Re: [asa] The Criticism Begins

I did a double-take, seeing the name Mary Spiro below. I know her personally.
She is a Christian, by the way; though its been a year or two since I've seen
her and I don't know what her current faith journey is like. I don't think she
was deliberately trying to be biased against Collins, though I agree that the
caption is sensationalistic and her quoting Dawkins like that (if the interview
was as you describe) was probably misleading. But it was more of an
embarrassment to Dawkins, though to have such dismissively biased inanities
attributed to him --and unfortunately for him, quite believable attributions at
that. Look on the bright side: at least Christians who think scientifically
are getting some press-time that isn't mocking. (at least, I don't take it to
be, not from Mary, anyway.)

--Merv
 

Quoting Iain Strachan <igd.strachan@gmail.com>:

> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 11:43 AM, Jack Haas<haas.john@comcast.net> wrote:
> > Is God-fearing, gene-hunter Francis Collins fit to run NIH?
> > the Bill Maher Show in April 2008. Dawkins likened Collins belief in God
> to
> > a belief in an “imaginary friend” and referred to him as “not a bright
> guy.
>
> I just looked at the Dawkins/Maher interview, and this sentence is so
> completely out of context that it's pretty much tantamount to a
> concocted lie.
>
> Yes, the interview talked about "imaginary friends", but not in the
> context of Collins. Dawkins was complimenting Maher on coining the
> phrase.
>
> Secondly the context in which Dawkins said that Collins was "not a
> bright guy" was just in response to a joke by Maher. Dawkins had said
> that Collins certainly didn't believe in "the talking snake". To which
> Maher responded jokingly "I've interviewed him and he totally does".
> And Dawkins replied that in that case Collins had gone right down in
> his estimation and that "he's not a
> bright guy". It was perfectly clear from the context that neither of
> them meant what they said literally - it was just a bit of joking.
>
> If there's one person who has gone right down in MY estimation, it's
> Mary Spiro, the author of the article, and concocter of this piece of
> gross misrepresentation.
>
> Iain
>
>
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Received on Thu Jul 9 21:21:38 2009