…and this is a 
Wreckers
Category: Godlessness
Posted on: October 8, 2008 9:53 PM, by PZ Myers
Some guy named Quentin Letts made a list of the 50 people who wrecked Britain. I'm a bit handicapped in reading it, since I don't know who Quentin Letts is, and I have never heard of 9/10ths of the people being damned by him, but I did recognize a few, like Tony Blair and this guy:
Anti-religionist Dawkins, the best-known English dissenter since Darwin, is the merciless demander of provable fact.
He is the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and tours the world lecturing the elites of the West that they are stupid to believe in any god.
He proselytises against the proselytisers, most of his targets wishing they had a fraction of his apparent certainty.
He is the anti-preacher whose sermons are designed to erode churchgoing and, with that, weaken our happiness.
A man less obsessed with himself and with the narrow calculations of men in white coats might realise that religion, although never offering proof of God's existence, can sugar catastrophe and brighten chasms.
In times of turbulence, the human being is little different from the vole or the dormouse. It will take shelter where it can.
No amount of superior lecturing from an anti-Christ, not even one with so important a title as his, will alter that.
Typical apologetic rubbish. Atheists aren't trying to weaken anyone's happiness; atheists are happy without god. We've discovered that you don't need a veneer of lies to make it through life, and that the truth and reality and the real world are satisfying and beautiful — and that the nonsense the priests tell you is squalid and pathetic. The Trinity is a feeble glimmer next to the glory of the Calculus, Genesis is a short, limping, clumsy limerick next to the epic poetry of Evolution, and the mewling whining of sanctimonious theologians is a simpering whimper drowned out in the vigor and rigor of good, roaring science.
I actively despise this attitude that the purpose of an idea is to be a band-aid against reality — that the virtue of religion is glossing over pain with happy lies and wishful illusions. Yes, in times of turbulence we should seek shelter…but real shelter, in ideas of substance that can provide real help, not this dishonest sugarcoating.
He's right, though, that it's often tough to get people to accept the strength of reality when there's always a slithering pack of lying con-artists always ready to provide glib promises of prosperity and immortality and love eternal at no greater cost than throwing away one's intellect and integrity to believe in a fantasy. I guess Letts' idea of what wrecks a country is a bit different than mine: I can see the ruin of my country all around me in the acceptance of the false dream of faith and the blind obedience to pious authority. I know, it feels so good to close one's eyes and pretend all is well while the chaos rises all around, and damn those people yelling "WAKE UP!" — but they aren't the wreckers. They're the only genuine hope we've got.
Comments
Posted by: Jello | October 8, 2008 10:03 PM
Amen, as it were.
Posted by: Prof. Bleen | October 8, 2008 10:03 PM
Graham Chapman made a somewhat similar point, albeit a less forceful one, in Monty Python's Contractual Obligations Album: "There nothing an agnostic can't do if he really doesn't know whether he believes in anything or not."
Posted by: Jason A. | October 8, 2008 10:04 PM
"merciless demander of provable fact"
How dare he!
Posted by: Wowbagger | October 8, 2008 10:10 PM
He (Letts) should be equally scathing towards parents who don't want their children to suck pacifiers their whole lives, or anyone who actively works to cure alcoholism or drug addiction. Those things make people happy, too - who cares if they happen to be detrimental to their lives and the lives of others?
Posted by: William | October 8, 2008 10:12 PM
FYI, there were under 2,000 hits for "vigor and rigor" when I Googled it, which suggests that it's been used on occasion but not with any regularity. I love the sound of it as a characterization REAL science against dogma, theodicy and pseudoscience. I intend to use it as a rallying cry more often!
Posted by: Kel | October 8, 2008 10:12 PM
So his argument in a nutshell it seems is: "Dawkins is bad because he's trying to break the institution that feeds on the weakness of humanity." Well I'm sure he wouldn't put it that way, but it's basically what it amounts to. "Religion helps in times of tragedy", so what? Many people turn to the bottle in order to cope. Does that mean that we should refrain from criticising drunks?
This is nothing more than pure apologetic nonsense there to show off the "new atheists" as bullys who want to suck the happiness out of the world. Why do people feel it necessary to protect delusions, the memetic parasites that thrive on the weakness and suffering of our species? Is reality that bleak to them that they have to not only coddle up to their precious fantasy but chastise anyone who calls it one? It seems in doing so they pay little respect to the human condition and the mind's ability to embrace reality.
