― Pete S, Monday, 17 November 2003 00:59 (twenty years ago) link
― ryan (ryan), Monday, 17 November 2003 01:13 (twenty years ago) link
― Pete S, Monday, 17 November 2003 01:18 (twenty years ago) link
― ryan (ryan), Monday, 17 November 2003 01:21 (twenty years ago) link
― ryan (ryan), Monday, 17 November 2003 01:23 (twenty years ago) link
your mileage may vary.
― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 17 November 2003 01:24 (twenty years ago) link
― teeny (teeny), Monday, 17 November 2003 01:27 (twenty years ago) link
*And of course Newton was a kabbalist/alchemist/rosicrucian.
― Pete S, Monday, 17 November 2003 01:36 (twenty years ago) link
― dave q, Monday, 17 November 2003 10:07 (twenty years ago) link
We should! If you don't you are twee.
― Sam (chirombo), Monday, 17 November 2003 10:12 (twenty years ago) link
― Citizen Kate (kate), Monday, 17 November 2003 10:12 (twenty years ago) link
― Sam (chirombo), Monday, 17 November 2003 10:13 (twenty years ago) link
― Citizen Kate (kate), Monday, 17 November 2003 10:16 (twenty years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 17 November 2003 10:16 (twenty years ago) link
I've not read his books but I've heard him speak a couple of times and he very good at finding the level of his audience and pitching a very clear concise argument at them.
― Ed (dali), Monday, 17 November 2003 10:40 (twenty years ago) link
― Citizen Kate (kate), Monday, 17 November 2003 10:41 (twenty years ago) link
― Ed (dali), Monday, 17 November 2003 10:42 (twenty years ago) link
― Citizen Kate (kate), Monday, 17 November 2003 10:49 (twenty years ago) link
can someone spell out to me what this means? i know they defend against this with SCIENCE but there is something bizarre about the whole 'socialism is impossible because we are all inately selfish' line propped up by pinker, john gray, dawkins.
― enrique (Enrique), Monday, 17 November 2003 10:55 (twenty years ago) link
Of course, I'm not explaining that right because Dawkins is a genius and I'm not. But it's all about the Evolutionarily Stable Strategem.
― Citizen Kate (kate), Monday, 17 November 2003 10:59 (twenty years ago) link
― enrique (Enrique), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:03 (twenty years ago) link
― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:05 (twenty years ago) link
Dawkins stresses that TSG is not as negative as it sounds, and points out 1) many ways in which altruism is an ESS, and 2) that we have the self knowledge and therefore the ability to *not* be fatalistic about selfishness.
― Citizen Kate (kate), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:08 (twenty years ago) link
― enrique (Enrique), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:12 (twenty years ago) link
I mean, misunderstanding number one is that "the selfish gene" means that somehow there is a "gene for selfishness" which we all have. When the title of the book refers to the fact that it is the actual chromosomes which are selfish, yet are able to express themselves in ways that are not selfish to the *individual*.
― Citizen Kate (kate), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:14 (twenty years ago) link
― Sam (chirombo), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:16 (twenty years ago) link
One thing I think we could probably all agree on is that Dawkins is better than Matt Ridley.
― Sam (chirombo), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:22 (twenty years ago) link
Whenever i see his stupid pointed smug head on tv i want to tear it apart.
― Pete S, Monday, 17 November 2003 12:20 (twenty years ago) link
― Pete S, Monday, 17 November 2003 12:22 (twenty years ago) link
Richard Dawkins is a nasty man because he says its all a result of mechanical process'.
― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Monday, 17 November 2003 13:07 (twenty years ago) link
― Pete S, Monday, 17 November 2003 13:22 (twenty years ago) link
― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Monday, 17 November 2003 13:54 (twenty years ago) link
― Pete S, Monday, 17 November 2003 13:56 (twenty years ago) link
― Chris B. Sure (Chris V), Monday, 17 November 2003 13:57 (twenty years ago) link
― Chris B. Sure (Chris V), Monday, 17 November 2003 13:58 (twenty years ago) link
*explodes with rage*
DAWKINS HAS NEVER SAID THIS. In fact he has repeatedly and vigorously pointed out that this is not the case.
It really bugs me how someone whose most famous book was an attempt to explain altruistic behaviour in animals is regularly accused of promoting selfish behaviour in humans on the basis of the books bloody TITLE. READ THE FUCKING BOOK ALREADY!
