Re: Dawkins Brights and Dulls.

**SunburnedPenguin** · by **SunburnedPenguin** on Thu Jun 12, 2008 9:19 pm

My bad.....I just checked and it is there....its great and will be included, thanks Smile

I agree about civil liberties, they are being slowly eroded while we doze away content with our TV menu.

solarchap · by solarchap on Thu Jun 12, 2008 9:33 pm

wahey! i am jumping for Joy!

I am all happy now Laughing

I think you might need to make two edits, 1)take the first special out, i only went and duplicated it! what a plonker!......2) whatever the case may be is that I spelt it wrong!

sorry SBP but I know you love it all really! Cool

AngeloComet · by AngeloComet on Thu Jun 12, 2008 9:57 pm

Good stuff, SolarChap.

I refrained from sticking my own face in other people's faces about my opinion on Dawkins - but The God Delusion had a reasonably profound effect on my own outlook, too.

Criticisms that he is too arrogant. . . Hmm. When a man's right, and talking a lot of sense, and trying to preach his own gospel (that of science and reason) then a strong tone and an unflinching belief in his own convictions has to be employed.

I shall to have to have words with Lojozz about only half-reading the book and then coming on here and giving an opinion!

solarchap · by solarchap on Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:23 pm

Cheers AC, it's always a touchy subject, as it delves into that which most people feel very strongly about, I just like to ask people why they believe what they believe.....99.9% are because it's what they grew-up with, what they learned or what they were taught by others from young, and they indeed seem to feel happy to have faith, and leave the philosophy to those who describe what it is they should be doing!

I say....believe whatever you want to believe, but employ some thought about why you believe it. When I ask some of my friends 'did Adam Have a belly-button?' they answer "God works in mysterious ways", when I ask 'What happened before the big-bang' they answer 'That is God's business, it is not a realm open to scientists'

I say "So the Large Hadron collider is heresy is it?"

I get answered "Now you're just being silly"

Why can't they just say to me, "yeah, maybe God has given us the tools to go try and find him/her"

I could accept that.

As for that naughty Lojozz, yeah you tell him AC! study

**SunburnedPenguin** · by **SunburnedPenguin** on Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:40 pm

I am, as I said, in agreement with most of what Dawkins says......but what I find difficult to swallow is that on one hand he says religious people are narowminded, gullible, only going on what they have been raised with etc and that it is all a delusion.....well yes fair enough, I totally buy that, but to make that kind of statement and then say that anyone who doesnt agree with him is stupid?? Its not a question of wether or not his ideas are right, but the way he completely dismisses any remote possibilty that he could be wrong. Its hypocritical IMHO. Its one thing to be confident in your theories but another thing completely to have such staunch arrogance in something that leaves no room for flexibilty. Something he complains about in religion!

solarchap · by solarchap on Fri Jun 13, 2008 12:13 am

I hear ya SBP, I really do think his statement was taken out of context, I know how busy you must be running this site, but when or if you have a spare mo, click on the link i put on page 1 and read the whole article, see if it changes your mind.

it might not, and if it doesn't, i can only say, no-one should be saying they are the only ones who are right, and here in this video (only just over 1 minute) someone asks him the very question:

"what if you are wrong?" and I do think he answers it pretty well! (but of course, I would say that !LOL! Very Happy

)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg

tell me what you think!

**SunburnedPenguin** · by **SunburnedPenguin** on Fri Jun 13, 2008 12:41 am

That is an interesting read Solar - I will watch the vid tomorrowe as have no sound at work Smile

I found this on "brights"...and it seems they have their own website.

Why couldn't atheists -- another oppressed and closeted minority -- come up with their own word, which could do for them what "gay" did for homosexuals?

That's what Sacramento atheists Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell set out to do a few years ago. They were looking for a word, like gay, which they could steal from common English, an adjective they could transform into a noun with its original meaning changed -- but not too much. Like gay, it needed to be catchy, positive, warm, cheerful. It needed to be ... bright. And so "bright" it was.

Bright is the new noun many atheists have chosen for themselves. Brights are coming out of the closet and standing up. Brights are tired of being the target of cheap shots by politicians and religious demagogues.

