151. Religion & Culture Panel

Comment #36414 by Richard Dawkins on May 1, 2007 at 4:26 am

I was very impressed indeed by Christopher Hitchens. His eloquence is formidable, helped by a voice like Richard Burton's. The discussion seemed to come alive whenever he spoke, whereas the other two, and the chairman, though articulate and fluent, simply made me impatient for more Hitchens. What disappointed me, however, was that the audience seemed noticeably less sympathetic towards Hitchens than I would have expected for the attenders of a Literary Festival in a major metropolitan area during churchgoing hours. Even manifestly ridiculous remarks -- like Jonathan Kirsch's statement that (verbal) attacks on religion are as vandalistic as the Taliban (physically) blowing up the Bamiyan statues -- seemed to be sympathetically received. I hope I am wrong, but this is not the sort of reaction I became accustomed to from the audiences I encountered on my American book tour.

Richard

152. Boxmind E-Lectures

Comment #35854 by Richard Dawkins on April 29, 2007 at 4:32 am

Alas poor Boxmind. I was on the Editorial Board, Horatio. A Board of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.

I doubt if the lectures are available any more. I don't think they would be compatible with today's on-line video standards. Boxmind wrote and marketed its own software to play the lectures and to allow others to make their own lectures. The software didn't run on Macs, only on VCs.

R.I.P.

Richard

153. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32717 by Richard Dawkins on April 18, 2007 at 5:04 am

Amyers, I agree that the general issues are important and need to be discussed. But I got the impression there was some immediate urgency in the particular case of Misha. This was my only concern about the distraction.

A lawyer who is also a doctor (and leading atheist) with whom I raised the matter, has made to me a slightly cheerful point: "By the way, the reality of the matter is that if the kid really doesn't want the procedure, he needs merely to physically refuse to allow it. I doubt they'd put the kid under with general anesthesia (although a shot of ketamine could do the trick). Thus, as a practical matter, the twelve year old can avoid the circumcision."

I hope he is right, and I hope that, if it comes to it, that is exactly what the boy will do.

Richard

154. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32703 by Richard Dawkins on April 18, 2007 at 3:57 am

Like Humanist-cop, I have no wish to be judgmental. I too was circumcized as an infant (at a time when British doctors commonly did it as a matter of course) and I am not saying that I now regret it personally, on either aesthetic or medical grounds. Nor do I feel any personal resentment about the fact that it was done to me. But my personal feelings and yours are beside the point. The point is Misha's feelings. He may not be old enough to vote but he is entirely old enough to say that he doesn't want to undergo a painful, irreversible operation which has not been recommended to him on medical grounds. Moreover, his mother agrees with him. If, later, for religious, medical or aesthetic reasons, he decides to be circumcized, that is his privilege. But if he wants to become UN-circumcized, he will not have that option. Circumcision is irreversible. You don't have to be judgmental to feel that his wishes should receive more respect than the religious bigotry of his father.

Thank you Elstuarto for putting me straight on the difference between the BMA and the General Medical Council. It is the American equivalent of the GMC that we need.

Richard

155. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32671 by Richard Dawkins on April 18, 2007 at 1:30 am

Philip1978, do you think that Gunofsod may just possibly have been sarcastic in what he said?

I had a further thought after writing my post. If a doctor does perform this operation, what is the appropriate body in America that might have him struck off and deprived of his licence to practise medicine? In Britain it would be the British Medical Association (BMA). Does the American Medical Association play a similar role, or would it be some other body? Are there some American doctors among our readers who would know how to set this in motion?
Richard

156. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32650 by Richard Dawkins on April 17, 2007 at 10:35 pm

I think it a pity that this thread seems to have become distracted by a discussion of the merits or demerits of circumcision in general. What we have here is a clear case of religiously-inspired child abuse. Because of a change in his father's religion (no medical change has arisen in Misha's circumstances to justify it) a particular 12-year-old boy has become threatened with an irreversible surgical procedure which he does not want, and nor does his mother. I suppose some such distraction was inevitable, given that Misha's defence has been undertaken by Doctors Opposed to Circumcision, an organization which is indeed opposed to circumcision in general. Maybe Misha would get more support if his case were taken up by civil liberties organizations, child protection organizations or the like. I don't know how to get in touch with such organizations in America, but I would like to urge people here to call Misha's case to their attention. Newspapers and politicians, too. Yesterday I was at a meeting in the European Parliament in Brussels, and I told Misha's story to the MEPs there. They were outraged, but they are European politicans, not American ones. Wouldn't it be a good idea for American citizens among our readers to write to their Congressmen or other influential people? Your own opinions, and the congressmen's opinions, on circumcision in general, should be irrelevant. The urgent need is to protect a particular individual child from the religious bigotry of his father.

Notice, by the way, the wording adopted by D.O.C. "There is no medical necessity alleged at all by anyone. The circumcision would be purely cultural, even merely spiteful." I refer to the entiriely typical use of 'cultural' rather than 'religious'. Yet again, religion is being being granted a charmed protection, under a euphemism: 'purely cultural'.

Richard

157. Is God poison?

Comment #30823 by Richard Dawkins on April 10, 2007 at 2:25 am

There is much here that others will surely want, like me, to discuss. But, if I may be allowed a strictly personal response first, two remarks especially affront me.

Dawkins, in particular, seems spiritually deaf to everything from the sense of wonder to . . .

I'd like to think that anybody who thinks I am spiritually deaf to the sense of wonder has not read Unweaving the Rainbow, Climbing Mount Improbable, The Ancestor's Tale . . . or actually any of my books!

Dawkins' anti-religious beliefs are tightly grafted to his anti-Americanism. Especially his anti-Bushism: "I just can't stand the man's style," he told the Times of London, "the way he swaggers and struts and smirks and the way he looks sly and deceitful and the way Americans can't see it.")

