Tag: Richard Dawkins

Some commentary on that whole “eugenics would work” idea:

This is what I’m saying. What kind of “eu”? “Works” in what sense? Dawkins didn’t say.

Maybe it is a humanities thing to be careful with words and define your terms. Maybe, but ten years ago or so I would have said Dawkins knew how to do both.

Clean-up on aisle 3.

A comment responding to Richard Dawkins’s comment here and cross-posted to his site.

Hermann Steinpilz*
Feb 17, 2016 at 5:14 pm

The SJWs keep bringing up Richard’s “Dear Muslima” comment, and keep deliberately misinterpreting it. Because that’s what they do. They lie, and lie, and lie some more. I’m thinking of folk like Adam Lee, who claimed in a piece in The Guardian that Richard was essentially arguing that women in Muslim theocracies have it much worse than women in the West, and that therefore the latter should remain silent about “sexual harassment and physical intimidation”.

I can imagine how infuriating such dishonesty must be to Richard. He should (and probably does) realize that SJWs are much like fundie believers. They are equally dogmatic; they are opposed to free speech (who needs free speech, when your side has all the correct answers?); and they routinely lie for The Cause. They are totally dishonest. It is no use trying to reason with the likes of Adam Lee, PZ Myers or Ophelia Benson.

Ok how am I misinterpreting it? What is its meaning that I am so dishonestly construing? What exactly is it that I’m lying and lying and lying some more about? How else can that comment be read?

Here it is again so we can refresh our memories:

Dear Muslima

Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.

Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so . . .

And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.

Richard

Via David Allen Greene at the New Statesman, who of course got it via Pharyngula.

Ok: how else is that comment to be read? Explain it to me. Explain what else it can possibly mean.

But good luck with that. People pay me to write and to edit, and speaking as a writer and editor, I say the meaning of that comment is very clear, and the angry rudeness of it is very clear too. Dawkins wrote that hostile, contemptuous thing back in 2011 and he has nobody to blame for that but himself. We didn’t make him write it; we were gobsmacked when he did; so he can just stop with the blaming. His commenters can stop saying we lie and lie and lie again when we say that comment means what it so obviously says.

And anyway Richard spelled it out for a journalist himself. Kimberly Winston asked him about it in an interview in November 2014.

Bottom line: He stands by everything he has said — including comments that one form of rape or pedophilia is “worse” than another, and that a drunken woman who is raped might be responsible for her fate.

“I don’t take back anything that I’ve said,” Dawkins said from a shady spot in the leafy backyard of one of his Bay Area supporters. “I would not say it again, however, because I am now accustomed to being misunderstood and so I will … ”

He trailed off momentarily, gazing at his hands resting on a patio table.

“I feel muzzled, and a lot of other people do as well,” he continued. “There is a climate of bullying, a climate of intransigent thought police which is highly influential in the sense that it suppresses people like me.”

Kimberly quotes from Adam Lee’s article in the Guardian and then continues:

Dawkins, however, disagrees. He is, he said, not a misogynist, as some critics have called him, but “a passionate feminist.” The greatest threats to women, in his view, are Islamism and jihadism — and his concern over that sometimes leads him to speak off-the-cuff.

“I concentrate my attention on that menace and I confess I occasionally get a little impatient with American women who complain of being inappropriately touched by the water cooler or invited for coffee or something which I think is, by comparison, relatively trivial,” he said.

Does it need to be clearer than that?

*Updating to add: a commenter tells us Hermann Steinpilz (stonemushroom) is Jan Steen of the slime pit.

So Robyn Blumner has spoken.

Robyn Blumner, in her interview with Hemant Mehta on his podcast says this about Richard Dawkins’ twitter feed (starts at 30:31):

“I think Richard Dawkins is purposefully misunderstood at times as a way to generate clicks on some bloggers’ page. It’s because his name brings page views and eyes so why not generate a lot of heat around something that is pretty tame if you really unpack it.”

No, his name doesn’t “bring page views.” That’s nonsense. She must be confusing the Dawkins fame that sells tickets to conferences with the mention of his name on a blog. The two aren’t comparable. Dawkins sells tickets to events because people want to be in his presence; they want to see and hear him in person. I’m not mocking that, either; I like being around people whose writing I’ve admired for years. But being in a favorite writer’s presence is one thing and seeing the writer’s name on a blog is quite, quite another. So different. No comparison.

And also – what he says isn’t always all that tame given all the circumstances – what he stands for to a lot of people, his influence and popularity, the people and groups he singles out as objects of his contempt. To spell it out, he adds to the already horrible atmosphere for women and feminists in the secular / atheist movement. That’s not all that tame.

Monette put it clearly:

Pretending the stuff he does isn’t a problem does not send a positive message to CFI’s members who are anything but upper class white males. No, he doesn’t speak for the foundation. But, he is on the board and will be making decisions regarding the direction and handling of all of CFI’s projects.

And Blumner is the CEO.

Massimo Pigliucci has interesting thoughts on the Dawkins trainwreck today.

One has to do with what kind of scientist or intellectual Dawkins is, which is something I’ve been wishing someone would point out ever since the merger. Massimo is well placed to say it, being a former biologist and current philosopher.