Posted by: Katharine | October 8, 2008 10:14 PM
Oh, so the religidiots admit they're hopeless sad sacks!
Let's use this guy's idiocy to shoot the rest of them in the foot.
Posted by: uncle frogy | October 8, 2008 10:16 PM
It might feel easier if I "had faith" but I do not. I am unable to stop thinking about all of nature. I just do not believe it because "you say so" it has to be real regardless of what "you" say.
I want no sugar coating no delusions no what if. I love stories as stories and reality as reality.
do not let the B.S. stand unchallenged!
Posted by: Rey Fox | October 8, 2008 10:20 PM
"He is the anti-preacher whose sermons are designed to erode churchgoing and, with that, weaken our happiness. "
http://cornerstork.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/crying_baby.jpg
Posted by: Psi Wavefunction | October 8, 2008 10:20 PM
I wonder what they'd say of the new RDF censorship spree. A bit in their favour, isn't it?
-Disgruntled OT refugee-
Posted by: Father Nature | October 8, 2008 10:23 PM
I didn't recognize most of the names either but my favorite is definitely #29, Dame Suzi Leather. Is she from San Francisco originally?
England must have a shortage of country-wreckers or Quentin Letts must be a real tool if a bunch of TV weather guessers made it onto his list.
Posted by: MarcusA | October 8, 2008 10:24 PM
Why should uncertainty lead to a belief in god? Quentin Letts accuses Dawkins of being certain about god's non-existence. But if I am uncertain about an idea I don't clutch to it for dear life.
Dawkins is not certain about god's non-existence. He is doubtful about his existence based on a complete lack of evidence. Christians don't grasp the distinction.
If god showed up tomorrow, no doubt, Dawkins would change his mind. But Christians are going to waste their lives waiting at "God's bus stop" hoping for a ride.
Posted by: MarcusA | October 8, 2008 10:27 PM
Why should uncertainty lead to a belief in god? Quentin Letts accuses Dawkins of being certain about god's non-existence. But if I am uncertain about an idea I don't clutch to it for dear life.
Dawkins is not certain about god's non-existence. He is doubtful about his existence based on a complete lack of evidence. Christians don't grasp the distinction.
If god showed up tomorrow, no doubt, Dawkins would change his mind. But Christians are going to waste their lives waiting at "God's bus stop" hoping for a ride.
Posted by: Pixelfish | October 8, 2008 10:35 PM
I kept reading that as Quentin Letts making the list, as in....getting on the list. I wondered too what Quentin Letts had done that was so terrible that he wrecked Britain. Now I know. ;)
Posted by: Clemens | October 8, 2008 10:42 PM
Went to church for a big part of my live. Basically every Sunday up until last year. Can't really say it made me particularly happy, nor did the other folks I saw there look particularly happy.
One German sceptic once said about Christians: "Shouldn't they look, like, more salvated?"
Posted by: llewelly | October 8, 2008 10:42 PM
Aha! So that's why Zeno abandoned Catholicism in favor of atheism.Posted by: Ragutis | October 8, 2008 10:45 PM
I'm not as familiar with the U.K. press as perhaps I should be, but isn't the Daily Mail a far-right, anti-gay, xenophobic tabloid that makes The Sun and the "Torygraph" look moderate?
Posted by: Glen Davidson | October 8, 2008 10:47 PM
We learned that, but:
Now that's psychology, and it is very difficult to get around in anyone who already is a theist. In a sense, they're interested in what we are, getting to know what they do not know, only they have no idea of the proper epistemological boundaries for such an endeavor.
Thus they desire "their unkown." They are not likely to cease to do so, and only new generations are open to learning a better way of knowing the world.
And many of them are not really--it was reported recently that non-religious college students are more likely to fall for non-religious bullshit than are the religious students (the attention commanded of the obscure and "inexplicable"). Competition of bullshit no doubt, but who cares, the point is that people are gullible.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Matt7895 | October 8, 2008 10:48 PM
Ragutis - yes. The Daily Mail is the worst British paper in existence, followed by the Daily Express, the Daily Star, the Sun, and the Mirror in that order.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | October 8, 2008 10:49 PM
Oh, I forgot to attribute my quote to Nietzsche. As in:
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: BobC | October 8, 2008 10:50 PM
The Trinity is a feeble glimmer next to the glory of the Calculus, Genesis is a short, limping, clumsy limerick next to the epic poetry of Evolution, and the mewling whining of sanctimonious theologians is a simpering whimper drowned out in the vigor and rigor of good, roaring science.
