Re: [asa] Re: (Santa?) [christians_in_science] Brilliant article by Dawkins

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 10:44 PM, Marcio Pie <pie@ufpr.br> wrote:

> Ted wrote:
> > This garbage about an approximate equivalence between believing in God
> and
> believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny is hardly original to Dawkins
> -> - who, apart from his idea of religion being a "meme" that we "catch"
> like a virus, hasn't had an original thought about religion in his life.
>
> That seems to be a recurring pattern in the "new atheists". For instance,
> Christopher Hitchens is very fond of pointing out supposed inconsistencies
> in the idea of God that can be traced to the patristic period as if he they
> were new. By the way, Dawkins doesn't have much to show for in terms of
> scientific original ideas either. His last scientific paper was published
> in
> the early 70's.
>

I can affirm this as well. I held an industrial fellowship at an Oxford
college from 1998-2001. During that time, I had several dinners in college,
and at one of them sat next to a Professor of evolutionary biology. We got
talking and I asked him "what do you think of this chap Dawkins?". His
response was very dismissive. "Oh, he hasn't done anything worthwhile
academically for 25 years. Just mucked about with computers, that's all!"
 The Professor was prepared to concede that Dawkins was "a good publicist",
but nothing more.

It seems Dawkins's reputation rests solely on his ability to write popular
science books, not on any notable scientific achievements.

Iain

>
> Marcio
>
>
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