Richard Dawkins is coming to the RDS next week!

DapperGent

I dunno if I'm going to get there in time for a swift half at the Horseshoe, if I do I guess I'll wander up and bother people who look all atheisty to me.

Zamboni

DapperGent wrote: »

I dunno if I'm going to get there in time for a swift half at the Horseshoe, if I do I guess I'll wander up and bother people who look all atheisty to me.

They should be easy to find...the Horseshow would only have about 5 people in it of a Thursday...

bobbert

Final try friends ........ any spare tickets? I had requested previously but spares which appeared later appear to have gone to subsequent posters....

Please PM me if you have or may have a spare.

Given that there are no physical tickets, anyone know how entry is going to be policed? By showing them the text message received from IT?

What are the chances that some kind souls attending on their own will show up at the Horse bar with a view to getting a fellow heretic in to the event???

Thanks all.......

robindch

I'd say there's a good chance you'll get a ticket if you just show up and grab a spare seat or two before the show starts. It looks like quite a few of the free tickets aren't going to be used.

pinksoir

robindch wrote: »

I'd say there's a good chance you'll get a ticket if you just show up and grab a spare seat or two before the show starts. It looks like quite a few of the free tickets aren't going to be used.

That's what I plan to do if I can't source a ticket elsewhere... Presumably a bunch of people applied for tickets considering that it was free, and now aren't able to make it but have no forum to give them away. Presumably...

Zamboni

If this talk is about his new book I can see a lot of disappointed atheists.

Just because you don't believe in god does not mean you will want to listen to him spend an hour talking about caterpillars with a snakes face for an arse :pac:

robindch

I'm planning to be there around six. If anybody's on for a quick beer, PM me and we can swap details.

pinksoir

Zamboni wrote: »

If this talk is about his new book I can see a lot of disappointed atheists.

Just because you don't believe in god does not mean you will want to listen to him spend an hour talking about caterpillars with a snakes face for an arse :pac:

Well, inevitably he'll end up being posited with questions regarding atheism during the q&a, but I'd imagine it's going to be promotion for his new book. I love all his evolutionary writings, and that's why I'd be going. I've heard his arguments for atheism a million times, there'd be nothing new. Evolution now...mmm.

Maaa!

Damn it to Hell I never knew this was on :mad:!!!! Wait, there is no Hell, so maybe I can just go along, claim to be the Messiah and the crowd will part like the Red Sea and let me in? If not maybe some kind soul (the only kind of Soul, apart from a sole, of course, shoe or fish!) could pass on a spare ticket???

HootieMcBoobie

Hi there

I cant make it tonight, first to post for them gets them and maybe two of ye can share..be nice now!

chelleflife

Pick me please

HootieMcBoobie

enjoy, I'll PM you my name

Maaa!

One for me please Hootie!!!
Please let me know how I can get it from you

HootieMcBoobie

sorry Maa, chelleflife got them but maybe she'll give you one if you ask nicely!

Maaa!

Hey Chelleflife you just beat me to those tickets which I had posted a message about earlier. Any chance you might throw one my way? Pretty please!

robindch

Folks -

Just in case it's not obvious, if you're accepting tickets from somebody else, just make sure to get the details that the original recipient sent to the RDS.

You may be asked at the door to verify at least some details other than just the name (ie, perhaps address or phone number)!

5uspect

A preview of the Late late studio audience?
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2055684957

pinksoir

Ah for...

If anyone has a spare ticket can I please have it? I'm gonna head down early anyways and see what I can wangle, but I'd much prefer the peace of mind knowing I had a ticket ahead of time...

Please please please!!

bobbert

get in the queue pinksoir ........

pinksoir

I joined the queue last night, Bobbert. But have gotten bypassed...

bobbert

You and me both my friend......I joined the queue last week .....

pinksoir

Are you gonna head down anyway? I shall get in, I shall get in. It has been foretold...

ChocolateSauce

5uspect wrote: »

A preview of the Late late studio audience?
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2055684957

The Prophet via link wrote:

Okay, so I thought Dawking was still disabled. I saw pictures of him only a few years ago and he was shriveled and confined to a talking wheelchair! Can you believe that?! Surely the work of the divil himself.