Really good stuff from PZ as usual, but what good is it if only atheists read it?
Posted by: I am so wise | October 8, 2008 10:57 PM
Dawkins is overrated when it comes to the atheist movement. For all the attention showered on him, he's far less effective than a H.L. Mencken or a Madalyn Murray O'Hair both of whom effected real, substantial change and didn't just propagate the same old arguments in a new book. Hell, Dawkins wasn't even original, he is to use Dawkins' favorite term a "flea" of Sam Harris.
Also, he, like old man Myers here, fails to recognize that evolutionary theory is mere history, a subset at that, and that's just a mere humanities professor.
What's even more amusing is his merry band of followers who parrot his positions without understanding them. Take postmodernism as an example- Some of the best histories ever written are postmodern, but since Old Man Dawkins doesn't understand it, well postmodernism must be bogus. Never mind that teacher nor pupil have a clue.
Posted by: Insightful Ape | October 8, 2008 11:04 PM
"Most of his targets wishing they had a fraction of his apparent certainty"..
Is the guy a mind reader? How on earth does he know what people wish or do not wish? Jeez, someone here is presumptuous...
Oh and by the way, of course he know better than we do whether we are happy or not. Boy oh boy.
Posted by: Kel | October 8, 2008 11:04 PM
Why does Dawkins need to bring new arguments to the table? What's there left unsaid that he could contribute to?Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?
Posted by: Insightful Ape | October 8, 2008 11:06 PM
"Most of his targets wishing they had a fraction of his apparent certainty"..
Is the guy a mind reader? How on earth does he know what people wish or do not wish? Jeez, someone here is presumptuous...
Oh and by the way, of course he know better than we do whether we are happy or not. Boy oh boy.
Posted by: Realist Golfer | October 8, 2008 11:08 PM
The question shouldn't be "why are we here", it should be "how are we here", when we answer that the "why" is meaningless.
Posted by: Insightful Ape | October 8, 2008 11:08 PM
"Most of his targets wishing they had a fraction of his apparent certainty"..
Is the guy a mind reader? How on earth does he know what people wish or do not wish? Jeez, someone here is presumptuous...
Oh and by the way, of course he know better than we do whether we are happy or not. Boy oh boy.
Posted by: BobbyEarle | October 8, 2008 11:09 PM
MarcusA @13...
I wonder if transfers are available?
Posted by: Matt | October 8, 2008 11:09 PM
Can I get an AMEN? Let me hear ya!!
Posted by: lusoman | October 8, 2008 11:11 PM
As soon as I saw the link went to the Daily Mail web site, I knew it wasn't worth following. The worst of the yellow press in the UK, absolutely the worst...
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | October 8, 2008 11:11 PM
... like Tony Blair ...
Give credit where due: Mr. Letts can claim to be at least 2% right!
Posted by: Thesk | October 8, 2008 11:18 PM
There's a middling episode of This American Life where a man tells the story of how he got into a belief in Ghosts and UFO's and other foolishness that mirrors a belief in religion quite perfect- specifically on the front PZ's discussing. Its in an episode called 'Fake Science.' (If you ask me though, they take it too easy on the nutters as well.)
Posted by: Eric Saveau | October 8, 2008 11:21 PM
Take postmodernism as an example- Some of the best histories ever written are postmodern, but since Old Man Dawkins doesn't understand it, well postmodernism must be bogus.
In my college days I had various humanities professors (mostly English literature) who were gaga over postmodernism I can unequivocally state that they were full of shit. The grotesque conceit of postmodernism is that it validly applies to everything; i.e, postmodern math, postmodern biology, postmodern nuclear physics... and these specific conceits were articulated by people who knew less than nothing about the above fields (I'm looking at you, Dr. Gurney). Postmodernism may be an interesting literary device or a novel artistic sensibility, but beyond such pursuits (and sometimes even within them) the charge of "bogus" is not wholly underserved.
