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, Reply)