Richard Dawkins on Real Time with Bill Maher

philologos

darjeeling wrote: »

So as you see, Hitchens just says that some non-religious organisations have abused their positions in perpetrating 'child abuse or brutish indoctrination'. He says nothing about how common this has been within any organisation. He also makes no suggestion - unlike your use of 'amongst secular organisations and secular groups' - that it is a widespread feature of secular organisations.

Read the quote again:

But other nonreligious organisations have committed similar crimes, or even worse ones.

By nonreligious organisations, we obviously extend this to sports teams and the like also that don't have any affiliation to belief. I don't want to get into semantics, but I found his conceding of this to be rather honest.

darjeeling wrote: »

Note that earlier he commented generally on "child abuse", without detailing what he meant by it. Here he is talking specifically of rape and torture, and he makes no reference to secular organisations perpetrating these crimes.

I don't know what could be "similar or worse" than rape and torture.

darjeeling wrote: »

I'm not opening the debate on secular vs. religious abuse here, just pointing out that your comment gives a misleading view of what Hitchens wrote.

I'm not getting into a debate either. I don't see any reason to defend the Catholic Church, I just think his conceding that secular organisations have performed similar abuse or worse is honest.

I was mistaken in terms of "high" and "higher" when the phrase was "similar or worse". It's been a few months since I've read the book.

Dave!

ooooohhhh, Dawkins goin back on the O'Reilly Factor tonight

http://richarddawkins.net/event,371,Fox-News

bnt

I don't get HBO, but I do get the audio podcast of the show, which is delayed by about a week. It's on iTunes Podcasts, add this RSS Feed to your podcast catcher, or you can download the Dawkins episode directly, here.

Dave!

bnt wrote: »

I don't get HBO, but I do get the audio podcast of the show, which is delayed by about a week. It's on iTunes Podcasts, add this RSS Feed to your podcast catcher, or you can download the Dawkins episode directly, here.

Sweet! Cheers didnt know about that

Dave!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk9cXJ1MljI

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Turtwig

Dave! wrote: »

<Dawkins and Oirish guy O'Reilly? Didn't know he was of Irish descent??
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ROFL:D
"Will you stop shouting at me!?"

Did Bill O'Reilly just advocate astrology, alchemy and homeopathy to be thought in the class room?:rolleyes:

5uspect

I think he did.
Also we should have a petition set up to have his claim to Irishness revoked.

Dave!

Dave! wrote: »

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Hey I don't remember saying that :pac:

Sam Vimes

Malty_T wrote: »

Did Bill O'Reilly just advocate astrology, alchemy and homeopathy to be thought in the class room?:rolleyes:

Don't be ridiculous, only my nonsense should be taught in the classroom. Don't mind those crackpots who believe in Adam and Eve but you should teach that the magic sky man intervened in evolution because I believe that. Sure anything else is fascism :rolleyes:

stevejazzx

Dave! wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk9cXJ1MljI

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robindch

Dave! wrote: »

Hey I don't remember saying that :pac:

I looked at the time of the post and figured you wouldn't

Dave!

robindch wrote: »

I looked at the time of the post and figured you wouldn't

Wish I could put that down to drink, but it was mere rage.........

Zillah

I actually can't bring myself to listen to O'Reilly anymore, he's just so awful.

Valmont

If there was one man to incite me to pure, unmitigated anti-theism, it would be Bill O'Reilly. Then I think of Wendy what's her name and I remember, oh yes, I was swung to the antagonistic gang a few months ago. RAWR!

Turtwig

Valmont wrote: »

If there was one man to incite me to pure, unmitigated anti-theism, it would be Bill O'Reilly. Then I think of Wendy what's her name and I remember, oh yes, I was swung to the antagonistic gang a few months ago. RAWR!

Glenn Beck and Ben Stein for me...

Dave!

http://richarddawkins.net/article,4465,An-Open-Letter-to-Bill-Maher-on-Vaccinations,Michael-Shermer

An Open Letter to Bill Maher on Vaccinations

From a Fellow Skeptic

By Michael Shermer
Editor of Skeptic magazine and “Skeptic” columnist for Scientific American

Dear Bill,

Years ago you invited me to appear as a fellow skeptic several times on your ABC show Politically Incorrect, and I have ever since shared your skepticism on so many matters important to both of us: creationism and intelligent design, religious supernaturalism and New Age paranormal piffle, 9/11 “truthers”, Obama “birthers”, and all manner of conspiratorial codswallop. On these matters, and many others, you rightly deserved the Richard Dawkins Award from Atheist Alliance International.

