Richard Dawkins - Anti -Christ or Great Thinker?

Like, sure, make the argument that 'date rape' should have a differential length of sentence to 'rape at knifepoint' if you want, but maybe wait until people are being regularly convicted and jailed for both.

I agree with the comment upthread that he appears to have extremely limited emotional intelligence - the initial comments, the "because of LOGIC" justification and the subsequent "go away and learn how think" (subtext = "think in the exact same way as me") all indicate a profound inability to understand or relate to how other people's minds work.

All three are ridiculous but the second bit is especially so given there isn't the slightest bit of logic to his initial pronouncement.

I mean if you overlook the fact that he's a brilliant biologist his general standard of debate is if anything lower than that of most of our less self-aware posters.

but does anyone disagree with the idea that crimes in the same category can have different degrees of badness

not at all! simply disagree with notion that some universal notion of LOGIC can discern them.

Let's remember he got into this from the angle that not all child molestation is equal and moved on to rape as a friendlier example

Let's remember he's already got form in saying that some child molestation is actually OK.

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/10/richard_dawkins_defends_mild_pedophilia_says_it_does_not_cause_lasting_harm/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFNs2mOkKzc

This might be my favourite Dawkins tweet.

https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/448240882710757376

nothing could top 'can pig feel more?'

my beef with dawkins is simply that his interest in things like "science" and "logic" seems to end as soon as he can use them to make poorly judged and trollish pronouncements about things that have almost nothing to do with science or logic.

I think my favourite part of the "can pig feel more" tweet stream is quite early on in it: " "I dare you to say that to a broken hearted woman who has miscarried." She would not have an abortion anyway, so irrelevant."

This guy is clueless. https://richarddawkins.net/2014/07/are-there-emotional-no-go-areas-where-logic-dare-not-show-its-face/

The thing is, rape is not a taboo topic. Comparing kinds of rape is not a taboo topic either. It's actually eminently worth discussing, since such comparisons already permeate the culture ('legitimate rape' and such). But they are very difficult topics, ones that you can't just blunder into. They require a lot of tact, and a lot of sensitivity. Dawkins shows none, and the conclusion he draws is that the discussion must be taboo.

Also bullshit demarcation between reason and emotion, yadda yadda

"emotional no go areas" --> "I have zero emotional intelligence"

Just when you thought rape, robbery and paedophilia were the only topics in this debate, Dawkins writes a blog post which adds eugenics, abortion, cannibalism, FGM, paedophilia (slight return), trapped miners, organ transplants and tramps, and the Gaza conflict. Then starts digging about why he chose rape as his topic.

https://richarddawkins.net/2014/07/are-there-emotional-no-go-areas-where-logic-dare-not-show-its-face/

haha xpost

I wonder if he's kind of actually losing his marbles. That blog post has a real crazy old man pamphlet feel to it.

I'm still trying to work out precisely why I find Dawkins so loathsome but give a free pass to Jonathan Meades who shares a lot of his knee jerk anti-clericism, anti-Muslim bigotry and PC-baiting challops on 'victim culture', 'special pleading', colonialism, etc. idk, Emotional intelligence is definitely part of its but there's clearly more. Humour, maybe?

i've never heard Meades claim to have incontrovertible access to the FACTS because he done SCIENCE

That's true.

humour helps def

it's not the opinions themselves, fuck knows they're mostly held by millions of rotten-hearted dirtbags, but Dick's continual harping on his rationalism and smarts to give the opinions weight, despite the increasing evidence that he has a very idiosyncratic view of what philosophy and rationalism are

yeah recognising his opinions are within a theoretical model, which makes them contingent v different from Dawkins's ex cathedra entitlement.

(xpost on Meades)

New Atheism really needs fresh talent. It's a much dweebier lot without Hitchens around.

Meades is often talking mainly about food, architecture or art, with the politics as an aside, and he has a way of stating his political opinions as suggestions rather than assertions

He also just knows more about the situations he has opinions on

the frustrating thing about a figure like Dawkins having such a big voice in political or cultural affairs is, to me, his insistence that what we need to be having is an argument over first principles (which "rationalism and logic" can solve) rather than more pragmatic arrangements.

you might describe this position as "fundamentalist"

or just "idiotic"

Looking at the blog post (the blog is better than the twitter feed, perhaps he doesn't 'read' tweets in the way that we do),

Some students are capable of temporarily accepting a noxious hypothetical, to explore where it might lead. Others are so blinded by emotion that they cannot even contemplate the hypothetical. They simply stop up their ears and refuse to join the discussion.

