Dawkins again

[vremya]

Dawkins calls Ahmed a liar and then tries to backpedal

[BrotherMan]

[specious_reasons]

Dawkins was super angry because he cares about the facts, but I have yet to find the quote where Ahmed actually says he invented the clock.

[LadyShea]

Why is Dawkins such a dick?

[The Lone Ranger]

I dunno. His earlier writings have none of the vitriol that his more recent stuff does. But then, he generally stuck to stuff he knows and understands well in his earlier writings -- namely evolutionary theory.

He was attacked viciously by Creationists for daring to write about evolutionary theory. Of course. And many of them grossly misrepresented his work while calling him every nasty name they could think of.

And to be honest, even quite a few biologists were rather unfair in how they treated his "selfish gene" idea. It didn't help that some *cough* Stephen Jay Gould *cough* outright misrepresented his claims.


But from what I've read of his writings, he seemed to take it with pretty good grace, at least at first. That has definitely changed, though.

I have a hypothesis that the constant fighting with Creationists and the fact that they'd often resort to slander and outright lies has embittered him. (Given how nasty and dishonest the "Professional Creationists" can be, that's not entirely surprising. And that's precisely why many biologists insist that it's a waste of time to try to engage the Creationists in debate -- they don't play fair.)


That doesn't explain the misogyny and the seeming racism, though. Those were probably there all the time, just hidden under the surface.



Mostly, I suspect he's suffering from "Elder Scientist Syndrome." As one of my advisors once told me, a danger faced by scientists who are particularly successful in their fields is that it eventually goes to their heads and they start thinking of themselves as experts in every field that happens to catch their fancy -- and they start thinking of themselves as basically infallible. So naturally, they tend to get upset when someone of "obviously inferior" learning and intelligence dares to question them.

[How do you tell if someone is "obviously inferior" to the Elder Scientist when it comes to his understanding of a subject? Simple. If he disagrees with the Elder Scientist, then he's obviously inferior.]



It's not like this phenomenon is limited to scientists, of course.

[Sock Puppet]

Dude needs to delete his Twitter account. It's not just that he got it wrong; he based his misguided tirade on one fucktard's Internet video (a guy who "seems to know what he's talking about"). Being wrong is one thing, but he should be mortified to have jumped to ridiculous conclusions based on such shitty evidence. I doubt he is, though.

[BrotherMan]

Some random ass dude with a youtube account, no less. Not, you know, reporters or journalists who may have actually talked to somebody involved in the whole thing.

Honestly? I think his downward spiral started in 2001. Maybe earlier, maybe later - but right around then. Guess when Islamophobia in America began. I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but given his previous statements about those people and especially their religion, I wouldn't be surprised if that was more than an element of his perspective on this issue.

[Watser?]

I think Dawkins HAS a religion and its Islamophobia. As long as it fits with the tenets of that religion Dawkins doesn't need proof. Worse: proof is probably suspect.

ETA: Oh, eh, never mind, I agree with Bort!

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by Sock Puppet

Dude needs to delete his Twitter account. It's not just that he got it wrong; he based his misguided tirade on one fucktard's Internet video (a guy who "seems to know what he's talking about"). Being wrong is one thing, but he should be mortified to have jumped to ridiculous conclusions based on such shitty evidence. I doubt he is, though.

Well, it's pretty obvious the clock is constructed from manufactured parts. It was clearly assembled, a weekend project, not a unique invention from this kid.

The extent of it being "built" is a point of debate, but it's a useless point of debate. If the kid disassembled an old clock and reassembled it into a new case, or if he made new circuit boards for the clock controls, then he built a clock - which is all I've seen this kid claim.

To call Ahmed a fraud based on this is being an asshole.

[BrotherMan]

Originally Posted by Watser?

ETA: Oh, eh, never mind, I agree with Bort!

[vremya]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

To call Ahmed a fraud based on this is being an asshole.

He came off as picking on a kid, which is just plain mean.

[specious_reasons]

Somebody on another forum found one time where Ahmed referred to the clock as one of his inventions.

Surely, now I believe he deserves all the vitriol.

[lisarea]

The story got super-huge super-fast, and Dick Dorkins is just one more person trying to hitch himself to it by taking what he seems to think is the contrarian position.

He is missing the point. It's not about the clock. Nobody thinks he invented clocks, for fuck's sake. Ahmed is an absolutely adorable fourteen year old who was treated horrifically by his school and the police, and there's a picture of him in handcuffs, looking, like someone said somewhere, like a kicked puppy. People who have not crawled all the way up their own assholes saw that and wanted to let that child know that the whole world was not as cruel as what he experienced that day. Good call being contrarian on that point.

