From: Jay Willingham (jaywillingham@cfl.rr.com)
Date: Sun Jul 13 2003 - 22:58:47 EDT
So someone is going to appropriate another perfectly lovely adjective to
carry as an angry banner?
Sad.
Sadder still for them if there is a life after death, God save them.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>
To: "Dr. Blake Nelson" <bnelson301@yahoo.com>; "ASA" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2003 10:35 PM
Subject: Re: Dawkins dissembles?
> Regarding the Dawkins piece, apparently there is a concerted effort going
on
> here, as his partner in the US, Daniel Dennett, has an op-ed piece in the
> Saturday NYT calling on "brights" to come out of the closet and declare
> themselves in the US. See
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/12/opinion/12DENN.html?th
>
> In fact, Dennett refers to Dawkins piece.
>
> His opening paragraph is a classic:
>
> "The time has come for us brights to come out of the closet. What is a
> bright? A bright is a person with a naturalist as opposed to a
> supernaturalist world view. We brights don't believe in ghosts or elves or
> the Easter Bunny - or God. We disagree about many things, and hold a
variety
> of views about morality, politics and the meaning of life, but we share a
> disbelief in black magic - and life after death."
>
> God trivialized by being associated with the Easter Bunny; belief in life
> after death demeaned by association with black magic.
>
> Bob Schneider
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dr. Blake Nelson" <bnelson301@yahoo.com>
> To: "ASA" <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 9:18 PM
> Subject: Dawkins dissembles?
>
>
> >
> > FWIW, did anyone see this Dawkins' piece from last
> > month's Guardian?
> >
> > http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,981412,00.html
> >
> > He cites the figure the Skeptic published as 93% of
> > NAS members not being theistic. IIRC, this is a
> > statistically invalid number, because the survey of
> > American scientists was not designed to specifically
> > sample the subset who were NAS members and the Skeptic
> > basically pulled out only the respondents who were NAS
> > members to come up with the percentage. (IIRC an
> > article based on the 93% was rejected through peer
> > review, although not by the Skeptic.)
> >
> > Now, given that Dawkins is supposed to be all for
> > banishing superstition, why does he choose to rely on
> > bad statistics in his anti-religious polemics? I
> > think I know the answer, but to paraphrase Dawkins,
> > isn't anyone who claims that 93% of NAS members are
> > not theistic based on a statistically invalid sample
> > either lying, insane or stupid? Which one of those
> > categories does Dawkins fit into?
> >
> > Anyone know if someone wrote to the Guardian about the
> > misrepresentation of survey data (presuming my
> > recollection is not faulty) by Dawkins?
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
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>
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