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'The Enemies of Reason' - New Richard Dawkins documentary on tonight at 8pm on Ch 4

  • 13-08-2007 05:37PM
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 27,856 ✭✭✭✭


    There's a detailed title for ya!

    Richard Dawkins has a new 2-part documentary airing tonight, called 'the Enemies of Reason', which basically is an assault on astrology, mediums, psychics, all that sort of stuff..... Thought you lot might be interested in seeing it!

    Here's a recent interview Dawkins did on Richard & Judy, about the documentary:
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1964171996506271039&hl=en

    Enjoy!


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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,246 ✭✭✭✭Riamfada


    Alright Dave, how are you.

    Channel and Time?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,856 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    Grimes wrote:
    Alright Dave, how are you.

    Channel and Time?
    Yo Grimey, I'm good thanks.

    There was a hint as to the channel and time, in the thread title:

    "'The Enemies of Reason' - New Richard Dawkins documentary on tonight at 8pm on Ch 4"

    :p

    I'm afraid you missed it, mon frère! Wasn't all that great... shooting fish in a barrel. Part 2 is next Monday.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,246 ✭✭✭✭Riamfada


    I was too lazy to read the entire title!

    :D


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 997 ✭✭✭Sapien


    Amazingly, the responses to the equivalent threads in the Atheism and Agnosticism forum and the Irish Skeptics forum are much larger.

    Come on guys! Wasn't it at least funny when he read those tabloid horoscopes and replaced all the star signs with nationalities? "Germans... don't be so eager to follow orders today!"

    Did he attack anything anyone here places importance in? Did you think he was fair?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,225 ✭✭✭Ciaran500


    Sapien wrote:
    Did he attack anything anyone here places importance in? Did you think he was fair?
    I have a feeling any response from people on here would just like the dowsers that failed the tests.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,247 ✭✭✭✭6th


    I didnt see it myself but I'll have a look around later.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 497 ✭✭Aisling&M


    It was rubbish in my opinion. Not a very scientific approach to defend 'reason' at all! He went to a fair and tested some dowsers.......ooh that must have taken him ages! *rolling eyes*


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 997 ✭✭✭Sapien


    Aisling&M wrote:
    It was rubbish in my opinion. Not a very scientific approach to defend 'reason' at all! He went to a fair and tested some dowsers.......ooh that must have taken him ages! *rolling eyes*
    What was unscientific about his methods? He tested psychics and an astrologer as well.

    Personally I didn't think the results of the dowsing experiment were surprising, or should even have been particularly disturbing for an intelligent advocate of the practice - it didn't conflict with my conception about how dowsing probably works.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 497 ✭✭Aisling&M


    His assumptions, especially toward the end of the programme (ie faith over reason is very dangerous and can hurt many people) were not shown in evidence...........what people have been hurt, how is it dangerous.......etc etc.

    He picked a few who failed or got acceptable 'chance' results and that was the science behind his outlandish statements.

    He did a little wishy washy testing and even if some of his theories are/were/will be accurate I would not take them as fact just because he says so on a TV programme.....

    I was looking forward to a more thorough and reasonable examination of the subject as a believer in it..........a believer who is pretty sure one day the realm of paranormal will be accepted as normal and part of science that as yet is incapable of measuring. That will not always be the case, in my opinion.
    As we advance with our methods we will advance in our understanding and use intrigue rather than fear as motive to inquire into the credibility of the paranormal.


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 10,583 Mod ✭✭✭✭5uspect


    Aisling&M wrote:
    It was rubbish in my opinion. Not a very scientific approach to defend 'reason' at all! He went to a fair and tested some dowsers.......ooh that must have taken him ages! *rolling eyes*

    It was an entirely scientific approach! Also, it wasn't a fair it was a university campus where the Psychologist was conducting a double blind experiment. It was a simple and powerful example of how such tests work, that only adds to the existing experimental data. I could probably cite you hundreds more examples if you like?
    Aisling&M wrote:
    His assumptions, especially toward the end of the programme (ie faith over reason is very dangerous and can hurt many people) were not shown in evidence...........what people have been hurt, how is it dangerous.......etc etc.

