io9 
Enter your username and password.
-
posts about #dickdawkins more → Richard Dawkins Hates The Mentalist and Harry Potter
San Francisco, 11:14 AM
Fri Dec 4
28 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors:
Editor-in-Chief:
Annalee Newitz |
News Editor:
Charlie Jane Anders |
Associate Editor:
Meredith Woerner |
Assistant Editor:
Lauren Davis |
Weekend Editor:
Graeme McMillan |
Contributors:
Joshua Glenn
Stephen Goldmeier |
Ed Grabianowski |
Austin Grossman
Paul Hogan |
Lauren Davis |
Chris Hsiang |
Lynn Peril |
Ann VanderMeer
Alasdair Wilkins |
Graphic Designer:
Stephanie Fox |
Interns:
Tim Barribeau |
Julia Carusillo |
Alex Eichler |
Cyriaque Lamar |
Caitlin Petrakovitz |
Mary Ratliff |
Josh Snyder |
| posts about #dickdawkins more → |
Richard Dawkins Hates The Mentalist and Harry Potter |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
12/15/08
12/15/08
But Stephen Pinker, in his book (called the Blank Slate), makes a pretty good argument that our society greatly overestimates the role of "nurture" in who we grow up to become. Much of our personality, beliefs, even our choice of clothing, habits, etc. can be attributed to genetic and epigenetic factors.
It may simply be that hardcore religious people, and hardcore atheists, are mostly born to become those sorts of people.
12/15/08
12/15/08
Does being a blog mean that truth and accuracy are simply tossed out the window as irrelevant nonsense here?
Nowhere in either referenced item does Dawkins present an opinion about either the HP books or the TV show 'The Mentalist'. Yet we are told that Dawkins hates both of them (a neat trick considering the given interview was *aired* before 'The Mentalist' was even *created*).
Such blatantly arbitrary assertions don't even claw themselves up to the muck of shoddy reporting.
Here is what Dawkins *actually* said:
Dawkins: "I haven't read Harry Potter, I have read Pullman who is the other leading children's author that one might mention and I love his books. I don't know what to think about magic and fairy tales."
Wow. Dawkin's venom against Harry Potter just drips from his every syllable doesn't it?
Dawkins: "I think looking back to my own childhood, the fact that so many of the stories I read allowed the possibility of frogs turning into princes, whether that has a sort of insidious affect on rationality, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's something for research."
What a closed-minded "fundie"! How despicable can he be - *daring* to even *wonder* if mysticism in stories can have a negative effect on rationality. To even *raise* such a question is *obviously* conclusive evidence of *extreme* hate on Dawkin's part.
--
Listen - just because this is a site devoted to fiction doesn't mean we don't have a respect for reality. So please don't treat us as if things like facts simply don't matter.
12/15/08
@Mandrock: A better headline may have been:
"Science Blog Which Considers Itself Above Fantasy* Mocks Scientist for Proposed Future Science Research Project Involving Fantasy"
*fantasy involving sex with werewolves, vampires, witches, and/or fairies excepted
[/I KID!]
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
I like the Mentalist, but it bugs me, too, because it's clear that eventually Baker's character will "see the light" and learn to believe in things he can't see 'n' shit.
For all its supposed lefty godlessness, Hollywood is GREAT at "reforming" any of their skeptical characters into believers.
12/15/08
Basically how I feel about The Mentalist can be summed up in who is writing the episode in question. Bruno Heller's episodes are far superior to anyone else's on his staff. Unfortunately, I haven't seen his name down there anytime recently.
12/15/08
But I also have a problem with the reporting io9 did on this article. You just picked out individual words, stuck them in quotes and completely deprived them of their context. You make it seem like he was covertly implying that he really does believe Harry Potter is pernicious but he doesn't want to say so out loud.
When you read the original transcript, he is talking about all fantasy stories and what their effect may or may not be on developing minds. And I think that is an important area to study. Do people who are told fables both modern (Santa) and old (Jesus) as children grow up more likely to believe in adult fables like alternative medicine and UFO abductions? And is there a difference between reading stories like Harry Potter and Mother Goose and more experiential fables like Santa or Ganesha?
I don't know. But it would be interesting to find out. If anyone knows of any studies which have investigated this, I'd like to look into them.
12/15/08
12/15/08
Dawkins' apparently imagined future is going to be a profoundly boring one.