[ChuckF]

One time when I was like eight I watched an episode of NOVA or something about Archaeopteryx and drew a thing on graph paper about how the dinosaurs all became birds, or maybe all the birds became dinosaurs (don't remember the details.) I guess I am lucky Richard Dawkins didn't call the cops on me for not inventing evolution. But now I am a little worried, because what is the statute of limitations on that kind of thing?

[BrotherMan]

no pea. you don't get it. this misguided muslin wanted people to know he could probably build a bomb if he wanted to. and now all the guilty white people are falling all over themselves to pretend they're better than everyone else who knows the truth.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by BrotherMan

no pea. you don't get it. this misguided muslin wanted people to know he could probably build a bomb if he wanted to. and now all the guilty white people are falling all over themselves to pretend they're better than everyone else who knows the truth.

He can build all the parts of the bomb except the part that goes boom, which isn't even really that important of a bomb part.

[BrotherMan]

We've all learned the most valuable lesson. The most important part of a bomb is the timing device.

[Ymir's blood]

Look ppl. Dawkins breathes through his skin. It's ok.

[Corona688]

Originally Posted by BrotherMan

We've all learned the most valuable lesson. The most important part of a bomb is the timing device.

I never understood how people forgot bombs have a bomb in them. Even a "hollywood style" bomb usually has a bomb part, not just a clock part. I saw no batteries which could be mistaken for explosives either.

[viscousmemories]

I thought the same thing. If those teachers had a grade school science education somewhere outside of Texas, they probably would've noticed there was nothing resembling an explosive in there.

[Dingfod]

They never thought it was a bomb, they did not react like it was a bomb, they did not evacuate the school and get as far away from it as they could, and the police did not send a bomb squad.

[lisarea]

That's why they're calling it a hoax bomb and not a bomb. It's the same kind of thing as calling in a bomb threat--the claim is that the appearance alone was intended to cause alarm.

That is also obviously not the case, because a) nobody has claimed he ever said it was anything other than a clock, and b) nobody else, obviously, thought it was a bomb. It's all just a giant stupid ridiculous counterfactual that they pulled directly out of their asses.

In those cases in Massachusetts, at least, responders actually acted as though the devices in question (the ATHF throwies, the LED shirt, and THE FUCKING TRAFFIC COUNTER THAT'S WHAT WE MUST NEVER FORGET THE HARDEST) were actually dangerous. <--That still doesn't prove that they were intended to scare anyone, but it does show that people were scared, which did not happen in this case.

[viscousmemories]

I don't like Bill Maher and I disagree with him a lot, but I watch his show every week because he has interesting guests and often serious, uncensored discussions about topical issues. With that caveat, I thought he raised a good point about this case: that the "clock" in question was little more than the guts of a digital clock pulled out and tossed in a box--not much of an "invention". Unlike Maher I don't think the kid is a poser by choice, I think he's just embracing a caricature others have imposed on him. Still kind of a poser though, in that he seems to have adopted the "inventor" moniker instead of admitting that he (appears to be) a tinkerer at best.

[ceptimus]

Dawkins appeared on Channel 4 news (UK) to answer questions (and also hawk his new book).

He said the kid had just removed the case from a commercial clock and put the works inside a box. He said the kid took it to the school and showed it to several teachers before he got the reaction he was looking for - that he would be accused of making a 'fake bomb'. He also said that the kid's dad was an 'activist'. He said the whole thing was just a stunt to highlight anti-Muslim attitudes in the USA.

Now this is only Dawkin's side of the story. If it's true then as well as saying something about Dawkins and his ability to over-react when tweeting, it also says something about attitudes in the USA and the stupidity of some people who think that a bomb (fake or otherwise) can be made without any available space for anything that could be an explosive.

A box full of electronic components and wires may be able to electrocute people or to disrupt other electronic systems - but it's not capable of exploding.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

I don't like Bill Maher and I disagree with him a lot, but I watch his show every week because he has interesting guests and often serious, uncensored discussions about topical issues. With that caveat, I thought he raised a good point about this case: that the "clock" in question was little more than the guts of a digital clock pulled out and tossed in a box--not much of an "invention". Unlike Maher I don't think the kid is a poser by choice, I think he's just embracing a caricature others have imposed on him. Still kind of a poser though, in that he seems to have adopted the "inventor" moniker instead of admitting that he (appears to be) a tinkerer at best.

I'd be OK if he embraced "maker" - it's the term that best fits him and doesn't make any judgement about his abilities or his work, but it really doesn't bother me if he uses the term "inventor." Not everything an inventor makes is unique, and we really don't know if he attempted to put something new and different into the clock -- i.e. he altered the circuit board to change functionality, added a battery backup to a clock that didn't have it, etc... It would be an invention, even if it's a bit lame.

It's really just a distraction from the issue of a school and police bullying a smart brown kid.