Please please, don't ever accuse me of anti-Americanism. It is mainly because of my love of America that I, along with all my many American friends, loathe and detest Bush and the damage he has done to that great republic. I don't remember saying "Americans can't see it" but, if I did, I obviously meant some Americans can't see it – enough Americans to have elected him President (with a little help from his brother's friends in Florida and his father's friends in the Supreme Court).

Oh, and one little point for Pedants Corner. I suspect that Bethune thinks 'coruscating' means excoriating, caustic, scathing. It doesn't. It means glittering or sparkling.

Richard

158. E.O. Wilson Accepts his 2007 TED Prize

Comment #30425 by Richard Dawkins on April 8, 2007 at 3:13 am

Many congratulations to Professor Wilson on a richly deserved prize. I wrote the following puff for one of his books (The Diversity of Life), and I'd say the same again today. "Edward Wilson is today's towering figure in American biological literature. Not since Darwin has an author so lifted the science of ecology with insight and delightful imagery."
Richard

159. Militant atheists: too clever for their own good

Comment #30109 by Richard Dawkins on April 7, 2007 at 1:48 am

Charles Moore is a well-known British journalist, a former Editor of the Daily Telegraph and of The Spectator.

Mr Moore (if you should happen to find your way here) you do understand, don't you, how these websites work? There is normally no Ediitorial selection or control of the Comments that are sent in. The contributors are remarkably uninhibited, perhaps protected by the strange but widespread convention of writing under a pseudonym. But if you pick your way carefully around the insults, I think you may find that some good points are being made too.
Yours courteously
Richard Dawkins

160. Postmodernism Disrobed

Comment #29283 by Richard Dawkins on April 2, 2007 at 1:13 pm

September, I'd be delighted to read your clear and concise definition of postmodernism, and your summary of why it deserves to be considered a coherent theory with a single name. And, by the way, since you take advantage of knowing my real name, why don't you divulge your own instead of hiding behind a pseudonym?
Richard Dawkins

161. Postmodernism Disrobed

Comment #29270 by Richard Dawkins on April 2, 2007 at 11:42 am

You might think a definiton of 'postmodernism' would be helpful at this point, so I looked up the Oxford Dictionary:-

Postmodernism: The state, condition, or period subsequent to that which is modern; spec. in architecture, the arts, literature, politics, etc, any of various styles, concepts, or points of view involving a conscious departure from modernism, esp. when characterized by a rejection of ideology and theory in favour of a plurality of values and techniques. Also in extended use in general contexts, freq. used ironically.

Not a lot of help! So I looked elsewhere and found the following page which lists no fewer than fourteen definitions of postmodernism (none of them being the OED's).
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:postmodernism&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title
As far as I can judge, not one of the 14 bears any close resemblance to any other member of the 14, and I can discern little in the way of clear meaning in any of them. What meaning I can discover doesn't give confidence that postmodernism is a coherent body of theory at all. The first definition, for example says

. . . views which, for example, stress the priority of the social to the individual; which reject the universalizing tendencies of philosophy; which prize irony over knowledge; and which give the irrational equal footing with the rational in our decision procedures all fall under the postmodern umbrella.

"Falling under an umbrella" is not what you'd call a precise or usable definition. What could it possibly mean to "stress the priority of the social to the individual"? Priority in what sense? I suppose I can just about see what it might mean to reject the universalizing tendencies of philosophy, but is there any necessary connection between that and the other parts of the definition? How do you "prize" irony over knowledge, and why should you want to? As for giving "the irrational equal footing with the rational" . . . maybe that just about sums the whole thing up.

The impression conveyed by all the definitions together is that what we have here is at best vague muddle-headedness and at worst outright charlatanry. Can anybody produce a single, clear, meaningful and coherent definition to rebut this negative impression? It would be nice to discover that this particular Emperor has at least a few wisps of underwear. My impression remains what it has always been, however: the Postmodern Emperor is not only bereft of clothes. He doesn't even have a skin.

Richard

162. Postmodernism Disrobed

Comment #29225 by Richard Dawkins on April 2, 2007 at 6:36 am

Dawkins's Law of the Conservation of Difficulty states that obscurantism in an academic discipline expands to fill the vacuum of its intrinsic simplicity.

163. Postmodernism Disrobed

Comment #29204 by Richard Dawkins on April 2, 2007 at 4:08 am

Would silves93 (Comment 29188) accept that, far from being gullible fools, Guattari, Deleuze, Lacan and Irigaray are among the recognized leading lights of postmodernism in the world? If so, would silves93 please furnish a translation into clear and meaningful English of any one of the quotations given above, plus a defence of the proposition that any one of them is 'fascinating' or 'insightful'? Fascinating? Insightful? Let's hear it, please.

I can imagine only one defence, which might go something like this. "The technical language of quantum theory, too, is extremely hard to understand. Here is a paragraph from a learned journal of quantum theory. Please furnish us with a translation into clear and meaningful English." I accept that this challenge might be impossible to meet. So, what is the difference? The difference is that quantum theory makes predictions about experimental measurements in the real world, which are verified to an accuracy equivalent (in Richard Feynman's vivid analogy) to specifying the width of North America to within one hairsbreadth. That's how quantum theory buys the right to be unintelligible to non-specialists. Could silves93 or anyone else ever make such a claim for postmodernism?