― Ricardo (RickyT), Monday, 17 November 2003 14:01 (twenty years ago) link
― Citizen Kate (kate), Monday, 17 November 2003 14:02 (twenty years ago) link
Dawkins is left-wing and there's even some OTT sentence about how 'we alone in the animal kingdom have developed the power to overthrow the tyranny of our genes'. He also points out that we do this everytime we use a condom. Or was it have a wank? I can't remember.
― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 17 November 2003 14:05 (twenty years ago) link
― Ricardo (RickyT), Monday, 17 November 2003 14:07 (twenty years ago) link
― enrique (Enrique), Monday, 17 November 2003 14:07 (twenty years ago) link
― Pete S, Monday, 17 November 2003 14:07 (twenty years ago) link
― Ricardo (RickyT), Monday, 17 November 2003 14:10 (twenty years ago) link
― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 17 November 2003 14:11 (twenty years ago) link
― Pete S, Monday, 17 November 2003 14:12 (twenty years ago) link
― Pete S, Monday, 17 November 2003 14:13 (twenty years ago) link
― Momus (Momus), Monday, 17 November 2003 14:14 (twenty years ago) link
― Dale the Titled (cprek), Monday, 17 November 2003 14:15 (twenty years ago) link
wha? everyone advocates skepticism. it's a friggin skeptical world.
― enrique (Enrique), Monday, 17 November 2003 14:19 (twenty years ago) link
― Momus (Momus), Monday, 17 November 2003 14:20 (twenty years ago) link
Xp to self.
But back to the point: there are, for example, Christian militias in Africa who rival their Islamic militia competitors for violence and abuses of human rights; there are in America, and Dawkins knows there are, extremely potent right wing Christian groups some of whom are like African or Middle Eastern militias, just white, and as it were waiting in the wings for the conditions to come right.
Obviously what he says in the article is a throwaway, but it's also a give away imo
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Tuesday, 25 December 2018 23:12 (five years ago) link
Taoism has a text that negates itself. Zen has texts that attempt a similar negation. Most animism is purely orally transmitted.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 25 December 2018 23:13 (five years ago) link
I really don't get how you can say the Quran is the most coherent text if you've read them all? Yeah, the Torah is composed over a much longer period, but that final editing is pretty tight. And for all the contradictions, the four gospels are remarkably similar, and are pretty obviously based on similar sources (like, say, oral or written testimony about the actual life of Jesus...) The Quran, on the other hand, seems unplanned, chaotic, verging from idea to idea, subject to subject, without at all cohering. Nor trying to.
I'm not saying it's the most coherent text. I'm saying it's the most consistent in its drive towards formalist rather than narrative coherence due to its greater emphasis on self-referentiality as well as, tangentially, its purportedly single authorship and shorter compositional period. In repeatedly doubling back on itself, it asserts its status as the Book of Books even more forcefully than its predecessors. It strikes me as more aware of itself, as it were, which makes sense given its historical position relative to the the other two scriptures. Incidentally, I don't agree that the Torah's final editing is tight and that the Gospels are remarkably similar, but that's a minor quibble – I see where you're coming from. Anyway, I'm fascinated with the Quran's attempts at tempering its own chaos. Whether these attempts are successful (and whether they need to be) is a different matter.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 25 December 2018 23:22 (five years ago) link
Of course the reading – and especially its political variant – is the most important thing. But I'm not convinced that a text is merely what you, the reader, make of it. Maybe I'm biased, but it seems overly dismissive of its singularity, its rhetorical force, which does at least create a context, no matter how feeble, for how you may or may not exert power.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 25 December 2018 23:25 (five years ago) link
Does Dawkins ever talk about this stuff btw? Or he is always like 'you contradicted yourself there, lulz I pwned you again'?
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 25 December 2018 23:27 (five years ago) link
He tends to think literalism is the intended reading of religious texts, and that people who follow the religions in a non literal way are faking it or making excuses.
The idea I think is that ancient times people were all ignorant and superstitious, and must have intended these texts as literally true, because they were really stupid.
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Tuesday, 25 December 2018 23:43 (five years ago) link
Yes that is a key problem w his thinking
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 25 December 2018 23:47 (five years ago) link
I do wonder sometimes whether the key ingredient to becoming a public 'intellectual' is relinquishing nuance and strawmanning the shit out of your opponents, thus making yourself look like a smug cretin, which you probably are anyway.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 25 December 2018 23:51 (five years ago) link
Yup. He's also an example of post 9/11 literature.
