(April 22, 2021 at 5:32 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Steeping in the pile of dolezal dogshit and smearing that right on the rug of trans issues was idiotic, especially for such a smart guy. He'll make clarifications, offer retractions, as he has before, and the aha has mentioned that they no longer believe that these clarifications and retractions are earnest. He's built a pattern of behavior.
Agreed. I perused some of Dawkins twitterings and noticed the patterns you're talking about.
But still, I've not really found anything too offensive. The Dolezal thing is the worst of what I read.
I'm also agreeing with some of his criticisms. An advocacy group wanted to remove a statue of Charles Darwin from a museum because his research was done on the colonized Galapagos Islands. Does this comment count as a strike against his humanism? Because it shouldn't. Had Charles Darwin been instrumental in colonization or something, that would be a different issue. But, as far as I understand, he wasn't. He did some historically significant science there. That's the reason for the statue. I agree with Dawkins on this.
I think the heart of the issue is: are freethinking and humanism really separate or mutually exclusive enterprises? I'd like to think that they aren't, and that (perhaps) freethinking leads to humanism most of the time. Asking tough-- even unpopular-- questions isn't really an indicator of one's commitment to the welfare of human beings.
