Apparently Richard Dawkins was worried that people might have forgotten what an asshat he is. So, helpful fellow that he is, he decided to give us all a demonstration of why he’s one of the atheist movement’s biggest liabilities, a “humanist” who has trouble remembering to act human.
Earlier today Dawkins decided, for some reason, that he needed to remind the people of the world of a fairly basic point of logic, and so he took to Twitter and thumbed out this little thought:
However petulantly phrased this is, the basic logic is sound: If I say that Hitler was worse than Stalin, I’m not endorsing either Hitler or Stalin. Unless I add “and Stalin was totally awesome and I endorse him” at the end.
The trouble is that Dawkins didn’t stop with this one tweet. He decided to illustrate his point with some examples. Some really terrible examples.
Yep, that’s right. He decided to do what comedians call a “callback” to some terrible comments he made last year about what he perversely described as “mild pedophilia.” And then he added asshattery to asshattery by suggesting a similar distinction between “date rape” and “stranger rape.”
Anyone seeing these comments as insensitive twaddle designed to minimize both “mild” pedophilia and date rape has good reason to do so. As you may recall, in the earlier controversy about so-called “mild” pedophilia, Dawkins told an interviewer for the Times magazine that
I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can’t find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today.
He went on to tell the interviewer that when he was a child one of his school masters had “pulled me on his knee and put his hand inside my shorts.” But, he added, he didn’t think that this sort of “mild touching up” had done him, or any of the classmates also victimized by the teacher, any “lasting harm.”
Huh. If Dawkins says that a teacher groping him was no big deal, I guess this kind of “mild” abuse shouldn’t be a big deal for anyone else, either, huh?
I’m pretty sure there’s some sort of logical fallacy here.
Given his history of minimizing these “mild” sexual crimes, it’s not a surprise that his crass tweets today inspired a bit of a twitterstorm.
Dawkins has responded with his typical petulance, and has stubbornly defended his comments as an exercise in pure logic that his critics are too irrational to understand.
What I have learned today is that there are people on Twitter who think in absolutist terms, to an extent I wouldn't have believed possible.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) July 29, 2014
.@mikester8821 Yes, it is so obvious it is painful. But they aren't debating, they are emoting.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) July 29, 2014
If you take a few moments to go through his timeline you’ll find many more tweets and retweets reiterating this “argument.” Dawkins is not the sort of person to admit to mistakes. Indeed, he so regularly puts his foot in his mouth it’s hard not to conclude that he must like the taste of shoe leather.
But these recurring controversies can’t be doing much for his reputation. Indeed, they seem to cause more and more people to wonder why anyone takes Dawkins seriously on any subject other than biology. Even his critics on Twitter are growing a bit weary.
https://twitter.com/somegreybloke/status/494045464308629505
https://twitter.com/markleggett/status/494044606342782977
https://twitter.com/endorathewitch/status/494071064008597504
Good lord. Look at Dawkins feed. Like every third tweet (or sequence) is something deplorable.
— 🦇VaginoplASCII🦇 (@nataliereed84) July 29, 2014
It seems that no matter what point Richard Dawkins tries to make, he only ever ends up proving that Richard Dawkins is a tosspot.
— Steph. 🏳️⚧️ (@EccentricSteph) July 29, 2014
Seems like it. I’m beginning to wonder why any atheists — at least those who are not also asshats — continue to think of Dawkins as an ally of any kind.
BTW, Whole Foods pizza? Really good for some reason. And yet their sushi is terrible. They are very selective about what they know how to make properly. They’re probably not atheisting right either.
I hope everyone else likes peanut butter m&ms. To dislike them is divisive for the atheist community, just like feminism.
No no you can’t apologise, you must declare WAY.
FEEL THE LOVE.
LOVE (and cats) IS ALL WE NEED.
The three scenarios I was posed are covered on this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
***these are hypotheticals and some people may find them disturbing***
The scenarios were (note the “fat” one should be reframed as “mass”, the key point is actually mass)
– trolley problem
– fat man (encountered some issues here, and the gender wasn’t mentioned in the example I was given – in fact, no genders were given in any of the examples because gender is not actually relevant to these hypotheticals)
– transplant
Whole Food’s pizza is wonderful. I just hate how oily it is sometimes.
Awww.
I did specifically say New Atheism, you’ll note. Which is what people have talked about here (“Dawkin and his ilk”, “Dawkin’s school of atheism”, etc.). What I did was defend that specific brand of atheism against the criticisms levied against it.
And hell no, I have nothing to do with that Yudkovsky freak. If I did, I would probably have been supportive of Dawkin’s comparison here.
Whole Foods has a delicious broccoli cheddar soup.
I do not like peanut butter M & Ms
SMARTIES FOREVER
Checkmate, atheists!
Your warning is ill-timed. These days I wander to 7/11 while stoned and buy a variety of stoner snacks. Weed + estrogen + spiro = omgiwantallthesnacks
[Octo, we’ve moved on. You might want to move on too.]
Oooo broccoli cheddar sounds nice (assuming vegetarian cheddar).
I don’t like chocolate covered with candy
I’m starting my own feminist schism at this point.
Do you have anything interesting to say about food, Octo? The conversation has moved on.
Also, I am declaring way on the Whole Foods sushi counter until they learn that rice does not need to be cooked for an hour, or however long they cook it to get it that mushy.
Broccoli cheddar soup sounds divine.
Chicken and cheddar at Baumgartner’s is also divine.
I hate broccoli in all of its manifestations.
:: grabs toy labrys again ::
I’ll eat your broccoli if you eat my brussels sprouts.
Do Americans know what Smarties are? I agree that they are superior to M&Ms, and am therefore expanding my way to include M&Ms too. Especially the coconut ones, those are bizarre.
I make a really good broccoli/cheddar soup.
:: bats off Ally’s toy labrys ::
My favorite vegetable is and always will be spinach. Speaking of which, I wish there was some saag left in this house…
I noticed the shift to food, but then I was specifically called out… eh, whatever. Food. Yes, going to the supermarket hungry is a bad idea in general, but I do it all the time because I suck at logistics and keeping my home properly supplied. It’s just a pity that supermarkets have to close down at night, such an inconvenience :p
I will eat the broccoli AND the brussels sprouts.
Oh a labrys is not the stuffed Pokemon I thought it was. I’m out of touch with culture that started ?15 years ago /cries
@cassandrakitty
Speaking as someone who lived in Sharjah for about a year and therefore was exposed to all kinds of UK candy, I wholeheartedly agree. Smarties are amazing. :: hi 5 ::
We shall have to argue for weeks, nay, months! on the point of dissension between those of us who see the world for what it really is and recognize the superiority and yumminess of peanut butter m-and-ms and you poor, misguided souls who fail to see the reality of our existence.
Or I could just take all the extra peanut butter m-and-ms and leave all you haters to your Jelly Bellies.
Spinach is acceptable when very lightly cooked, but best when raw or barely warmed. Way!