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Comments by A heron at night


1. Couple charged in Norway over genital mutilation of daughters

Comment #192520 by A heron at night on June 13, 2008 at 9:10 am

How is FGM any different from, say, a woman, in the interests of aesthetics, getting her breasts surgically enlarged?

2. The Challenge of the New Creationism

Comment #187284 by A heron at night on June 1, 2008 at 7:14 pm

She's boring.

3. Muslim Rebel Sisters: At Odds With Islam and Each Other

Comment #174494 by A heron at night on May 2, 2008 at 1:59 pm

Jiten. Maybe you could identify every single factor in the absence of which the event in question would not have occurred?

Here's a hint: you will never count them all!

4. Resentment Over Darwin Evolves Into a Documentary

Comment #165242 by A heron at night on April 21, 2008 at 8:49 am

Ben Stein ranks as a leading luminary in the field of stupidity and a champion of deceit and deception. I wonder how he lives with himself. How can he be so wilfully ignorant?

5. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #161148 by A heron at night on April 15, 2008 at 12:12 am

This is very, very good.

6. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #157254 by A heron at night on April 8, 2008 at 7:17 pm

Oh dear. How tragic that this passes for discussion. A number of points may be made.

The 'Stalin question' was not adequately dealt with by Dawkins and this is surprising because the question is one he has answered before. The best answer is that whether Stalin was an atheist is immaterial. If he was, then that means that a bad person was an atheist. The question is whether there is a correlation between atheism and crime (just like whether there is a correlation between drugs and crime), not whether one person can be an atheist and a bad person; atheism and evil are not mutually exclusive.

The 'chimps question' was another disappointment. Dawkins may be insulted by the ignorance of the question, but that does not mean that he should not answer it in a way that lay people can understand.

Kennedy's performance had merit. This was not Dawkins at his best; no doubt he can do better.