Richard

164. Postmodernism Disrobed

Comment #29092 by Richard Dawkins on April 1, 2007 at 3:35 pm

The reason for posting this old review here is the arrival of the new article by Carolyn G Guertin, under the title "Is this another Sokal hoax?" When I first read the Guertin article, I genuinely thought it might be an All Fools' Day hoax, and I actually wrote to Alan Sokal to ask him. His reply included the following:-

How do you find these things?!? This is a real doozie! I wish I could claim that I had written it, but it is in fact far beyond my modest satirical talents. Anyway, it seems that the author really exists:
http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/academy/carolynguertin/
and there are even photographs of her at
http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/academy/carolynguertin/about.htm
This was her 2003 doctoral dissertation (in physics?) at the University of Alberta
http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/academy/carolynguertin/diss.html
It is "under consideration by a major Canadian press and will be released in a Romanian translation later this year."
Her teaching philosophy is a gem, as well:
http://www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/academy/carolynguertin/phil.html

The University of Toronto is a normally respectable university. Let us hope this woman is not occupying a position that might otherwise be held by a genuine scholar doing worthwhile research. It is tragic the way humanities departments have been taken over by second-rate fakes. And can you believe a 'major Canadian press' is seriously thinking of publishing this pretentious and meaningless garbage?

Richard

165. Stephen Hawking Says Universe Created from Nothing

Comment #28673 by Richard Dawkins on March 30, 2007 at 11:04 am

Look carefully at Hawking's article. As far as I can see, he doesn't actually say a single word about the universe coming from nothing. That may be what he meant but, as so often happens, the HEADLINE (presumablly written by somebody at slashdot) is the sole source of the controversy -- in this case the word 'nothing'. Unless I am mistaken, Hawking's own title was quite different.

That word 'nothing' has scared up a fair bit of puzzlement among our Commenters. But whereas most of these were honestly perplexed, one correspondent, 'Wee Flea' tried to turn it to his advantage: tried to turn it into a debating point in his favour as a religious creationist. This is not surprising, as 'Wee Flea' is really the Rev David Robertson, author of The Dawkins Letters (one of the five flea books which keep entertaining us as they are announced one after the other: http://richarddawkins.net/article,807,The-Fifth-Flea,James-A-Beverly ).

In Comment #28147 Wee Flea said, "Creation ex nihilio! Brilliant. Now where have I heard that one before?" Of course he means the book of Genesis. He totally fails to grasp the argument that I have called the Ultimate 747 argument (The God Delusion, Chapter 4). Look at it this way. The brilliant success of Darwin's idea in biology raises our consciousness to the power of scientific cranes more generally, and emphasizes, by contrast, the impotence of skyhooks such as gods. Like all cranes, evolution by natural selection progresses from small and simple beginnings to grand and complex ends. Darwin comprehensively explains life, starting at the origin of life 4 billion years ago. Before the origin of life, we need different cranes, in the domain of chemistry, then before that interstellar nuclear physics, then before that cosmology. Chemists and physicists have been brilliantly successful in pushing things back to within a small fraction of a second of the big bang. But there still remains the question of what happened during that fraction of a second, and the question of why there is something rather than nothing. These questions are deeply mysterious, but physicists are making progress towards their solution, for example with the theory of cosmic inflation which, if it is valid, is another superb crane. But we still need a crane for the very beginning of the universe itself.

Now, suppose that Stephen Hawking really could show that the universe came from nothing (perhaps by a reversal of the process whereby matter and animatter annihilate each other to make nothing). Wouldn't that be the perfect crane? Wouldn't that be an atheist's dream? Yet Wee Flea seems to think that creation from nothing could only mean creation by God.

And this is where the Ultimate 747 comes in. If you allow yourself to postulate a big, intelligent, creative God at the beginning . . . Oh, for goodness' sake, I can't bear to spell it out yet again, it is all in Chapter 4 of The God Delusion. I just wanted to call attention here to the irony. When I first saw the headline above the Hawking lecture. "Stephen Hawking says Universe Created from Nothing" I immediately thought, "Great, how exciting, we are finally getting close to a completely godless explanation of everything." Wee Flea apparently leapt to the opposite conclusion. As it happens, both of us may have leapt unnecessarily, because the headline doesn't seem to represent what Hawking actually said. Whether Hawking meant it or not, I am hoping that one of these days he, or somebody like him, really will show that the universe flared into existence from nothing, or at least from something exceedingly simple, and inflated and evolved into what we see today, by wholly explicable and comprehensible processes.

Richard

166. Happy 66th Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #27710 by Richard Dawkins on March 26, 2007 at 8:48 am

When you reach two thirds of a century, you are not supposed to cry like a baby, especially if you are a stiff-upper-lipped child of Empire. But who would not weep with emotion and joy at such a truly fantastic, amazing, splendid gesture as you have put together? Thank you Josh, thank you to all your loyal helpers, thank you to the more than 3000 who wrote messages, made videos, made audios, made pictures, and who, amazingly, kept the whole thing a complete secret from me during the whole time that it took to plan and organize (and any fool can see what a huge amount of planning and organization must have gone into it). Thank you, all of you. Your encouragement has given me a new lease of life. You make it all worthwhile. Thank you all very very much indeed.
Richard

167. 1986 Oxford Union Debate

Comment #25519 by Richard Dawkins on March 14, 2007 at 1:34 am

I am quite relieved to learn that there was a tape change in my speech. When I listened to the recording, I seriously wondered whether I was suffering from false memory syndrome (which is a very real phenomenon as Elizabeth Loftus has shown). I have a very clear memory that, during my speech, Edgar Andrews made MANY REPEATED attempts to persuade the President to stop me reading from his book. His book embarrassed him because its naive Young Earth Creationism gave the lie to such philosophical and scientific sophistication as he pretended to in his own speech. Yet, according to this recording, he made only one attempt to stop me and one additional interruption. I now suspect that the repeated appeals to the President must have occurred during the time it took to change the tape.
I suppose it is too much to hope that there is another recording out there? Or else somebody else who was present at the debate and can provide an independent memory to mine?
Richard

168. 1986 Oxford Union Debate

Comment #25463 by Richard Dawkins on March 13, 2007 at 10:44 am

24. Comment #25429 by George Dickeson on March 13, 2007 at 4:15 am "I thought that Dawkins' referring to the supporting side's other publishings was not really in the spirit of debate. Particularly when he mentions the fact that Edgar Andrews is a young-earth creationist. Doing so was nothing more than an ad hominem, since Andrews makes no reference to such a position in his speech."

