Richard Dawkins, I think it’s fair to say, is a bit of a dick. Though he’s an expert popularizer of science he seems to be a bit of a blithering idiot on every other topic he tries to address; his broadsides on religion are patronizing and profoundly ignorant, and his forays into gender politics are even more cringey.
He puts his foot in his mouth so often on Twitter that it’s sometimes difficult to tell the difference between his real account and this absurdist parody.
In a recent interview, he doubled down on some of his most appalling earlier remarks, reaffirming that he believes there is such a thing as “mild pedophilia” and that pregnant women who discover that they are carrying a Down syndrome fetus should probably “abort and try again.” And in that interview he reminded us all again just why so many feminist atheists have turned against him, telling his interlocutor that
I occasionally get a little impatient with American women who complain of being inappropriately touched by the water cooler or invited for coffee or something … .
ELEVATORGATE – NEVER FORGET!
Given how often he comes down on the wrong side on gender issues — heck, he recently suggested to his fans that they follow “Based Mom” Christina Hoff Sommers on Twitter — you might assume he would have a certain degree of fondness for the upside-down-and-backwards politics of the Men’s Rights movement.
But you’d be wrong.
At a recent event at Kennesaw State University – yep, the same place where a student organization tied to A Voice for Men held a little conference not long ago – Dawkins offered a surprising, if somewhat limited, defense of feminism. And he reacted with puzzlement when he was asked about the Men’s Rights movement.
“I didn’t, I hardly knew — is there a men’s right movement?” he commented. “If there is discrimination against men, then that’s bad too,” he conceded, only to add that “I haven’t heard of it.”
The audience responded with laughter.
To AVFM head boy Paul Elam, this was the equivalent of shots fired. In a post today, Elam excoriated Dawkins for not having heard of his little movement, and not being aware of the terrible gynocentric injustices being heaped upon the world’s men.
Richard Dawkins has not heard of discrimination toward men? Really? Sorry, Richard, but please tell me this is because you have invented human teleportation and have managed to remain in an academic setting constantly for the past several years. Tell me that you have so successfully avoided the real world that you are unaware of the ongoing problems of fathers and children in family courts, the egregious and blatant discrimination against men in criminal sentencing, and the transparent sexual double standards applied against males in the domestic violence and sexual assault industries. Perhaps you have actually done so well with insulating yourself that you have managed to exist completely within the walls of interdisciplinary studies departments, lest you may have actually heard of the loss of due process for young men now rampant across college campuses. Or maybe it was harder to notice, even for the great scientist-skeptic, because there are so few young men left?
Yeah, I’m sure that’s it, Paul. Dawkins can’t find any male students to talk to.
That is the problem with living the insulated life. Not only do you end up making foil-hat-worthy observations that translate to ideology being good for science, but eventually the insulation becomes so thick, so protective and muffling, that whatever tiny spark remains in the wire is of little use to science or to society.
Says the man who lives in an ideological bubble of his own making. The irony, it burns.
I was raised as a Catholic but I’ve been an atheist for most of my life. That said, I’m ashamed of how some popular atheists choose to be misogynistic, or simply @ssholes, and give all atheists a terrible name. Especially when they point out misogyny in religions but fail to point it out on themselves.
Racist and sexist people can be from any religion, or none at all. The only difference is that evolutionism is used by some atheists as a shield and justification for misogyny.
I regret that in the past I was so ignorant for so long that I used to mock other people’s beliefs. I was a horrible, disrespectful and ignorant atheist with a superiority complex. I like to think I’m a better person now than I was before.
Dawkins is remarkable at Science. I can’t say the same about his empathy.
This reminds me of a popular YouTuber here in Latin America that defines himself as a feminist and then trashes Sarkeesian and makes videos ranting about girls deserving to die and/or be raped.
(Let’s see if I embedded that picture correctly…)
OK, second and last attempt:
Words, what do they mean?