'But I'm not convinced that a text is merely what you, the reader, make of it.'
Sure. What it says on the page does matter, and we will struggle to 180 it, but ...
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Tuesday, 25 December 2018 23:54 (five years ago) link
Same goes for legal texts, which overlap with religious ones obviously. All of it is liable to get 180'd but part of the process of writing laws is trying to ensure that it won't happen. Always in vain, of course, but to varying degrees.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 25 December 2018 23:57 (five years ago) link
In the last two days Dawkins has tweeted about eugenics ("It would definitely work on people, just look at cows and dogs!") and cannibalism ("We could culture meat made out of humans!") I don't think he's OK.
Human steak could of course be cultured. Would you eat it? I wouldn’t, but it’s hard to say why. It would be cultured from a single nameable person. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall served human placenta, also clone of 1 person, in this case the baby. I wouldn’t eat that either.— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) February 18, 2020
It’s one thing to deplore eugenics on ideological, political, moral grounds. It’s quite another to conclude that it wouldn’t work in practice. Of course it would. It works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs & roses. Why on earth wouldn’t it work for humans? Facts ignore ideology.— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) February 16, 2020
― Bougy! Bougie! Bougé! (Eliza D.), Tuesday, 18 February 2020 18:57 (four years ago) link
I've given it some thought and I'm finally about ready to land on "great thinker". Now time to see what this revive's about and take a big sip from my mug of liberal tears....
― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Tuesday, 18 February 2020 19:01 (four years ago) link
I wouldn’t, but it’s hard to say why.
This sounds an awful lot like superstitious thinking to me.
BURN THE WITCH
― Sammo Hazuki's Tago Mago Cantina (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 18 February 2020 19:04 (four years ago) link
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
― mark s, Tuesday, 18 February 2020 19:09 (four years ago) link
It works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs & roses. Why on earth wouldn’t it work for humans?
The types of genetic selection practiced on cows, horses, pigs, dogs and roses aim at highly simplistic outcomes attached to increasing their utility to humans, or just to gratify human whimsicality. That is the measure of what "works".
Subjecting humans to genetic selection to increase their utility to other humans, or to gratify human whims, would fall under the heading of treating those subjects as property, which may well be classified as "ideological, political, moral grounds", but these categories address the question Dawkins studiously avoids, namely who would benefit when eugenics "worked"?
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 18 February 2020 19:17 (four years ago) link
Yeah, exactly, to say that something 'works' requires some sort of ideological, political, or moral paradigm in the first place to define what ends the thing is supposed to work towards. It's not a purely factual thing. One would think an evolutionary biologist would know better. (Ofc, it's also questionable how well breeding works in all of those other cases, even on its terms.)
― With considerable charm, you still have made a choice (Sund4r), Tuesday, 18 February 2020 19:31 (four years ago) link
Maybe this is what people were trying to get at in the other thread idk.
― With considerable charm, you still have made a choice (Sund4r), Tuesday, 18 February 2020 19:33 (four years ago) link
I believe that we can selectively breed human beings such that, within a generation or two, we all look like Mr. Peanut. And yes, the monocle and top hat will be part of the genetic package.
― Sammo Hazuki's Tago Mago Cantina (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 18 February 2020 19:35 (four years ago) link
*even on its own terms
― With considerable charm, you still have made a choice (Sund4r), Tuesday, 18 February 2020 19:36 (four years ago) link
on the other thread we are mainly just clowning a permanently silly man tbf
― mark s, Tuesday, 18 February 2020 19:37 (four years ago) link
Ha, I meant the race thread, didn't know there was another thread about Dawkins.
― With considerable charm, you still have made a choice (Sund4r), Tuesday, 18 February 2020 19:40 (four years ago) link
"Eugenics: it works, bitches" - Richard Dawkins
― jmm, Tuesday, 18 February 2020 19:49 (four years ago) link
He probably means ‘works’ in terms of population growth? I’m guessing there’s more cats & dogs than there used to be.
― badg, Tuesday, 18 February 2020 19:50 (four years ago) link
He expanded that what he meant was that just as we can breed cows to produce more milk, we could breed humans to run faster - but of course, he deplores the idea of eugenics; he's just stating the facts.