A few years later, when I was a full professor, but still at the University of Tennessee, I actually taught a graduate seminar on the Gould-Dawkins rivalry, and that’s where I learned something that still few people seem to realize. You see, Dawkins is often portrayed in the media as “a leading evolutionary biologist.” But if by that one means an active research scientist who has actually made major contributions to his field, then that title really ought to describe Gould, not Dawkins.

Dawkins essentially ceased publishing in the primary literature (with a few exceptions, mostly commentaries) after he wrote TSG. Absolutely nothing wrong with that: the man had found his true calling as a science popularizer, and Zeus knows we need a lot of ’em! But even TSG was just that, a popular book, not the presentation of original ideas (except for the whole “memes” thing, more on that in a minute). Indeed, TSG was the popularization of notions developed in the preceding couple of decades by true giants of the evolutionary field, including George Williams (nature of natural selection, criticism of group selection), William Hamilton (kin selection), and Robert Trivers (reciprocal altruism). (Here is a short article I wrote for Skeptical Inquirer about going beyond the selfish gene.)

See, I did know that, because of having read it from various people, probably including Massimo over the years. And it’s not a slam – I’m just a blogger and essayist, and I think that’s an ok thing to be, and I think being a brilliant popularizer is a fantastic thing to be. It’s just that I don’t think that should be confused with other things, like being “a leading evolutionary biologist.”

Massimo goes on to praise Dawkins’s stream of great public understanding of science books, praise I echo. Then he says that streak came to an abrupt halt with the publication of The God Delusion.

The broader point is that I think Dawkins has been sliding down ever since he became a (very) popular spokesperson for atheism. Which is highly unfortunate, because atheism does need good spokespeople. But the most effective ones, I would think, are those that come across as reasonable and articulate, and who are very careful about what they say in public, especially on social media. Dawkins is articulate, but doesn’t come across (to non atheists, and indeed even to some atheists) as reasonable. And he’s definitely not careful about his public statements, as we’ll see below.

Exactly. I just think it’s really really bad news that Dawkins is the face of atheism for so many people. Massimo saw this years before I did.

Then he gets to last week, and That Tweet endorsing That Video.

The video linked to in the tweet, and which Dawkins clearly endorsed, can be found here. It is an egregious, unqualified, piece of racist and misogynist garbage. Please, pause reading this post for a couple of minutes and see for yourself. It’s simply horrifying.

Then again, this was not an isolated incident. Dawkins had racked a considerable number of similarly embarrassing tweets over the past few years. Here is a sampler, ranging over such light topics as abortion, rape, pedophilia, and Islam (of course!). Use Google to find many, many more.

I’ve collected lots. Others have too.

This is why the NECSS organizers (to be clear: I am not one of them) took the extraordinary, and likely costly, step of withdrawing the invitation to Dawkins to come to New York. You can read Steve Novella’s full explanation here, which I find convincing and earnest. If anything, in my mind, the question is why was Dawkins invited to NECSS to begin with, considering that his socially erratic behavior was notorious. But I suppose it’s hard to resist the cachet of a celebrity, and Dawkins sells tickets at whatever event he is invited.

Quite. And this raises that other issue, which is why CFI felt able to merge with his foundation and add him to their board. He has been doing a terrible job of making that look like a good decision over the past week.

Massimo gets to that, after a lucid analysis of the splits in the SAHF community (acronym his).

Remember what the SAHFs evolved for: to further reason and critical inquiry, to promote science and debunk pseudoscience, to build a community of like minded people, to provide a civilalternative to religion. Does any of the above sound anything like this set of highly worthy goals?

No, clearly. But there are countless good people involved with SAHF, and they deserve to be able to return to the original goals of what they set out to do, shutting off the insanity and incivility, taking a stand again in favor of reason and decency.

That is why I applaud the step taken by the NECSS organizers. That is also why I wish (I know it’s not going to happen) that CFI divested itself from its link with the Richard Dawkins Foundation, engaged in some serious soul searching, and regrouped around the basic principles set forth by Paul Kurtz. I met Paul, and he was no saint (who is?). But I’m pretty sure he would be disgusted by the shamble in which his intellectual heirs currently find themselves.

So the Dawkins-NECSS debacle is a splendid opportunity for the good people within SAHF to step back, appreciate and remind themselves of all the good they have done in decades of activism, but also conscientiously and critically inquire into the bad or questionable stuff. Every movement goes through growing pains, and this is just one of those moments. I sincerely wish them all the best for a speedy and safe transition to maturity.

Hear hear.

Today’s installment of wit and insight from TwitterDawkins – another insightful retweet.

Nadine Feiler ‏@nadine_feiler 8 hours ago
@RichardDawkins @thunderf00t @Sargon_of_Akkad Change of mind ;)

An item that Dawkins retweeted this morning:

Yes, that’s right, Richard, feminists get upset by a tits and ass shirt worn by the talking head for a big exciting space event, and they don’t get upset by women being shot in the head on the street.

Except no it’s not. It’s not right, it’s a lying crock of shit, and you’re a mean bullying ideologue for repeating this kind of thing.