It is precisely BECAUSE Andrews avoided mentioning his young earth creationism that it was necessary for me to do so. He was doing a typically duplicitous thing, cleaning up his act for a sophisticated (actually not so sophisticated as it turned out) Oxford audience. If he had changed his mind since writing the Young Earth book, that would be different. But he had not changed his mind. He was dishonestly pretending to be less of a wingnut than he really was.

Later that evening, at the drinks after the debate, Maynard Smith had a blazing row with Edgar Andrews, because of his dishonesty. It was the only time I ever saw that beloved man go positively RED with anger, and it was a splendid sight.

Richard

169. An apology to Peter Kay

Comment #25120 by Richard Dawkins on March 10, 2007 at 8:43 am

27. Comment #25118 by fenrisulven on March 10, 2007 at 8:33 am
"Why not just pick up the phone and talk to the guy? Talking via a newspaper seems like a detour."

Fenrisulven. It is not clear who think should pick up the phone, nor which guy he should be talking to. As far as I am concerned, the whole affair is now closed, and there is no need to talk about it any further to anyone. See my letter to kkant above. I have gone out of my way to tell the full story here, in an effort to dampen the fire down to cold embers, not blow it up into flames again. Please, let's all now let the matter drop. I really would be very grateful

Many thanks
Richard

170. An apology to Peter Kay

Comment #25115 by Richard Dawkins on March 10, 2007 at 7:58 am

Dear kkant.
Please don't write to the Guardian. Although I was very upset yesterday (actually more upset by the Daily Mail than by the Guardian) I think things are now settling down and with luck the whole business will be forgotten soon. I would hate it to be stirred up again. As I explained, it was not Jeevan Vasagar's fault that he was unable to speak to me to check his story. That was my responsibility for not having good procedures in place in my office. And the 'hired goons' were not employed by any particular newspaper. They were a publicity company hired by the Book Prize organization, who issued a Press Release which was then picked up by The Guardian. The publicity company were certainly over-zealous in their efforts to raise the profile of the Book Prize, but they have apologized to me very fulsomely, I have apologized to Peter Kay, and I think it really is now time to let it rest. I really would be sincerely and personally grateful if you would let things lie now.
Thank you
Richard

171. An apology to Peter Kay

Comment #25091 by Richard Dawkins on March 10, 2007 at 4:40 am

"Note the 'Peter Kay was unavailable for comment' bit. So, Jeevan - what did Richard Dawkins say when you phoned to put your planned story to him?"

Er, well, actually he did phone my office, but he didn't get to speak to me personally. My PA is delightfully loyal and protective. Most people love her cheery and friendly telephone manner but it can occasionally be a little, shall we say, in-your-face, especially when she encounters a pushy journalist. I wouldn't have her any other way (and it would be unfair to blame her for not realising the peculiarly delicate circumstances of this case) but it does mean that Jeevan Vasagar is not entirely to blame for his failure to speak to me. I think we won't see a repetition of this mistake.

Richard

172. Happy 50th Birthday to PZ Myers!

Comment #25086 by Richard Dawkins on March 10, 2007 at 3:25 am

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comment #24794 by cheshirecat: "William Mcgonagall lives again in the body of Richard Dawkins."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

William Topaz McGonagall (1825-1902) was a Scottish poet, whose most famous poem, the Tay Bridge Disaster, begins as follows (read it in a cultivated Scottish accent):

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

And here are some lines from later in the poem
(http://www.taynet.co.uk/users/mcgon/disaster.htm)

As soon as the catastrophe came to be known
The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown,
And the cry rang out all o'er the town,
Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down,
And a passenger train from Edinburgh,
Which fill'd all the people's hearts with sorrow . . .

Look at my own humble verse, and you'll see that I can't hold a candle to McGonagall. Some poets don't know how to rhyme; some poets don't know how to scan. McGonagall, with effortless mastery, doesn't know how to do either. My lines, I must reluctantly admit, both rhyme and scan. To make matters worse, my little effort includes literary conceits of which McGonagall would have been magnificently unaware. There's alliteration ("All around the World Wide Web, the wingnuts . . ."). The rhythm of the lines onomatopoeically evokes a horse's hooves drumming as it gallops in with the good news of PZ's birthday (reinforced by the use of the word 'drubbing'). The effect is enhanced, to my shame, by gratuitous little internal rhymes which McGonagall would have disdained to waste in this way (Pharyngula/singular, about/redoubt). In addition, the choice of the word 'redoubt' for PZ's castle subliminally recalls the 'sceptical' of the previous line. There's a frivolous joke on the pronunciation of Pepys, deliberately held over until the second line, so that that last word of the first line will appear temporarily mysterious, thereby enhancing the effect of the rhyme when all is finally revealed. The same mis-spelling device is echoed in the last two lines, building up to the increasingly anticipated climax of the honoree's name. It is hard to imagine any of these cheap literary tricks flowing from the insouciant pen of William McGonagall.

In short, Cheshirecat is too kind to me. He does McGonagall an injustice in suggesting that there is any resemblance between his verse and mine.