Are you a bright and don't know it? How many readers of City Paper are brights? How many school teachers, doctors, politicians, police officers, businesspeople? Do you know any brights? You surely do, whether you recognize them or not. The website http://www.celebatheists.com suggests numerous intellectuals and other famous people are brights.

According to Dawkins, brights constitute 60 percent of American scientists; a stunning 93 percent of scientists elected to the elite National Academy of Sciences are brights.

As Daniel Dennett has written, "We are your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters. Our colleges and universities teem with brights. Among scientists, we are a commanding majority. Wanting to preserve and transmit a great culture, we even teach Sunday school and Hebrew classes. Many of the nation's clergy members are closet brights, I suspect. We are, in fact, the moral backbone of the nation: brights take their civic duties seriously precisely because they don't trust God to save humanity from its follies."

The new word isn't for everyone. Herb Silverman does not use it to describe himself because some people take the word to be an adjective and assume it to be a denigration of theists. The mild-mannered atheist does not wish to offend or affront -- even accidentally. But brights are here to stay, by whatever name. They even have their own website (http://the-brights.net), and for millions of nonbelievers, 2007 is shaping up to be a bright new year.

From http://richarddawkins.net/article,567,The-Bright-Revolution,Will-Moredock-Charleston-City-Paper

solarchap · by solarchap on Fri Jun 13, 2008 1:10 am

cheers SBP, sorry to hog you but it's such a good conversation!

So! I also read Daniel Dennett, I have three of his books, and just like Dawkins, I respect his work very much.

I just read the whole article, it was very interesting thanks. From what I can seeBrights/Dulls to me is a matter of perception.

It's a metaphor at best, but at worst, it, I agree, could be perceived as elitism, and no better than the stanford prison experiment ideals i.e them bad you good, and on the whole, it seems to me kind of conflicting with their mainstream works, and these two have given so much in terms of their respective fields, I think thats whats lacking here, when I look at this topic about brights/dulls.

The book which revolutionised modern thinking and modern biology was of course Dawkins 'The Selfish Gene' which fundamentally challenged the authority of religious based ideas, because he showed natural selection was enough on it's own to present us with the world we see around us, with no supernatural guiding hand necessary, but it seems more of a hornets nest was stirred up when he questioned faith & religion in 'The God Delusion' 25 years later philosophically instead of biologically!

I just don't get that!

I subscribe to both men's viewpoints, but I don't subscribe to bright/dull metaphors.

Phew! I need to have a cuppa now LOL! Very Happy

TheHolyStickman · by TheHolyStickman on Sat Jun 14, 2008 4:30 pm

SunburnedPenguin wrote:That is an interesting read Solar - I will watch the vid tomorrowe as have no sound at work

I found this on "brights"...and it seems they have their own website.

Why couldn't atheists -- another oppressed and closeted minority -- come up with their own word, which could do for them what "gay" did for homosexuals?

That's what Sacramento atheists Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell set out to do a few years ago. They were looking for a word, like gay, which they could steal from common English, an adjective they could transform into a noun with its original meaning changed -- but not too much. Like gay, it needed to be catchy, positive, warm, cheerful. It needed to be ... bright. And so "bright" it was.

Bright is the new noun many atheists have chosen for themselves. Brights are coming out of the closet and standing up. Brights are tired of being the target of cheap shots by politicians and religious demagogues.

Are you a bright and don't know it? How many readers of City Paper are brights? How many school teachers, doctors, politicians, police officers, businesspeople? Do you know any brights? You surely do, whether you recognize them or not. The website http://www.celebatheists.com suggests numerous intellectuals and other famous people are brights.

According to Dawkins, brights constitute 60 percent of American scientists; a stunning 93 percent of scientists elected to the elite National Academy of Sciences are brights.

As Daniel Dennett has written, "We are your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters. Our colleges and universities teem with brights. Among scientists, we are a commanding majority. Wanting to preserve and transmit a great culture, we even teach Sunday school and Hebrew classes. Many of the nation's clergy members are closet brights, I suspect. We are, in fact, the moral backbone of the nation: brights take their civic duties seriously precisely because they don't trust God to save humanity from its follies."

