I have poked fun at Giles Fraser on this blog for his frivolous, attention-seeking resignation over the obviously non-imminent threat of violence against the camping crusties at St Paul's, but I have to hand to him for this demolition of the increasingly silly Richard Dawkins on Radio 4's Today programme.
Dawkins could have gone down in history as a great populariser of science and an important evolutionary theorist, but with every new public announcement he increases the likelihood that he'll be remembered as an extremist clown and figure of fun. He's daily blowing his legacy.
I sort of lost interest in him after his comments about Rebecca Watson.
ReplyDeleteOSM
yep I heard that story on the radio and the first thought that sprang to mind was 'what a plonker'
ReplyDeleteAlthough he is now claiming he was "ambushed". I know. Unbelievable. It is, of course, so UNFAIR to be hoisted by one's own petard.
ReplyDeleteBrit, I think you may be letting the apples piling up in your yard get underfoot. Dawkins' legacy will of course depend on the religious bearing of posterity. I suspect he's more in tune with the coming age than ours. He belongs to that glorious tradition of people who annoy the current day by giving it a load of the future - and the future usually remembers them fondly for it. Regardless, it's a big painful stretch to call him an 'extremist clown' for commissioning a poll and discussing its data.
ReplyDeleteHis zeitgeist has already peaked - the atheist bus. As for the 'research', Fraser exposed the central fallacy with an elegance and precision that will have him chuckling and Dawkins wincing for the rest of their days.
ReplyDeleteReally? You don't think Dawkins' stances on faith schools, science lessons, medicine and religion in politics will be norms in a handful of generations? This poll suggests otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI think you're too readily dazzled with a stunt. The poll data is clear and Fraser's theatrical indignation was just diversionary noise to draw attention away from it. Dawkins must be delighted.
lurker #67
ReplyDeleteThe "poll data" - but not his press release - also revealed that only 6% claimed not to believe in a God.
Lurker, our analyses are at variance, so that's that really.
ReplyDeleteAh, the Future, the final sanctuary of us all.
ReplyDeleteGood thing it's easily predictable and not at all surprising.