Richard Topaz Dawkins

173. Response to Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris

Comment #25056 by Richard Dawkins on March 10, 2007 at 12:13 am

It is very clear that he has not read any books by Sam or by me. I suspect that he is confusing TGD with the documentary Root of All Evil. Most probably he has not seen ROAE itself, but read a review of it. 'Picks on the worst of religion' was the commonest criticism of ROAE, and it frequently went with something like 'How would you like it if people judged science by picking on the worst examples of science?' I don't think anybody said that ROAE picked out the best examples of science, because it wasn't, after all, about science. But it would be easy for this idiot to misread the 'How would you like it if . . .' line in the way that he apparently has, assume that the film did that very thing, and then muddle the film with the book.


He is an American (real name Mark Hanson) who converted to Islam and took a fake Islamic name. Sounds more impressive doesn't it, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, than Mark Hanson? Does any psychologist or sociologist know if it is a standard thing people do, if they are too inadequate to make a success of themselves in their own culture -- change your identity and re-invent yourself, to see if people take you more seriously? It is very believable that somebody as palpably stupid as this would not make a name for himself as an ordinary American called Mark Hanson. But as Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, The Guardian describes him as "arguably the west's most influential Islamic scholar" and he is said to advise Bush on Islamic matters.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,564960,00.html

174. British Book Awards shortlists 2007

Comment #24863 by Richard Dawkins on March 9, 2007 at 12:14 am

35. Comment #24811 by atheisticism on March 8: "You publish articles far too frequently with what seems to be the sole purpose of . . ."
Atheisticism's remarks are addressed to me personally, so I should reply. He (or she) accuses me personally of publishing on this site articles that encourage sycophancy toward me.

I am distressed that you should think this, and I'd love to try and clear it up with you. Regulars know, I hope, that I don't publish anything here. I don't even know how to publish an article on this site. Publishing decisions are entirely out of my hands, but I am proud to notice that, far from encouraging sycophancy, this site conspicuously gives exposure to, for example, extremely hostile reviews of The God Delusion. Many people have remarked on how unusual this is. How often do you find a Christian website that publishes articles hostile to its aims? How many right wing political websites publish left wing articles in full? Or vice versa? I'd say this site gives more of a warts-and-all picture. Thanks, yet again, Josh.
Richard

175. Presentation on Atheism

Comment #22736 by Richard Dawkins on February 21, 2007 at 2:39 pm

"(So I admit it seems a bit mean of me to quibble about him using the Peppered Moth, when the research on it has been discredited.)"

Please always be cautious before repeating creationist propaganda. The worst you can say about Bernard Kettlewell's study is that he was working at a time when statistical methods were (universally) somewhat less rigorous than they are today. But 'discredited' is just a creationist slander, like the lie that Darwin had a deathbed conversion. The leading authority on industrial melanism today is Michael Majerus. See his book on the subject.

Richard

176. Foreword for the UK edition of 'Letter to a Christian Nation'

Comment #22718 by Richard Dawkins on February 21, 2007 at 6:14 am

44. Comment #22691 by Beth on February 20, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Has anyone the URL for the Rod Liddle review of Harris' book? DerrickB mentions that it is in the Sunday Times - but I've no luck located it.


Beth: Thanks for pointing out that we were never told the url of Liddle's review of Harris. For what it is worth (not a lot) you can see the review at
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_reviews/article1382617.ece
It is a joint review of Letter to a Christian Nation and Chris Hedges' book American Fascists. The heading of the review is The Blind Leading the Blind
Richard

177. Foreword for the UK edition of 'Letter to a Christian Nation'

Comment #22310 by Richard Dawkins on February 14, 2007 at 3:53 am

In response to eggplantbren from Australia (Comment #22304) I must apologize. I think I should not have called it the "British Edition". It is my understanding that the edition for which I have written the Foreword is intended for the Rest of the English-speaking World (i.e. apart from America). If I am right, it should be on sale in Australia, New Zealand, the Indian sub-continent and Anglophone Africa. Notice that Sam has amended the sentence I quoted:- "It is, therefore, not an exaggeration to say that if London, Sydney, or New York were suddenly replaced by a ball of fire . . ." The original American edition just had "New York."
Richard

178. Is God a Delusion? Atheism and the Meaning of Life

Comment #22000 by Richard Dawkins on February 12, 2007 at 8:30 am

Comment by Kristian Z
'Also, he claims that Dawkins's inclusion on the "top intellectuals list" was featured prominently in his book. Is it even mentioned at all? I can't remember reading it, and I can't find it when looking for it now. In any case, it cannot be very prominently featured.'

No it is most certainly NOT mentioned anywhere in the book. It is mentioned by the publisher, but that is nothing to do with the author, as McGrath himself obviously knows. Yet his clear intention in mentioning it must have been to imply that I had written it in the book itself. And the fact that the audience laughed indicated that they took exactly that implication. This is typical of McGrath's deceitful smear tactics.
Richard

179. The God Delusion

Comment #21904 by Richard Dawkins on February 11, 2007 at 3:09 pm

Dan Dennett has given us permission to post on this website a letter, which he has sent to H Allen Orr, in response to Orr's letter in the NYRB, reproduced now as a separate entry on this website (I have removed it from this thread).

180. The questions science cannot answer

Comment #21776 by Richard Dawkins on February 11, 2007 at 4:17 am

The following wonderful Comment is posted at
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article1361840.ece
It is by John Flemming, of Scunthorpe, and I just had to share it.
Richard

"What is life all about?"
It's not that no-one can find an answer, it's more that it isn't a valid question. Life isn't 'about' anything. It just is. It's a Monty Python sketch, without a punch-line. Enjoy it while it lasts.
John Flemming, Scunthorpe, UK

181. The questions science cannot answer

Comment #21766 by Richard Dawkins on February 11, 2007 at 3:15 am

I drafted a Letter to the Editor, replying to McGrath, and sent it to The Times yesterday. I have just heard that it will be published tomorrow, Monday 12th Feb, although with inevitable shortenings. I don't know whether they are running any other letters on the subject. Presumably the Letters page will be clickable somewhere on the Times website, which is www.timesonline.co.uk/

Richard

182. We all fund this torrent of Saudi bigotry

Comment #21628 by Richard Dawkins on February 10, 2007 at 7:57 am

I wrote to Johann Hari to congratulate him warmly on the above article. In his reply, he told me a nice story. As follows:-

"I have been meaning to get in touch because I was out in Jerusalem in December (my worst place on earth) for work and sitting by the wailing wall I saw a young guy in Orthodox Jewish robes sitting with all the other, wailing, shaking types, and I noticed over his shoulder that he was reading... The God Delusion!