Posted by: ignatov | October 8, 2008 11:28 PM
"religion...can sugar catastrophe"
So can morphine.
Posted by: Tony Sidaway | October 8, 2008 11:31 PM
How appropriate that this Quentin Letts fellow was educated in Kentucky at a place called Bellarmine College (now Bellarmine University).
It's a Catholic college named after the inquisitor who prosecuted Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei amongst others for blasphemy.
Posted by: wunelle | October 8, 2008 11:38 PM
Hear, hear.
How unenviable a position he's in to be lamenting a reality-based existence!
Posted by: inkadu | October 8, 2008 11:44 PM
Ah yes, the perils of a godless existence.
If only I could be in church every sunday again. Three hours of lectures by boring old men, sitting, standing, kneeling, mumbling hosannahs and wondering if I believed in God enough to be allowed into Heaven ultimately, or if I would fail to measure up and be sent into eternal damnation. It truly brought peace, happiness and contenment into my life. And then Dawkins had to ruin m y idyll with his near certainty that maybe it was all bollocks. Drat you, Richard Dawkins, drat you to some place mildly warm.
Posted by: Hank Fox | October 8, 2008 11:49 PM
"A man less obsessed with himself ..."
Jeez, Quentin. Project much?
Posted by: Hank Fox | October 8, 2008 11:51 PM
"A man less obsessed with himself ..."
Jeez, Quentin. Project much?
Posted by: BobC | October 8, 2008 11:52 PM
Are there any biologists or other scientists or atheists here who are interested in defending science and/or attacking Christianity?
You all could talk to each other and accomplish nothing, or you could go visit a Christian blog which has this thread about the latest bullshit from the Dishonesty Institute: Scientist Coalition Accused of 'Suppressing' Evidence Against Darwinism
Posted by: Hank Fox | October 8, 2008 11:54 PM
Okay, that wasn't my fault! It was that darned Evil Twin Hank!
Posted by: charfles | October 8, 2008 11:55 PM
This sounds like a job for Sastra...
(queue batman music...)
Posted by: LindsayT | October 9, 2008 12:01 AM
Read the rest of his list. He's quite obviously a grumpy old man yelling at the kids to get off his lawn.
He even has a go at Anthony Crosland, who's "crime" was to implement comprehensive schooling. Elitism is one thing, but elitism from age 11 is repulsive.
Posted by: Kel | October 9, 2008 12:09 AM
We could, or we could bang our heads against a wall repeatedly. The latter is probably a far less painful endeavour.Posted by: I am so wise | October 9, 2008 12:15 AM
"Why does Dawkins need to bring new arguments to the table? What's there left unsaid that he could contribute to?"
Nothing really, but when one does not have something useful or at least original to say, manners dictate one not clutter B&N bookshelves with repeat material.
" Also, he, like old man Myers here, fails to recognize that evolutionary theory is mere history
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? "
Evolutionary biology, geology, astronomy all look at the past to see what occurred. History does the same thing. However, it is completely arbitrary division as noted by E.O. Wilson in his book Consilience.
Posted by: Kel | October 9, 2008 12:24 AM
Not useful? It's brought many people to reading those arguments who would have otherwise been unexposed. It's brought many people towards seeing atheism in a different light; I'm amazed how many times I've heard "I was a Christian, then I read The God Delusion". Even if it's just a rehash of others work, it's still useful. And given the whole evolution vs creationism controvery, it makes intellectuals like Dawkins sought after. He knows his science, and that's what people want. Also, he is a really eloquent writer. That helps things as well, The God Delusion was a much more accessible book than The End Of Faith. You forget the predictive nature of science, evolutionary biology, geology and astronomy all have uses in understanding the world around us and thus helping us to make predictions. Evolutionary theory is vital to fighting viruses and bacteria, those harmful bastards keep mutating!Posted by: Timothy Wood | October 9, 2008 12:27 AM
amen.
Posted by: BobC | October 9, 2008 12:43 AM
#44: We could, or we could bang our heads against a wall repeatedly. The latter is probably a far less painful endeavour.
Unfortunately you are probably correct.
Posted by: melior | October 9, 2008 12:50 AM
Objection, evidently false Your Honor.
Posted by: I am so wise | October 9, 2008 12:53 AM
"You forget the predictive nature of science, evolutionary biology, geology and astronomy all have uses in understanding the world around us and thus helping us to make predictions."