The new word isn't for everyone. Herb Silverman does not use it to describe himself because some people take the word to be an adjective and assume it to be a denigration of theists. The mild-mannered atheist does not wish to offend or affront -- even accidentally. But brights are here to stay, by whatever name. They even have their own website (http://the-brights.net), and for millions of nonbelievers, 2007 is shaping up to be a bright new year.
From [url=http://richarddawkins.net/article,567,The-Bright-Revolution,Will-Moredock-Charleston-City-Paper

http://richarddawkins.net/article,567,The-Bright-Revolution,Will-Moredock-Charleston-City-Paper[/quote[/url]]

SBP, I know this doesnt have much bearing on this great conversation, but this is exactly the opposite of what I think the song "Brain Damage" (or 'The Lunatic is on the grass.) This is my interpretation of the song. The lunatic who is on the grass is someone who speaks out against tradition, like an athiest. Another line, got to keep the looners on the path, is that they have to keep everyone in line. The people are described as 'Lunatics' to stop the growing interest whereas in this post Athiests are called Brights to make them more intersting. If you havent heard the song, listen to it. If you have listen again with this in mind.

Great topic, guys keep it up.

TheHolyStickman

Igs · by Igs on Fri Jul 18, 2008 9:10 pm

Wow...I was a bit late to this topic. But great discussion. As to the initial post, I picked up the God Delusion but didn't quite finish it. I too was turned off by Dawkins style as well as some of his substance.

In a weird way, I felt this was a Dawkin's style holy book ... and as mentioned by other posters, holy books tend to have a very black and white approach (telling everyone that this book is the truth and everyone else is wrong). Oddly, this holier than thou approach is not being taken in a scientific text (dealing in fact, experiments, results, theory where Dawkins is at his best) but in probably the least "scientific" book he has ever written.

Dawkins is a brilliant man and a leader in the field of evolutionary biology (etc.). That said, even brilliant men can step out of their depth. Dawkins dabbling in philosophy does not seem to suit him b/c ultimately he is a man of science ... not a philosopher.

Simply put, he overly relies on straw-man arguments and ad absurdem techniques in describing his opponents positions. At times, he fails to give his opponents positions credit (where credit is due). And finally, he too often leaves his arguments undeveloped and simply asserts bare conclusions.

For example, he gives about two paragraphs to all of Aquinas' proofs of God (except for the one he best liked as a kid, which he gives more time to though hardly the analysis I would have liked) and summarily considers them disproven or debunked. These proofs and their progeny, and the responses and critiques thereto, are an enormous part of western philosophy and still are at the heart of many of the philosophical justifications for God. Two paragraphs, are you kidding?

Like I said though, this in no way detracts from his intellect or his enormous contributions to science and the development of man's understanding of our tiny little portion of the universe. In fact, his impact is so wide ranging it has profoundly influenced members of this humble Lost website!!!!

**SunburnedPenguin** · by **SunburnedPenguin** on Sun Jul 20, 2008 6:45 am

Hi Igs

I agree that he perhaps shouldnt be taking on philosophy....to be a philosopher calls for a mind that is open to challenge and change and I dont believe he can do that. As you say, he is too much a scientist!

That doesnt take away the huge amount of respect I have for his scientific work, he does have a brilliant mind. But a brilliantly unchangeable mind.

AngeloComet · by AngeloComet on Sun Jul 20, 2008 9:53 am

Actually, to rush to Dawkins' defence again. . . He does state in his book that the difference between a scientist and the religious is that they are open to change and the idea they could be wrong.

He believes in gravity, for example. He believes implicitly in its powers and properties that hold the universe together.

And yet if someone came along and said that, actually, it's not gravity but it's this invisible glue paste that's been keeping things ticking over all this time - and had proof for it - Dawkins once accept this new 'truth' willingly.

The point about a belief in God is that it doesn't require proof. (So the argument goes, that's the whole point!) And that's what Dawkins has a problem with. Belief without proof or evidence. I think philosopy and science are, rightly, not at all in the same bracket.

Philosophy has more to do with art than science, for me.