There are those whose love of reason allows them to enter such disagreeable hypothetical worlds and see where the discussion might lead. And there are those whose emotions prevent them from going anywhere near the conversation.

Yes and there are also a lot of people who do not fit into either side of this rational/emotional distinction you're setting up. In fact, quite often, the same person might be quite happy to logically discuss 'disagreeable hypothetical worlds' in one case, but not at all in another case. Likely to depend very much on the time and the place and how closely the hypothetical affects them personally.

And also on the way the discussion is introduced. Ie. 'go away and learn how to think' mainly proves that the original poster is an asshole, the response doesn't really prove anything.

xp

While we're on the subject, let's not be too harsh on the Emotional People (as Dawkins implies - the Emotional People set up petty kingdoms of Emotion where Logical People are second-class citizens), because I'm pretty sure there are some people on the other side, Logical People whose adherence to thinking logically or 'logically' prevents them from entering the world of emotion at all and hence they end up not really knowing themselves

and also 'reason' in this case is a pretense and capital-R Reason is a fiction.

also what he posits as LOGICAL FACT! are actually based on emotional responses... His own views on "mild pedophilia" are based on his feelings about it, nothing objective or particularly logical.

people who say "go away and learn how to think" = people who "simply stop up their ears and refuse to join the discussion"

every year he becomes more of a mean parody of a boy

love his references to the hypothetical trapped miners and the hypothetical showbiz personality accused of child molestation but was disappointed when he didn't go all the way and genericize the israel/palestine graf

really hoping he weighs in with some RATIONAL LOGIC on Israel/Palestine

we do however get the "hypothetical intra-uterine poet" whose mother shrieks for his death

here you go:

Israeli friends have said to me things like, “We needed a Jewish state because, after the Holocaust, we realised that nobody else was going to look after us, we’d have to look after ourselves. Jews have been downtrodden for too long. From now on, we Jews are going to stand tall and take care of ourselves.” To which, on one occasion, I replied, “Yes, of course I sympathise with that, but can you explain why Palestinian Arabs should be the ones to pay for Hitler’s crimes? Why Palestine? You surely aren’t going to stoop to some kind of biblical justification for picking on that land rather than, say, Bavaria or Madagascar?” My friend earnestly said, “Richard, I think we had better just terminate this conversation.” I had blundered into another taboo zone, a sacred emotional sanctuary where discussion is forbidden.

great because it is oblivious to but nevertheless allows you to pinpoint exactly the moment where the other guy realizes richard dawkins wants to talk to him about torah

"what's the problem, all I want to do is talk about how wrong and stupid you are!"

Yes, of course I sympathise with that, but can you explain why Palestinian Arabs should be the ones to pay for Hitler’s crimes? Why Palestine?

gee I dunno let's ask the British govt

He reminds me a lot of Curtis White's latest book, _The Science Delusion_, where he talks about a lot of the New Atheist types moving their attacks on religion to attacking the humanities in general. There's a point about how you have all these vocal militant types making grand pronouncements about how truth only knowable thru science; in other words, continually making philosophical and sociological statements attacking philosophy and sociology, and having no idea that they're actually doing so, or even how to do so.

The book's worth reading, if a bit cranky at times

The rational/emotional dichotomy Dawkins sets up isn't even scientific: it's a fairly standard trope in modern neuroscience that "rational" thinking involves in large part the creation of post-facto justifications for judgements that are arrived at with significant input from emotions, biases and other unconscious or subconscious influences. Neurologically, the limbic system, amygdala and other areas involved in "emotion" are required for normal human decision making -- patients with major damage to those areas do not become hyperrational Spocks, or even Dawkins-style tinpot philosophers. There is evidence from a broad array of other fields that cognition is embodied, experienced, personal.

Only a truly great fool (and Dawkins, IMO, is right up there, fool-wise) would believe he knows enough about how other people think and experience their ideas to say something like "go away and learn how think" to someone who disagrees with him, especially when the topic of dispute involves an intensely personal experience (rape) that for all he knows is shared by many of the same people he is trying to belittle convince.

kingfish, I'll look up that "Science Delusion" book, sounds like my kind of thing.

is it possible that dawkins is just not that intelligent

not like 'emotionally intelligent' or some such thing but just not particularly intelligent

http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/snoop.gif

duh

that his academic success, whatever that entailed, was a sort of benevolent accident and that mostly his cognitive level is around that of the average red dwarf fan and progressive metal blogger

i don't really know his area of expertise and i've known too many ppl who were geniuses in one area and morons in every other area to just write him off.

once you get to a certain point, academic success just kind of happens to you if you're diligent and fortunate

think about it, how hard is it really to succeed at high school, or college