Ahh, but history has predictive powers as well. Notice that this economic crisis, and most of the rest since the 30s, have met with rate cuts, not hikes. Why? because using historical knowledge you can predict that when rates are hiked in these situations, the economic goes down like the women in the Palin family.
Posted by: melior | October 9, 2008 12:55 AM
"mere history"
Does not parse, please resubmit.
Posted by: Kel | October 9, 2008 12:58 AM
Of course history has predictive powers, but history is not comparable to the sciences you afformentioned. Surely you can see the difference between the study of evolutionary biology and the study of history.
Posted by: foxfire | October 9, 2008 1:10 AM
I'm so very terribly sorry about this OT item: another poll, CNN (see quick poll on right side - scroll down):
http://www.cnn.com/
Poll is who would make a better first lady: Cindy McCain or Michelle Obama. Michelle winning at 72% (20K votes vs 8K votes).
Again, sorry for the OT.
Regarding that dit-head with the list - has the rest of Britain noticed that it is wrecked?
Posted by: Eric Saveau | October 9, 2008 1:11 AM
Notice that this economic crisis, and most of the rest since the 30s, have met with rate cuts, not hikes. Why? because using historical knowledge you can predict that when rates are hiked in these situations, the economic goes down like the women in the Palin family.
Actually, since the 20s, economic crises like this have been preceded by rate cuts for the wealthy, along with massive deregulation.
Posted by: Nasikabatrachus | October 9, 2008 1:22 AM
*Tears hair out*
GOD DANG THOSE ATHEISTS, RUINING THIS HAPPINESS MY RELIGION GIVES ME! Why can't they just realize it's not supposed to be proven, it's supposed to fill us with an irrational bliss, an opiate high to blunt the pain of reality! Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go write several more articles about people I despise.
Seriously, though, not only does practically no religious person agree with this guy--most people think it's somehow proven in one way or another, or else they just don't think about it--his argument goes against the whole point of religious belief. No one believes just because it makes them happy, it makes them happy (in perhaps the shallowest sense of the word) because they think it's true. Saying that you only believe because it makes you happy just means that you don't really believe it, it doesn't make you happy, and that your professions of belief actually relate to something other than your professed belief, an ulterior motive like social conformity or for reasons related to one's psychological defenses.
For example, no one believes that Bill Gates has willed to them a vast inheritance to be given to them upon Gates' death just because it makes them happy (except for crazy people). Why? Because it is both obviously not true and because as soon as you admit you're only believing it to be happy, you stop believing it and it stops making you happy. If your "happiness" is dependent on being associated with a bunch of other people who believe the same thing, though, it becomes much less costly to admit this.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | October 9, 2008 1:31 AM
Ahh, but history has predictive powers as well.
Uh, no. "history" as you're using it is simple induction, which is inadequate as an inferential methodology. On top of that, you're misstating the historical facts.
Posted by: mr_Rossi | October 9, 2008 1:34 AM
I have to admit, that article is probably the best example of the Daily Mail 'little England' cliche I've seen. It's worth remembering in the US that newspapers are still very influential media sources over here. And unfortunately, the Mail does sell quite well.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | October 9, 2008 1:37 AM
Even if it's just a rehash of others work, it's still useful.
And it's even more useful since it isn't just a rehash of others' work. I don't recall Sam Harris introducing the term "selfish gene". (I do, however, recall debating with him around that time on Psyche-D about the nature of consciousness, which he held to be some sort of mystical dualistic goo.)
Posted by: Kel | October 9, 2008 1:43 AM
I Thought we were purely talking about The God Delusion. Though agreed, Dawkins has brought something useful to the field in terms of gene-centered evolution and the idea of memes. That was something absent from Harris' work.Posted by: I am so wise | October 9, 2008 1:49 AM
Actually, since the 20s, economic crises like this have been preceded by rate cuts for the wealthy, along with massive deregulation.
And using your knowledge of history, what do you predict will happen the next time the rich get rate cuts and deregulation occurs?
"I don't recall Sam Harris introducing the term "selfish gene"."
I was referring to GD and End of Faith.
"Of course history has predictive powers, but history is not comparable to the sciences you afformentioned. Surely you can see the difference between the study of evolutionary biology and the study of history."
