I read it as a Christian. I really don’t think it’s as aggressive as it’s made out to be. Certainly not as bad as some of the arguments going the other way.
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Well, if Sy Ten Bruggencate, and James Dobson and William Lane Craig are your allies, and you think any of their arguments are even self consistent, then you’ve pretty much given up on logic and reason altogether.
I watched a bunch of Hitch as a fundie. It was exactly as aggressive as I was told by other Christians. But by that time I’d already taken freshman biology and understood that YEC was utterly bullshit and a lie to make people stupider than me feel good, so I thought “maybe I’ve been told other lies for the sake of the community.” and thus my faith crumbled.
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What’s the gender and ethnic balance in academia at his generation? I bet having almost all of your co-workers either white males or younger than you will help to make you take other voices less seriously.
On the other hand, I do agree with him with regard to Tim Hunt (or at least I agree with Tim Hunt). It looks like the journalist in question either misremembered or misrepresented the events quite significantly, and directly denied the more accurate account until audio evidence came out. Here’s the offending quote in context:
It’s strange that such a chauvinist monster like me has been asked to speak to women scientists. **Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry. Perhaps we should make separate labs for boys and girls? **
Now, seriously, I’m impressed by the economic development of Korea. And women scientists played, without doubt an important role in it. Science needs women, and you should do science, despite all the obstacles, and despite monsters like me.
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Yeah, as far as I can tell, Tim Hunt is guilty of bombing on a terrible joke. Not necessarily guilty of being a misogynist. Just a rather insensitive and distasteful joke he told thoughtlessly. The kind of stupid joke I’m guilty of telling. I don’t consider myself a misogynist, and even if I act in misogynist ways I absolutely don’t want to be a misogynist and actively work to eradicate my own sexist stupidity every day, so I can’t be too hard on the guy.
As far as I can tell, he is like me. I don’t want to be a misogynist, and I work on being a better feminist even if I am at times stupid and wrong, and I like to think people try to do better like I do. So I don’t think he acts misogynistically for the purpose of hurting women. I think he isn’t the greatest rhetoricist, like I’m not the greatest rhetoricist.
My assumptions could easily be wrong. And I personally really enjoy and desire correction. But demonization is not correction.
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I’ve been very fortunate to have a dozen or so enlightened women in my life who were willing to explain in considerable and graphic detail exactly how stupid and wrong a lot of my opinions were and how I need to spend less time explaining said dumb opinions about women to women, and more time listening to women and using information from them in the process of examining said opinions of women. And those opinions were found wanting and I’ve spent a lot of time excising and countering these opinions.
Stupidity can’t be tolerated, especially my own.
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I think there can be a bit of ad hominem where people who say important things are dismissed wholesale for their human foibles, or hero worship where people are excused for whatever failings they have because of their contributions. On the other hand, I do wish people like Dawkins who say important things in insightful ways (I mean, my dad the Evangelical pastor has a shelf full of his books and rejected YEC partly because of his arguments) wouldn’t say such asinine things outside of their area of expertise. The ideas are heroes, but a good teacher can make them come alive in ways that others can’t.
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Lol, you’re my spirit animal @jsroberts. But in a totally provisional and highly skeptical way.
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Good thing too - I don’t agree with myself half the time.
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The Demon Cat in Adventure Time is probably my favorite character in all fiction due to its nearly absolute intellectual honesty… Frank the Human boy. I know where Jim the fox is hiding. And if I’m wrong, just keep in mind that all my knowledge is appropriate. Just like a human’s.
ETA:
It may be Adventure Time
Come on, implore your acquaintances
We may go to some distant lands,
With Jack the fox and Phil the hominid
The fun seems like it may never end
It may be time for a quest.
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This morning I awoke to the steamy, hot breath of Ricardo Dawkins leaning over my bed. He was perched like a ridiculous parrot on my nightstand, but hunched over so he could bend my ear.
“Statistically speaking you only need seven hours sleep a night, you lazy monster!!”
CUH-CCAAWWW!!!
And he flew away into the rising sun.
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You bastards! You absolute bastards! I dreamed about Richard Dawkins last night. He was chasing my children and I was powerless to save them from his menace.
##DawkinsKilledMyDreams
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If the book was less aggressive than his public persona on this particular issue seems created to offend.