I took him for a coffee and he said he was "having doubts" and the book was having a huge impact on him. I have forwarded him your e-mail address, I hope you don't mind.

Another mind rescued!

Best wishes
Johann"

183. Does Richard Dawkins exist?

Comment #21307 by Richard Dawkins on February 8, 2007 at 3:42 pm

Clever?

What's clever about it?

Even the accent sounds more like Peter Atkins than me, although I admit it is at least better than the one they used on South Park

Richard

184. Panel discussion on atheism where no atheists are included

Comment #21268 by Richard Dawkins on February 8, 2007 at 10:55 am

I just learned that CNN's plan for this evening has changed. My 20 minute interview will be edited down to about 4 minutes, and it will be followed by a panel discussion involving Christopher Hitchens (representing atheists) and two religious spokesmen.
Richard

185. Panel discussion on atheism where no atheists are included

Comment #21238 by Richard Dawkins on February 8, 2007 at 7:21 am

Various people on Pharyngula have made the point that it would have been better to have had American voices rather than my English one on CNN tonight. The same thought occurred to me yesterday, and I suggested some names, including Michael Newdow who was actually slandered by one of the morons on the previous program. Unfortunately, however, CNN were adamant that they wanted a one-on-one between me and Paula Zahn. So I'll just have to do the best I can, with apologies to those who could surely have done a better job. I think it is possible that CNN don't want to concentrate on American attitudes to atheists this time, so much as on atheism more generaly (I was told that Paula Zahn is reading The God Delusion).
Richard

186. Do stop behaving as if you are God, Professor Dawkins

Comment #20905 by Richard Dawkins on February 7, 2007 at 2:08 am

Alister McGrath has now written two books with my name in the title. The poet W B Yeats, when asked to say something about bad poets who made a living by parasitizing him, wrote the splendid line: "Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?"

187. Panel discussion on atheism where no atheists are included

Comment #20887 by Richard Dawkins on February 6, 2007 at 11:35 pm

Pulitzer prize? And there was I thinking the Pulitzer prize was some kind of high prestige, coveted award (even though non-Americans are ineligible). Does anybody have a soberly reasoned explanation for how a person of such monumental stupidity and ignorance could ever have won a Pulitzer prize?

Richard

188. Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #20092 by Richard Dawkins on January 31, 2007 at 10:24 am

Yesterday I finished reading her book 'Infidel'. Very moving, strongly recommended. This interview on Australian radio also shows that she is an extremely charming person (Although I had to grit my teeth to go on listening, so great is my somewhat irrational detestation of the historic present. The English language is blessed with a past tense (or three). Why not use it?)

This woman is a major hero of our time. Please read her book and, if you like it as I do, recommend it to others.
Richard

189. Randi and 800 Other Amazing Skeptics

Comment #19186 by Richard Dawkins on January 25, 2007 at 12:39 pm

If anybody else is tempted to confuse the atheist Christopher Hitchens with his religious brother Peter, just look at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1496347,00.html

And see this article by Christopher Hitchens
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_1_urbanities-steyn.html

Richard

190. Randi and 800 Other Amazing Skeptics

Comment #19111 by Richard Dawkins on January 25, 2007 at 3:09 am

Chris Davis wrote: "Hitchens, who regards evolution as an ingenious explanation which unfortunately doesn't convince his Catholicism. He deserves considerable praise for outing that wretched bitch Teresa, but he's a rather selective sceptic."

CD, you've picked on the wrong Hitchens. It was indeed Christopher Hitchens who exposed the hypocrisy of Mother Teresa. He is a staunch atheist. But it is his brother Peter who is religious. They don't get on.

191. Skyway to Heaven

Comment #18537 by Richard Dawkins on January 21, 2007 at 4:09 pm

Those who repeat these two urban legends might be suspected of undue gullibility -- until you reflect on the equivalent absurdity of the beliefs about the rapture that really are held by literally millions of people. These beliefs are more or less impossible to satirize.

Richard

192. Richard Dawkins' Report Card

Comment #17040 by Richard Dawkins on January 10, 2007 at 10:28 am

It is very kind of Poppythinks to come to my defence, thank you (Comment #17033). But I promise you I don't mind being described as an inky little boy, because I really was one and it was quite a long time ago. These school reports are not made up, they are absolutely genuine.

Richard

193. The Komodo Dragon's Tale

Comment #14938 by Richard Dawkins on December 27, 2006 at 1:56 am

Comment #14933 by jeremynel on December 26, 2006 at 11:35 pm . "But New Scientist failed to mention a third possibility..." Does that imply that RD is the first to (albeit theoretically) work out how the Komodo Dragon reproduced so?

