Richard Dawkins - In Conversation (NCH, 5th June, 8pm)

Jimmy Bottlehead · 05-06-2012 10:41PM

I thought Dawkins was so much more charming this evening than in other interviews I've seen. Really nice pleasant guy, I'd have happily sat there for another hour or two.

Crawley was superb as interviewer and host - always kept control of proceedings whole being nice, firm and extremely funny when it called for it.

The only downside was the majority of people who asked questions - they came off like complete tits who were there to impress themselves and Dawkins by trying to sound super-intelligent. Instead their questions just dragged on for ages before revealing themselves to just be, well, crap.

panda100 · 05-06-2012 11:17PM

Jimmy Bottlehead wrote: »

The only downside was the majority of people who asked questions - they came off like complete tits who were there to impress themselves and Dawkins by trying to sound super-intelligent. Instead their questions just dragged on for ages before revealing themselves to just be, well, crap.

You always get that at these type of events.Best question by far was 'what is your guilty pleasure?'. I liked that one. Oh and I liked Dawkins answer to the transubstantiation question as well.
When he mentioned that nun whom spoke in Oxford, criticising the Catholic church and using that criticism as her meal ticket, I couldn't help but think of Brian D'arcy.

My only fault of Dawkins is his complete lack of any gender neutral language. It really did get on my tits quite a lot. All the presidential candidates were referred to as a 'he', the brilliant eye surgeon was a 'he', the great 'men' we have in the atheist movement in Ireland etc etc. Religious language is so masculine centric, it would be nice to see some gender neutrality in atheist discourse.

MisterEpicurus · 05-06-2012 11:22PM

panda100 wrote: »

Jimmy Bottlehead wrote: »

The only downside was the majority of people who asked questions - they came off like complete tits who were there to impress themselves and Dawkins by trying to sound super-intelligent. Instead their questions just dragged on for ages before revealing themselves to just be, well, crap.

You always get that at these type of events.Best question by far was 'what is your guilty pleasure?'. I liked that one. Oh and I liked Dawkins answer to the transubstantiation question as well.
When he mentioned that nun whom spoke in Oxford, criticising the Catholic church and using that criticism as her meal ticket, I couldn't help but think of Brian D'arcy.

My only fault of Dawkins is his complete lack of any gender neutral language. It really did get on my tits quite a lot. All the presidential candidates were referred to as a 'he', the brilliant eye surgeon was a 'he', the great 'men' we have in the atheist movement in Ireland etc etc. Religious language is so masculine centric, it would be nice to see some gender neutrality in atheist discourse.

Don't forget God is He with a capital H.

wonton · 05-06-2012 11:27PM

Defo glad I went to this, it more just a bit of craic than anything really insightful but interesting nonetheless.

thought the interviewer was pretty good, and ye some of the questions were silly and tedious but you always expect that and tbh its probably hard to come of good in a room full of strangers asking dawkins a question.

was a bit disappointed to not be able to get a photo with him, suppose I should of joined the que earlier.

Ush1 · 06-06-2012 12:22AM

Specious nonsense goon gave a lick ass comment, what a bottler. He may have sold a few books if he actually challenged Dawkins.

SpaceRocket · 06-06-2012 12:55AM

Thought it was a really great relaxed talk. Dawkins is a real gent. Got a lovely handshake at the booksigning. Was swooning

Zamboni · 06-06-2012 11:46AM

There are worse ways of spending a Tuesday evening to be fair.
I was oddly uncomfortable with an air of smugness I detected in the room though.
I'm not sure if I was more embarrassed for the guy that went on about the One True Redeemer or the audience reaction to him.

The babies were overcooked too...

robindch · 06-06-2012 12:35PM

panda100 wrote: »

My only fault of Dawkins is his complete lack of any gender neutral language. It really did get on my tits [...]

In all fairness, I don't think he used it excessively -- whatever about the surgeon's story, all the current presidential candidates in the USA are men. And more notably, one of his earlier anecdotes was about some guy who called himself a liberal, but still made a clown of himself by wondering about the ill-effects of something or other on women. Neither I nor Mrs Robindch felt that he was sexist beyond the conventions of the kind of spoken English that most people use most of the time.

