A question about Dawkins enemies of reason documentary

[Quill01]

Hello again, I am not sure weather to post this in the philosophy section of this forum or religion. The documentary called enemies of reason, slaves to superstition part 1 on youtube by Richard Dawkins makes me a little concerned when Dawkins talks about Universities shutting down all over the country At 42:20 to 44:48. What country is he talking about? It sounds like in the U.K Hopefully its not the whole world.

[Jehanne]

It's an old documentary:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enemies_of_Reason

Since it aired on Channel 4 in 2007, Professor Dawkins is probably referring to universities in the UK.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Hello again, I am not sure weather to post this in the philosophy section of this forum or religion. The documentary called enemies of reason, slaves to superstition part 1 on youtube by Richard Dawkins makes me a little concerned when Dawkins talks about Universities shutting down all over the country At 42:20 to 44:48. What country is he talking about? It sounds like in the U.K Hopefully its not the whole world.

I haven’t seen the whole video - just the clip you mentioned - so take this with a grain of salt: Dawkins has a tendency towards exaggeration when he moves outside of his field. He doesn’t tell us why university departments are closing, nor does he quantify what he means by ‘all over the country’. Is it two physics departments that have closed? 20? 200?

I find it kind of amusing that he says we should always question authority, but seems to want us to take his word for these department closures without giving us any evidence.

Boru

[Belacqua]

Hello again, I am not sure weather to post this in the philosophy section of this forum or religion. The documentary called enemies of reason, slaves to superstition part 1 on youtube by Richard Dawkins makes me a little concerned when Dawkins talks about Universities shutting down all over the country At 42:20 to 44:48. What country is he talking about? It sounds like in the U.K Hopefully its not the whole world.

I don't know what he's talking about there.

I do know that in the country where I live, and in many others, universities are undergoing a huge and permanent change. They are cutting back or ending their humanities courses -- literature, languages, philosophy, classics, etc. They are extending the courses that (supposedly) lead to making money and practical job applications. So you can major in business or hotel management, and get out of college without having read a single work of literature. 

The most expensive private school in my city no longer has a functioning English department. The guy who used to run it had to scramble, publish a few papers, and declare that he is an expert in international tourism. 

I suppose that only sounds bad to people like me, who think that life is more than practical functions. Dawkins doesn't think much of literature or philosophy, though, so this probably isn't the change he's worried about.