Richard Dawkins is a pseudo-scientist

Many of us have already realised Dawkins is a fraud (see Eve's Bite by Ian Wishart), but commentator Vox Day has joined the ranks of those giving the great man a serve.

In this post he argues "New Atheism" is resorting to pseudo-science to try and regain the ground it has lost to religion...

R

Comments

[plunge]

Vox Day? Vox Day is calling someone else a psuedoscientist? That's truly rich. Someday, Vox Day is going to put together a coherent argument aside from just sneering and bickering, and I'm going to have to celebrate that day as real achievement in human progress.

[Psycho Milt]

The Science Citation Index shows 39 publications by Dawkins R in the last 10 years. Mr Day seems to consider this a sound basis for the assertion "Dawkins no longer engages in science..."

In other words, Mr Day is talking out his arse. I didn't bother looking up how often Day V has published, it didn't seem like there'd be much point...

[grendelkhan]

Psycho Milt, Wikipedia informs us (note: there was a frou-frou about that some time ago, where he claimed that Pandagon outed him before noticing that he'd outed himself a decade prior) that his real name is "Theodore Beale". I don't have access to this citation dealy of which you speak--he's not in Google Scholar, but he's adamant that he does real science and Dawkins doesn't--but you might want to search under that name.

[Fletch]

You guys just don't like his haircut is all :)

[Fletch]

You guys just don't like his haircut is all :)

[grendelkhan]

Fletch, are you kidding? It's hilarious.

I only hope that some day, someone will do it justice, like BIG_HACKING did with Eric Raymond's macho threats.

[MrTips]

Psycho
I looked on the ISI web of science under Dawkins R, institution Oxford and came up with 12 publications over the last 10 years.

9 of these were in the Times, Forbes magazine and letters to the editor of journals - hardly the science resume of someone engaged in real science.

Closer inspection of Dawkin's scientific "publications" show he gave up the practice of science long ago for his self-promotion and book sales.

[Psycho Milt]

Really? I get 10 if I restrict it to Oxford, published in Nature, New Scientist, Biology and Philosophy, Sciences (New York), Quarterly Review of Biology and Bioessays. Not a bad list of publications if you ask me. Sure you weren't in SSCI, or AHCI?

Grendelkhan: I get 11 results come up for Beale T, in the fields of anatomy and surgery. No telling if that's the guy or not, though.

Hell, under a pseudonym I can claim to be doing better science than Dawkins too. Just take my word for it, OK? I'm way better than him at science stuff.

[ian]

Psycho...the Vox has very kindly engaged you and Plunge in debate back at his own site http://voxday.blogspot.com/

[Psycho Milt]

Hmm - if Vox Day extends the inability to understand what Dawkins is saying revealed by this:

"...he is anti-science with regards to Man's behavior and social structure."

to the rest of Dawkins' work, then his article is understandable.

NB: He's engaged only Plunge in debate, not me - I didn't accuse him of being incoherent, just wrong. And I note he still doesn't offer any basis on which he should be regarded as a scientist in good standing, other than his say-so.

[peter]

I in Wikipedia see that Vox Day (aka Theodore Beale) is known for writing Christian fantasies.

The link provided by Ian is another example of it.

[fletch]

Peter, that's a nice little quip you have there but which doesn't actually mean anything. What don't you agree with him about?

[peter]

Here are some references that concern James Taylor and the Heartland Institute:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=41

http://info-pollution.com/ecosoz.htm

There was a link from Vox Guy to this guy in the opening posting

I prefer James Taylor, sweet baby James.

[James]

Somewhere... in an alternate universe the Whale that is Richard Dawkins does care what the prawn Ian Wishart thinks or knows about anything....;-)

[Fletch]

James, I'm sure the Emperor of Japan didn't care what Oppenheimer thought or knew in 1945, but it still had an effect, no? ;)

[peasant]

James: apparently you think that
science = marketing
truth = a popularity contest

[peter]

Peasant

Science = Marketing

should be applied to James M Taylor and Vox Day before we start on anyone else!

To give a NZ analogy, is Maxim Institute historically really into marketing or research?

There was the plagiarism of their ex-director. In "The Hollow Men" there are reports of how Maxim harmonised its activities with the election campaign of Don Brash of all people.

The Heartland Institute seems to be a think tank bearing some similarities of Maxim as it was.

[peasant]

peter: Maxim is interested in civil society, social justice, and policy analysis. Publicity is an integral function of an institute that concerns itself with issues affecting NZ society in general.

Significant progress in science only made by the experts who thoroughly understand the terminology and latest research in their specialised field. It's a disciplined, methodical, *boring* enterprise.

Charismatic figures like Dawkins, Pinker, Attenborough make science appear to be wild speculations and experiments.. but that's how leftist governments operate, not scientists.

[Peter]

The research paper produced by Maxim confused me because they spent quite a lot of energy showing that noone knew what social justice was!

They then proceeded to analyse attitudes to it.

Maxim may have been interested in social justice as a confusing concept in their eyes, but what evidence is there that they were pursuing it.

Again let us make clear distinction between what they used to be and where they might be right now. I believe there has been a shift that probably got underway after "The Hollow Men". The National Party took decisive action after the release of the book, I could not imagine Maxim doing anything but the same.

[peasant]

I'm finding it difficult to see how your comments are relevant. I don't base my view of Maxim on some slanted theories produced by a journalist with an agenda and some stolen emails.