Other than his comment on Saudi Arabia and what I felt was an unwarranted dissing of EO Wilson + group-selection versus kin-selection (according to Dawkins, the debate has become entirely one-sided contra Wilson since I last studied it in any depth - has it?), Dawkins was surprisingly relaxed and amusing. A fun evening

Dawkins review of Wilson's book, btw, is here:

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/edward-wilson-social-conquest-earth-evolutionary-errors-origin-species/

rccaulfield · 06-06-2012 12:45PM

Didn't enjoy it as musch as a debate tbh, just a light hearted one sided chat followed by awful questions for the most part, shame the evolutionary biology side of him wasn't talked about more! He signed my copy of the ancestors tale-happy with that!

JuliusCaesar · 06-06-2012 07:23PM

Jernal wrote: »

Seriously gotta ask is JC there?

paddyzk wrote: »

Feck ya JC,feck ya

I know I don't pop in here very often, but jeez lads....

and I've been an atheist longer than all of yous!

JC

Calibos · 06-06-2012 07:31PM

Ush1 wrote: »

Specious nonsense goon gave a lick ass comment, what a bottler. He may have sold a few books if he actually challenged Dawkins.

Late Late Show loon was at the last one in the RDS. Had never heard of him or seen him before but when myself and my brother sat down, I said to my brother that if anyone was going to be the Dawkins Heckler du Jour, it was going to be this guy in the row in front. I dunno, its not like he was scruffy or unkempt looking or Loony looking but there must have been something I was subconciously picking up on. (Maybe nervous fidgetting or something).

Sure enough, he was the guy who had to be escorted out. Twas only when I got home and researched that I read it was Late Late show heckler guy.

That said, while I was cringing at his outbursts, I felt for the poor mental case when he was heckled and laughed at by the audience on that occasion. and thought to myself, "Ah come on lads, lets not be the Atheist stereotype that we hate being accused of FFS!!"

Turtwig · 06-06-2012 07:32PM

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

I know I don't pop in here very often, but jeez lads....

and I've been an atheist longer than all of yous!

JC

That's ok. I still stalk your posts frequently. So were you at it?

Lazare · 06-06-2012 07:39PM

It's a bit nippy tonight, may have to go dig up a Grandad.

Sonics2k · 06-06-2012 07:41PM

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

I know I don't pop in here very often, but jeez lads....

and I've been an atheist longer than all of yous!

JC

Et tu?

Turtwig · 06-06-2012 07:46PM

Sonics2k wrote: »

Et tu?

No, this is Eto'o.

robindch · 07-06-2012 01:48AM

Sonics2k wrote: »

Et tu?

Brutal response.

rugbyman · 10-06-2012 02:33PM

posted this a few momets ago in another Dawkins thread

better here me thinks

settle a discussion
.
my friend ,who is a theist, went to Mr Dawkins talk in Dublin recently. she says she definitely heard him saying " there is no god", I countered that a man of his ability would be unlikely to say that.(since no one can prove that)

On a quick google I hear him quoted elsewhere as being 6.9 out of 7 cetain there is no god,(which is what I would have expected)

Purely to settle this discussion between my friend and I,
A, does anyone who was there agree she could have heard him say that("there is no god")

B, does anyone on here who knows a lot about him think he would ever have come out with such a statement

Regards ,Rugbyman

Gbear · 10-06-2012 02:43PM

rugbyman wrote: »

posted this a few momets ago in another Dawkins thread

better here me thinks

settle a discussion
.
my friend ,who is a theist, went to Mr Dawkins talk in Dublin recently. she says she definitely heard him saying " there is no god", I countered that a man of his ability would be unlikely to say that.(since no one can prove that)

On a quick google I hear him quoted elsewhere as being 6.9 out of 7 cetain there is no god,(which is what I would have expected)

Purely to settle this discussion between my friend and I,
A, does anyone who was there agree she could have heard him say that("there is no god")

B, does anyone on here who knows a lot about him think he would ever have come out with such a statement

Regards ,Rugbyman

It is possible that he made a mistake, or was using short hand to save time.