However, I believe that when it comes to alternative medicine in general and vaccinations in particular you have fallen prey to the same cognitive biases and conspiratorial thinking that you have so astutely identified in others. In fact, the very principle of how vaccinations work is additional proof (as if we needed more) against the creationists that evolution happened and that natural selection is real: vaccinations work by tricking the body’s immune system into thinking that it has already had the disease for which the vaccination was given. Our immune system “adapts” to the invading pathogens and “evolves” to fight them, such that when it encounters a biologically similar pathogen (which itself may have evolved) it has in its armory the weapons needed to fight it. This is why many of us born in the 1950s and before may already have some immunity against the H1N1 flu because of its genetic similarity to earlier influenza viruses, and why many of those born after really should get vaccinated.

Vaccinations are not 100% effective, nor are they risk free. But the benefits far outweigh the risks, and when communities in the U.S. and the U.K. in recent years have foregone vaccinations in large numbers, herd immunity is lost and communicable diseases have come roaring back. This is yet another example of evolution at work, but in this case it is working against us. (See www.sciencebasedmedicine.org for numerous articles answering every one of the objections to vaccinations.)

Vaccination is one of science’s greatest discoveries. It is with considerable irony, then, that as a full-throated opponent of the nonsense that calls itself Intelligent Design, your anti-vaccination stance makes you something of an anti-evolutionist. Since you have been so vocal in your defense of the theory of evolution, I implore you to be consistent in your support of the theory across all domains and to please reconsider your position on vaccinations. It was not unreasonable to be a vaccination skeptic in the 1880s, which the co-discovered of natural selection—Alfred Russel Wallace—was, but we’ve learned a lot over the past century. Evolution explains why vaccinations work. Please stop denying evolution in this special case.

As well, Bill, your comments about not wanting to “trust the government” to inject us with a potentially deadly virus, along with many comments you have made about “big pharma” being in cahoots with the AMA and the CDC to keep us sick in the name of corporate profits is, in every way that matters, indistinguishable from 9/11 conspiracy mongering. Your brilliant line about how we know that the Bush administration did not orchestrate 9/11 (“because it worked”), applies here: the idea that dozens or hundreds pharmaceutical executives, AMA directors, CDC doctors, and corporate CEOs could pull off a conspiracy to keep us all sick in the name of money and power makes about as much sense as believing that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their bureaucratic apparatchiks planted explosive devices in the World Trade Center and flew remote controlled planes into the buildings.

Finally, Bill, please consider the odd juxtaposition of your enthusiastic support for health care reform and government intervention into this aspect of our medical lives, with your skepticism that these same people—when it comes to vaccinations and disease prevention—suddenly lose their sense of morality along with their medical training. You excoriate the political right for not trusting the government with our health, and then in the next breath you inadvertently join their chorus when you denounce vaccinations, thereby adding fodder for their ideological cannons. Please remember that it’s the same people administrating both health care and vaccination programs.

One of the most remarkable features of science is that it often leads its practitioners to change their minds and to say “I was wrong.” Perhaps we don’t do it enough, as our own blinders and egos can get in the way, but it does happen, and it certainly happens a lot more in science than it does in religion or politics. I’ve done it. I used to be a global warming skeptic, but I reconsidered the evidence and announced in Scientific American that I was wrong. Please reconsider both the evidence for vaccinations, as well as the inconsistencies in your position, and think about doing one of the bravest and most honorable things any critical thinker can do, and that is to publicly state, “I changed my mind. I was wrong.”

With respect,

Michael Shermer

Turtwig

*Loves Shermer even more*:D

Dave!

I posted it before, but this is a fascinating talk by Shermer discussing one of his books
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71nsZABqoi8

Turtwig

Dave! wrote: »

I posted it before, but this is a fascinating talk by Shermer discussing one of his books
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71nsZABqoi8

Yeah seen that before, it's brilliant:D
The Q&A sesssion is missing at the end though:(