Richard Dawkins

[Slothrop]

I think you're right; while I do ultimately think Dawkins's thesis is broadly correct (there is no God, and widespread belief to the contrary causes more harm than good - he wouldn't accept that it causes any good, of course) I don't think he's the best poster child for atheism because he just gets so fucking unpleasant about the whole business. I gather he's much better when writing about his actual field of expertise.

I think Phillip Pullman works better as a secularist poster boy - he's generally pleasant, avuncular, relaxed, can have a civilized and interesting chat with religionists, and writes books about armoured polar bears.

It is very refreshing to hear someone like Dawkins just be utterly blunt about religion, though, after years of "respecting" the beliefs of people who by dint of their beliefs show very little respect to anyone else. Jonathan Meades is the same.

 

[grizzleb]

There's a difference though. Dawkins is shrill and pathological wheras Meades's dismissive attitude prompts just that, the subject is mentioned and passed over in a glance.

 

[DannyL]

Dawkins' bluntness lose it's power for me, 'cos I see it as part of a power-game establishing the authority of science. This isn't only something he does whilst attacking religion - several of his books echos this thread in part with predicatable slaggings off of Contential philosphy - he cites the Sokal hoax in Unweaving the Rainbow, IIRC. There's something else I read where he was misquoting an unamed philiopher really as believing the moon was a calbash in the sky 'cos he took some the myths of a tribal people seriously. Can't remember where though unfortunately.

Re: Pullman, one reason I like him is because of the way he writes about adolescent relationships and sexuality. The relationship between Lyra and Will in the "Dark Materials" trilogy is pretty clearly written to affirm sexuality, while showing how complex and difficult relationships can be. Given his core audience are teens, I think this is fantastic stuff, and I'm pretty sure he's writing it as a riposte to Christian attitudes. The Church in those books is basically a castrating force.

And (pesonal eccentricity and prejudices admitted) it seems pretty clear he's dabbled with the I Ching as well, which is surprising for an atheist, but makes me view him favourably.

 

[Mr. Tea]

There's a difference though. Dawkins is shrill and pathological wheras Meades's dismissive attitude prompts just that, the subject is mentioned and passed over in a glance.

Yep, Meades just accepts the nonexistence of God as a given - and then delivers a brilliantly incisive mini-lecture about church architecture.

JM's dismissive attitude is important in that it flies in the face of accepted liberal mores that beliefs themselves, quite apart from the people who hold beliefs, have to be "respected". A few years ago, religious tolerance meant just that, tolerance - if you tolerate something it means you accept its existence and put up with it without necessarily approving of it. So it was expected of us that we'd respect each others' rights to hold whatever beliefs we may have, which is fair enough of course, as long as we're not talking about neo-Nazis or whatever. But at some point this changed, and it became important to respect beliefs themselves. Which is total horseshit.

 

[comelately]

Sokal is interesting in that he was/is 'an unabashed Old Leftist who never quite understood how deconstruction was supposed to help the working class'. Perhaps not a million miles away from Dawkins. As was conceded earlier, a lot of science has became a bit of a money-seeking hustle - I think it would be fair to say that this has increased (along with an increase in managerialism in academia) heavily since the Sokal affair. I think it's easier to be a left-wing empiricist or a realist or whatever when one is working outside a capitalist framework with a large amount of academic freedom, but without that academic freedom, it looks like an increasingly self-defeating position to take. The aforementioned 'realist' Glen Newey seems to question much about liberalism whilst being a strong defender of academic freedom, and although I think this position is problematic I understand why he sees that defence as a key part of his 'project'.

 

[luka]

i dot know comelately.maybe when you get bored of this you can talk to me becasue at the moment you are talking a different lagnuage to your interlocutors. its a language they havent learnt. there are specific things you have said that i would want to home in on. maybe we can talk about those things, the more interesting things, and elaborate on them. the 'facts' discussion is in my opinon a waste of time.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yeah, he's better off ignoring us dinlos. We're a bit fick.

 

[luka]

dont be over sensitive. its not the point i was trying to make. if you talked in some esoteric science language could we follow you?

 

[luka]

of course not. remember your friend the laser researcher? on facebook? he couldnt follow a simple article in a newspaper. he thought 'materialism' meant craving material commodities, like diamond rings. does that make him thick? no, cetainly not. it just means he hadnt learnt the lagnuage. he didnt knw how to read. i dnt know much about lazers.

 

[luka]

i dont expect to be clevr in evey way humans can be clever. why do you? comelately has studied philo you havent.why do you think you can compete with him on his terrortority. its inane.

 

[Mr. Tea]

It's alright, I was just messing about.

I appreciate that CL has studied philosophy at a high level and I haven't - in fact I haven't studied it at all really, I've just picked up ideas from things I've read and stuff I've talked about with friends who have studied it. But he's taken it upon himself to critique science from a philosophical POV, which is fine when one philosopher is talking to another but gets a bit problematic when a philosopher says to a scientist "There are no facts! And induction is fundamentally flawed!" and the scientist goes "huh?"...

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

never quite understood how deconstruction was supposed to help the working class

how does it the help the working class exactly? actually, how does it help anyone or anything except the careers of people like zizek? not that it has to help anyone, but you'd think it'd be nice if it was useful for something.

As was conceded earlier, a lot of science has became a bit of a money-seeking hustle...I think it would be fair to say that this has increased heavily since the Sokal affair.

that was never conceded, at least not by me. certainly it is true to a degree but the relationship between raising money, the actual scientific work, and various other factors (careerist pressure on grad students + post-docs, the frequently iffy relationship between academic research + the private sector, etc) is highly complex, certainly much more so than you're making it seem. also, no offense, I am almost completely sure you don't know (in the actual sense, not in the are facts real sense) enough about it to make such broad, sweeping, vague statements. the issues with fundraising have been present for a long, long time. what basis exactly do you have for saying they have "increased heavily"?

also, again, this is pretty much a one-sided dialogue. things like sokal are an aberration. among the researches I've known there is an almost universal contempt for the social sciences (more than for philosophy I think, since it generally doesn't claim to be a "science", derrida-esque misappropriations of mathematical concepts aside) but it is pretty mild. no one cares about "false authority" or any of that, or deconstructionism, or whatever.

 

[luka]

i guess all i am trying to say is youve been going in circles for 50 pages.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

its a language they havent learnt

I'm pretty sure you all don't speak the language of molecular biology but I manage to talk about science without resorting to that language. if you can't express your ideas in ways that make sense to people outside your expertise what is the point talking of talking to anyone without that training?

 

[luka]

canyou talk about moleculur biology in laymans language?

 

[luka]

dont try and answer that.
woudl anyone try and pick a fight with you about mlecular boiloogy?
dont try and answer that.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

also just quickly in re: dawkins. I don't much care about him one way or the other. he does seem like a massive, massive asshole. normally I am a fan of unapologetic assholes (especially in sports, i.e. bill belichick or kobe bryant. or MJ) but not in this case. also he's a very smart dude but I'd agree he seems to flounder badly the further he gets from talking about actual biology. I'm as stanch an atheist as can be but he's not my spokesman, nor is he the emperor of atheists. he ain't doing us many favors either with his freaking smugness.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

^I could but you're right why would I. I was just making a point about jargon + expressing ideas.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

science in academia is for sure a hall of mirrors but so is everything in academia

 

[luka]

i think this thread is a wasted opportuity to a degree. there are ideas hinted at that havent been elaborated on. ps. padraif if you have interesting things to say about m.bio say them, no one will pick a fight with you.