Not to mention how fucking callous it is to use that photo to make a cheap and dishonest point about feminism.

Dan Fincke made excellent points in a public post on Facebook sharing a public post by Julia Galef about the Dawkins-NECSS disruption.

1. Dawkins is not just any speaker, he was to be the keynote and he’s got outsized influence in the movement. With greater power comes greater responsibility. Endorsing him to speak is to effectively continue to endorse him as the de facto face of our movement. It is worse when someone of his stature does something like this.

2. Dawkins is also not just any speaker because he is building off his academic stature in gaining his reputation and outsized influence. Standards are different for a professional activist like, say, David Silverman, and a professional. Professionals are expected to police themselves as part of the responsibility that comes with their authority, prestige, and prominence related to their academic titles and institutional affiliations. The idea of tenure is a trust. We trust you to behave professionally and in return you get unrestricted free speech rights. Soft penalties for abusing that authority like being academically shunned or disinvited from speaking opportunities are a relatively a mild form of recourse still left available to chastise someone abusing their professional privileges.

I think he meant a professional academic, or an academic (since professional academic is tautological), rather than just professional. Professional entertainers for instance work under different rules. At any rate, yes, that. Dawkins should police himself as part of the responsibility that comes with his authority, prestige, and prominence related to his academic titles and institutional affiliations – including CFI. He should police himself in order to avoid making CFI look bad by being a bully on Twitter days after the merger was announced.

6. Even after he “took it down” because it was a real person he acted spiteful and petulant in follow up tweets. He started questioning whether she was really harassed (ignoring evidence presented to him) and calling her vile and recommending that this very low totem pole individual who was already disproportionately signaled out for harassment and death threats and mockery be given plenty of more mockery. He’s STILL willing to make a lowly street level activist a target of unrelenting mockery rather than shift the focus to ideas. That’s irresponsible, especially coming from such an extraordinarily powerful person. I agree with those that found her actions in the original video that made her infamous to be repulsively uncivil. But seriously, street level arguments between ideologues are emotional and intense confrontations. They shouldn’t destroy someone’s life. Dawkins and his defenders are constantly bemoaning powerful people being raked through the social media mud over a single comment. But Dawkins is rallying millions of social media followers to redouble their efforts to mock a street level activist for being obnoxious in the heat of an argument? This doesn’t make him unfit to receive continued treatment as the de facto face and voice of our movement? Then this movement is fucked.

That. I couldn’t agree more.

There are seven, they’re all good, you should read them all.

Dawkins’s Twitter is of course full of his retweets of people raging at the “witch hunt” against him. (And yet he goes on pretending to be unaware that many of his 1.34 million followers will harass anyone he targets on Twitter. He remembers them when they’re raging at the witch hunt, but not when they’re harassing Chanty Binx.)

A sample, with account names left off to simplify.

@NECSS Shameful display of intolerance and ignorance on your part, in your treatment of @RichardDawkins. Ridiculous overreaction to satire.

@JackSyit @RichardDawkins I agree. He’s a liberal feminist who abhors racism and sexism. But he’s brutally honest & many hate that.

.@RichardDawkins #cologne rapes and enormous problems of Muslim world but “feminists” and Islamists unite over hatred of cartoons.

I can’t be the only one that see the irony in this situation. @RichardDawkins is more of a feminist than any of those attacking him.

@RichardDawkins Fundamentalist feminists are irony deficient.

@NECSS You people have lost all credibility. Unless you can issue an absolutely rectifying apology to @RichardDawkins . Admit you’re wrong

I’m an atheist. I don’t agree with @RichardDawkins about everything & don’t need him to speak for me, but this Twitter lynch mob is pathetic

@RichardDawkins The regressive left is a new enemy of logic and reason. Stay classy, prof.

@RichardDawkins The regressives have multiplied and have made you their newest target. Stay strong, we have your back.

Feminists turn on @RichardDawkins because he tweeted this amusing video. Humourless harpies. http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/sceptic_faith_disturbed/ …
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ecJUqhm2g08&feature=youtu.be …

@ttrwttr @RichardDawkins @NECSS

Don’t always agree with @RichardDawkins but he’s fair & consistent. Same can’t be said about his hysterical detractors.

That’s a tiny, tiny sample. I gave up trying to scroll to the bottom of them.

His own tweets are as horrible as ever, if not worse.

Richard Dawkins ‏@RichardDawkins

‘It’s time feeble feminists started to condemn the misogyny in Islam’
Yes, don’t tell me, I know there’s a paywall http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4678093.ece …

[In response to someone saying the vid is not funny]:

.@ttrwttr @NECSS That’s your opinion. I found it very funny and acute. Maybe not as good as Lehrer or Python but they set a v high standard

Now who will de-platform me for posting this? Come on, why not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M …
Or this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUspLVStPbk …
Both “offensive”

Dear @NECSS, please listen to @StephenFry before you disinvite anyone else for “offending” the offence junkies,

@Ivriniel @CHSommers She most certainly deserved mockery. In spades. She did not deserve violence. Nobody does, not even her.