Now he finds himself healed and healthy today. Is that evolution? Of course not - that's utter pie-in-the-sky stuff. It is, however, proof that God is a merciful force in the world, even to prodigal little satans like Dawking.

Wow. Just wow.

pinksoir

ChocolateSauce wrote: »

Wow. Just wow.

Ah, yer man is clearly trolling/joking... says the optimist in me.

Mitch Connor

ChocolateSauce wrote: »

Wow. Just wow.

has to be extracting the urine.

Sam Vimes

Indeed

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=61620433&postcount=35

5uspect

You know I wasn't sure at first. I guess that's the effect of that thread.

SURAZAL

I am possessed of a spare ticket as my dear wife ( and I do mean dear ) informs me that her preferred location for sleep is in her own bed. I will be in Crowes for a swift one before the lift off. Black Betfair hoodie , devilishly handsome you can't miss me. First up best dressed.

pinksoir

I'd love it please...

chelleflife

Its about to start. Plenty of seats! Dont see why they wouldnt let you in...

Sam Vimes

A crazy guy just called Dawkins a fundamentalist, called us all elitists and walked out

TheManWho

That ex-fundamentalist didn't sound very reformed.

darjeeling

I was skeptical it was going to happen, given the weird seeming news blackout. In the end, I only found out the time and place from skulking around web forums. Were we all just part of the first Dawkins flash mob?

TheManWho

That whole ticket thing was a bit of an anti climax, I encountered no doorman or guest list. Anyone on the street could have just wandered in and sat in the front row.

robindch

Sam Vimes wrote: »

A crazy guy just called Dawkins a fundamentalist, called us all elitists and walked out

Well, that guy ranted for a good two minutes, all of it unintelligible save for the "I used to be a fundamentalist :eek::mad:" bit. Didn't catch the bit about elitists, but a dark-suited chap helped our friend from from the room while shaking his fist at the ceiling.

Weird.

TheManWho wrote:

Anyone on the street could have just wandered in and sat in the front row.

As indeed, did i

Turtwig

I wantz moar info..crazy folk check : any gorillas?

C'mon I wasn't there:(
Fill me us innnnnnnnnnnnnn
Pleasseeeeeeeeeeeee

Zamboni

That was fun.

Got in early and was about 5 from front on the left beside the booksigning table ;-)

There was plenty of seats at the back though.

Got two books signed and just found out I have a ticket to the Late Late tomorrow too.

Awesome.

TheManWho

I thought his elitist remark was directed at the Irish Times spokesperson.

murrayp4

It was great to finally get to meet him
Got my Blind Watchmaker signed :D

ironingbored

Zamboni wrote: »

Got two books signed and just found out I have a ticket to the Late Late tomorrow too.

Awesome.

How did you swing that? Did you get a ticket afterwards?

ironingbored

To be honest I was slightly disappointed with the lecture.

Don't get me wrong I really enjoyed the experience and was chuffed to get my copy of TGSOE signed but

a) I'd have liked him to ad lib a little more
b) the time wasted on him not hearing the questions from the floor
c) the moderator I thought was poor

Does anyone else feel the same?

darjeeling

Malty_T wrote: »

I wantz moar info..crazy folk check : any gorillas?

C'mon I wasn't there:(
Fill me us innnnnnnnnnnnnn
Pleasseeeeeeeeeeeee

Dawkins was talking about his new book. He said it's the first in which he's set out the evidence for evolution. He outlined the themes of each chapter and read selections from some, covering several areas: the extent of religious opposition to teaching of evolution, the nature of the fossil record and why claims of gaps are spurious, hominid fossils, the distribution of species in the world, evolutionary arms races and their inherent wastefulness from the point of view of any imagined designer, other stuff I've forgotten - probably.

Questions were varied:

Did you know, Prof Dawkins, that Thomas Aquinas knew about evolution long ago?

Are we still evolving?

How did life begin?

Is evolution happening in silico, with data replicating itself?

You're just a fundamentalist preaching to elitist Irish Times readers - no I don't have a question, just a rant.

Should the theory of evolution be rebranded as the Law Of Evolution?

Why is there religiously-motivated opposition to the teaching of evolution?

Will you be writing a book aimed at children? RD: yes - my next one.

And more...

