New Atheists are intellectual frauds.
It seems that Jerry Coyne is hiding behind his mother's skirt as well. He uses legal threats to silence people who disagree with him, but he won't meet them face-to-face to debate.
New Atheists are just frauds and cowards, and bullies.
It seems that Jerry Coyne is hiding behind his mother's skirt as well. He uses legal threats to silence people who disagree with him, but he won't meet them face-to-face to debate.
New Atheists are just frauds and cowards, and bullies.
Dawkins, Coyne, Myers, Moran etc...
ReplyDeleteThese guys are like rats, very unhealthy and annoying, but they run to their hole when they sense danger!
Hey now, Pépé! Rats are very intelligent, social and clean creatures. I have had many fine ratty friends over the years. Let's not compare them to these guys. It's not fair... to the rats. In fact, let's leave all the vertebrates out of this.
DeleteJellyfish, maybe... but then some of them are quite pretty.
:P
Another strategy that Craig might consider is to shame Dawkins the same way that Bob Murphy (PhD, NYU) is attempting to shame Paul Krugman to debate Austrian vs. Keynesian business cycle theory.
ReplyDeleteMurphy has raised $105,000 in pledges. If Krugman actually debates Murphy, then the money goes to a food bank in New York City. If Krugman never debates, no one's credit card is ever charged; people are only going to be charged for their pledge, when Krugman actually debates.
See http://www.krugmandebate.com/.
As a working scientist, I wouldn't debate creationists, either. It's a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteHoo
:-)
DeleteBTW, Dr Science, I have some Official Hard Data for you.
DeleteI did a Google search on the string "hoo sucks". I haven't done the state-level analysis yet, but I got 5900 hits.
And there's even a website, hoosucks.com.
Can't argue with the Hard Data, right?
Boggs, your total misrepresentation of irrelevant “data” to make a point is par for the course for full of shit conservatives. The fact that you go out of your way to do “research” for no other purpose that to insult someone speaks volumes about your character. You are my ally in killing both the Republican Party and Christianity. Keep up the good work.
DeleteI’m curious, how’s your marriage? How does your wife put up with the hate, fear, and bitterness?
-KW
Awwwww, Popeye. Now you've gone and hurt my feewings.
DeleteAnd I am your ally in all things, Popeye! I shall always encourage you to forsake the Toll-Free Expressway of Imbecility and hew to the Path of Rationality. I know we have a long way to go, but I shall not falter.
Just look back and see how much better your spelling has gotten.
DeleteYou're welcome!
@Adm:
Delete"Hoo really sucks" returns 7,670,000 results.
The science is settled.
KW, I chalk it up to penis envy. Neither Boggs, nor Egnor are scientists. They're both scientist wannabes, though.
DeleteHoo
Ahhhh. More steampunk psychobabble from Dr Fraud himself.
DeleteVery impressive.
@Hoo:
ReplyDelete[As a working scientist, I wouldn't debate creationists, either. It's a waste of time.]
Dawkins hasn't been a "working scientist" for two decades. His science was always thin gruel-- he was an ethologist, and has contributed nothing of consequence to serious science.
When he was a scientist thirty years ago, he was a third rate scientist doing third rate science in a third rate discipline of science. Can you specify his scientific contributions, other than those in his mass media books? Where is his lab? The work for which he is known is not professional science, but science popularization. He is Bill-Nye-the-Science-Guy, with a rich benefactor who gave him a fake position at Oxford.
He is an atheist polemicist and a science popularizer, not a "working scientist".
He has made tens of millions of dollars arguing the God doesn't exist and that science is incompatible with religion.
But he claims that a debate with Craig about God's existence and the compatibility of science and religion is beneath him, or whatever.
Craig would humiliate him. He knows it. Heh.
Dawkins's official position was that of a science communicator. Nothing wrong with that. He did that admirably well with his books and public lectures. Creationists hate his guts. Too bad.
DeleteHoo
Hate his guts? It's hard to hate a gigantic lumbering robot. That'd be like hating a Roomba. When you see them bouncing helplessly in a corner, ridicule seems the better approach.
DeleteMichael,
DeleteWhat is an 'ethologist'? It's a scientist who studies the behaviour of animals in the wild, in the natural world, not in the laboratory. A scientist who studies the behaviour of animals in a laboratory is a behaviourist.
How do you know that Dawkins is a 'third-rate' scientist? Or rather was, since he's retired, and anyway, most scientists, indeed most people (including surgeons) do their most significant work earlier in their careers, often winding down to retirement.
I take it you haven't read the entire body of the science literature in the field, and examined the significance of Dawkins' work, and the number of times it was cited by other workers in the field.
And what exactly is 'genuine' science?
Egnor: he was a third rate scientist doing third rate science in a third rate discipline of science
DeleteLet's compare his accomplishments with yours, Dr. Egnor.
According to ISI, Richard Dawkins's scientific articles have been cited about 1800 times in the literature. One of his papers (Arms races between and within species) has been cited 750 times. h-index 14.
Let's now look at Michael Egnor. 544 citations, the highest cited article has 139 citations. h-index 10.
If Richard Dawkins is "a third-rate scientist," you are, what, fourth-rate? Fifth?
Hoo
Dawkins "scientific" articles include a lot of his atheist/Darwinist polemics crap.
DeleteHis actual scientific work is remarkably undistinguished. Can you name one contribution he has made as a scientist, and not as a popularizer of science and atheism?
Regarding comparison to me, it's astonishing that a full time clinical neurosurgeon who has squeezed research into his spare time can actually be compared to Dawkins, who prior to his book-tour era was a full-time basic scientist for a couple of decades.
Dawkins' actual scientific accomplishments are remarkably lacking. He wasn't even really an evolutionary biologist. He was an ethologist-- an animal behaviorist.
His science is not a pitiful as that of PZ Myers, but it's pretty sad.
Dawkins is also a coward, but we've already established that.
Egnor: His actual scientific work is remarkably undistinguished. Can you name one contribution he has made as a scientist, and not as a popularizer of science and atheism?
DeleteI have. You missed it.
Hoo
Dawkins is anti-theistic, not atheistic. Frankly he comes off as quite anti-Semitic to me.
DeleteHe's a 'new atheist' (ie not as smart, humble, or well mannered as the 'paleo-atheists') and the real question in my mind is why anyone would bother trying to talk to him about religion or God. Finch beaks? Maybe, if there was no one else more interesting to talk to, I suppose.
But, if his books are anything to go by... better off reading a maths text.
He's set in his ways and those ways are simplistic when it comes to anything metaphysical. It would be like trying to talk about diversity or cultural exchanges with a die hard racist. No point. You're not going to learn anything from him that you could not learn in a far more pleasant fashion from many others with much less hate and fear in their hearts.
As for all this bashing of creationists: Get a life, people! Plenty of deep, intelligent creationists out there, and lots to talk about. Who wants to live in an echo chamber? I sure don't. If I did, I would not 'waste my time' sharing ideas with people of different world views either.
Scientist? Who knows and frankly: Who cares. What does that mean anymore, anyway. It's about as rare as a Big Mac these days.
I am a statistician, and Dr. Egnor is absolutely correct about Dawkins being a third rate scientist doing third rate work in a third rate discipline.
ReplyDeleteOh, and here is another metric:
People Dawkins has saved through his work = 0
People Dr. Egnor has saved through his work >> 0
Good debate on Dawkins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B_XaQ6U9a4
ReplyDelete