What, Why & How do we Know ?
Not in any technical sense incest, agreed. No sense of “genetic-in-breeding” in the specific conception, but nevertheless a little weird arrangement. “Beautiful” if you’re a geneticist / biologist that Mary chose her brother to be the “biological” father of her “adoptive” child, as sperm donor to her marriage partner, specifically to have some genetic tie … Continue reading “Dawkins right ? Never 😉 @ProfLisaJardine”
Put my comment in the thread already : “Richard Dawkins, what on earth happened to you?” by Eleanor Robertson in The Grauniad. Stick to the science, Dick. Don’t know enough about Ms Robertson as to why she gets to publish a personal tirade against the individual, but the point is real (of all the 4, … Continue reading “Dick Dawkins on Rape”
A second review vignette from Dennett’s greatest hits. As I’ve said many times when Richard Dawkins sticks to evolutionary biology, he’s a great writer and a credible scientist, but when he joins (leads!) the science vs religion fray all he does his display his inadequacies as a philosopher, politician or general factotum saviour of humanity. … Continue reading “Dawkins (and Coyne) Doth Protest Too Much”
richarddawkins.net appears to be US focussed. The mission of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is to support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and suffering. That mission is encouraging for two reasons, despite the focus on critical-thinking and … Continue reading “Dawkins Net”
Apologies for the headline, but since I tend to use Dawkins as my prime example of the arrogant scientist who doesn’t get the value anything other than science (and objective / deterministic logic), but by way of balance, this conversation with Larry Krauss from February this year, has some excellent content. It does of course still … Continue reading “Dawkins Talks Sense”
Only caught part of this interview / debate involving Dawkins, but thought I’d better blog the link so I don’t lose it. Got the impression he was looking for compromise ground (?) based on what little I did hear, but reaction by those on the God side of the debate don’t seem to have made … Continue reading “Dawkins Mellows ?”
The debate trundles on. Struan Hellier’s father Graham Hellier is a Presbyterian minister and has written this “Christian Response” to Dawkins. I responded with these comments. My position is already pretty clear – Dawkins is as extreme as any religious extremist and unfortunately he cannot separate his (correct) arguments about the memetic success of religious … Continue reading “Dawkins vs God – Round XXIV”
The proceedings of the Darwin Day Talks “The Selfish Gene 30 Years on.” at LSE last week 16th March are now on-line on The Edge web-site. (I was in the air over China at the moment the tickets went on release, and by the time I landed they were all gone, though by the sound … Continue reading “Darwin (or Dawkins) @ the LSE”