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.
We must make a scientific survey of this. For me, it’s always knees.
“Why do men’s pants go via having holes occur in the crotch.”
I’ve never had that problem — perhaps I should feel jealous.
Maybe it’s from popping boners whenever a woman passes by? No, that would only be true for 15-year-old boys.
Mine always go in the knees or the seat. I must lead a boring life.
My partner is into making things with power tools. It may be that manipulating planks etc onto machinery is the driver. 🙂
Mine always go in the thighs.
My male partner’s jeans get crotch holes, but nearly simultaneously they have knee and top inside corner of butt pocket holes. I assumed it was because he bikes in them and those areas get a lot of movement.
My partner also attempts to jump into his pants two legs at a time, which causes them some stress as he is never successful.
I guess I can’t top Kitteh’s theory, since I don’t know how widespread Mr Emmy Rae’s habit is.
I’ve had very few pants with holes in them. I mostly wear pants made out of stretchy material, so the holes have been in the center seam tending towards the butt. Apparently I’m more secure that everything is present and accounted for than most dudes.
I’m a lady and just lost a pair of jeans to a crotch hole this year. Although they were getting a bit small anyway (read: I was getting a bit big).
It’s friction. That is why we are supposed to turn everything inside out when we launder it. I don’t do it, I just know I am supposed to and so it is all my fault when my favorite thing is ruined. To reduce the wear caused by friction. I have no opinion on why there is friction in some peeps crotches, none!
Because they are Fall Out Boy.
My slacks wear most around the hems, whereas my jeans wear most around the rear pockets.
He should read the bit in Pepys’s diary when a friend of his went all day with both legs through one side of his breeches. Granted these were petticoat breechs and very wide, but you’d think he’d notice!
My jeans always wear out on the inner thigh, near the groin. It’s from my legs rubbing together.
This is all probably over with by now, but I’m a food passimist. Whatever you don’t like that I do, I’ll take off your hands and (hopefully) vice-versa.
I dislike okra, eggplant (aubergines), bell peppers, dark chocolate, anything with pumpkin, most things with bananas and kiwifruit (NOT kiwis!) This is not in any war meant to be a declaration of way, by the war!
I’m american and have seen the choco-smarties before, but as I recall, they didn’t actually have any chocolate in them. Cocoa, yes, but in the U.S. you’re not allowed to call that chocolate.
My jeans tend to show the most wear at the back pockets’ corners and the knees. Dress pants always hang on until they just wear thin/pill/get nasty all over.
Mr. FM is a mechanic who spends most of his days crawling over, under, and through pointy aircraft bits, so his pants are constantly turning up with new and innovative tears and holes. I don’t think he’s ever had a pair wear out naturally. They just get purged when the patch and darn to original fabric ration gets too out of whack.
(I guess that makes him an outlier on this very scientific study).
XD
Kiwifruit is very nice, but passionfruit is the work of the devil. Not just because of the pips but also because of the taste. Passionfruit poisons everything.
My book on why it should not be added to fruit salads or juice is going to be titled The Selfish Passionfruit.
My book about people who like the taste of passionfruit will be called The Passionfruit Delusion.
The small local market by me had the Talenti ice creams on sale for $3.99. Guess who has some salted caramel in the freezer RIGHT NOW?
pallygirl: My wedding cake was passionfruit. Declaration of way? Y/N
Never eaten actual passionfruit but love me some passionfruit icing … which is probably 99.99999% sugar anyway.
What about The Blind Passionfruit Eater?
If you eat all the passionfruits for me, this proposal is acceptable.
The Blind Passionfruit Eater has a sad and disappointing ending.
I’ll be over in 5 minutes.
cloudiah: come on up.
Might take a little longer than 5 minutes, now that I think about it. Hey, I read something the other day that looked at all the global climate change projections and declared the Pacific Northwest to be the best location once global warming hits us big time. Looks like you made the right decision!
Wait for meeee!
I considered the Pacific Northwest myself, but fuck it. The Midwest is way cheaper, and Ohio is oddly growing on me. (The $200 rent doesn’t hurt either.)