Richard Dawkins

What, him again? And no new, ground-breaking book? Richard Dawkins is one of the best known scientists in the world. He is author of ‘The Selfish Gene’, which upturned our understanding of natural selection, and in 2017 was named the most influential science book of all time. He is also author of ‘The God Delusion’, which caused a global sensation upon publication in 2006. He has chaired almost every event in the Darwin Day Lecture series since its launch in 2003. Humanists UK president Professor Alice Roberts takes over the chair of the lecture at this event, and introduces Richard Dawkins as he delivers the Darwin Day Lecture for the first time. More. Somehow this stuff hasn’t aged well. Dissent Read More ›

Well, we have heard that astrology is on the rise but not much about new atheism being in decline. A Google Trends graph from 2004 through 2017 shows Sam Harris, rising and Richard Dawkins declining: Dawkins has always been the heart of New Atheism, meaning its decline and his decline are linked at the hip. Harris, probably because of his Hollywood background/connections, is much more media savvy and branched out from New Atheism, first with meditation related stuff and now, with the “Intellectual Dark Web” stuff. “Dawkins vs. Harris” at Shadow to Light It’s worth considering. Keep in mind though that the Google Trend decline could be accounted for in part by the fact that Dawkins is 77 and Harris Read More ›

Not Paul Nelson, if you go by his account of the discussion between Weinstein, the biology prof driven by “woke” students from Evergreen State University and iconic Darwinist Richard Dawkins: I witnessed something last week that I never thought I’d see. Richard Dawkins, pressed to affirm the explanatory power of Darwinian reasoning for human life, backed off, expressing great caution. In fact, he said that talking about human behavior in Darwinian terms was “not helpful” and “not Darwinian.” Pressing Dawkins was evolutionary biologist (and atheist) Bret Weinstein, who, as the evening progressed, out-Darwined Dawkins — if I may coin a neologism — on several fronts. Dawkins, come to discover, turns out to be a rather reluctant Darwinian, at least where Read More ›

From tipster Ken Francis again, who is currently sitting in for Richard Dawkins’s social secretary and wants us to know that at RT: Question More, ‘Tedious old racist’: Richard Dawkins under fire for dismissing ‘aggressive’ Muslim prayer Best-selling atheist author Richard Dawkins has once again been branded “racist” after he tweeted that the sound of cathedral bells is much more pleasant than the “aggressive-sounding Muslim Allahu Akbar.” More. Come to think of it, we hadn’t heard much from or about Dawkins lately; well, he has certainly fixed that. Francis adds, “Richard gives praise to the Lord (stop laughing, Denyse).” Okay, not laughing. He notes that Dawkins also wants more secular chaplains, Humanists UK has been advertising – including in the Read More ›

Part two of my series looking at Jeffrey Koperski’s paper ‘Two Bad Ways to Attack Intelligent Design and Two Good Ones’ is now up on my blog. This one is quite in depth, but a couple of interesting issues come up along the way. I examine the concept of soft and hard anomalies in scientific theories and how they might affect theory change. I then look at the claim that ID’s scientific core is too meagre to be considered serious science. The final objection I analyse is the claim that ID violates a metatheoretic shaping principle known as scientific conservatism. In part one of this series looking at Jeffrey Koperski’s paper, Two Bad Ways to Attack Intelligent Design and Two Read More ›

Here’s my new article at Design Disquisitions. Enjoy: In the next two (potentially three) articles I’ll be taking an in-depth look at an excellent paper written by Jeffrey Koperski, a philosopher of science at Saginaw Valley State University. Koperski has written about ID in several publications (1), which I highly recommend, and he takes a balanced and sensible approach to this topic. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t accept ID, but takes a constructively critical stance, so his work is well worth engaging with. As one can tell from the title of the paper, Two Bad Ways to Attack Intelligent Design and Two Goods Ones(2), Koperski critically analyses two common criticisms of ID, suggesting that they are highly dubious lines of argument. He then Read More ›