    We'll have to wait until episode 2 for more of that I'd imagine. I would say people using alternatives to medicine and ignoring proper (double blind tested) medicine would be a good example.
    Aisling&M wrote:
    He picked a few who failed or got acceptable 'chance' results and that was the science behind his outlandish statements.
    Where did you get this from? They all failed! If one did exhibit such an ability Dawkins would probably be first to admit it. Thats how science works. You test and test again looking for evidence. No one have ever beaten random chance.
    Aisling&M wrote:
    He did a little wishy washy testing and even if some of his theories are/were/will be accurate I would not take them as fact just because he says so on a TV programme.....
    And he's not asking you to have faith in him. You can do these experiments yourself (thats one reason they showed such scaled down simple experiments). You can go read the scientific literature yourself where the evidence is presented.
    Aisling&M wrote:
    I was looking forward to a more thorough and reasonable examination of the subject as a believer in it..........a believer who is pretty sure one day the realm of paranormal will be accepted as normal and part of science that as yet is incapable of measuring. That will not always be the case, in my opinion.

    Science works on the falsification of hypotheses. You come up with an idea that can be tested (this is the important bit), test it in a way that would show it can be falsified. If it survives it becomes a theory (or part of a larger theory).

    You as a believer seem to have faith an array of different apparently interlinked hypotheses that all have a paranormal aspect joining them.
    To be paranormal these hypothesis must describe things that do not exist in nature as we currently understand. Since they must interact with the natural world to be even perceivable they can be tested. Dawkins used the example of bat echo location here.

    A lot of these ideas can be tested independently, and individually, and have all been essentially falsified beyond reasonable doubt. You seem to have faith in a whole range of ideas simply because you like the notion of the paranormal.
    Aisling&M wrote:
    As we advance with our methods we will advance in our understanding and use intrigue rather than fear as motive to inquire into the credibility of the paranormal.

    If anything as science has progressed more and more myths about paranormality have been explained naturally. As science explains such observable effects they become ordinary natural phenomena (losing their sex appeal in the process I'd imagine). There is no fear of the paranormal in science, only hard facts based on dispassionate observation.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 497 ✭✭Aisling&M


    Honestly I'm not really in the frame of mind to have a discussion about it or defend my opinion. I just thought it was a bad attempt at fear-inducing schepticism.

    And 'chance' results were when they got 1 or 2 out of 6 guesses right......ie that is the same probability as the average man/woman just guessing off the top of their heads.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 497 ✭✭Aisling&M


    "Quote:
    Originally Posted by Aisling&M
    As we advance with our methods we will advance in our understanding and use intrigue rather than fear as motive to inquire into the credibility of the paranormal.


    If anything as science has progressed more and more myths about paranormality have been explained naturally. As science explains such observable effects they become ordinary natural phenomena (losing their sex appeal in the process I'd imagine). There is no fear of the paranormal in science, only hard facts based on dispassionate observation."

    **************************************************************


    EXACTLY.........paranormal now does not mean it will be anything but normal in the future. Sure half of it may be disproved while the rest may be explained through NATURAL/normal phenomena.

    There is no reason why these occurences could not one day be explained logically.......


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 997 ✭✭✭Sapien


    Aisling&M wrote:
    I was looking forward to a more thorough and reasonable examination of the subject as a believer in it..........a believer who is pretty sure one day the realm of paranormal will be accepted as normal and part of science that as yet is incapable of measuring. That will not always be the case, in my opinion.
    I think he dealt with this idea rather elegantly, with his discussion of the once outlandish theory that bats could detect their surroundings by sonar, and how it eventually was brought into the fold of scientific orthodoxy by careful testing and the persuasiveness of evidence. His implication was clear, and it was that if psi is real, we can expect the same process to occur.