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
The question, I think, is whether belief in supernaturalism is a result of a proper functioning of the Theory of Mind (i.e., is it there so that we will ultimately believe in a supernatural God?), or an improper functioning of it (i.e., it was useful for teaching us how to avoid tigers, but then grew out of control and caused us to attribute intention to things to which it did not rightly belong).
Unfortunately, I think the only way that we could show one or the other is by definitively proving the existence of a supernatural god, and thus validating the belief that the belief in unseen forces exists to positive effect.
Such a proof is necessarily impossible, of course; if the proof of god could be found in the natural world, it couldn't be supernatural.
12/15/08
so it's possible that the theory did not grow out of control when it caused us to attribute intention to things to which it did not rightly belong but when we refused to adjust those beliefs after a better explination was discovered. so it is really humanity's natural fear of change that is to blame.
12/15/08
After all, archaeological sites from the time period can be differentiated Hebrew/non-Hebrew by the presence or absence of pig bones which means the non-Hebrews weren't dying off from eating pork.
12/15/08
12/15/08
How can the nonreligious be more than 100% superstitious?
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
Now... how may I sign up for braak's newsletter?
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
It does not matter if you feed your kids on Harry Potter or Aristotle; these things are not inherently "scientific." A kid that has faith in the validity of Aristotle is just as insane as a kid that has faith in the validity of Harry Potter.
Also: no, I have never met a kid over the age of five that believed Harry Potter was real. (I do know some teenagers and adults who believe that magic is real, but they believed that well before Harry Potter came along.)
12/15/08
as for hp, you misunderstood me, i was using it as an example, you don't need to belief in the gods of the norse to actually belief in the veridicity of the rituals made in their name do you? i was referring to exactly the type of people that you referred to in your post, they grew up with beliefs of magic and now they belief as well, HP is only a product of such beliefs around the world.[note: most likely not of the author]
12/15/08
Aristotle believed a number of insanely retarded things, and his successors, rather than copying the method of inquiry that is science, just believed what he wrote. As a consequence, scientific believers who refused to see Aristotle refuted crippled inquiry for centuries.
It is likewise also not necessary to believe in magic in order to conceive of magic, the same way it's not necessary to believe in god in order to understand god. Books like Harry Potter are not the product of misguided beliefs, author's or otherwise, nor are they purchased by people who believe that they are true. They serve as a tool to exercise the imagination, which is just as valuable a part of scientific inquiry as empirical surveillance.
12/15/08
as for magic and gods, you can't neither understand them [being supernatural by definition] nor prove their existence.
12/15/08
Also, "can't possibly say you know it to be true" is clearly wrong. I can say all kinds of things. I can eve believe that I know things to be true. It would not be rational to do such a thing, but that is precisely my point: "science" is not an aggregate of proved and disproved beliefs, it is the approach to inquiry that results in those proofs.
It is valid regardless of the data set. A thing does not require justification in the natural world in order to be logical, it only requires that the data in question (whether real, delusional, imagined, hypothetical, whatever) comport itself according to the pre-arranged system of inquiry.
12/15/08
what you seam to not understand is that your statement is true if and only if no new date is added to the system, and unfortunately in science new data is added all the time ,that is what we call progress.
as for understanding gods, well if you can make sense of the bible then you will be the first man that using logic found something that binds all dose illogical and contradictory statements in it.
12/15/08
My point is that every scientific theory that has been disproved has been shown to be a fantasy. Therefore, anyone who believed in Aristotle's definition of the world was believing a fantasy. By this method I was attempting to show that it doesn't matter what you believe in--believing in "scientific things" can be just as fantastical as believing in gryphons--it only matters whether or not you continue to inquire into those beliefs.
Therefore, reading Harry Potter, and even considering Harry Potter to be true, is not inherently unscientific--provided that your evaluation of it eventually reveals its inconcomitancy with natural law.
As for making sense of the Bible--well, it is not hard to use logic to bind contradictory statements together. It only requires an understanding of the social and historical conditions that created the elements of the Bible, and the social conditions that existed that necessitated its creation.
If the thing exists, it must be the product of some natural law, and if it is the product of natural law, then its existence can be apprehended rationally.
