(March 8, 2019 at 10:28 pm)wyzas Wrote: Welcome Woof.
What's a Dawkins scale?
Good question.
I wouldn't bother about it.
Richard Dawkins is a public intellectual. His discipline is evolutionary biology, in which I understand he is considered competent by peers, but in no way a leader or major figure..
Using his discipline, Dawkins demolished the notion of irreducible complexity. (a disingenuous way of trying to argue intelligent design from a slightly different direction) Apparently not hard for anyone with some actual knowledge about evolutionary biology.
I've haven't read his book, but have seen a good number of interviews. The main impression I got from the interviews was that of an arrogant and rather unpleasant man.
From what I have been able to discover, Richard Dawkins is not considered to be a considered to be a good( not fantastic) scientist, but a bad philosopher. I quote only one article, from "The Philosopher's Magazine". I recommend the article., but there are many more online
"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.
So, to recap my thinking so far: not a leading evolutionary biologist (never been); a top notch science popularizer (until The God Delusion); a problematic public intellectual (after The God Delusion)."
https://www.philosophersmag.com/footnote...rd-dawkins
