' on the way to work this morning, I must say that I found it astonishing that someone as obviously intelligent and eloquent as Quinn can be so deluded as to make the so-called arguements he did. The guy seems to be truly incapable of rational thought. My irony meter almost exploded when he accused Richard of setting up a strawman view of religion and then proceeded to rehash common strawman arguments concerning Richards point of view. The classic (to paraphrase) 'you think that we are slaves to our genes and have no free will' is diametrically opposite to Richard's view as clearly stated in the closing paragraph of 'The Selfish Gene'.....

"We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism -- something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our own creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators."

This is clearly yet another case of a critic basing his arguments on the title and not the contents of a book.

He clearly didn't grasp the obvious difference between a person with a particular belief doing evil and a person doing evil because of their belief. The morality question and the origin question were all dealt with in 'The God Delusion' and yet Quinn presented them as some killer argument that Richard hadn't yet thought of. I really doubt that he had actually read the book.

As others have pointed out, Richard is sometimes too polite for his (our) own good, a trait I adimire but which is a clear disadvantage in an uncontrolled debate setting. I annoys me that Richard is generally believed, particularly in the USA, to be an arrogant and dogmatic person. I have read all of his books and most of his articles, listened or watched many of his interviews, heard him talk publicly and have spoken to him personally. I am unaware of any incident that could objectively be interpreted as 'arrogance'. Indeed, his talks are littered with phrases such as "better scientists than I have shown...." or "I am not expert enough to address this.." etc. In this interview he allowed himself to be constantly interrupted by a rude, ignorant and arrogant opponent and I think Tubridy should have controlled the situation better.

There may be a silver lining however. Moderate theists with an open mind and closet atheists may have seen what a fool Quinn made of himself compared to Richard and be inspired to read the book.

19. Comment #1419 by SteveN on October 12, 2006 at 10:28 am

Sorry! I use the same name on the EvC forum so just kept it for continuity. Actually, Zaphod is a far superior name anyway - wish I'd thought of it myself. Hmmm, anyone named Slartibartfast yet, I wonder?

20. Comment #1560 by Paul Creber on October 13, 2006 at 2:18 pm

David Quinn, as others have pointed out, was bombastic and discourteous - effective tactics when you are attempting to mask your ignorance and keep your opponent quiet. Regrettably, he was allowed to get away with this by an apparently spineless Ryan Tubridy, whose journalistic career may just go somewhere when he learns how to say: "Shut up".

21. Comment #3518 by Afarensis on October 29, 2006 at 6:49 pm

As mentioned, David Quinn is a former editor and still a columnist of the resolutely conservative “Irish Catholic” newspaper. He’s is also a columnist with Ireland’s largest selling daily newspaper. Recently, reasonable sounding but thoroughly loyal Catholics are securing regular columns, e.g. Breda O’Brien in the Irish Times. After a terrible 1990s when the Church’s near veto on state policy collapsed amidst economic growth and a flurry of child abuse scandals it seems that they are working their way back to influence. I suppose they never really went away.

Anyway to deal with a couple of points raised, atheism had little to nothing to do with Stalin’s abuses of power. Stalin and the bureaucracy correctly saw religion as a rival ideology which had the capability of undermining their power base especially amongst the peasantry. Therefore they proceeded to emasculate and to some extent persecute the church, but they did it for to maintain their power not for the atheist beliefs (and in no way on a similar scale to the Nazi persecution of the Jews). They inflicted similar, or indeed far greater persecution on other rival political ideologies, not least their leftist rivals ones such as the anarchists (libertarian socialists such as Kropotkin, himself an evolutionist), the Left Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and pretty much everybody else, including factions within the Bolshevik Party itself. I suppose Dawkins can't be an expert on the detail of vast amounts of history as well. Obviously he could answer properly in a proper forum, but he won't always get that with religious people so he will probably be slightly vunerable (in a rhetorical sense) in political and historical matters in a way that he is simply isn't in matters of evolution and religion and atheism.

Free Will is not completely irrelevant from a religious person’s point of view. Sure, it’s a weak argument especially as it’s unclear what people mean by it, but if people find it persuasive as a justification for a divine phantom, then atheists should show why it a) it isn’t and b) why some degree of freedom is a consequence of evolved material life and not a fatal paradox for materialism. After all, there is no other known way to transmit the information necessary to make a conscious informed decision than through material means.

