Saturday, October 22, 2011

Why Dawkins refuses to debate Dawkins



Why I refuse to debate with Richard Dawkins


This evolutionary “biologist” is an apologist for natural evil. I would rather leave an empty chair than share a platform with him.

Richard Dawkins
The Guardian

For some years now, Richard Dawkins has been increasingly importunate in his efforts to cajole, harass or defame me into debating myself. I have consistently refused

He has a dark side, and that is putting it kindly. He attributes horrific mass extinctions to nature red in tooth and claw. He’s on record asserting that thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. Natural selection has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

Would you shake hands with a man who could write stuff like that? Would you share a platform with him? I wouldn’t, and I won’t. Even if I were not engaged to be in London on the day in question, I would be proud to leave that chair in Oxford eloquently empty.

And if any of my colleagues find themselves browbeaten or inveigled into a debate with this deplorable apologist for carnivory, parasitism, and mass extinction, my advice to them would be to stand up, read aloud Dawkins’ words as quoted above, then walk out and leave him talking not just to an empty chair but, one would hope, to a rapidly emptying hall as well.

13 comments:

  1. I've read some witlessness in my time, but this post takes the biscuit! Dawkins was merely stating FACT when he described the natural world - do you disagree with him? Do you think that all animals live in a children's book paradise, buddied up to each other all the time?

    I can see what you were TRYING to do, but you failed miserably.

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  2. Dawkins didn't attack Craig's position on factual grounds. So your objection is witless. You failed miserably.

    Moreover, Dawkins is not stating a fact about the natural world. Rather, he's projecting a human viewpoint onto the animal kingdom. Anthropomorphizing the animal kingdom.

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  3. Steve, you're an actual cretin.

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  4. Didn't take long for you to shoot your wad. Next time bring refills.

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  5. Next time try not to be a cretin, cretin.

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  6. Next time try not to be a village atheist.

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  7. Steve, it is becoming apparent that you cannot read. I've told you to stop being a cretin, yet repeatedly your cretinism is shining through.

    Try again, see if you can do it without being a cretin, cretin.

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  8. Alex,

    I see that it's necessary to teach you some intellectual discipline. So this is how it works. You're welcome to comment on my post if you can keep up your end of the argument.

    If, however, the best you can do is leave anti-intellectual comments, then your comments will be deleted. Unless you have the intellectual wherewithal to back up your intellectual posturing, you have nothing to contribute here.

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  10. You seem to think it's sufficient for you to just show up and be Alex B. Maybe that's good enough for your mother, but I'm not your mother.

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  12. Alex lacks adaptive intelligence. Can't follow simple instructions. Keeps repeating the same mistakes.

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