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Sure, that doesn’t help him be more interested in inclusivity, precisely because he doesn’t see how his social position as a man (and likely his class, since he’s British) aided him in getting to where he is today. Thinking everything you get out of life is solely via your own hardwork, and not because you live in a rigged system, is a hell of a drug.
I’m talking less about the Tim Hunt issue and more about some of his comments regarding Rebacca Watson and elevatorgate, etc. And even that comment you posted there… while he might have a point in defending Hunt, does he have to be so condescending about it. I mean, I know we’re all just a bunch of hysterical wimmims, but jesus, really?
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It was a bad joke, I don’t think anyone disagrees there. It was supposed to be ironic, self-deprecatory and a throwaway comment, but it’s been analysed as if it was Hunt actually suggesting segregated labs.
In his letter to the Times, Dawkins said: “Along with many others, I didn’t like Sir Tim Hunt’s joke, but ‘disproportionate’ would be a huge underestimate of the baying witch-hunt that it unleashed among our academic thought police: nothing less than a feeding frenzy of mob-rule self-righteousness.”
Which is more or less true, especially given the context. I think it’s right to point out that this time, the facts backed up a guy who went through the internet character assassination machine, making his comments ill-advised rather than misogynistic. This happens often enough with men and women that most of us know little more about than a tweet-sized statement taken out of context, and we probably should know better by now. Some people managed to dig up falsified statements in the journalist’s CV, and wanted to go after her for attacking Tim Hunt. We have to stop treating internet justice as if it has any sense of proportion or context, or as if we know the full motivations behind people’s statements. She may have had no ill intentions whatsoever and also suffered from a lack of perspective.
There are many other statements by Richard Dawkins that are asinine (such as with elevatorgate and “mild paedophilia”) though, so this isn’t justifying that at all.
I appreciated “The God Delusion” for its candour. A number of the Christian responses took the stronger statements very personally, when they are often pointing out pretty clear examples of the OT God acting in far from moral ways, or providing possible naturalistic explanations for religion. If you take the Bible literally, you have to square your beliefs with the OT God, so it’s fair to point out the problems. It read a little like a newly born again atheist entering a forum with a handful of silver bullets, but I didn’t think it was aggressive against theists as such - it just didn’t take the object of their belief as seriously as they felt they deserved, and didn’t approach religion as a neutral or good force in the world.
Maybe someone else knows more about him before he started addressing religion directly, but it seems to me that he probably kept coming up against YEC and other religious ideas as an obstacle to teaching about his subject, so he came down from his ivory tower to sort that out. In German, people might call him a ‘Fachidiot’ - a specialist in one subject, with a very limited sense of perspective.
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I have little problem with him defending a colleague from what he viewed as overzealous character assassination that was likely not deserved. But perhaps you can understand that many women in STEM fields still experience sexism and discrimination, and that a public airing of such, even though it was a self-deprecating barb, can send some people who may not know the Dr.Hunt over the edge. There really is only so much you can take and when an opportunity arises to be able to make your case for your experiences, some people are going to take that and run with it.
As for Dawkins, it’s his rather consistent condescending tone towards women I have a problem with. It’s way beyond asinine, if you ask me, and can’t just be shrugged off (not that you’re necessarily doing that - I’m just speaking generally now). Given his position as a well-respected scientist, who has a large bully pulpit both in Britain and even here in the US, it’s really part of his responsibility, as I see it, in promoting STEM and a good, solid liberal arts education more generally. Diversifying academia (and pretty much all aspects of modern life) should be something to strive for - not just tolerated or accepted, but worked for, and his (and other’s) attitude of, oh women can stay in the field, but only if they don’t complain about ill-treatment, or point out sexism, or expect to be part of the club, etc and so on - it continues to marginalize women in those fields. The humanities have certainly seen a major upsurge in women in the field (with philosophy still being rather male dominated), but at the same time, funding is being cut as those fields are increasingly seen as “unnecessary” (a position I obviously oppose, as a humanities person).
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When I was twelve or so I bought a copy of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I devoured it, and must have read it three times in a week.
One evening as I was appreciating the musings of Marvin, Dawkins silently slips out of my closet and whispers, “You’re never going to meet my good friend Douglas Adams, you know. You will never meet him, since he will be dead”.
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