Oh dear, no, how embarrassing that you should think so. I though I made it clear that I was reporting on a new paper in Nature. I mentioned New Scientist as the background -- what we thought before the new paper in Nature came along. Admittedly, I found the Nature paper a bit hard to understand. Had to read between the lines to work out what the authors were saying. Having done that work, I thought it would be a good idea to pass on the results. But there is nothing new in my article. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Richard

194. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #14853 by Richard Dawkins on December 26, 2006 at 2:09 am

John Cornwell has taken some stick for his impersonation of God. He is obviously a religious man, and his negativity towards The God Delusion may reflect his disappointment after his generous and positive review of my previous book, The Ancestor's Tale. The contrast between Cornwell's assessments of the two books reflects, in my view, the unique power of religion to distort an otherwise intelligent man's view of the world. But to him, no doubt, it reflects the need for scientists to stay firmly in their own field and not trespass into theology. Obviously I disagree profoundly, and I see the two books as part of a seamless continuum. But I thought it might be interesting to reproduce Cornwell's review of the other book here.
Richard


The Sunday Times - Books


September 12, 2004

The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins
REVIEWED BY JOHN CORNWELL


THE ANCESTOR'S TALE: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life
by Richard Dawkins

Weidenfeld £25 pp528

When Richard Dawkins was a small child in Africa, his father, detectable only by his luminous watch in the equatorial darkness, regaled Richard and his sister with bedtime stories as they lay under their mosquito nets. He told them of a "Broncosaurus" that lived "faaaaaaaaaaar away in a place called Gonwonky-land". Dawkins forgot about this until he learnt of the great southern continent known as Gondwanaland, or Gondwana. One hundred and fifty million years ago, Gondwanaland incorporated what we now know as South America, Africa, Arabia, Antarctica, Australasia, Madagascar and India. The southern tip of Africa was at that time in contact with a warm and wooded Antarctica, so there was a triangular gap between the east coast of Africa and north coast of Antarctica that was filled by India.

Dawkins goes on to relate that in the central region of Madhya Pradesh, where the Gonds live, there is a place called Gondwana; the word comes from the Sanskrit vana, which means land, or forest. The purpose of this mix of personal reminiscence, geography and language is the background it provides for Dawkins's discussion of the ratite, the flightless group of running and walking birds — such as ostriches, emus and cassowaries. The group, which also included the prodigious elephant bird, travelled and settled throughout the vast geographical expanse of that early continent, which explains how they have turned up, without being able to fly, as fossils and living survivors in regions now separated by the oceans. With allusions to the fables of Sinbad, and the giant moa (the elephant bird's rival for size), Dawkins wants us to know that his instincts as an evolutionary theorist would normally lead him to suppose that the ratite group emerged from parallel pressures of natural selection and adaptation in different places on the planet. "Alas," he writes, "this is not so. The true tale of the ratites . . . is a tale of Gondwana, and of continental drift or, as it is now called, plate tectonics."

Dawkins's new book, which is fabulous in many more ways than one, is a picaresque account of evolution running in reverse as a series of wondrous tales of explanation, from man to the amoeba, interspersed with anecdotes, and a huge circuit of reference to mythology, literature, nonsense verse and history. Lavishly illustrated, and brilliantly signposted, with something to amaze on every page, it will be a hard book for non-scientists to put down. There is not a scientist writing today who expounds his subject for the lay reader with such scintillating clarity and sheer politesse for the limits of the non-specialist.

Dawkins has cast his narrative as a kind of Chaucerian pilgrimage, with different groups and species telling their tales. He might just as well have taken the Arabian Nights tales as his model. The marvels, oddities and mysteries tumble out, one after another, with fascinating, sometimes hilarious asides: the origin of your prehensile tail, the infrared optics of pit snakes, the radar in the beak of the platypus, flying frogs, why humans are hairless (more or less), the phenomenon of lungfish, the peculiarity of the giant redwood (remember Ronald Reagan's "You've seen one, you've seen them all"), the wonky-eyed jewel fish, why westerners think Chinese people look more alike than westerners, the five-eyed crustacean of the Burgess Shale. And that big, vexing question: is evolution progressive? Is it value-free? In his discussion about anthropomorphic values, I loved his suggestion that an ancestor's tale written by an elephant would see "proboscitude" as the quintessence of progress.

His mischievousness is irrepressible, and certain to deny him a knighthood under a Labour government. Take his theory of our shift from quadruped to biped. Dawkins believes it was simply an ostentatious quirk, possibly the gimmick of a cocky male to show off his penis. Then it became contagious, as walks do; and he cites a special walk at his school, Oundle. As the senior boys paraded into the chapel, he tells us, they acted out a mixture of swagger and lumbering roll that behavioural bio- logists call "dominance display". Then comes a typical Dawkins aside. "At the time of writing," he declares, "the abject sycophancy of the British prime minister to the US president has earned him the title Bush's Poodle . . . he imitates Bush's macho cowboy swagger, with arms held out to the sides as though ready to reach for two pistols."

Despite the fun and the fantasy chit-chat between species and genes that abound, I am convinced that the serious student will find this book not only extremely useful but essential. A biologist colleague at Cambridge complains that, while it is admirable that every candidate for admission to the biological sciences has read at least one of Dawkins's books, the tragedy is that few of them have read anything else. His grievance, I suspect, should be less about Dawkins than the failure of his colleagues to write similarly readable studies.

This new book, however, makes generous and readable reference throughout the text to the research and ideas of a veritable army of biologists and other specialists in the fields of botany, zoology, ethnography, anthropology, neuroscience and natural history. Dawkins's acknowledgment of his researcher, Yan Wong, is everywhere apparent. I doubt whether Dawkins has ever written a book so eminently pluralist in the sense that he makes it clear on every page that evolutionary biology does not speak with a single and oracular voice.

