It's really kind of comical. If "spot the condescensions" is a new drinking game, then bottoms up! There's one in just about every chapter. Though Dawkins says from the outset, "This is not an anti-religious book", he can't help but knock religion throughout, For instance, he writes: "God, to repeat this point, which ought to be obvious, but isn't, never made a tiny wing in his eternal life." Young Earth creationists are, he writes, "deluded to the point of perversity". You get the sense that Dawkins just can't control it. It's as if he suffers from an anti-religious form of Tourette's syndrome.This does not serve Dawkins in good stead. As he is seen increasingly as irrational about religion, the very people he is trying to convert increasingly ignore what he is saying because they are tired of being insulted. I know I am.
Monday, September 14, 2009
New Scientist Reviews The Greatest Show on Earth
Randy Olson of The New Scientist has a review of Richard Dawkins' latest book The Greatest Show on Earth. Olson is not so taken:
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Since YECs are indeed, "deluded to the point of perversity", I see no problem with stating this. I agree that the first statement is perhaps unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteThe problem that I see is that he tends to lump anyone who believes in God with the YECS. Many people who believe in God are open to accepting the theories of modern science but have not had contact with them, especially evolution. Those are the people that might listen to him if he weren't so insulting to all things religious.
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