Re: Dawkins on Channel 4 tonight

From: Derek Gatherer (d.gatherer@vir.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Tue 10 Jan 2006 - 13:42:01 GMT

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    I was a bit disappointed there wasn't more explicit memetical content, but then at the end he said that the "viral" stuff will come in the second episode. As far as the first episode went, he made his usual arguments:

    a) Religion varies from benignly bizarre to frighteningly dangerous. b) It is non-rational (which is bad) c) Science is rational (which is good) d) You can't be both religious and a scientist, because it requires you to be both rational and irrational at the same time

    There was very little argument in it that couldn't have been made
    (and hasn't already been made) by Diderot, Trenchard and Thiry in the 18th century. This sort of thing is the basis of the argument made by a few people (including me) that Dawkins is still fighting a war long over against long dead straw men. Except he then pulls out some of the scariest people to interview, demonstrating that in some quarters that particular war is very definitely not over and the straw men are running multimillion dollar media enterprises from Colorado Springs and having weekly conference calls (allegedly) with the President of the USA.

    At 15:12 09/01/2006, you wrote:
    >Derek Gatherer wrote:
    >>Don't forget, Dawkins on the telly tonight, Channel 4, 8pm (in the UK).
    >>Should be a laugh if nothing else.
    >>http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/can_you_believe_it/debates/rootofevil.html
    >>
    >
    >For an interesting precis of the way in which a Christian and
    >scientist (please note the 'and' in the middle there!) engages with
    >Dawkins's views, see the interview with Alister McGrath at
    >http://www.stnews.org/package-1-201.htm.
    >
    >I found McGrath's book, "Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning
    >of Life" (Blackwell, 2005) very impressive on the whole, in
    >particular in the clarity with which he exposes Dawkins's flawed
    >logic and victories against straw men. BUT unsurprisingly I'm not
    >so convinced by his criticisms of memetics!
    >
    >Kate
    >
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