That one is particularly disgusting. Again he insists that a random powerless ordinary woman “deserved” mockery, and not just that, but “in spades” – deserved extra added mockery. Reasonable people with a nodding acquaintance with basic decency consider that bullying and harassment, while Richard Dawkins thinks it’s just reward for a woman he dislikes. Then he says nobody deserves violence, “not even her,” as if she were so evil she came close to deserving violence.

He’s become the George Galloway of atheism.

Steven Novella has written the blog post he said he would write, explaining the decision to withdraw Dawkins’s invitation to speak at the NECSS conference in May.

NECSS is run by the New York City Skeptics and the New England Skeptical Society, both non-profit organizations. NECSS has its own executive committee, consisting of members of both organizations. There has been much speculation about who is making the decisions for NECSS – it is this committee. I will just say that there were a range of opinions on this matter within the committee, and we came to the best decisions we could, given that range of opinions. When I refer to “we” in this article, I am not speaking for every individual on the committee, just the majority result.

It wasn’t one person, and it wasn’t unanimous.

Richard Dawkins has been a polarizing figure in the skeptical community for several years.  On the one hand, many people (myself included) greatly respect the work that Dawkins has done. He is a brilliant science communicator. His books have brought many people to rationalism. He is one of the few “rock stars” of our movement.

For what it’s worth, I still agree with that. On the other hand, sadly, I think he’s done a lot to tarnish even his brilliant science communication now; that’s one of the many reasons I wish he would stop. Now that he’s so firmly established himself as a serial outrage-machine on Twitter, it just really is hard to read his books without that getting in the way. Imagine you found out that, oh, Paul Krugman, say, or Daniel Dennett, is actually the mind behind Milo Yiannopoulos. That would change how you saw him and his books.

I also greatly respect and appreciate the fact that he is an outspoken public atheist. This is tremendously important, and serves to legitimize atheism for many. Dawkins has dedicated much of his career and effort to charitable endeavors, to make the world a better place.

I guess, sort of, but less so than the part about brilliant science communication. Now the “outspoken” quality is all tangled up with the “mean bullying” quality, and I have no idea how to disentangle them.

All of this is why it has been very puzzling to many that his social media activity has often not reflected his reputation as a public intellectual. He has famously made tweets or blog comments that have come off as insensitive or worse. I will not dissect each instance here, which is well trammeled territory already.

Interestingly, Dawkins himself recently tweeted:

“I’m really as polite as my books. Twitter brevity forces you straight to the point, which can sound aggressive.”

Interestingly and horrifyingly. Yes, really – I find it horrifying how completely unable he is to see (or admit?) even that he is frequently rude. I speak as a frequently rude person myself. I make some effort not to be, and doubtless should make more, but for sure I do not go around telling people how especially polite I am. It creeps me out that Dawkins keeps insisting he’s actually a nice guy.

For further background, over the last 5-6 years the skeptical movement has been rocked by intermittent controversy over sexism and racism in the movement. This is a complex topic I am not going to tackle or resolve here. Suffice it to say this controversy has caused many in the movement to form various camps, some championing free speech, others social justice. Others have tried to chart a course down the middle, while still others left the movement.

In the mix, unfortunately, there have been truly vile trolls who have made threats of violence and rape, serving mostly to radicalize the entire issue. Trolls and psychopaths are part of the new social media reality, a new reality to which we are all still adapting.

Some of them, of course, are commenting on Novella’s post.

Given all this, they had to figure out whether or not to invite Dawkins. They had reservations, but decided to go for it anyway.

Unfortunately, within a week of opening registration many of us became concerned that this might not be tenable.

Dawkins retweeted a video (called “Feminists Love Islamists”) depicting an Islamist and an angry feminist (who it turns out is a real person and not just a character) and essentially making the claim that these groups share an ideology. Dawkins tweeted:

“Obviously doesn’t apply to the vast majority of feminists, among whom I count myself. But the minority are pernicious.”

He included a link to the video. This, of course, set off another round of controversy over Dawkins’ social media activity and the attitudes they reflect.

That made things awkward for NECSS.

Since we had just opened registration this created an urgency, because we did not want to “bait and switch” our attendees if we would ultimately decide to reverse our decision to have him at the conference. We felt it was important to make a decision quickly.

You can see how that makes sense. Dawkins’s tweeting seems to be getting progressively more obnoxious, ratcheting down almost every day, so what would he be blurting out in March, let alone April?

He addresses some concerns – why invite him in the first place, why not talk to him first, what about free speech.

People have a right to speech, but they don’t have a right to access a private venue for their speech. In fact, whom we invite or uninvite to our conference is the primary mechanism of our free speech. This was ultimately about the character of NECSS and the statement we wish to make (or not make) to our community. Obviously where one sets the threshold for not inviting, or uninviting, a guest is subjective and there is room for reasonable disagreement here.

I think there should be a much higher threshold for disinviting than there is for not inviting in the first place. I suppose this situation should be a warning for other orgs, even if they don’t already have scruples about inviting Dawkins to speak – they don’t know what he’ll be tweeting next month, and disinviting is a much bigger deal than not inviting in the first place, so think carefully about inviting.

