Sorry, that accusation expires after one use per conversation.
2 Likes
For someone that hasnāt paid much attention to him, youāre very vitriolic. Perhaps you should address the things he says rather than engage in (apparently) poorly founded ad hominems.
3 Likes
I donāt understand what that interview is supposed to reveal. He comes across as very polite and justifies his points quite carefully. Perhaps you could point out what the issue is?
3 Likes
Itās 40 years old, not 30. Published in '76.
Matt Ridley, author of The Red Queen and a Conservative member of the House of Lords
You missed out Ridleyās full title, ālibertarian who inherited a bank and went crying for a public bail-out after destroying it with incompetent decisionsā.
Update: see also Purplecat.
2 Likes
Elevatorgate is one of those frustrating situations that should have been a learning opportunity, but inevitably turned into an internet argument about whose perspective is correct. The further it gets, the more defensive and ridiculous all the sides get. Inviting someone for further discussion over coffee could mean a lot of things, but this issue just seems like Dawkinās hyperbolic overreaction to an internet overreaction to a useful but possibly also misrepresentative criticism of something that Iām not even sure was supposed to be a proposition or sexual in the first place. If it had just stopped at āthis situation would understandably make many women uncomfortable, so just take a hint and donāt do something like thisā, rather than assuming knowledge of a guyās intentions, itās possible that a lot of this outrage could have been avoided (oh, who am I kidding 
). There are plenty of men that Iāve met who would chase another guy down to discuss some arcane point at length without considering the situation to be sexualised at all (and I have definitely been one of them at times). This is often particularly true with young men who have strong opinions about religion.
While I think RW and RD both have a point here, RDās opinions on these issues are often strident and not particularly insightful and having a big name weighing in on these issues over Twitter at best never really seems to help much.
5 Likes
To be honest, if you can read that interview and not think he is a terrible person then Iām not sure what I could show you that would. Everything about his tone, his poor reasoning, and unwillingness to back down make me dislike him. If you donāt then fine.
3 Likes
I havenāt paid much recent attention to the Dawkins vs. Gould debates since that was decades ago. Iāve certainly paid attention to Dawkins - he works incredibly hard to get public attention. In terms of recent events, the clock kid debacle, his recent insane comments on rape, the elevatorgate debacle, and many others can easily illustrate that he can push things way over the top. Itās nothing new, heās always been that way.
I can be vitriolic, itās perversely fun and also something I consider a personal failing, so Iām more sensitive when I see it in others, esp. in people like Dawkins who has the bully pulpit, is skilled at alienating others, and has a few filters missing that are especially uncomfortable. I donāt disagree with many of his opinions (and atheism is the least of my concerns), and itās not an ad hominem in the logical sense to point out that someoneās really abrasive sometimes.
Also, be careful, xkcdās looking down at others for being morally superior leads to an infinite regress of hypocrisy.
5 Likes
The bank was only nationalised after Ridley resigned, and the I doubt he had much say over the government deposit guarantee that was given while he was still there (which was a result of the bank run caused by a leak from the Labour government which spilled the beans about their dire situation, and scuppered the deal they were in the process of doing to sell the bank).
But regardless of his qualities or lack thereof as a banker, heās a very good science writer. Nature Via Nurture was a great attack on the kind of straw man attacks on naive biological determinism you tend to see leveled against behavioural geneticists.
Iāve been less convinced by his writings on climate change, but heās on solid ground when it comes to biology (where he got his PhD).
Once these parasites have sufficiently evolved they will probably consist of nothing but a series of rings with a gripping hook at the top that infest the intestinal systems of mammals. From functional resemblance to equivalence of form.
2 Likes
Well, I am an atheist on scientific grounds but as a former student of sociology and psychology of religion I do believe that religion has a value for many people and many societies.
7 Likes
4 Likes
Religion seems to be one of those things that weāre stuck with whether we like it or not - much like a lot of things to do with human nature. It is very diverse and has value and risks, but attacking it directly or vilifying adherents probably wonāt do a lot of good. People will inevitably get defensive and non-believers will use your arguments to justify themselves. I felt I had to leave my own religion in order to be honest, but I hardly consider atheists as a group to be particularly moral or religious people to be immoral. In fact, I resist the idea that religion is a thing that can be defined as much as it is a human search for meaning as well as many other social and psychological phenomena that can be good, bad or neutral (and not all of these are shared by all recognised religions). My own belief rested on a lot of logical fallacies, so reading people like Richard Dawkins helped me to notice them in my own thinking - a more tolerant and less direct approach might not have. On the other hand, reading and listening to other people helped me to avoid the kind of evangelistic atheism that is fairly common nowadays.