@marci:
And yet… and yet…
I have friends who thought Ham should have brought up the pyramids and the sunscreen on the Colisseum in Rome as evidence for Noah’s Flood. Their claim is that we can’t reproduce either (the pyramid stones are too closely set and the sunscreen is too heavy for us to reproduce), so the ancient world had construction knowledge that we have lost, therefore a humongous wooden boat must have been within their powers.
Just … oy. I wish there was one person who was spreading these ideas so they could be fought, but no, make someone fear death and then tell them they won’t die if they believe what you tell them to believe, and you can get people to believe anything.
At least I know why Ken Ham and Ray Comfort are here in the States. You can’t be a young-earth creationist and live in Australia for very long. We don’t want ’em and we don’t want to inflict ’em on anyone else.
Elektra, well said!
Falconer: It does seem like the US attracts all the fundies from other western countries. Makes me really want to become an expat.
“He’s no worse than the (straw) people I hate” isn’t exactly a rousing defense. Also, could you please not with the condescending dismissal of religious people? We’re all pretty tired of that particular wank here.
alaisvex,
He did, didn’t he?
That’s so gross.
If he wasn’t disgusting enough to make me want to do the technicolor hurl before, he is now.
Oy. What a bizarre coinkidink…
I don’t know that our Christopher Allman was actually aware of that case before, but oy, if he was… *shudders* What an utterly repulsive troll.
@marci: I hear tell that Kentucky could no longer turn a blind eye to Ham’s ministry project disguised as a theme park, the Ark Encounter, and yanked $18m in tax incentives, so that doesn’t look like it’ll get built after all.
The Creation Museum is still there….
Good to see that Chris Allman has his prefabricated cut and paste false equivalency blather on hand at all times. Nothing livens up a message board “debate” like non-sequitur filled copy pasta.
The Ham group refused to agree not to discriminate based on religion in their hiring practices, so the state couldn’t subsidize them. Oh irony, my irony, thou art slain.
I was trying to find words for that, but couldn’t, so I’m stealing yours, emilygoddess.
What Emily and Kitteh said. That hypocritical bigoted garbage is an embarrassment regardless of who it comes from.
Truth, M.!
Hope your foot’s getting better.
I believe it was Kennesaw State that hired the Bloviator In Chief, Divorce ‘Em While They’re Down Newt Gingrich to flatulate his own unique version of US history to fawning students-with-too-much-money-and-not-enough-sense?
I guess the Smell of Stupidity is still in the furniture…
@ rubaxter – It’s very hard to get stoopid out of upholstery! I usually prepare a mixture of equal parts baking soda and dish soap, rub it on the stoopid, then squirt on some diluted vinegar until it froths slightly. If that doesn’t work, I just break out the flame thrower!
@Elektra
I feel like it’s partially because some atheists think they’re above being influenced by the groups they identify with. They seem to think it’s only religious people who can develop shared values, morality, etc. and therefore religious people are the only ones who are influenced by any kind of shared culture. Atheism doesn’t have a set morality, but that doesn’t mean a person who hangs around with particularly misogynistic atheists won’t become a misogynist, even if misogyny and atheism aren’t directly connected.
I could be wrong, but that’s the only explanation I can come up with for why some atheists love to point and laugh at misogynistic religious people without looking at themselves. “Oh, but atheism doesn’t have a set of shared views, so of course there’s no need to examine our own behaviour as a group!”
I also identify as an atheist, but it’s not really a huge part of my identity. It’s become even less important since I realized how bad the attitudes of certain Dawki- I mean, well-known atheists can be.
::nods:: Trying to get stoopid out of furniture makes cleaning up cat poop stains like a holiday, I swear.
I am smiling inside from this dick!!!
Dawkins’ logic is “bad thing should be overlooked because worse thing happens”, or in other words, “why are you giving me a speeding ticket officer, there are murderers and rapists out there!”
I really wish he’d stop talking about gender issues and stick to his strengths.