Others have questioned whether or not we condemn all satire, with South Park being brought up as a frequent example. We are not against satire, but this video is no South Park. The video in question, in my opinion, was spiteful and childish and was merely hiding behind satire. That is a judgment call, but making that judgment does not condemn satire as a form.

Satire as a genre is a good thing. It doesn’t follow, and it’s not the case, that all satire is good.

Another frequent point is that we are against any criticism of feminism, as if it is a taboo topic. This is also not true. No topic should be taboo, and we favor open and vigorous discussion of all important issues. In fact, pointed criticism is good for the feminist movement – or for any movement. (This does not mean that NECSS is the proper venue for any particular topic.)

The point, rather, is that this video, and the discussion that surrounded it, was not constructive. It was hateful and divisive.

It was one item in the massive catalogue of hateful garbage the antifeminists have been cranking out for the past several years. It had nothing to do with reasoned criticism.

I want to directly address Dawkins’ last statement:

“The science and skepticism community is too small and too important to let disagreements divide us and divert us from our mission of promoting a more critical and scientifically literate world.”

I completely agree. That is, ironically, the exact reason we were so disturbed by that video and Dawkins spreading of it. I do wish Dawkins would recognize (perhaps he does) his special place within our community and the power that position holds. When he retweets a link to a video, even with a caveat, that has a tremendous impact. It lends legitimacy to the video and the ideas expressed in it.

That is why Dawkins is so polarizing. In my opinion, someone in his position, with his eloquence, knowledge, and intellect, with his academic background should be doing everything he can to elevate the level of discussion. He has the ability to address legitimate criticisms of feminism, or atheism or skepticism, if he thinks he has them. He could be a force that is helping unite our very small and critically important rationalist movement.

Instead, I fear, he is helping to divide us, 140 characters at a time, and helping to lower the level of the discussion.

Precisely. I also do wish Dawkins would recognize his special place within our community and the power that position holds. I told him that when we had the conversation that led to the joint statement in July 2014. He definitely does recognize his special place for some purposes, i.e. when it’s pleasant for him, but he seems not to when it comes to recognizing the harm he does to the random people he targets. He’s doing it now, today – he’s still producing hateful tweets about the woman in the video, still insisting that she deserves all the mockery possible. His special place right now seems to be Bully in Chief.

The Independent has reported on Dawkins’s latest excellent adventure.

The evolutionary biologist is a controversial figure. He has been criticised for Islamophobia – a term he has described as a ‘non-word’ – on several occasions and last year sparked outrage by comparing who he described as “clock boy” Ahmed Mohamed with a child soldier forced by Isis to behead victims.

The Independent has approached Dawkins for comment.

He also – often – called Ahmed Mohamed “Hoax Boy” – which is even less friendly than “clock boy.”

The International Business Times also reported.

The atheist movement has been accused of being dominated by men often insensitive to women’s concerns. The NECSS decision to disinvite Dawkins as the keynote speaker is one of the few times an organization supportive of his atheism has taken action against him.

Or, rather, the only time? I don’t know of any other. Correct me if I’m wrong.

More about Richard Dawkins

• Richard Dawkins under fire for comparing ‘clock boy’ Ahmed Mohammed to Isis child executioner
• Richard Dawkins take heed: Even atheists instinctively believe in a creator says study
• Peshawar school massacre: Richard Dawkins says Pakistan Taliban attack exposes evils of religion
• Richard Dawkins Makes ‘Worst Comments Yet’ on Twitter about Down’s Syndrome Babies
• Richard Dawkins on Syllogism: ‘Date Rape is Bad, Stranger Rape at Knifepoint is Worse’
• Sun editor David Dinsmore beats GTA 5 to be crowned ‘Sexist of the Year’ by feminist group

The pride of atheism.

David Futrelle covers the story of Dawkins’s passionate defense of relentlessly mocking people we dislike; he covers it with great thoroughness. I read through Dawkins’s numbingly horrible tweets earlier today and didn’t have the stomach to blog about them.

Earlier this month, antifeminist YouTuber Sargon of Akkad — who makes his living pandering to some of the internet’s worst lady haters — posted an animated videoby another antifeminist YouTuber in which an angry Islamist and an angry feminist sing a song explaining that they pretty much believe all the same things. (For some reason, this nonsensical theory is something that a lot of antifeminists have convinced themselves is true.)

The angry Islamist in the video is a familiar racist stereotype, complete with “funny” accent. [Correction: He’s evidently supposed to be a parody of this guy, known as Dawah Man, a legitimately terrible person you wouldn’t think atheists would have to strawman in order to criticize..]

The angry feminist, meanwhile, isn’t a generic figure; she’s an especially crude caricature of [Chanty] Binx, spouting nonsense that neither Binx nor any other feminist actually believes: the video ends with her encouraging the Islamist to rape her, because it’s not really rape if a Muslim does it, dontchaknow.

It’s a vicious, hateful little cartoon made worse by the fact that these words are being put in the mouth of a real woman who’s been the target of a vast harassment campaign for years.

Yet Dawkins thought it was quality enough and on target enough to share with his 1.34 million followers.