    I think anyone interested in the Paranormal has to get comfortable with the level of evidence involved, and fit their understanding to be in accordance - otherwise one is setting oneself up for disappointment. Arguing against the evidence is a battle that is lost from the outset.


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 10,583 Mod ✭✭✭✭5uspect


    Sapien wrote:
    I think anyone interested in the Paranormal has to get comfortable with the level of evidence involved, and fit their understanding to be in accordance - otherwise one is setting oneself up for disappointment. Arguing against the evidence is a battle that is lost from the outset.

    Thats a very good point. There seems to be too much emotional investment on the side of the paranormal crowd. There is too much of a willingness to dismiss vast swathes of science and reason to justify the pet notion that there is the possibility of telepathy, for example.

    Aisling&M wrote:
    And 'chance' results were when they got 1 or 2 out of 6 guesses right......ie that is the same probability as the average man/woman just guessing off the top of their heads.

    Thats the point, nothing was observed. You would get the same result if you didn't use people either. If you used a random number generator you would get similar results. This shows that not only are these people lacking the ability to dowse but so are "average" people
    I just thought it was a bad attempt at fear-inducing schepticism.

    Skepticism is the default scientific position? There's nothing fear inducing about that.
    EXACTLY.........paranormal now does not mean it will be anything but normal in the future. Sure half of it may be disproved while the rest may be explained through NATURAL/normal phenomena.

    There is no reason why these occurences could not one day be explained logically.......

    You're missing the point. There are hundreds and thousands of discarded hypotheses in science. To cling onto a popular, sexed up selection of paranormal notions when there is no evidence other than anecdotal is to ignore the very basics of the scientific method. The evidence is increasingly weighting against these ideas.

    Sure there is the possibility that one day there may be evidence to the contrary that E.S.P. etc exists but its very very unlikely.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,239 ✭✭✭✭WindSock


    I liked the false positives thing with the pigeons. Conditioned response is another way of calling it. Like Pavlovs dogs. Thats al ljust superstition though. I think the spirit world is a bit more complex and personal than superstition. And the rockness of the rock.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭wezzopalooza


    I must say that I was cringing at the tarot card reader towards the start. He was totally clueless, and was even contradicting his own information during the reading. He mentioned a spirit person beginning with G who was around Dawkins and was most likely a family member. After a minute of waffling on and fishing for info, Dawkins brought up this person with the G sounding name to which the "reader" said was no relation to Dawkins!! The look on his face when Dawkins reminded him of this error was cringeworthy to say the least. He totally let this guy embarass himself. He told him absolutely nothing of substance!!


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 10,583 Mod ✭✭✭✭5uspect


    boreds wrote:
    I liked the false positives thing with the pigeons. Conditioned response is another way of calling it. Like Pavlovs dogs. Thats al ljust superstition though. I think the spirit world is a bit more complex and personal than superstition. And the rockness of the rock.

    Can I ask you what you thought of the Medium interviewed on the show then?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,770 ✭✭✭Bottle_of_Smoke


    "no, my grandmother HATED cats"


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,007 ✭✭✭knird evol




  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 10,583 Mod ✭✭✭✭5uspect


    Did you actually look at the elements in that video in their correct context rather than ignore the situations in which both the video and audio clip occur?

    The video is from a interview a creationist propaganda crowd who lied to get the interview and upon realizing that they were creationists Dawkins asked them to leave. His response was:
    In September 1997, I allowed an Australian film crew [from the then Answers in Genesis] into my house in Oxford without realising that their purpose was creationist propaganda. In the course of a suspiciously amateurish interview, they issued a truculent challenge to me to “give an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome.” It is the kind of question only a creationist would ask in that way, and it was at this point I tumbled to the fact that I had been duped into granting an interview to creationists - a thing I normally don’t do, for good reasons. In my anger I refused to discuss the question further, and told them to stop the camera. However, I eventually withdrew my peremptory termination of the interview as a whole. This was solely because they pleaded with me that they had come all the way from Australia specifically in order to interview me. Even if this was a considerable exaggeration, it seemed, on reflection, ungenerous to tear up the legal release form and throw them out. I therefore relented.