Every science has some limits be it history or sciences I've mentioned before. Look, not even creationists are going to look down on you for conceding that natural history and historical sciences and people history aka history as we learned it in school fall under the same umbrella.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | October 9, 2008 1:50 AM
I Thought we were purely talking about The God Delusion.
Given the "so wise" one's comment "he, like old man Myers here, fails to recognize that evolutionary theory is mere history", his critique of Dawkins clearly extends further. But criticism of Dawkins from someone so grossly ignorant about the nature of science isn't worth much.
Posted by: Kel | October 9, 2008 1:54 AM
http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/facepalm.jpgPosted by: truth machine, OM | October 9, 2008 1:54 AM
Every science has some limits be it history or sciences I've mentioned before. Look, not even creationists are going to look down on you for conceding that natural history and historical sciences and people history aka history as we learned it in school fall under the same umbrella.
Look, you know nothing of science, and specifically evolutionary biology, if you think it is "mere history". The scientific method is based on inference to the best explanation, not on induction. You might want to read A.F. Chalmers' "What is this thing called science?" and David Deutsch's "Fabric of Reality". Then re-read Consilience, because you didn't get it.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | October 9, 2008 1:57 AM
I was referring to GD and End of Faith.
Even on that you FAIL. They don't have the same content, and Dawkins' book was much more widely read and much more effective.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | October 9, 2008 2:00 AM
http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/facepalm.jpg
Indeed. This "so wise" imbecile seems to think that evolutionary biology, astronomy, etc. are simply a matter of recording what happened in the past. Perhaps something could stir in his thick skull if he were to contemplate the word "prehistoric".
Posted by: Kel | October 9, 2008 2:02 AM
I assume "I am so wise" is of the postmodernism school of thought and is calling himself "I am so wise" ironically.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | October 9, 2008 2:04 AM
is calling himself "I am so wise" ironically
That would be wise, but since he isn't, it's likely that he's quite serious about the handle.
Posted by: whololo | October 9, 2008 2:10 AM
At first, I thought he was praising Dawkins. What with the "Anti-religionist Dawkins, the best-known English dissenter since Darwin, is the merciless demander of provable fact".
Posted by: truth machine, OM | October 9, 2008 2:13 AM
Oh, and this:
And using your knowledge of history, what do you predict will happen the next time the rich get rate cuts and deregulation occurs?
Again, induction is an inadequate methodology; as Hume noted, causation cannot be deduced from mere succession -- post hoc ergo propter hoc. One can predict what will happen by understanding economic systems. History only serves as confirmation/disconfirmation.
Posted by: I am so wise | October 9, 2008 2:27 AM
"But, savvy alpha male that he is, he refrained from getting into a gutter brawl with a scrawny, marginal primate such as myself'."
Not so savvy are the primates here.
Posted by: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood | October 9, 2008 2:28 AM
Late to this party, as ever.
As others have pointed out, Letts is something of a High Tory, writing for the Telegraph and Mail. He is, therefore, one of those literate opinion-makers who can sugar-coat some quite disgraceful views.
As a rule of thumb, I assume that anyone who reads the Mail is a cnut. Any ideologue who writes for the rag is truly beyond The Pale.
Posted by: Noadi | October 9, 2008 2:30 AM
This guy also thinks it's terrible to eliminate corporal punishment from schools. I don't think anyone who thinks an adult should be able to use their authority to beat a child into obedience even needs consideration.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | October 9, 2008 2:31 AM
"But, savvy alpha male that he is, he refrained from getting into a gutter brawl with a scrawny, marginal primate such as myself'."
Well aren't you the clever intellectual coward.
Posted by: Moggie | October 9, 2008 2:50 AM
#43:
That describes the readers of the Daily Mail very well. Those who write for it are something more sinister, I think.
Posted by: Pikemann Urge | October 9, 2008 2:58 AM
That was so well put, PZ, that I declare this comment redundant.
We're 75 comments in and so far nobody has posted a dissertation - even when postmodernism is the subject! Good stuff!
Posted by: Derek | October 9, 2008 3:07 AM
I'll agree with this article on the EastEnders show. Even seeing promos for it on PBS makes me want to throw something into the television.
Posted by: pmont | October 9, 2008 3:40 AM
I prefer reading this Quentin.
