Comments on: Coulter and Paxman

By: a

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 15:26:27 +0000

zzzzzz …..

By: Joe Otten

Joe Otten — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 11:41:41 +0000

Yeah I got it. I should have said so.

By: N.I.B.

N.I.B. — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 12:07:05 +0000

Exactly my point, Joe!

I was merely doing to Duff what Duff (and Stove) have done to Dawkins – that is, quote them out of context in order to ‘score points’.

Pathetic, isn’t it?

By: Joe Otten

Joe Otten — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 10:21:32 +0000

Now now. Ad homs are to be expected from people who argue from authority. If you believe or reject something on the basis of who is saying it, it makes sense to attack the character of people who say things you disagree with.

Only when you have the tools to consider evidence and arguments, can a grown-up discussion be possible.

By: N.I.B.

N.I.B. — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 10:27:40 +0000

Don’t forget this is David “Nig-nogs should get back on the banana boat” Duff you’re arguing with here!

That’s David “Jesse Jackson should have his feet tied to the back of a SUV and be dragged round Alabama” Duff, for anyone in any doubt that the man’s a swivel-eyed racist lunatic!

(Can you see what I did there?)

By: Matt Daws

Matt Daws — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 10:00:58 +0000

have you read Stove? No, but then I’m not pretending to critique Stove. You quoted, massively out of context, a passage from Dawkins specifically to suggest that Dawkins was writing nonsense. When myself and others pointed out, at length, that the quote was way out of context, you simply ignored the point and continued to abuse Dawkins with funny little quips. The quote, and your interpretation of it, were so unfair to Dawkins that either you were deliberatly twisting the truth, or you hadn’t actually even read the work you were calling “eye-ball-swivelling lunacy”.

Duff, you’re less offensive than Coulter, but you are actually as boring to argue with as I imagine she is. You simply fail to engage with the argument at all, ignoring any and all points put against your position.

By: David Duff

David Duff — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 07:42:16 +0000

Gentlemen, I went off to visit Ford Abbey yesterday armed with a copy of “The Selfish Gene” (Yes, Matt, that *was* a flying pig you saw, I have two of Dawkins’s books on my shelf but, er, have you read Stove?) and a copy of “Darwinian Fairytails”. The idea was that whilst the little ‘Memsahib’ laboured in the fields picking enough fresh fruit to keep me, ooops, sorry, us in home-made jam through the winter, I was going to compose a suitable and dead-learned riposte to you all. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and men …
I sat down in the warm sunshine and began to try and sketch Ford Abbey but the multiplicity of angles from protrusions, abutments, extensions, differing roof-lines utterly defeated my meagre ability to master perspective. No wonder those Flemish masters cheated by using a ‘camera obscura’!

However, it is time I re-read (with gritted teeth) the nonsense that Dawkins produced in that book and which, incidentally, I swallowed hook, line and sinker at the time, and conducted my own critical assault instead of relying wholly on the excellent David Stove. When I have it, I will publish over at my place under the working title of “Dawkins v. Stove: The Unfairest Fight of the Century”, or perhaps our revered editors here might wish to publish it.

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 07:14:20 +0000

Dawkins is on firm ground here. In all the, ahem, art films I’ve seen, “eating the male’s head” is pretty much always the first thing the female does to the male.

It seems to work, too, the male tends to get very excited and proceeds to mount a most impressive sexual performance.

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 22:29:36 +0000

Actually, David, you should read Matt’s comment again – he doesn’t say Dawkins was talking about animals, he says he was talking about monkeys and cuckoos. Specific animals and specific behaviour, you see? Whether or not you think the selfish gene rule applies to humans too (I think it does, but at a much weaker level thanks to our highly developed brains that let us override our impulses), its effects are manifested differently in different species, and to apply a description of the behaviour of one species to another to make a rhetorical point is dishonest, and something both you and Stove are guilty of.

Otherwise, it’s like taking this quote from the Selfish Gene: “it is possible that the female improves the male’s sexual performance by eating his head” and using it to further demonstrate his detachment from reality because of course no women eat their husband’s head to improve his performance in the sack! Ha ha isn’t Dawkins ridiculous? Then Matt comes along and points out that he’s talking about the praying mantis, and you go “oh, so he’s referring to animals, eh? Well, you seem to be forgetting that humans are animals too. Check. Mate.”

Out of curiosity, have you read The Selfish Gene?

By: David Duff

David Duff — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:31:03 +0000

Gentlemen, I apologise. In my haste I read Stoves *meticulous* notes incorrectly. It was indeed from “The Selfish Gene”, Paladin Books, p 110. Sorry for sending you on a wild goose chase.

Matt, of course, goes into instant Darwinian double-speak which Stove shows up so brilliantly in his book by claiming that in that quote Dawkins was referring to *animals*, forgetting,as neo-Darwinists always do (when it suits them), that humans are animals and just as subject to the inexorable rule of the “Selfish Gene” as any other animal. Even Dawkins, whilst maintaining this with one breath, and sensing perhaps the silliness of it, then expends another breath claiming that humans, of course, are quite different. A classic example of having one’s cake and eating it!

Too late to deal in detail with the other comments (thank God, I hear you cry with but a single voice!) but I shall return tomorrow.

However, before ‘lights out’, I will leave you with a quote from Ben, up above: “The point is about the idea of kin selection, and this practice of female monkeys can be viewed as an extreme example of a mistake by organisms that appear to violate the theory”. Yes quite, and you can say that again!