Dawkins, a well-respected scientist-turned-embarrassing-atheist-ideologue, has become notorious for his endless Twitter gaffes. But this is plainly worse than, say, his famously pathetic lament about airport security “dundridges” taking his jar of honey; his Tweet contributed to the demonization of a real woman who’s already the target of harassment and threats.

The awesome Lindy West pointed this out to him in a series of Tweets and linked to one of my posts cataloging some of the abuse Binx got after the video of her went viral.

In a series of eloquent and angry Tweets, she made clear to Dawkins how and why he was misusing his huge platform and contributing to an atmosphere of hate online. Dawkins, alternately indignant and defensive, ultimately took down the offending Tweet, but not before making other Tweets that were nearly as bad. Dawkins can’t even do the right thing without being a dick about it.

Those were the other tweets I saw and couldn’t face blogging. I saw some of them late yesterday, and some this morning. What they tell us is that it’s terrific to mock people, as much as possible, it’s just not cool to threaten them.

Like the one where he tells Lindy, “I think she deserves nothing more than ridicule. I would never shriek “Fuckface” at her. But I would laugh at her. Ridicule.” Futrelle comments,

So there you have it: when informed that a tweet of his will almost certainly worsen the vicious harassment faced by a young woman whose only “crime” was being rude to a couple of MRAs in public, Richard Dawkins, a one-time winner of  the American Humanist Association’s Humanist of the Year Award, replies by saying that “she deserves nothing more than ridicule.”

Exactly. It turns my stomach.

Then he decided to take down the tweet, while throwing more shit at Chanty Binx.

“Can’t believe anyone’s as nasty as her.” Says the guy with 1.34 million followers who has just been reminded that his followers tend to harass people whom he attacks. The “humanist.”

There’s more, then Futrelle gets to the tweet I think I hate the most of all (though there will be worse tomorrow, never fear):

Yes, she deserves abundant mockery, the more the merrier. But she doesn’t deserve violent threats. Nobody does.

He simply said a woman he disapproves of deserves all the “mockery” he can incite – which is a massive amount, and is never confined to what reasonable people would consider mockery. I think that’s the tweet that prompted me yesterday to call him a bully. He is a bully, a terrible, unrepentant, gleeful, conscienceless bully.

So, this is the fruit of the merger between CFI and Dawkins’s foundation: Dawkins gets to use CFI to add a bit of respectability to his statement on NECSS.

That’s good for him, not so good for them. (Remember the good old days when he used to say that his debating William Lane Craig would look good on WLC’s resumé, not so good on his? This is that.) This ties his Twitter persona to CFI. It ties his ridiculous statement to CFI.

I woke up this morning to see a public announcement that my invitation to speak at NECSS 2016 had been withdrawn by the executive committee. I do not write this out of concern about my appearance or non-appearance at NECSS, but I wish there had been a friendly conversation before such unilateral action was taken. It is possible I could have allayed the committee members’ concerns, or, if not, at least we could have talked through their objections to my tweet. If our community is about anything, it is that reasoned discussion is the best way to work through disagreements.

Ok, our community is about [the idea that] reasoned discussion is the best way to work through disagreements. Ok, then why does Dawkins spend so much time having unreasoned discussions on Twitter? If he approves of reasoned discussion, why does he do so much angry blurting on Twitter? If he’s a fan of reasoned discussion, why does he so often find himself having to explain his latest angry blurts on Twitter? If he’s keen on reasoned discussion, why did he approvingly retweet that vulgar, mendacious, ugly video?

I might mention that, before receiving any word from NECSS, I had already deleted the tweet to which they objected. I did it purely because I was told that the video referenced a real woman, who had been threatened on earlier occasions because of YouTube videos in which she appeared to her disadvantage. I have no knowledge of the authenticity of the alleged death and rape threats. But to delete my tweet seemed the safest and most humane course of action. I have always condemned violence and threats of violence, for example in this tweet, which I also posted the day before the NECSS decision.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don’t EVER threaten anyone with violence. We should be free to use comedy/ridicule without fear it may inspire violence

There. That’s it right there. That’s it and he doesn’t even notice that that’s it. No, we shouldn’t be “free” (morally free) to use ridicule of individuals, especially when we’ve got all the power. No, even though we do and should have the legal right to ridicule individuals, doing so is still a morally shit thing to do. No, famous bestselling Richard Dawkins should not be using Twitter to ridicule random women he dislikes. No.

I hate it that Dawkins can now drag CFI down with him.

Richard Dawkins chats with the New Zealand journalist Adam Dudding, starting with the former’s upcoming appearance at Wellington’s Michael Fowler centre during the New Zealand Festival in March.

In 2006, partly inspired by America’s lurch towards “theocracy” under born-again Christian George W Bush, Dawkins finally made his targetting of religion explicit, launching a blistering attack with his book The God Delusion. The book, which has since sold three milllion copies, transformed him from the evolution guy to the atheism guy.

He still writes and talks about science. Once we’re done with this interview he’ll spend the day checking proofs of a revised edition of his 2004 book The Ancestor’s Tale, but these days its his proclivity for bothering the god-botherers that largely defines his public profile.

Sometimes he wouldn’t mind a bit more help.