    My generosity was rewarded in a fashion that anyone familiar with fundamentalist tactics might have predicted. When I eventually saw the film a year later 1, I found that it had been edited to give the false impression that I was incapable of answering the question about information content 2. In fairness, this may not have been quite as intentionally deceitful as it sounds. You have to understand that these people really believe that their question cannot be answered! Pathetic as it sounds, their entire journey from Australia seems to have been a quest to film an evolutionist failing to answer it.

    And more here:
    http://pages.sbcglobal.net/amun_ra/

    The audio clip at the end is from Ted Haggard, who is, well, you know...:rolleyes:


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,369 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    Yup, its a total fraud of a video and I'm sick of seeing it tauted around by believers.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,239 ✭✭✭✭WindSock


    5uspect wrote:
    Can I ask you what you thought of the Medium interviewed on the show then?

    Yeah. he was crap.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,688 Mod ✭✭✭✭stevenmu


    Unfortunatly my cable was out the last few days and I didn't get to see the show, hopefully there'll be a repeat. I've only ever seen quotes and excerpts from Dawkins, they've seemed very one sided and make him seem like he's someone with an axe to grind. Admittidly the quotes and excertps generally seem to have been posted by fanatical atheists, so perhaps they were the ones with the axe to grind and were quoting him selectively. I'd like to actually see the show and would hope that he is more even and fair than I've been led to believe.

    Sapien wrote:
    I think anyone interested in the Paranormal has to get comfortable with the level of evidence involved, and fit their understanding to be in accordance - otherwise one is setting oneself up for disappointment. Arguing against the evidence is a battle that is lost from the outset.

    I'd have to disagree with this. Evidence is something used to convince someone of something. I see no reason why someone with an interest in the paranormal should have to either give evidence to justify their viewpoint, or should have to recieve and consider evidence which contradicts what their viewpoint. Personally I would like to give, recieve and discuss evidence, but that's just a part of who I am. Someone for example who practices tarot cards may have enough personal experience to believe that they work, but may not have any empirical evidence to back that up, and similarly may very choose to accept their own personal experience over any empirical evidence offered.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,007 ✭✭✭knird evol


    5uspect wrote:
    Did you actually look at the elements in that video in their correct context rather than ignore the situations in which both the video and audio clip occur?

    The video is from a interview a creationist propaganda crowd who lied to get the interview and upon realizing that they were creationists Dawkins asked them to leave. His response was:


    And more here:
    http://pages.sbcglobal.net/amun_ra/

    The audio clip at the end is from Ted Haggard, who is, well, you know...:rolleyes:

    yeah i know the context in which this occured(supposedly). it doesnt really interest me. i only like the clip from the view point of dawkins personal ego side of it. if he just admitted a question caught him one time or ignored the thing it would be nothing but it becomes funny when he scrambles to undo it with the drivel you've quoted above.

    Dawkins is the Eddie Hobs of science. Hes an entertaining showman and hes sold alot of books. To people such as yourself.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,688 Mod ✭✭✭✭stevenmu


    Knird Evol, there's no need to get personal with your remarks, I've seen the road that goes down too many times and it always drags down what can otherwise be a good discussion.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,369 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    knird evol wrote:
    if he just admitted a question caught him one time or ignored the thing it would be nothing but it becomes funny when he scrambles to undo it with the drivel you've quoted above.


    :rolleyes:

    You don't find it a little bit suspicious that a professor of evolutionary biology couldn't answer a fairly simple question about evolutionary biology?

    I do this sort of stuff all the time in college. You have no idea how much power the editor has over an interview. Luckily most journalists have no warped agenda such as our Creationist friends above have.

