He's written one book on religion
and he's written nine about evolution. He's gone on record several times to say that he's sick of being the media's go-to guy for any story about atheism and that they could go to any university in the country and find a professor who will tell them the same things.

If he came across as tub-thumping, let's not forget his job at Oxford was Professor for the Public Understanding of Science. It's what he was paid to do. I remember the Christmas lectures extremely fondly.

I'll confess, I'm a fan. I've read all his books and I've heard him speak three times. The first time was at the culmination of the God Delusion book tour, and was (obviously) about religion, but the other two times - even though he was addressing a theatre packed full of atheists - he talked about the mating habits of spiders and other quirky oddities found in nature. Drawing our attention to the wonder of science rather than ramming his "opinion-cock" down our throats.

He doesn't harvest money from the insecure, he writes books about science that, in my opinion, do an admirable job of explaining the complexities of natural history in a way that the layman can understand. If you think I'm insecure because I enjoy reading The Ancestor's Tale of an evening then I really pity you.

You don't know what you're talking about, in short.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Fri 2 Apr 2010, 11:38, 1 reply)

Are you thinking about the same chap?
From his DVD, The Enemies of Reason, in respect of other people's beliefs, and whether or not they can be considered valid:

"Richard Dawkins doesn’t think so, and feels it is his duty to expose those areas of belief that exist without scientific proof, yet manage to hold the nation under their spell."

Duty. His fucking *duty*, as if he's the nation's sole arbiter of reason. Add to that his other epics, such as The Root of All Evil (can you guess what he chose?), and he starts to look like a overly-verbose one-trick-pony with an particularly obnoxious axe to grind.

I've studied a great deal of evolutionary theory, and wholly accept it; I am baffled that anyone could genuinely prefer a baseless, supertitious explanation for the way things are. I respect Dawkins' academic accomplishments, and enjoyed The Blind Watchmaker - but that was in the days before he threw a massive intellectual hissy fit and more or less became a cartoonish pastiche of himself. Actively going out of one's way to destroy the beliefs of others is mean-spirited.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Fri 2 Apr 2010, 15:21, closed)

Okay, I'll bite
The Root of All Evil? was a title chosen by Channel 4 for the two-part documentary accompanying TGD. Dawkins has gone on the record several times to express his dissatisfaction with the title (apparently he managed to get them to add the question mark) which isn't surprising - "evil" is hardly a scientific matter. Anyway, it covers exactly the same ground as the book, so no great surprises there.

When it comes to The Enemies of Reason, it sounds like you're reading off the back of the DVD box, again that would be promotional copy not written by Dawkins. Still, if you want to stand up for psychics who take people's money to comminucate with their dead relatives, homeopaths who sell people water as medicine, crystal healers, astrologers, snake-oil salesmen and cranks then be my guest. If you think that exploiting vulnerable people with tales of false hope is somehow laudable, that's fine. I'd much rather spend an evening with a scientist like Dawkins or a sceptic like Derren Brown, than a bullshit merchant like Deepak Chopra.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Tue 6 Apr 2010, 10:05, closed)

I'm entirely on board with the skeptics
I'm not defending snake-oil, nor its salesmen. I just feel that Dawkins is unacceptably militant about it. Destroying something precious to someone else simply because it has no value to you (or even no inherent value in and of itself) is mean.

Case in point; found out recently that my father has aggressive cancer. My mother, an intelligent woman, is buying some gelatinous homeopathic glop, and everything else that offers even the most slender chance of having some small effect. I know it's arse - hell, she knows, too - but it allows her to feel that she's doing *something*, and that helps her get by. Yes, it's stupid, but fuck it; it gives her some form of peace, and people have paid a lot more for a lot less.

If Dawkins had a b3ta sig, it would be 'will kick you when you're down'. Which said; I do not dispute his arguments in the slightest.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 0:51, closed)