12/15/08
as for the bible, using you method only works if you negate god and make his what he really is a fictional entity created by the jewish priests of hte time with the purpose of maintaining power.
as for you previous post, i can only agree with your last statement, but i do think you should understand one thing, Newtonian physics wasn't wrong if you only had as much data to work as they had then, Einstein came up whit theories that not even to this day have been proven entirely so they are mere belief, as a result of that science is just a set of logical beliefs that try t explain the laws of nature - hopefully things will change one day.
12/15/08
The Bible: Yes. So?
Newton: if there is a natural law that governs the universe independent of our epistemology, then Newton was wrong no matter how much data he had to work with. His theory did not accurately describe the universe, it only described the evidence he was party to.
So, a Newtonian physicist is exposed to Maxwell's theory of propagating waves. Does he resist this theory (many do, because of unjust faith in Newtonian mechanics)? Does he accept the new theory based on new evidence?
If he does the latter, how is this any different from a ten year old who reads Harry Potter, tries and fails to use a stick to cast a magic spell, and concludes that such a thing, as he understands it, is not possible?
Was the child unscientific for believing it in the first place? Or a scientist for concluding that his beliefs were erroneous?
12/15/08
12/15/08
A child that believes outlandish things can learn early on that they're false; but a child that's taught to believe things that seem true, and are only revealed as false when looked at closely, or things that seem true but are basically unprovable? That could be trouble.
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
The article summary seems to me to be either designed to provoke the kind of comments as seen above, or written by someone who hasn't actually read the article or watched the video.
12/15/08
Which is the usual modus operandi...
12/15/08
WHY WOULD YOU EVEN THINK THAT?
GGGnrrrrgn, HEADBUTT.
Also, you'd think he'd love The Mentalist, which is all about how there are no such things as psychics and supernatural nonsense--just people that know how to pay attention.
12/15/08
12/15/08
GAAAARRGH.
12/15/08
He seems to not acknowledge, or understand the role of stories in our (and everyone else's) culture. Perhaps he's being disingenuous on purpose, to make a point. But if that's the case then he's just being intellectually dishonest, which is just as unpleasant as being fanatical.
I'm a pretty hard core atheist and rationalist and I loved CS Lewis as a kid. I also enjoy The Mentalist, but that might be more to do with Simon Baker than anything else.
12/15/08
Imagination is just as much a skill as reasoned thought.
12/15/08
But maybe I'm wrong. I like the idea of someone asking the question.
12/15/08
Especially if we consider that imaginative fantasy is not only not pernicious, but actually beneficial to the development of the mind? Could we ethically conduct an experiment in such a way that we might risk stunting the growth of our experimental subjects?
Moreover, how do we distinguish what precisely constitutes fantasy? Are we talking purely about swords and sorcery? What about steampunk? What about Star Wars? What about something like the Iliad, or Macbeth or Hamlet? What about Wuthering Heights?
The only conceivable way to obtain accurate information about whether or not reading fantasy contributes to anti-scientific thinking is by essentially cutting off the experimental group from the entire canon of human literature.
12/15/08
12/15/08
And on that, he's 100% right. The mere act of challenging religious tenets is an "attack on religion".
And why the hell should someone bend? If you're right, why do you give ground and compromise? Just to spare people's feelings? Bull.
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
Dawkins is just the one screaming the loudest right now. Intelligent people have always discussed the merits of religion. Dawkins is just preaching the religion of science. Really, if you think about it that's all he does. He's yelling about indoctrinating your kids into Christianity or some other religion, but he's talking about indoctrinating them into science. He doesn't want them to think any way but scientifically. Don't have fantasies! Don't be anti-scientific! If it isn't science it's bad! Who says scientific thought is the end all be all? What's wrong with a little fantasy?
12/15/08
The root of all evil turns out to be humans. AGAIN.
12/15/08
Science is not religion, and represents a distinct mode of thought from religious thinking. But he's talking about science like it is religion, and that pisses me off.
There should be a different word for it though, so people don't get it confused with Science. Technotheism? Something like that.
12/15/08
There is no other reason but Science and the Dawkins his is prophet.
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
12/15/08
If Dawkins said he wanted to study whether reading fantasy literature made one less scientifically-literate, you'd have a point. But he doesn't. He wants to dump on Harry Potter because he's senile.
12/15/08
What is he going to do about educational differences, economic differences, social differences in his populations? How is he going to find a group of kids that has never read Harry Potter?
12/15/08