    If I get a tape of you nodding and saying "yes" after I asked you if you were comfortable, I could then edit in my other question which is "Are you a convicted child molestor"? You nod and say yes.

    Thats the kind of crap we've got here.
    stevenmu wrote:
    I've only ever seen quotes and excerpts from Dawkins, they've seemed very one sided and make him seem like he's someone with an axe to grind.

    But that doesn't make him wrong, right?

    For example, lets say a history professor finds himself at a convention of people who think the holocaust didn't happen. He spends his whole day going around telling everyone that it did happen, that there are mountains of evidence and testimony that prove it, that they must have been duped by someone with an agenda.

    Might they describe him as "one sided"? That he has an "axe to grind"? He's not wrong, he's not "biased", he's just very sure he's right based on the evidence. I'm not saying the holocaust is a perfect metaphor, far from it, but it serves as an example of how someone sticking to their guns and strongly arguing their case does not mean they're prejudiced or unfair.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 997 ✭✭✭Sapien


    stevenmu wrote:
    I'd have to disagree with this. Evidence is something used to convince someone of something. I see no reason why someone with an interest in the paranormal should have to either give evidence to justify their viewpoint,
    Well, I never said that.
    stevenmu wrote:
    or should have to recieve and consider evidence which contradicts what their viewpoint.
    I just find that strange. That seems like an approach to blind faith. It's one thing to say that there are categories of belief that are purely personal and to which no evidence can be adduced, but where evidence exists and is relevant, surely it must be considered. To refuse to consider evidence is to admit that one doesn't really expect that ones ideas will stand up to it, which is, I think, tantamount to saying that one doesn't really believe at all.


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 10,583 Mod ✭✭✭✭5uspect


    knird evol wrote:
    Dawkins is the Eddie Hobs of science. Hes an entertaining showman and hes sold alot of books. To people such as yourself.


    If I'm going to read about evolution I will read Dawkins' books or Gould's books. If I want to read about psychology and philosophy I will read Pinker's books or Dennet's books. If I want to read about Physics I will read Hawkins and Deutsch.
    These people are some of the leading scientists in their fields publishing popular science books and I do not have the time to read all the published literature in Scientific Journals. I find it hard enough to keep up in my own field.

    Dawkins holds a Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science, and by speaking out against unscientific notions like astrology and homeopathy he is doing exactly what his job entails. Alternatives to medicine are creeping into heath services in the face of overwhelming evidence that they simply do not work beyond placebo effects.

    To attempt to critiicse a person such as myself, who reads and studies science, for reading books by a distinguished academic is a rather pointless and childish.

    Stevenmu, I agree with you that this debate is better served by avoiding a flame war.


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 10,583 Mod ✭✭✭✭5uspect


    stevenmu wrote:
    I'd have to disagree with this. Evidence is something used to convince someone of something. I see no reason why someone with an interest in the paranormal should have to either give evidence to justify their viewpoint, or should have to recieve and consider evidence which contradicts what their viewpoint.

    Sure you don't have to seek evidence if you don't want to. Everyone is free to believe what they want.

    Yet Mystics and Mediums regularly claim to have such evidence. Psychic reading (or its normal counterpart cold reading) is based on the idea that the medium provides information to the customer from a dead relative. The customer is convinced that what they're hearing is true. This is essentially providing evidence of the suggested paranormal effects.

    I'd go so far as to say that the entire field of the paranormal, unlike religions where unquestioning faith is key, relies heavily on "evidence" of personal experience. Otherwise what reason do you have to believe in what you do?


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,569 ✭✭✭iamhunted


    i havent seen this so I cant say much about it, but i hope its a bit more on the ball that the standard 'scientific' analysis documentaries about the paranormal that completely bypass the hard to explain examples and recordings of paranormal activity and 'prove' false the kind of things any sane person would be able to see through in the first place.


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