I think it’s mostly just because he’s a flaming cock to anyone in his outgroup:
http://gawker.com/priorities-confused-1731919698
Besides the flareups of sexism, the crazy-talk about Muslims, and his unconscionably shocking dickishness to Gould (RIP) he’s very charming. He’s a very talented writer and scientist as well.
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I’m seeing instances of authors referring to Dawkins and Gould as friends outside of their public debates.
Could you point me to the unconscionable, shocking behaviour in particular?
He’s always seemed so patient in the face of even extreme nonsense so far as I’ve seen.
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Tyson has a few words about Dawkins’ rhetorical style.
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I think calling them friends is a bit much, but to understand the feud, you have to go back to the 1970s and E.O. Wilson’s “Sociobiology”. Gould and Lewontin really didn’t like the idea of explaining behavior in terms of selection and suspected some sinister political motive behind it, while Dawkins, who had worked under the behavorist Tinbergen, was a supporter of Wilson. For decades afterwards both camps spent a large portion of their writings attacking the other camp. It’s gotten somewhat more complicated recently with Wilson’s (not well received) claims that kin-selection is flawed though.
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I haven’t really paid much attention in the recent past, last time I was watching them go at it was on VHS long, long ago. At the time I recall thinking I’d have punched Dawkins if he talked to me like that (younger then), but at this point I’ve got no idea which debate that was - one of the slag-fests of Gould vs. Dawkins where Dawkins slagged Punctuated Equilibrium (and Gould). Don’t know much about their relationship other than that there were both very prickly in print towards each other.
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Just look at the things he says on twitter or interviews. For example: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/episode-254-should-i-eat-it-strategic-candidates-richard-dawkins-and-lawrence-hill-1.3263006/richard-dawkins-on-his-new-memoir-brief-candle-in-the-dark-1.3263405
a choice quote:
BB: There’s still challenging ideas though, Professor. You write in the book that Jews have won twenty percent of all Nobel Prizes despite constituting less than one percent of the world’s population and very few Muslims have won Nobels. And you say the comparison is revealing. What does it reveal to you?
RD: I don’t know what it reveals to me. I think it’s a very, very interesting point. The statistics are quite staggering, the difference is quite staggering. By the way, I didn’t go out of my way to talk about this. This was because it came up in Twitter and it was an example of the of the way one can be misunderstood. What is it due to? Well, I don’t think it’s due to the religion per se, I think is due to the culture. It’s due to the something about Jewish culture which fosters intellectual endeavour. Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that many Islamic countries have been colonized by Western powers. That’s a possibility.
yes because the Nobel Prize selection is totally objective and isn’t biased towards western ideas at all. And even if it weren’t why would he pick Islam to single out for be less represented among the winners? There should be a lot more Hindus among the winners too but he somehow doesn’t focus on that. And most of the winners have been men so why not make the same argument about how there is something about male culture that fosters intellectual endeavor?
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SCIENCE!
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I’m no biologist but I’m fairly conversant with Dawkins ideas and the arguments he made in response to Gould. I’m just asking about specific instances of behaviour that seems to stand at the centre of this particular criticism.
There must have been particularly galling examples in order to be referred to as ‘unconscionably shocking dickishness’.
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Then perhaps your criticism of him is slightly hyperbolic?
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No, so far as I’m concerned, between the tribalist hatred of religion, the sexism, and the arrogant condescending hostility he aims at least many he disagrees with, he’s a raging cock. It’s not that he’s necessarily wrong in his opinions (though he sometimes is when philosophical or theological topics come up), it’s that he’s a raging cock.
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I’m detecting a fair amount of pearl clutching here.
Are you sure you aren’t trying a little too hard to interpret his words in a way that gives you some leverage to look down on him?
If these kinds of criticism didn’t suffer from selection bias, I’d expect to see some real transgressions out in the open for anyone to document.
So far. Not.
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Would you describe him as unsettlingly veiny?
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Perhaps some of that, and also a bit of this:
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Maybe he could take some lessons from The tenth doctor?
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I’d like to apologize to everyone for what I’ve inflicted on this thread with the never ending hoff crotch.
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And thanks for reminding me of Elevatorgate. That was the breaking point for me, with regards to Dawkins.
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That’s honestly the first I’ve heard about that. He was certainly being an opinionated, tone-deaf ass.
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That’s his default state, at least when he’s on twitter.
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That’s the default state of twitter.
TFTFY
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