Zamboni

ironingbored wrote: »

b) the time wasted on him not hearing the questions from the floor

I've actually noticed this occur frequently in his lectures on youtube.
I actually think he has difficulty with accents and blames the sound.

ChocolateSauce

Anyway, two boardsies said hi to me, sorry for not being very talkative, I was up since 5.50 this morning so that I could poster for our first event in UCD. I'm now lying in bed dozing off....

Speaking of which, I got a poster signed, and Dawkins is now the proud owner of a copy of the UCD Secular Humanist Societies' first ever event poster!

Ronanc1

Ha seen chocolate sauce and his stylish hat, altogether was good, something to do of an evening and we were lucky too, got our own heckler.

Heckler "Your too serious You dont let your hair down!"
Dawkins "You Dont know me!!" :pac:

liamw

Hopefully someone recorded it

imokyrok

TheManWho wrote: »

I thought his elitist remark was directed at the Irish Times spokesperson.

And the prof and all the audience apparently. He was just a couple of rows behind me and even I had trouble making out what he was saying his accent was so broad. Dawkins hadn't a chance but he certainly tried hard enough coming down from the stage as he did. By the time he got down to the aisle mind you he seemed to have realised it might be better to keep his distance!

Calibos

While I did actually profile that guy and nudge my brother before the show even started that that guy would be a trouble maker, likely a damaged individual with fundamentalist leanings etc etc and I was kinda proved correct in that he was fundamentalist...in the past..suffers from depression...and he did end up in a rant which got him F$&ked out.

However I think he was slightly mis-understood which wasn't helped by the sound quality of the mic, which turned the MC and audience against him. They were expecting a fundamentalist rant, they thought they were witnessing one and reacted accordingly.

However my theory and take on it given that I was sitting 2 rows back from him and might have picked up a little more of what he was saying than most is thus....

The previous question was about whether evolution will keep on producing more intelligent people or something like that. Dawkins used a funny example of how that might not necessarily be the case. That without much further selective pressure for big brains, selective pressure for the opposite might actually take over, that selective pressure being the stupid clumbsy people who can't put on a condom right will produce more children....:D

This guy who mentions he was the last of 13th children takes that personally and interprets this as elitist and insult to his family background. However while Dawkins is obviously talking about the Pyjama wearing Jacintas with 5 kids by 5 different fathers, he takes it personally not realising the example doesn't apply to his family of 13 where it was not necessarily lack of intelligence or condom fumbling that led to 13 kids but merely adherance to a religious doctrine of not wearing a condom at all. Folling a religious doctrine does not mean someone is stupid. UNfortunately this guy didn't make that distinction.

So he gets up to question Dawkins about his Elitism. He tells us he is from a family of 13, suffered from Depression in the past, was a fundamentalist but is one no longer, fully accepts the theory of evolution, agrees with all the science Dawkins talked about, but wants to question Dawkins about his Elitist attitude. I know its an old chestnut but I didn't mind hearing it again and would have liked to hear Dawkins robustly rebuff the elitist accusation. Unfortunately, the guy accussed the sponsors the Irish Times of Elitism and mentioned the elitist pushing through NAMA. When the MC heard NAMA he worried this might go totally off topic, waved his hands that we were not going down that road.

However instead of ending his tangental rant and simply asking Dawkins to comment on the perception of his Elitism, he assumed he was being told to shut up completely, most of the audience only hearing mumbles assumed he was on a religious rant and started sniggering or tut-tuting, and in turn the guy felt everyone was turning against him and went on a hand waving rant at all of us Irish Times reading elitists as he was led out.

I feel it starteddue to his misinterpretation of comments by Dawkins, it escalated due to the MC's and audiences (who couldn't hear him properly) misinterpretation of his comments, and ended in him being ejected due to his reaction.

I felt sorry for him when some buffoon shouted, "Go back to the Pub". He was neither a drunk nor a religious fundamentalist, just highly strung.

imokyrok

liamw wrote: »

Hopefully someone recorded it

I didn't notice anyone recording it and I'm guessing he won't want the lecture out on the net until he's finished his current book tour. Someone might have made a sneaky audio though.

Calibos

Stylish Hat???

Was Chocolate Sauce the V for Vendetta guy??