I’m not sure if Dawkins addressed it in his book, but the question of free will, in the sense of a soul or spiritual type of brain, can be used to turn the tables against theism. How does this spiritual entity communicate with the rest of the body? If your free will tells you to help that old man cross the road, then some nerve impulses have to be twitched and muscles moved. How is a non-material soul to do that? Similar for praying, God watching us etc. All these things require a physical, material actions and beings. If God can hear prayers or see humans that means he has ears and can decode sound waves etc and is therefore a physical being (and presumably subject to the second law of thermodynamics).

Dawkins’ argument about positing God as an explanation for existence being weak due to its assumption of massive complexity is strong imo. This is the one point where Dawkins could be a little bit harder; his honesty in saying that his views are provisional need not disuade him from advancing the eternal matter hypothesis in as straightforward terms as this: that something must always have existed and that Occam’s razor comes down on the side of it being simple, i.e. a form of matter and not God. Keep the theories about baby universes and multiverses as a hypotheses about the particular route matter took to this universe. Maintaining the prinicipal that it always existed is what's important and relatively easy to get across and pretty ancient to boot. Old Demokritos of Abderra believed it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democritus

22. Comment #6305 by goddogit on November 13, 2006 at 2:45 pm

Well, Quinn at least proves that the Irish can be as rude, blathering, dishonest dicks as any American, to whom "truth" is whatever the fuck he says it is at any particular moment.

"Without God there can be no free will."
"You do not know where matter comes from!"
"I believe the very existence of matter is evidence that God exists, and remember that you're the one that doesn't believe in free will [blah fookin' blah]"


Give me a fookin' break! Any lingering respect for Catholics (whose biggest crimes are basically historical), as opposed to the new Fundamentalists, took a final count of ten for me with this arse, living in one of the prime examples of the idiocy and violent nature of religion but rattling on about a "free will" that always chose murder.

23. Comment #9710 by Roy on November 25, 2006 at 4:10 pm

Richard NEVER says God does not exist, he says it it highly improbable that he does. His opponents such as David Quinn do not say "I think there is a god "They say I KNOW there is a God" end of argument, then put their fingers in their ears and go la la la, How pathetically arrogant can you get.

So The all powerful God waved his magic wand, created matter, then he decided to create 'man in his own image', but waited 13.7 billion years to do so,....yeah right...

24. Comment #49118 by IDontBelieveIt on June 10, 2007 at 12:08 pm

Could be an interesting discussion next Sunday 17th June on Irish station TodayFM. David Quinn, Christoper Hitchens and Eamonn McCann (see Wikipedia for bio) are advertised as the panel on The Sunday Supplement, being broadcast at 11:30 am. Listeners outside Ireland can listen live from the website (who's link I cannot give you because I'm too new on this site :-( )

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25. Comment #49127 by TIKI AL on June 10, 2007 at 12:46 pm

They should have included a Voo Doo doctor to make the mighty Quinn look somewhat legitimate.

What a waste of Richard's valuable time.

Other Comments by TIKI AL

26. Comment #49130 by CJ22 on June 10, 2007 at 2:21 pm

Here's the link:

http://www.todayfm.com/Article.asp?id=275805

You have to donwload some sort of widget that points to the correct address for the stream.

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27. Comment #165934 by Ace Rimmer on April 22, 2008 at 3:46 pm

The "Dawkins Delusion" parody video featuring Dr Terry Tommyrot is most likely based on this interview, most likely performed by the Irish comedians responsible for "apres match", (a parody of Irish soccer and rugby coaches and analysts) I even detect of a Dublin accent in the Dawkins delusion parody video.

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28. Comment #195308 by pnelnik on June 18, 2008 at 3:43 am

I think the comments above are being a bit too kind to Richard. At times I think he seemed to lack some oratory skill. For example when Tubridy asked if it is over the top to call God genocidal etc, Richard replied "Read your Old Testament". That is not going to change anyone's mind on the spot. Perhaps a better reply would be to mention God was pleased when Lot sent his daughters out to be raped and also that God encouraged Moses to indulge in ethnic clensing.

The full text of the conversation can be found:
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/science/sc0086.htm

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