Posted by: valdemar | October 9, 2008 4:17 AM
British media watcher here: Quentin Letts is a right-wing tosser of no significance whatever, and the Daily Mail is a crazy right-wing rag. It's edited by a militant Catholic bigot, Paul Dacre, who insists on his staff publishing silly stories about the Garden of Eden and Noah's Ark. Dacre also insists on his staff writing drivel about career women being miserable, abortion being evil and contraception being A Bad Thing in general. Also, Dacre promoted the Wakefield MMR scare, banging the anti-vaccination drum long and loud. So to be pilloried in this way is a ringing endorsement of Dawkins' worth as a citizen, in my view.
Posted by: davem | October 9, 2008 4:46 AM
""mewling whining of sanctimonious theologians is a simpering whimper""
Don't hold back, PZ, say what you mean :0)
As a UK resident, I didn't know who Quentin Letts was, either. I do now, and his list tells me more about him than the people on it.
What a sanctimonious arseshole.
Posted by: Peter Ashby | October 9, 2008 5:13 AM
I too switched off as soon as I saw it was the Daily Mail. This is the paper that Ben Goldacre has characterised as being engaged in a project to divide the inanimate objects of the world into those that cause and those that cure cancer.
Pay it no heed, most of its readers buy it for the comedic value only.
Posted by: AdrianT | October 9, 2008 5:15 AM
Quentin Letts is a typical populist journalist writing for a newspaper generally read by bigots. He is often lampooned in the satirical magazine Private Eye (I suggest PZ send a copy of his critique to the magazine). The Daily Mail is read by people who want to return Britain to the 1950s, and who basically don't think. It seems to print press releases from the fundamentalist 'Christian Institute' verbatim. The Mail has always made snide attacks against Dawkins, and anyone 'liberal'.
If you look at the comments sections under articles, it tends to be full of religious nuts, and right wing extremists.
Posted by: Louis | October 9, 2008 5:34 AM
Echoing the other Brits: were I to own a parrot, I would not line its cage with the Daily Mail for fear that my parrot's guano would be dirtied by The Mail's content.
I will make one slight "correction" to AdrianT's comment in #81 though: The Daily Mail is not read by people who want to return Britain to the 1950s and who basically don't think. It is read mostly by people who want to return Britain to an entirely fictional imagining of what the 1950s supposedly was, and for whom thinking beyond a soundbite is something best avoided lest one wish to appear elitist. Some of them read it out of habit.
Louis
Posted by: SEF | October 9, 2008 5:39 AM
Except Blair apparently got included in the list too. Although that can be filed under "accidentally right" (as is possible for even the most mindless of processes), one still needs to be able to make the distinction between worthy and wrecker oneself - since the list-maker isn't a competent filter whichever way you regard his output.Posted by: Tony | October 9, 2008 5:51 AM
I am sorry you and your commenters spent so much time attacking Quentin Letts: it's pointless, like throwing mud at a sewage farm. No-one in England has heard of this hack except readers of the right-wing journals for which he scribbles cheap and nasty sneers.
Posted by: Geoff | October 9, 2008 5:57 AM
I take exception to your anagram, Lee@71. The insult 'Daily Mail reader' may lack Anglo Saxon punch, but it is genuinely pejorative.
Posted by: erik Remkus | October 9, 2008 5:58 AM
"Can sugar catastrophe"
Ummm...... yeah. I'll pass. If it ain't strong enough to stand on its own, it ain't worth having. Catastrophe, tea, or otherwise.
Posted by: Jason Dick | October 9, 2008 6:21 AM
Exactly! Too much emphasis on facts and reality is what caused this crisis. If we would all just rely on wishful thinking and magical mysticism, it'd all be great and wonderful all the time! Or, at least, we'd think it was.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | October 9, 2008 6:31 AM
OK, then, point us to one of these great histories. I mean, one that is written in comprehensible language and that is not semantically vacuous. The analogue of popular science writing, but explaining some postmodernist theme.
Personally, I think Postmodernism Disrobed is one of Richard's better essays (OK, it's a book review, but it stands on its own).
Posted by: Ellid | October 9, 2008 7:03 AM
It's the Daily Mail, aka the rough equivalent of the National Enquirer. Ignore it.
Posted by: El Herring | October 9, 2008 7:22 AM
The British newspapers as described by Jim Hacker in Yes Minister