Richard Dawkins.

[similar.squirrel]

Simple question: what do you think of him, and why?

I think he's a brilliant scientist, and an excellent writer. Besides all that, he says things that need to be said, but that people have hitherto been too afraid to say.

Shoot.

 

[Esotera]

The Selfish Gene is a brilliant book, and is still relevant today; it's a brilliant introduction to genetics. I think he's a bit aggressive in his arguments in that he'll go and seek out confrontations, but he's made some very good points, such as his series a while ago on science in faith schools.

 

[Wuggy]

He's a very smart man and he has good points. He's a bit more "agressive", as it were, than I would be but that's not a terribly bad thing.

 

[Baradiel]

I tend to find myself agreeing with everything he says, but I read part of the God Delusion and, while finding his points well made and understandable, his tone was downright antagonistic. Maybe thats acceptable considering some of the extreme antagonism from some religious leaders, but still.

Love his views, probably love the man if I met him, but he comes across badly in some cases. In others he shines though.

 

[SecretsOfMoon]

Here's Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the subject, by large summarizing what I think of Dawkins as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_2xGIwQfik

Quite often the way Dawkins presents himself in the public seems to me atleast to carry a certain air of almost smug arrogance that I'd imagine makes it that much easier to dislike the man without giving even half a thought to what is being said, and that's somewhat problematic. Still, I have tremendous respect for him and people like DeGrasse Tyson, Sam Harris, Michio Kaku and all the other scientists and intellectuals spending a great deal of time in media and in the public propagating reason and general not-being-a-nutter way of thought.

 

[BonsaiK]

I think Dawkins is interesting but I don't really know what he ultimately hopes to achieve besides selling more books. It's pretty obvious to me that his style of delivery is more about making the converted feel vindicated rather than actually winning over anybody to his way of thinking. I guess there's a place for that but it doesn't really do much for me, I wish he had the same sense of reason but took a softer approach. As the saying goes, you attract more flies with honey.

 

[Scrustle]

I'm a bit torn on him. He's obviously very intelligent and a great scientist, and has done a lot for atheism, but I think he goes too far sometimes. In some ways he's as bad as the religious nuts he condemns with his blunt absolutist attitude towards them. Although I do get some enjoyment of watching them get a dose of their own medicine. But that kind of leaves him on their level, instead of rising above it. He's not really convincing these crazy people that atheism is right, no-one can do that. I don't really know much about this kind of militant atheism that people follow him for, but again doesn't that make them just as bad as the religious nuts? The way people idolise him and create a club around him kind of looks like just another religion to me. Atheism shouldn't be like that, not in my opinion anyway. But mostly I respect him, but I won't follow his form of atheism.

On a side note, me and my friend from my religious studies class at college came up with a nickname for him that we used, Ricky D.

 

[Blue Hero]

Richard Darkness is a cool dude. I wouldn't mind being his friend. I wonder if he has Facebook or Twitter. I don't, but I wanna know if he does.

 

[Something Amyss]

Simple question: what do you think of him, and why?

I think he's a brilliant scientist, and an excellent writer. Besides all that, he says things that need to be said, but that people have hitherto been too afraid to say.

Shoot.

While I respect him being vocal, he's also a self-aggrandising prick who probably hurts the cause more than helps it. while he obviously has a brilliant mind, he tend to use it to preach to the choir, sell books, and defend himself more than his ideas.

There has to be a way to get your point across without being a complete dick, in short.

 

[BroJing]

I don't like him, but I should preface that by saying I've only seen a couple of his bits and not read every book.

As other people have said he's mainly antagonistic in nature and I find he has a bad habit of ,having made a general point that is fairly defensible, trying to 'prove' it by including a bunch of points that rely heavily on specific situations.

For example his thing on Faith Schools he claimed that parents in many areas had to fake faith to get into the only school in the area...he then pulled out a single map and pointed to one area that was closer to the faith school then the primary school...which was still within a reasonable travel distance. Not excactly statistically solid.

Similarly he showed a childhood psychology study where the children were picking 'more faith-like options' all of which included animals. I know it's a bit silly but just from what was shown you could equally draw the conclusion that kids like animals.

 

[KingofallCosmos]

He wrote The Selfish Gene, so as far as I'm concerned he can screw a donkey in public, he's ok in my book.

 

[C. Cain]

Dawkins seems to be a nice enough fellow, his somewhat antagonistic tone notwithstanding.

Penned some good books, too.

His lesser known battle against pseudo-scientific new age "alternative medicine" is also quite entertaining.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I don't know much about him, TBH, never met him or anything.

However, he sounds like one of those people who, while perhaps being very wise and insightful in regards to some things, is terribly backward in myopic in other areas. Now, that's hardly unusual, though there's a tendency for people to assume (or to at least desire) that once a person is deemed correct on one moral issue, they are obliged to be so on all others.

Apparently he's a fan of the patronising "shut up, people in the Third World have it worse, therefore your problems don't matter" dismissal.

 

[Hawkmoon269]

He's awesome. Im going to see him lecture at the University of East Anglia on the 26th.

 

[fenrizz]

I think he is pretty awesome.

I really wish more religious people would listen to him, but alas they hardly ever listen to rational arguments about faith anyway.

One can dream though.

 

[Something Amyss]

His lesser known battle against pseudo-scientific new age "alternative medicine" is also quite entertaining.

And is one more people need to fight.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Dawkins rails against the evils of following religion and believing in a figure attempting to convey the word of God by...

Asking people to follow his beliefs while being a figure attempting to convey the word of Science.