“I would like to see more activists. It’s a bit unfortunate if the impression gets around that there are only a few atheists – me and Sam Harris [author of The End of Faith] and so on – where the fact is that most intellectuals are atheists.”

It’s interesting then that he’s working so hard to turn so many of us away.

In Brief Candle in the Dark, Dawkins writes that even two of his heavy-hitting allies in science communication – American physicists Lawrence M Krauss and Neil deGrasse Tyson – have taken him to task for his alienating tone. He says he’s taken what they say to heart.

Well if he says that, he’s deep in denial. His alienating tone is getting more so by the day.

Yet that tone is still there in the YouTube clips, in the tweets, in the books: a sort of bristling conviction about his own rectitude and an exasperation with, maybe even a contempt for, those who just don’t get it. Is it contempt?

“Well,” says Dawkins, “when it comes to Young Earth creationists [those who say God literally created the entire universe planet 10,000 or fewer years ago], perhaps contempt is not too strong a word.

“But I’m rather fond of quoting British journalist Johan Hari – that’s H-A-R-I – who said, ‘I respect you too much to respect your ridiculous beliefs. That’s making the distinction between contempt for the belief, which I think is legitimate, and contempt for the person, which is probably not, because they may be ignorant, and ignorance is no crime.”

Demolishing a weak argument is one thing, but sometimes he almost seems angry when arguing his corner. Is he?

“There probably is a little bit of anger, but I like to think I keep it under control better than many people. Mostly when people meet me they don’t find me angry.”

Oh, christ. I’m sure he does “like to think” that, but it’s a crock of shit. He doesn’t keep it under control better than many people. He’s worse at it than most people. (I’m terrible at it myself, but that’s why I would never make that claim.) He makes a hobby of displaying his rancid anger on Twitter every day.

What really annoys him, though, is some of “what I would call my own people – decent liberal people who bend over backwards to apologise for all sorts of awful things like misogyny, homophobia, stonings and beheadings.”

They’ll say this stuff is all the fault of the West – that it’s because of the bombing and drones and things like that.

“There’s an awful tendency to turn a blind eye to evil things that are being done in the name of religion because of the political terror of being thought racist.”

Fair point, but some of the people who cheer Dawkinson on when he says stuff like this are, well, actual racists.

Yes, says Dawkins, that happens, and it’s “distressing” to have the wrong sort of people agreeing with you, but again that’s because the liberal left has left a vacuum.

In his case, no, not entirely. A lot of it is because he’s “the wrong sort of people” himself. Sharing that video by Carl Benjamin aka Sargon of Akkad is the latest pulsating neon sign of that.

Waverers can read the 370-odd pages of The God Delusion, or the 700-odd pages of the new edition of The Ancestor’s Tale once he’s read those proofs, or they can follow him on Twitter, where he’s knocked out 29,000 tweets since 2008 to 1.3 million followers.

Does he think his bite-sized provocations on Twitter about the folly of clergy, the viciousness of theocratic states, the timidity of western liberals and the political correctness of modern academia are achieving much?

“I don’t know,” says Dawkins. “I really don’t.

“I like to think my tweets are mostly reasonably good-humoured. They’re often satirical. Many people don’t get them, but that’s to be expected.

There it is again. He likes to think his tweets are mostly reasonably good-humoured – yes no doubt he does like to think that, but they aren’t. Some of them are venomous. Calling a kid in junior high school “Hoax Boy” over and over is venomous; his constant attacks on feminists are venomous. He is not a nice matey guy.

I guess we all have our delusions.

Dawkins this morning, a couple of hours ago.

Richard Dawkins‏@RichardDawkins
Obviously doesn’t apply to vast majority of feminists, among whom I count myself. But the minority are pernicious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecJUqhm2g08 …

https://youtu.be/ecJUqhm2g08

Hilarity on Twitter today, from a familiar source.

Where it began:

Richard Dawkins ‏@RichardDawkins 5 hours ago
Is trans woman a woman? Purely semantic. If you define by chromosomes, no. If by self-identification, yes. I call her “she” out of courtesy.

Ah you know that’s not going to go well. Not good enough. You’re not allowed to have a “no” anywhere. You’re not allowed to have an “if” anywhere. You’re not allowed to make distinctions.

And then his unfailing clumsiness – to put it politely – makes it all the worse. “Out of courtesy” might as well be “to humor” her.

So, of course, the next tweet was the inevitable

Richard Dawkins ‏@RichardDawkins 5 hours ago
@partimetroll Why? What could anyone possibly object to in my tweet? Please tell. I’m sincerely curious.

And on they went:

@RedKaye1 How can you be so wantonly stupid as to suggest that I would suggest such a thing?

@Reverend_Banjo How could that possibly piss anyone off? I’m simply trying to clarify a matter of simple semantics.

@hemantmehta I don’t understand. What’s your problem?

@GenericGooner I am on their side. What makes you think I am not? Do you deny what I said about chromosomes? It’s a matter of simple fact.

@bcaton2 Again that would depend on semantic definition. Do you choose to define by brain or rest of body? Matter of semantic choice.

@TheGayChrist By your definition, which it is your privilege to adopt. I adopt it too for all purposes that matter.