6 Likes
Iāve read that before, pretty terrible article, full of bogus stats and terrible risk analysis.
1 Like
Funny, I was thinking of this term without realising that it was already a thing. My point is that the guyās intentions in this account are important, as are his actions, as is the context, as are the womanās interpretation of his actions and the context. She is in a vulnerable position and canāt afford to trust him even if he is perfectly innocent in his intentions. He shouldnāt assume that his intentions are the only thing that matters. However, she should also recognise that she has an incomplete picture. RW said:
ā¦ All of you except for the one man who didnāt really grasp, I think, what I was saying on the panel, because, at the bar later that night ā actually at four in the morning, we were at the hotel bar, four a.m. I said Iāve had enough guys, Iām exhausted, going to bed, so I walked to the elevator, and a man got on the elevator with me and said āDonāt take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting and I would like to talk more, would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?ā Um, just a word to the wise here, guys, donāt do that. I donāt really know how else to explain that this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, but Iāll just sort of lay it out that I was a single woman, you know, in a foreign country, at four a.m., in a hotel elevator with you, just you, and I, donāt invite me back to your hotel room right after Iāve finished talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualise me in that manner.
Thereās no evidence in that account that he did sexualise her. Maybe it was obvious from the context or his body language, but it isnāt from her retelling of what happened. The first part of her advice rightly points out that any assumption of his that being polite was enough not to be threatening is not valid. The second makes an unjustified conclusion that doing this was sexualising her. Tying it into her previous comments, it makes him out to be part of the problem that the atheist community has with misogyny. Since we donāt know his intentions and he seems to have asked politely and left without incident, thatās an unjustified conclusion (even though taking precautions to prevent assault are perfectly justified).
2 Likes
This whole thing blew up because she had the audacity to mention it in passing the following day. Sheās not the one who made a big deal out of it: she was put on the defense from the beginning.
5 Likes
But Dawkins wasnāt criticising her, more the fact that it had become a big deal, which it certainly wasnāt. He also apologised later for drawing the comparison he did (he could have made his point without bringing her into it), something along the lines of there being no need for rivalry amongst victims, due to his own experience of sexual abuse.
I think you must be thinking of a different article - that was not an article of stats, and criticizing on the grounds of terrible risk analysis is simply incomprehensible. Iād really recommend you read the linked one though, and read it not just as an argument, but also as an expression of someoneās experience thatās really worth understanding. As a straight white guy, Iāve found sincerely listening to the viewpoints of others who werenāt straight white guys can be really interesting and enlightening.
5 Likes
Nope, same article. Her viewpoint describes a level of paranoia not justified by reality. Women in general donāt have a high likelihood of being victims of sexual assault from first dates or strangers (especially when you ignore the recent propensity to fraudulently reclassify as rape regrettable sexual encounters), the great majority of sexual assaults come from people well known to the victim, usually family members, spouses or exes. If one were to accept her point of view then it would be equally justified to treat African Americans as Schodingerās Muggers, given the crime stats, and I think youād agree with me that would be a pretty terrible thing to do.
1 Like
This is a really important issue in a number of ways, although it is really easy for guys to get defensive. I think the article goes some way to defusing that, but not far enough. Presuming that you are a decent human being and just want to interact with women as you would do with men, e.g. asking them to discuss an issue further over coffee before they leave the next morning, it can trigger quite a lot of defensiveness to get the idea that you could be seen as a potential rapist. Sometimes this vigilance is completely unjustified too - my father was flagged to the police in the UK for having a camera in a park where there were children playing (not pointing the camera at the children or ever being within a couple of hundred metres of them, and always staying within a mixed group). Of course, thereās never 0% risk, right? People have to protect their kids. You do what you can to support women and some societies practically quarantine you because if youāre within striking distance of a woman or child, who knows what might happen? Itās one reason I live in Germany, because that attitude is such a load of crap that is bad for society and doesnāt even protect women, and people here are more open, less fearful and less at risk (although weāll see whether that changes after recent events - there are good and bad signs).
On the other hand, itās important to act in a way that makes people comfortable with your presence and not to assume that your intentions are the full picture. Context really matters, and being approached by a stranger while alone in a confined space at 4 am is going to ring alarm bells. Itās possible to point that out without making claims about the (probably just clueless) person doing it though. I kind of despair of internet atheists at times though, as the vultures that circle any woman with an opinion make it clear that there is a big problem.
3 Likes
