Apparently Ricky Dawkins is now taking cues from Ricky Rozay.
Ricky D’s comments in the video come from an event he did with Stephen Law during Oxford Think Week in February 2013. (In case you’re wondering, the relevant segment starts at about 1:11:00 into the full video, which you can find at that link. Yes, he really does say the B word. And gets a lot of applause for it.)
Even more alarming than the b-word is his contention that science-based medicine is in the business of killing people. Though I don’t think that’s quite what he meant to say.
EDIT: I guess he does say “cure” people, though the way he says it somehow sounds remarkably similar to “kill.” In my defense I’m old and have wax in my ears.
(This is possibly old news to some people, but it’s new to me!)
H/T: r/againstmensrights
Especially when he won’t heed advice to stay the hell away from Twitter and keep his fail to himself.
Can’t remember if this has been posted in the comments before, but trigger warning for some pretty horrific ableism . Richard Dawkins – the gift that keeps on giving no matter how many times you return it to the store, demand a refund or pretend it must belong to someone else.
Oh crap, my link won’t work. Here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/richard-dawkins-on-babies-with-down-syndrome-abort-it-and-try-again-it-would-be-immoral-to-bring-it-into-the-world-9681549.html
Dawkins is shoving his foot down his throat again? Is it another day ending in “y”?
Girl is the default insult for half the population. Calling people bitches is just more of that bog standard of being called female anything as an insult. It may not bother you any more, but they should ask themselves why that is.
We tried very hard to reclaim bitch in the seventies, but since it was never our insult we failed.
More shit of whavever variety from Dawkins? Colour me surprised. Obviously patronising Malala Yousafzai wasn’t enough.
I think there was a period, around when the referenced XKCD comic was new, 2006, when “… bitches” was kind of a thing. As in “namaste, bitches”, etc. Not necessarily used in a gendered insult way in that context. More like calling a group of your friends “fuckers”.
Didn’t last very long, though. Which is why I haven’t often worn my XKCD “Science: It works, bitches” t-shirt in the last several years.
Thing is, “bitch” or “bitches” is inherently gendered and sexist, whether a group thinks of it that way or not. There’s no way around it.
If I saw a random person wearing a “science: it works, bitches” tee-shirt (bearing in mind the whole world does not read xkcd), I’d think the wearer was a STEM student sneering at anyone not in the sciences, and, certainly if the wearer was male, a misogynist as well.
I am ashamed to admit that I used to use that turn of phrase.
Then I was at a place where I could see a woman flinch every time I said it, and she asked me not to do it.
I stopped after that. My oh-so-clever catchphrase is not worth hurting someone.
I didn’t get the XKCD reference specifically, but when he says it he just comes across as trying to sound “hip” by saying what the cool kids these days say. And failing. Remember when McDonald’s tried something like that?
http://listverse.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/mcdonalds_id_hit_it_ad-jpg.jpeg
Which is what puts you soooooo far ahead of Dawkins in every area that matters most – basic human decency, empathy, knowing other people aren’t props for you to kick around to show of your mighty interleckchual brane, you name it. Dawkins isn’t even the mighty sciency type he’s promoted as, and as far as I’ve ever seen, he has fuckall to offer in any other part of life.
When I watched the video and heard Richard Dawkins of all people say “bitches”, my first thought was that he must be spending too much time on Twitter. When in the comments above I read the source of his failed attempt to sound “Totally Radical” in that smug posh accent of his, I cringed. Even the strip he referenced is old, like eight years. Shows how up on the culture he is, right? Like totally bitchin’, dude.
Hell, I could have said that a hundred times better than he did, raising my voice and pumping my fist even. I bet MC Hawking already did it tons better, in a rap based on that very strip.
By the way, here’s the All The Tropes version of the above TV Tropes link:
https://allthetropes.orain.org/wiki/Totally_Radical
@Brittersweet I remember that McDonalds ad campaign, that was the day that I made the following Photoshopped image:
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/500x691q90/84/americanburger.jpg
I just added this to the post:
I mainly just thought this was funny, esp. with the music at the end. He’s said worse. Hell, he probably said something worse on Twitter today.
I checked to see of Dawkins really did tweet something worse. No luck, mostly retweets…
To rehash the Blind Watchmaker analogy, Dawkins stopped working properly some time ago, but he’s still right twice a day, and goes cuckoo every hour.
Amazed by all the PC hand-wringing going on here. The “gangsta” terminology is merely a silly self-deprecating joke at the expense of his own posh nerdiness; the audience were amused precisely because it was so unexpected. To suggest that it is inherently misogynistic to use this word in a flippant, impersonal context is an absurdly authoritarian approach to language. Also, LOL at all the idiots who screech about Dawkins being “sexist” on a basis which is never specified. I bet you’re the sort of people who think he’s “racist” for criticising Islam too, eh?
So glad you dropped by Adam, now fuck off.
You really don’t know why Dawkins is considered racist and sexist? Sure, pull the other one.
A masterfully witty and well-reasoned riposte there, hellkell. So much detail and evidence! Looks like I’ll need to revise my entire worldview. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 Moron.
You’re the one claiming we’re PC handwringers upset over nothing. Burden of proof is on you, jagoff.
And I’m not really sure why you feel entitled to anything more than scorn. Why is that Adam?
Aaah, poor Adam. Somehow, his internetz skillz got him to WHTM and yet he is unable to google. How will he survive in the modern world, unable to discover any evidence or information for himself? Surely we who have the google-fu must spoon feed him or he will intellectually starve…
I already explained that, hellkell, you cretin. There’s nothing sexist about the obviously flippant comment he makes in this video. He’s just having fun with the fact that people wouldn’t expect a retired Oxford professor to use “gangsta” dialect. So yes, you are indeed a PC handwringer upset over nothing. And no, the burden of proof is not on me to defend someone against the charges of sexism and racism when precisely no compelling evidence of either of these claims has ever been put forward by anyone.
Your Google hand busted, Adam? We owe you nothing but mockery.
Small wonder this blog has the reputation it does when any dissenting position taken on ANYTHING its adherents take for granted – even something relatively unimportant like Richard Dawkins’ opinions – is immediately met with such brainless venom. Seriously, read your first reply to me again – is that the way a mature and informed post-adolescent behaves in an argument? Rather than putting forward any actual reasons for their position, do they simply tell their opponent to “fuck off” in the hope that that will make them go away? Well, sticks and stones and all that. Eventually you’ll realise how moronic your approach to this is, but at this point you aren’t worth any more of my, or anyone else’s, time.
This isn’t debate club, Adam. You didn’t come here in anything resembling good faith, and you’re pissed we all know it.
Bye, please stick the flounce.