― With considerable charm, you still have made a choice (Sund4r), Tuesday, 18 February 2020 19:52 (four years ago) link
i really don't think we need to give him the benefit of having a clue what he's saying
― babby bitter (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 18 February 2020 19:52 (four years ago) link
Richard Dawkins is just a racist guy online, the things he says don’t have to mean anything
― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Tuesday, 18 February 2020 20:05 (four years ago) link
this fuckin dummy
Dawkins has spent much of his career calling anyone who believes in God or who studies religion a huge dumbass, so pivoting to being an anti-“war on Christmas” guy is.... something. pic.twitter.com/pBcEZH3taQ— hannah gais (@hannahgais) December 24, 2020
― early-Woolf semantic prosody (Hadrian VIII), Thursday, 24 December 2020 03:18 (three years ago) link
His performative atheism has taken second place to his actual racism for years
― Uptown Top Scamping (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 24 December 2020 07:44 (three years ago) link
dreaming of a white holiday huh
― Wayne Grotski (symsymsym), Thursday, 24 December 2020 08:35 (three years ago) link
Great Thinker.
― Fizzles, Thursday, 24 December 2020 08:59 (three years ago) link
believes in the very real objective science of calipers and bell curves
― Uptown Top Scamping (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 24 December 2020 09:15 (three years ago) link
for dawk so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son (the word "meme")
― mark s, Thursday, 24 December 2020 09:45 (three years ago) link
I would like to approach Richard with the idea of a "Dawkins Reacts" youtube channel, reckon there's a decent amount of grift out there currently up for grabs.
― ٩(͡๏̯͡๏)۶ (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 24 December 2020 09:57 (three years ago) link
I guess it's irrational anger about something innocuous and I would never write an asinine tweet about it... but i loathe "happy holidays".
― ledge, Thursday, 24 December 2020 10:16 (three years ago) link
it comes from a place of acknowledging that significant numbers of your population have a non-Christian faith tho
― Uptown Top Scamping (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 24 December 2020 10:24 (three years ago) link
happy holidays ledge
― Left, Thursday, 24 December 2020 10:49 (three years ago) link
dick dork has always been a white supremacist first
― Left, Thursday, 24 December 2020 10:51 (three years ago) link
yeah i sometimes feel inappropriate saying happy xmas but I can't bear the americanism, sorry to be racist against americans.
― ledge, Thursday, 24 December 2020 11:04 (three years ago) link
it doesn't work in a UK context because "holidays" means something different here.
― ٩(͡๏̯͡๏)۶ (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 24 December 2020 12:31 (three years ago) link
don't know if Dawkins has taken any time to consider this, probably not but who knows what's going on in there
― ٩(͡๏̯͡๏)۶ (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 24 December 2020 12:32 (three years ago) link
i agree it sounds awkward in uk usage sometimes but nobody most people sorry ledge lol complaining about it in public aren't complaining about the sounding awkward bit
― Uptown Top Scamping (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 24 December 2020 12:36 (three years ago) link
happy holidays as praxis against anti-PC sentiment and anti-"americanism" language policing
― Left, Thursday, 24 December 2020 12:38 (three years ago) link
I cannot think of any issue that matters less, especially this year, so bringing it up is obviously tied to an agenda
― ٩(͡๏̯͡๏)۶ (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 24 December 2020 12:43 (three years ago) link
tbh i’m not sure dawkins has much of an agenda any more i think he’s just an old bellend.
― Fizzles, Thursday, 24 December 2020 12:54 (three years ago) link
What's this clown said now?
― Eggbreak Hotel (Tom D.), Thursday, 24 December 2020 12:54 (three years ago) link
To be fair, they only get like two days off a year over there.
― Eggbreak Hotel (Tom D.), Thursday, 24 December 2020 12:56 (three years ago) link
dawkins has always had a racist eugenicist agenda, he just doesn't bother to temper it with liberal progressive pandering as much as he did for a while since everyone knows what he's about now
― Left, Thursday, 24 December 2020 13:05 (three years ago) link
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/apr/20/richard-dawkins-loses-humanist-of-the-year-trans-comments
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 20 April 2021 13:35 (three years ago) link
can't believe his atheism is just coded white supremacy
― Bitchin Doutai (Noodle Vague), Monday, 1 April 2024 08:40 (three weeks ago) link
Shocked I tells ya..
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 1 April 2024 10:18 (three weeks ago) link