He's already been so clear about where he stands (6.9 out of 7 like you said) that it doesn't actually matter unless you're being deliberately obtuse and trying to play point scoring games.

robindch · 10-06-2012 02:50PM

I don't have the quotes to hand, but his view is that he's almost fully certain that none of the variations on the christian deity -- protestant, catholic, orthodox, etc, etc -- exist, but to the best of my knowledge, he's never claimed that, for certain, they do not exist. That said, I seem to remember him saying that, as far as he's concerned, he lives as though they do not exist. And that's close enough that perhaps that's what your friend is remembering?

For beliefs that fall into the much more general category of "deist" (ie, there could be some kind of god or gods, but something not matching the description of the various christian deities), as you say, he's "pretty sure" they don't exist either and I'm sure the figure of 6.9 out of 7 is accurate, whatever it means.

Bear in mind also that your friend may well have been listening or reading something that's been taken out of context or simply made up. There does exist a small, but vibrant, cottage industry amongst the religious which is actively involved in openly misrepresenting their adversaries.

Gumbi · 10-06-2012 11:44PM

The answers above sound reasonable. He may very well have made that statement, though, but meant it to be a shorthand way of saying "there is a high likelihood that God does not exist". It's like saying "unicorns don't exist".

zenbuffy · 14-06-2012 11:43AM

I suppose that saying "there is a high likelihood that God does not exist" gets a bit cumbersome after a while. If you spend all of your time loading your sentences with caveats, you never get around to the point...

zenbuffy · 14-06-2012 11:44AM

Oh, and it was nice to meet some A&A people at the talk and in the pub afterwards!

Gumbi · 14-06-2012 11:59AM

zenbuffy wrote: »

I suppose that saying "there is a high likelihood that God does not exist" gets a bit cumbersome after a while. If you spend all of your time loading your sentences with caveats, you never get around to the point...

Exactly.

robindch · 14-06-2012 12:23PM

zenbuffy wrote: »

I suppose that saying "there is a high likelihood that God does not exist" gets a bit cumbersome after a while. If you spend all of your time loading your sentences with caveats, you never get around to the point...

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people are so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell.

Galvasean · 14-06-2012 04:36PM

robindch wrote: »

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people are so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell.

Wise words. I've lost count of the amount of times when discussing biology related matters where I would say something along the lines of, "Creature X is the probable ancestor of creature Y" only for some tool to say, "Aha! So you aren't totally certain!" as if being scientifically cautious and avoiding dogmatic statements was some sort of a bad thing.

Turtwig · 15-06-2012 01:15PM

To be honest I don't care. I find if you start using likelihood qualifiers in just about every statement people start to get the point. Obviously it's not going to work on strangers you meet for the first time but I think it's better to include the uncertainties. It makes the person you're disagreeing with look like they're clutching for straws and it also helps avoid you coming across as a dogmatist which happens to be the stereotype that most people look out for. Surprise their expectations and you usually give them something to think about even if they don't say it to your face.

Ush1 · 10-08-2012 01:51PM

Calibos wrote: »

Late Late Show loon was at the last one in the RDS. Had never heard of him or seen him before but when myself and my brother sat down, I said to my brother that if anyone was going to be the Dawkins Heckler du Jour, it was going to be this guy in the row in front. I dunno, its not like he was scruffy or unkempt looking or Loony looking but there must have been something I was subconciously picking up on. (Maybe nervous fidgetting or something).

Sure enough, he was the guy who had to be escorted out. Twas only when I got home and researched that I read it was Late Late show heckler guy.

That said, while I was cringing at his outbursts, I felt for the poor mental case when he was heckled and laughed at by the audience on that occasion. and thought to myself, "Ah come on lads, lets not be the Atheist stereotype that we hate being accused of FFS!!"

Haha, that's gas.

The guy I'm on about is the con man John May who wrote "The Origins of Specious Nonsense" claiming natural selection was all a lie and that God did it.

He stood up to ask a question and just gave a fawning comment about it's about time the catholic church was gone from Ireland.

I was hoping for him to challenge Dawkins and have Dawkins rip him to shreds.

Richard Dawkins - In Conversation (NCH, 5th June, 8pm)

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