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, 1 reply)

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)