It would not be a Dawkins work, of course, if he did not have a go at religion. "My objection to supernatural beliefs," he growls at the end of the book, "is precisely that they miserably fail to do justice to the sublime grandeur of the real world. They represent a narrowing down from reality, an impoverishment of what the real world has to offer." This is twaddle. Throughout the history of human kind it is precisely the sublime grandeur of the real world that has raised the hearts and minds of poets, musicians, mystics and religionists of every kind towards intimations of something beyond. It is strange that Dawkins, so sensitive to a wide range of mythology and literature, never picked that up from the psalms that he sang routinely as a choirboy. Had Dawkins taken a leaf out of Chaucer's book on the question of religion, he might have tempered his detestation with just a small degree of enlightened patience, if not understanding. But he is certainly right about one thing: the creationists' attempts to substitute Genesis for scientific explanation is not only ludicrous but dangerous.

Supernatural hobby-horses apart, I have just one serious quarrel with the book, which is the difficulty of reading it in bed. I note that at nearly 4kg it is a whole kilogram heavier than my hardback F N Robinson edition of The Works of Chaucer, which has twice as many pages and is printed on high-quality paper. Fans of Dawkins, and I now count myself as one of them, may wish to invest in a lectern.

195. The Courtier's Reply

Comment #14710 by Richard Dawkins on December 24, 2006 at 4:53 pm

Congratulations to P Z Myers on this brilliant piece of satire. It applies not just to Allen Orr's review in NYRB, but to all those many reviews of TGD that complain of my lack of reading in theology. My own stock reply ("How many learned books of fairyology and hobgoblinology have you read?") is far less witty.
Richard

196. 10 myths - and 10 truths - about atheism

Comment #14708 by Richard Dawkins on December 24, 2006 at 4:42 pm

Bravo Sam!
Richard

197. The Only One in Step

Comment #14518 by Richard Dawkins on December 23, 2006 at 1:07 am

Comment #14485 by Martha: "Richard Dawkins is right, but the question is, why does he feel compelled to PROVE himself right against his obviously stupid and ignorant opponents? When I know I am right about X Y or Z I just know it and that is all that matters, to me!"

Martha, you have a fair point. BUT. These are not ordinary creationist wingnuts. Both are professors at reputable universities, powerfully placed to influence hiring policy at those universities, and to influence successive generations of students. In Britain, 'Professor' doesn't just mean teacher as it does in some other countries. It means 'Head of Department' or of equivalent rank. McIntosh is actually Professor of Thermodynamics! On the Belfast radio show where I first encountered him a few weeks ago, one of the other contributors defended McIntosh's Young Earth Creationism by saying that it didn't affect his competence to teach his own subject. A creationist could teach thermodynamics but not biology, just as a flat earther could teach German but not geography. It was because of that that I went out of my way, on the same radio show, to Paxman him into confessing his belief that evolution contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. I repeated the point in the Letter to the Guardian which initiated the correspondence. That is the background to the article which heads this thread.
Richard

198. The Komodo Dragon's Tale

Comment #14436 by Richard Dawkins on December 22, 2006 at 12:37 pm

Thank you ldmiller for pointing out that 'selfing' has somehow, in every case, mysteriously, become 'selling'. I'm afraid I don't know how to fix it, but I'm hoping Josh will kindly do so soon. Apologies.

199. Sunday Sequence with William Crawley

Comment #14231 by Richard Dawkins on December 21, 2006 at 2:57 pm

On 19th December, the Guardian published a letter by me about Andrew McIntosh at
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1975176,00.html
The Guardian slightly shortened my original letter. The full version is as follows:-

The Editor
The Guardian

Sir

An organization calling itself 'Truth in Science' has recently used its (evidently large) financial resources to distribute DVDs promoting 'Intelligent Design' to all schools in the country. The leading scientist behind 'Truth in Science' is Andrew McIntosh, Professor of Thermodynamics at the University of Leeds. Professor McIntosh has repeatedly stated his view that the world is only 6000 years old. Given that all the scientific evidence points to approximately 4.6 billion years as the true age of Earth, the scale of Professor McIntosh's error is remarkable. It is equivalent to believing that the distance from New York to San Francisco is 7.6 yards. Not surprisingly, therefore, the University has issued the following official disclaimer:-

"Professor Andrew McIntosh's directorship of Truth in Science, and his promotion of that organisation's views, are unconnected to his teaching or research at the University of Leeds in his role as a professor of thermodynamics. As an academic institution, the University wishes to distance itself publicly from theories of creationism and so-called intelligent design which cannot be verified by evidence."

The University's claim that McIntosh's eccentric view of reality is unconnected with his teaching or research as a professor of thermodynamics sounds, at first sight, reasonable. However, in a broadcast conversation with me on BBC Belfast's Sunday Sequence programme on 10th December, Professor McIntosh publicly and clearly voiced his opinion that evolution is incompatible with the Second Law of Thermodynamics (for a recording of this encounter, see www.RichardDawkins.net). Since this demonstrates a clear connection between Professor McIntosh's creationist views and his understanding of thermodynamics, the University of Leeds will presumably need to revise its press release -- and perhaps look seriously at the terms of employment of Professor McIntosh.

Richard Dawkins
University of Oxford

200. The Blasphemy Challenge

Comment #14185 by Richard Dawkins on December 21, 2006 at 11:58 am

Peterg123 falsely states that I am offering a prize for blaspheming. I have never offered a prize for blaspheming, and I would never do so, not even one cent, let alone $25,000, the figure he mentions. The prize under discussion is being offered by the Rational Response Squad, an organization which is completely unconnected with me, and the amount they are offering is not $25,000 but one DVD worth $24.98.

Peterg, you are out by a factor of 1000 with respect to the value of the prize, and out by a factor of infinity with respect to its source. I am not the litigious type, but you are libelling me, it is damaging to my reputation, and I must ask you to stop doing it and apologize. You may think you are making a good point, but in any case you are spoiling it by lying about the source of the prize and the size of it.

Please apologize forthwith for the lies you have told.

Thank you
Richard Dawkins