I mostly agree with Tyson ...
[Here's a different take on the whole culture-war phenomenon, what we scientists need to fight aggressively for is tolerance ... tolerance for ATHEISTS. On this front Dawkins is losing ground.]
[HT: Ed Brayton]
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That guy, Larry Moran…he seems to have been the final straw to tip a whole lot of people into twitterpated consternation. In particular, Ed Brayton, that sad panjandrum of the self-satisfied mean, medium, middle, moderate, and mediocre, has declared Moran (and all those who dare to profess their…
Okay, I'm back. Did I miss anything?
Other than the giant kerfuffle between Larry Moran and P.Z. Myers on the one hand and Ed Brayton and Pat Hayes et al, on the other, that is.
Things started with this post, from Moran, on the subject of a recent lecture by philosopher Robert Pennock at UCSD.…
In his post on atheism and civil rights, Ed Brayton takes me to task for my assertion that books like those written by Dawkins and Hitchens are not the cause of the public image problem faced by atheists. I had written:
Atheists don't face a public image problem because of the books of Dawkins…
Janet tagged all of us new SBers with a mathematically themed meme. I put off answering this long mostly because I have a massive aversion to math - that's why I went into evolutionary genetics. I'm also not a big fan of the whole self-reflection thing. It makes me think too much. But I'm also…
Haha, I love Dawkins' anecdote towards the end.
i call takfir on you!
I'm not sure I can agree with that. Dawkins is being very "out" with his atheism. Maybe that offends some people, but another couple centuries of hiding in the closet is not going to get the job done. Draw comparisons from the gay movement. At some point it is necessary to say, "Here we are. Deal with us."
Another point is this: losing ground from what? Thanks to millennia of defamation, which continues to this day, the status of atheists among large segments of the general populace is so low that it would be difficult for anyone to make it lower. On Dawkins' web site you can find the video of his book reading and Q&A session in Lynchburg, VA. If you haven't seen it yet, a sizable group of faculty and students from Liberty U. came across town to make themselves heard. Most of them repeated the same question, thus showing that they have been thoroughly brainwashed with the defamation: How can atheists possibly be moral?
David Baltimore has review of The God Delusion at American Scientist.