Does Richard Dawkins resent the majority of atheists?

[lordpasternack]

DJ - To my knowledge, Richard Dawkins came up with precious little of the scientific ideas that he's famous for writing about and communicating. The Selfish Gene, for instance, was based pretty much totally on the work of William D Hamilton. Nor did he come up with the idea of memes, or anything else... He just packaged and communicated popular science, and his take on evolutionary biology, very well.

I did not know that. I thought he came up with the "gene's eye view".

Nope. Just popularised it. Popularised it very well, I might add. But no - he doesn't take the credit for the idea...

[JimC]

DJ - To my knowledge, Richard Dawkins came up with precious little of the scientific ideas that he's famous for writing about and communicating. The Selfish Gene, for instance, was based pretty much totally on the work of William D Hamilton. Nor did he come up with the idea of memes, or anything else... He just packaged and communicated popular science, and his take on evolutionary biology, very well.

I did not know that. I thought he came up with the "gene's eye view".

Nope. Just popularised it. Popularised it very well, I might add. But no - he doesn't take the credit for the idea...

He may have derived much of the conceptual framework from Hamilton, Trivers and others, but I think it is fair to say that he expressed it in a novel way, a way that opened up fruitful areas for exploration...

[Hermit]

Would you expect the man who originated a scientific theory that has gained worldwide acceptance and been taught in universities since it's inception to have no doctorates or awards...?

Going by his history, I do expect him to collect honorific titles. That's precisely my point. What's yours?

[hiyymer]

DJ - To my knowledge, Richard Dawkins came up with precious little of the scientific ideas that he's famous for writing about and communicating. The Selfish Gene, for instance, was based pretty much totally on the work of William D Hamilton. Nor did he come up with the idea of memes, or anything else... He just packaged and communicated popular science, and his take on evolutionary biology, very well.

I did not know that. I thought he came up with the "gene's eye view".

Nope. Just popularised it. Popularised it very well, I might add. But no - he doesn't take the credit for the idea...

He may have derived much of the conceptual framework from Hamilton, Trivers and others, but I think it is fair to say that he expressed it in a novel way, a way that opened up fruitful areas for exploration...

I could be wrong, but I believe that scientist are inclined to agree that evolution operates at more than one level, and that the gene-centric thesis is not an active line of inquiry.

Dawkins has never been a professor of anything except science communicator. One wonders if the turn his career took has anything to do with his actual ability to do science. His strident rationalist position is certainly not a scientific position. My feeling is that he does more bad for science than good.

[Copyleft]

Well, I wasn't much of a fan of "Family Feud," but he was great in "Hogan's Heroes"....



Who? Oh, DAWKINS.

Sorry. My bad.

[JimC]

DJ - To my knowledge, Richard Dawkins came up with precious little of the scientific ideas that he's famous for writing about and communicating. The Selfish Gene, for instance, was based pretty much totally on the work of William D Hamilton. Nor did he come up with the idea of memes, or anything else... He just packaged and communicated popular science, and his take on evolutionary biology, very well.

I did not know that. I thought he came up with the "gene's eye view".

Nope. Just popularised it. Popularised it very well, I might add. But no - he doesn't take the credit for the idea...

He may have derived much of the conceptual framework from Hamilton, Trivers and others, but I think it is fair to say that he expressed it in a novel way, a way that opened up fruitful areas for exploration...

I could be wrong, but I believe that scientist are inclined to agree that evolution operates at more than one level, and that the gene-centric thesis is not an active line of inquiry.

Dawkins has never been a professor of anything except science communicator. One wonders if the turn his career took has anything to do with his actual ability to do science. His strident rationalist position is certainly not a scientific position. My feeling is that he does more bad for science than good.

1. He has a PhD in evolutionary biology, and has had a variety of University positions. He is fully qualified to expound on these areas.

2. The very term "gene-centric" position is a misnomer of his much more nuanced position, usually used in a disparaging way by people with agendas; the debate within the professional community of evolutionary biology fully recognises the value of looking at evolution from a number of levels, and that the level of the gene remains one of the most important and fruitful perspectives, along with natural selection as a vital evolutionary mechanism. Much of the incorrect media view of fractures and irreconcilable differences within the community of evolutionary biologists has been gleefully promulgated by the usual suspects...

3. His rationalist position that atheism is a stance fully compatible with modern science, whereas religion is often not, is not unusual or bizarre; it is a perfectly reasonable position which I support. I agree that his expression of that position is sometimes uneccessarily strident, and somewhat unfair to non-fundamentalist christians and other people of moderate religious persuasions.