Talk:Richard Dawkins/Archive 1

message: I'm pretty sure he only has one daughter (Juliet)
Moved from the main article because of severe lack of coherence (Can anyone make sense of this?):
:He uses biology as a tool to propagate his belief system. He bases his thinking on the assumption that there is no God as this would mean that the world would is in a better shape (cf. theodicy).
snoyes 20:34, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Odds and ends 

message: Page 256 (chapter 5.5) of A Devil's Chaplain:
:Instead, what they seek is the oxygen of respectability.  We give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all.  They don't mind being beaten in an argument.  What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public.
Joe D (t) 19:28, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Eh? Dawkins described himself as left-wing in the second edition of _The Selfish Gene_ - it was in reaction to comments he'd made in the first edition where he criticised British trade unions in the late 1970s as being selfish. Even if that was taken for granted, his outspoken atheism wouldn't have made him popular with, say, Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan. Autarch 13:30, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I can see Dawkins' point - the impression I've gotten of debates with creationists is that the creationist debater is going through the same old routine that they give every time - it reassures the creationists in the audience whilst not actually making any coherent argument. Autarch 13:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Publicity or legitimacy?

message: In the criticisms section, the commentary next to the link to answersingenesis.org contains this little gem of objectivity: "Deafening and revealing silence, an embarassing evasion, and an unanswered question when Dawkins is asked to provide one example of a genetic information increase."  I've removed it.  The link to Macromedia's Flash player has been retained.
:See http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB102_1.html Dunc|☺ 21:24, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing non-objective editorialising 

message: Although personally I think R.D.'s best work is in zoology, considering he was the person who came up with the idea of "memes", which has spawned a nascent, if maybe aimless, field of it's own shouldn't that part of his bio be featured more prominently?
REPLY:
The idea has been around a long time.  A book called  The Lore And Language of School Children records how songs and sayings get passed on by young people almost unchanged, being found in separate literary sources centuries apart.
:I'm not so sure that the section on memes should be more prominent - certainly they should be mentioned, but personally I don't think there is much to them - it's more a rhetorical innovation than a new field of thought. Autarch 18:54, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that deserves to be mentioned in the meme article and perhaps very briefly here (it is worth noting that others had grasped elements of Darwinism before Darwin did but did not understand fully or publicise their findings). — Dunc|☺ 16:30, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm with you on the "very briefly" part, but it no longer seems short or relevant.  Perhaps the paragraph could find a home in memes. Alienus 17:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Memes

message: Substituted at 20:25, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment