Come in, Agent Dawkins, your job is done

[cronus]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religio ... -done.html

Come in, Agent Dawkins, your job is done

In The Selfish Gene, his seminal tome published in 1976, Richard Dawkins invented the now voguish word “meme” for a thought or idea that spreads osmotically throughout a culture. Today, the high table hyper-narcissist has extended that word to me-me-me-me-me-me-me, forever demanding that we look at him and pay homage to his colossally superior intellect.
While the geneticist and militant atheist’s brilliance is not in doubt (this newspaper ranked him 20th in a 2007 list of living geniuses) there is an elite sub-genus of humanity, if I might invent a phrase of my own, called The Clever Fools. These are people whose extraordinary cerebral gifts are yoked, lethally, to the common sense and judgment of an amoeba, and Dawkins is their god.
His latest sortie into the realm of religious controversy concerns the followers of Islam. “All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge,” he tweeted this week, in what seemed an unorthodox welcome to the festival of Eid. “They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.” He might have added the phrase du jour employed by those who, after throwing a hand grenade into social media, feebly try to distance themselves from the collateral damage. But presumably he had exhausted his 140 characters, and had none left for the faux naif “Just sayin’…”

(continued, dawks on a suicide mission taking on the exploding elephant in the religious world...)

[Jason]

Stupid article is stupid. Islam is not a race, therefore his observation could not be racist. Judaism is not a race either.

[Tero]

“All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge,” he tweeted this week, in what seemed an unorthodox welcome to the festival of Eid.

Tee hee hee! He is right. Them arab/muslim don't even know how to pump oil from their land without foreign technology.

Iran was developing nicely till they let the imams take over.

[Svartalf]

Could that mean that the Nobel committee is biased religiously, or maybe racist?

[Tero]

No the last thing they invented, way back, was the number 0.

[cronus]

You'd think Muslims would be all over the Nobel prize like a hot rash given its origins?

[Svartalf]

No the last thing they invented, way back, was the number 0.

Actually, that's a preislam Indian invention.

[mistermack]

Although I like Dawkins, I have to say that he got this wrong.

There are far more muslim Nobel Prizewinners than Cambridge ever got.

Almost the whole population of Bradford, just for a start. He's obviously forgotten that the EU got the peace prize.
So all of the muslim population of Europe are joint winners.

I'm even one myself, although I don't like to brag about it.

[Cormac]

“All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge,” he tweeted this week, in what seemed an unorthodox welcome to the festival of Eid.

Tee hee hee! He is right. Them arab/muslim don't even know how to pump oil from their land without foreign technology.

Iran was developing nicely till they let the imams take over.

When - when the Shah was in power?



Or before that, under Mossadeq?

[Cormac]

No the last thing they invented, way back, was the number 0.

Was that Muslims?

[Cormac]

Although I like Dawkins, I have to say that he got this wrong.

There are far more muslim Nobel Prizewinners than Cambridge ever got.

Almost the whole population of Bradford, just for a start. He's obviously forgotten that the EU got the peace prize.
So all of the muslim population of Europe are joint winners.

I'm even one myself, although I don't like to brag about it.

[Tero]

No the last thing they invented, way back, was the number 0.

Was that Muslims?

Folks writing in arabic. They were widely speead in the Meditarranean world. Most were Muslims.

Iran: prior to 1979. They had technology, but an autocratic secular leader.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

No the last thing they invented, way back, was the number 0.

Was that Muslims?

Folks writing in arabic. They were widely speead in the Meditarranean world. Most were Muslims.

They got it from the hindus. The muslims did invent place value in numerals though, IIRC, which is pretty damn useful (unless you fancy double-entry bookkeeping in roman numerals!)

[Robert_S]

No the last thing they invented, way back, was the number 0.

Was that Muslims?

Folks writing in arabic. They were widely speead in the Meditarranean world. Most were Muslims.

Iran: prior to 1979.

Classic Tyson.

[Jason]

The muslims did invent place value in numerals though, IIRC, which is pretty damn useful (unless you fancy double-entry bookkeeping in roman numerals!)

Yes, but now we're stuck with the base 10 system because those dumb towelheads could only count using their hands.