This blog is now read by more machines than humans: RSS robots, spam-laying insectopoids, echoes of blog-gathering .edu projects. This essentially is the state of affairs that all human activities w
Cleaning Up the Nation
Austin Bay:
If Air America were a conservative radio network its corrupt funding trail and cynical abuse of a poverty program would be front page news at the NY Times and full-time mega-scandal at
Rank Materialism
Freedom. I am now the proud new owner of a Gateway 6020GZ laptop, perfect for students and others with limited means. I can now go into a Starbucks or a Barnes & Noble and look like I'm doing some
Fallujah Fonda
Uh-oh. From the Telegraph comes this exciting news:
Jane Fonda is returning to anti-war activism and embarking on a cross-country tour to call for an end to US military operations in Iraq.
Acros
John Pilger: Partner in Terrorism
In an outrageous piece of terrorist propaganda appearing on the cover of today's New Statesman, John Pilger puts the blame for the 7/7 London attacks not on the terrorists, but rather on Tony Blair:
She Blinded Him with Science!
I have purchased, read, and enjoyed several of Richard Dawkins's books: The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable, and Unweaving the Rainbow. His illustration of how evolution works and his defense of the theory in the face of the usual critiques are simply brilliant. I especially like the deliberate excoriation of determinism in his books, something that other pop science writers are less than successful at.
But when it comes to politics, the man is absolutely clueless. Here he is in the Independent, naming the biggest villain of 2002:
Villain: George Bush
This illiterate buffoon cheated his way into the White House with the help of his well-connected family and friends. Having dismally failed to anticipate or prevent the atrocity of September 11, he spent the rest of the day zigzagging around the country like a jet-propelled chicken. His personal cowardice was mirrored in the country at large, and he fanned it to his advantage in the mid-term elections, and now, to foment an unprovoked war that has nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with oil. His record on the environment is as appalling as you would expect. Bush is rightly despised throughout the world, and it is humiliating that Britain is seen as his only ally.
There's criticism on auto-pilot. The same trite charges we've heard all along, unthinkingly repeated once more: Bush is a moron, the 2000 election was stolen, the coming war is all about oil. There's no thought behind these statements, and it's even more obvious if one is familiar with his science writing.
As for Bush's cowardice being reflected in the country at large, I suppose Mr. Dawkins would respect the American people more if we were brave enough to do nothing in our own defense, much as Europe does. But again, there's no indication of thought behind what he says here.
Of course, being brilliant in one area is no guarantee that a person will be brilliant in another. I still look forward to reading more of his books, as long as he sticks to science. (Thanks to Steven Chapman for the link.)
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A shame that someone who could use the phrase "jet-propelled chicken" would use it for evil.
You're blogrolled at Marybones, btw--post more, dammit!
Is it possible that Dr. Dawkins has seen the film, "A Beautiful Mind", and has now come to the conclusion that the quickest way to Nobel immortality is to spout off-the-wall, paranoid, nonsensical cant?
It is strange how some folks can be so clever in one discipline and clueless in another. Remember Dr. Linus Pauling's musings on race? Sad. And there are many such examples.
Me? I'm mediocre in every subject but that leaves me well balanced :)
I agree that because a man is ignorant in one arena, it does not necessarily follow that he is in another. But Dawkins' particular brand of ignroance in political matters reveals him to be untrustworthy in his evaluation and presentation of facts. And a man who is untrustworthy in one arena is not worthy of trust in another.
I remember reading the Blind Watchmaker, and coming across Dawkins' abrupt assertion that what he had written proved that there is not God. Whoa, I thought - God or no God, where's the chain of reasoning leading to THAT conclusion? Well, it wasn't there. It was just Dawkins letting his prejudice govern his conclusion.
This guy either doesn't know or doesn't care about what the facts are in politics, so why should I believe he is any more reliable when he talks about science? He might be brilliant, and it might be that 99 percent of the time, he is correct in what he says, but the bottom line is that he seems to be the sort of man who, in the end, has a willful disregard for the truth, and an egoistic disdain for anyone who disagrees with him - on any subject. So I know he will lie when it suits his prejudices, whether in politics or in science.
harmon: Nothing that Dawkins wrote in the Blind Watchmaker proves that there's no God. And I don't think he claimed that there is no God. But if he did, please point me to it!
Otherwise, what he says in that book seems self-evidently true to me, yet we agree he's full of it when it comes to politics. I find I'm in a strange position. But that's life.
Brian - I can't give you a page number, because I no longer own the book. About the best I can do is ask you to scan the last twenty or thirty pages & see if you can spot it. If I am in a book store & remember to check for the exact page, I'll do it. But every now & then I run across some piece by or about him, & his bottom line is "Evolution, ergo no God." He would not only admit it - he shouts it to the skies.
I utterly agree with you - nothing he wrote in BW proves there's no God. That's why I was stunned when he made the assertion that it did.
What he wrote in BW does seem self-evidently true. And indeed it might be and probably is true. But my point is just that I won't take his word on it, or on anything else, because he is not trustworthy. He is that dangerous sort of person - a highly intelligent rascal. There are others of that ilk - Gore Vidal comes to mind. They both play fast & loose in areas I know something about (history and law) so I see no reason to think that they do otherwise in areas I know little about (science & evolution.)
Dawkins has in fact never claimed to prove the non-existence of God and consistently states that such proof is impossible.
"Science offers us an explanation of how complexity (the difficult) arose out of simplicity (the easy). The hypothesis of God offers no worthwhile explanation for anything, for it simply postulates what we are trying to explain. It postulates the difficult to explain, and leaves it at that. We cannot prove that there is no God, but we can safely conclude the He is very, very improbable indeed."
Dr. Richard Dawkins, lecture extracted from The Nullifidian, December 1994
He also positively discourages people to 'take his word' or indeed anyone elses but encourages people to examine evidence for themselves and then make reasoned and informed decisions rather than submitting to dogma.
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