Now I’m getting hate because I stated a wish to be courteous. It means “polite”, “respectful”, “considerate of people’s feelings.” Terrible!

@Miss_Violet2014 Why? You obviously agree that they have Y chromosomes. So IF somebody were to define “woman” as XX . . . that’s all I said

@thebrainofchris English is my native language. I speak and write it competently. The implication you suggest is parsecs from my intention.

Jan Morris’s book, Conundrum, is a beautifully written account of what it’s like to feel you’re a woman trapped in a man’s body.

It’s absurd to use the word “really” to criticise trans people. “Really” means nothing, since the definition is semantic. That was my point.

@HPluckrose Yes, but I didn’t say that. I said IF you define “woman” by chromosomes you’ll get one answer. I didn’t say I did, did I?

Well, who would have believed “courtesy” was a dirty word? Never mind, I intend to continue to be courteous. Sorry if that gives offence.

@VincentGrey1 Perhaps you’re not accustomed to thinking logically and clearly? It takes practice.

@BrookeTLarson OK, that’s fine. I only said IF you define “woman” by chromosomes. I never said I did. Did I? No I didn’t.

It will be in the Guardian and the Independent within hours.

Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon says harsh things about Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins on Ahmed Mohamed…harsh, but not obviously false.

Then, full time crap-stirrer Dawkins took time out from retweeting fawning accolades from his fans on Sunday to just, know, ask some questions, posting a link to a YouTube clip from Thomas Talbot claiming Mohamed’s “a fraud” who didn’t invent or build the clock in question.

Ouch. That’s harsh. But you can’t say it’s false, can you – he does spend a lot of time stirring crap (but not full time, so you could say that claim is an exaggeration) and he does retweet fawning accolades from his fans.

But for the great kicker, Dawkins then humble bragged, “Sorry if I go a bit over the top in my passion for truth.” Well, when you put it like that, it’s not vague character assassination of a 14 year-old, it’s downright noble. Just like Gamergate is really about “ethics in gaming journalism.” You tell it like it is, Dawkins!

Yes, that one got up my nose too. “Passion for truth” ffs – via a random video by a random guy, always a reliable source for truth.

Skepticism and curiosity are vital and sadly lacking nutrients in our daily public discourse. But it’s unfortunate that an intellectual who once had the power to provoke insightful, challenging debate has in recent years turned into a sour crank, eager to leverage his brand as a prominent atheist as an excuse to go big on Islamphobia and congratulate himself on his horrendous views on sexual assault. And it’s pathetic that Maher and Dawkins are wrapping themselves up not in the rigorous quest for knowledge they claim to stand behind but their own petty prejudices and fears — and they’re basically the same baseless, dumb crap you could get from a doofus like Sarah Palin. The difference is that their schtick has its following not among the “Duck Dynasty” watchers but the C-Span ones. And even as they peddle ignorance, they have the arrogance to believe themselves incapable of it.

Harsh, definitely harsh. But true. (And we all have a passion for the truth, don’t we.) The fact that Dawkins has been citing Breitbart as a source is indeed one of the bigger carbuncles on this latest drama.

It’s still going on, and getting worse – Dawkins calling Ahmed Mohamed, age 14, a “fraud” on Twitter, and complaining that he was invited to the White House and MIT, and defending the use of Breitbart as a source. He’s trending on Facebook. Multiple news outlets are reporting on his Twitter bullying.

One example of that bullying:

Richard Dawkins ‏@RichardDawkins 3 hours ago
Cool invention.
Send this genius an invitation to the White House.
Brilliant short film, says it all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2&v=kHk_6Vh4Qeo …

This is a senior scientist, a best-selling author, famous and loaded with awards – being sarcastic about the genius of a boy of 14, a brown immigrant boy in Texas.

It’s not a good look.

An hour later:

Huge numbers, including me, + the White House, were taken for gullible fools https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=6&v=kHk_6Vh4Qeo … & police were fooled in a nastier way.

How were we taken for gullible fools? I don’t recall anyone claiming Ahmed had made some sort of extraordinary invention. I assumed it was tinkering, of the kind that boys of 14 do, that’s a sign of interest in tinkering and maybe the principles that guide it. I didn’t assume he was doing real engineering at his age. The fuss wasn’t because he was taken to be a genius, it was because his school treated him badly.

Dawkins is energetically setting fire to his own reputation today.

Dawkins’s display of irritation with Ahmed Mohamed was even worse than I realized, because I missed one tweet. (Or maybe more than one.) I find this one really horrible.

Someone asked what he thought Ahmed’s motives were.

Richard Dawkins ‏@RichardDawkins
@HarryStopes I don’t know. Possibly wanted to be arrested? Police played into his hands? Anyway, now invited to White House, crowdfunded etc

That’s so hateful. It’s reminiscent of the way a bunch of obnoxious people claimed Rebecca Watson said “guys, don’t do that” as part of a cunning plan to become famous and harassed on the internet…only it’s even more so because Ahmed is fourteen years old.

It’s Paul Vale at the Huffington Post who reported on that tweet.

Maureen tells me there are stories in tomorrow’s Guardian and Independent, too.