Richard Dawkins - The Magic of Reality - Newsnight BBC2 13 September 2011

[TheEvilOfScientology]

@koberask Get well soon.

[leopoldmarsh]

@koberask

Nobody worships evolution, you ignoramus.

[ChainsawVsGod]

@koberask

Wow. Seldom do I see comments so utterly devoid or facts, points or sense.

[DAVROSS44]

It is ridiculous that people for hundreds of years have been vbrainwashed into believing this garbage over the scientific truth! Get a grip on reality please, for the future of mankind!! Religion is absolute fantasy bullshit

[Grendel1337]

I've read this book to my little 7 year old brother, togheter with the Quran, the Old Testament and the Bible, just to be somewhat fair, and pure from indoctrination.

After time passed he only wants me to read from this.

[zaalazar]

why is it alarming to be a spec in the large cosmos? that's a perspective... the good or bad level is put by us... unfortunately ppl are too narrow minded that they take all of reality solely based on their personal perception as if no other forms of life existed which is rather ridiculous because just in this planet we have animals, plants, bacteria... which can be subdivided by species... all living different realities... Mr. Dawkins is a bright man on a mission

[Vicenta78]

<3 dawkins

[moviedude120796]

I do this with my little brother, telling him facts about science, debunking myths he may he have, little by little I hope I get through to him and he'll releaize one day....

[SpencerBenedict2nd]

"Sir Francis Jebbe, the founder of the Jesuit movement."?????

Hello, but that's a bold lie, right from the start! The founder of that "scourge of mankind" called the Society of Jesus (aka Jesuit Order, was Ignatius Loyola.

Dictionary Definitions

Jesuit: one of the order or society of Jesus. One of a religious order belonging to the Roman catholic Church. founded by Ignatius Loyola in the 16th century; a crafty person ; an intriguer

Jesuitical- designing; cunning; deceitful; prevaricating

[SpencerBenedict2nd]

Richard Dawkins is nothing more than a Jesuit shill, out (stephen) hawking his jesuit lies of deceit, in the form evo-myth promotion, to unwary and unsuspecting minds. This all part of the Jesuit Order's 500 year old quest to undermine the gospel truth of the Holy Bible in the minds and hearts of Man, in order to rid the world of God, to achieve their global despotic reign of tyranny and the utter enslavement of mankind.

GET A CLUE PEOPLE!! Don't fall for the Bull Shit.

Hope this helps.

[SpencerBenedict2nd]

Quote from video at the 1:20 mark:

"Knocking down "THE SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY" of millennia old stories, isn't very hard."

Ironic that while not only do they admit, in a hegelian dialectic way, that the accounts found in the Bible are "scientifically accurate", but at the same moment of admitting this, the video shows a wonderful representation of the earths Mid-Atlantic Oceanic Ridge from which the biblical "fountains of the deep" burst forth, causing the historic Global Flood of 2348 B.C. !!

[Futureplanet]

My child is 9 months old, and I've already bought the book (pre-order) to read to her ASAP. Reality rocks!

[SpencerBenedict2nd]

@Futureplanet

"and I've already bought the book (pre-order) to read to her ASAP.  Reality rocks!"-Futuredunce

> Poor child's soul won't stand a chance from the get go thanks to Daddy. Dead-to-the-spirit deluded "God Delusion" author & blithering fool scientist goon Richard Dawkins, another "leader" given to the profane masses is another useful idiot for Jesuit machinations. Add Dawkins being a vice-president of the jesuitical British Humanist Association is it any wonder who his masters are?

[Futureplanet]

@SpencerBenedict2nd Hey, everyone, can you read the prejudice and hostility dripping from this uneducated fool "SpencerDickHead2nd"?

He calls best selling professor of biology "blithering fool". I'd say it must take one to know one. Well done SpencerBoob your words yet again tell us everything we need to know about you.

[divorcecake]

Dawkins is a logic Nazi. Whats wrong with a bit of mystery in ordinary peoples minds? This man claims everything runs to a code and mathematical formula, well it doesnt. Can Dawkins draw out the scientific, mathematical formula to explain how a person recieves a sense of wonder, amazement and mystery when they look up at the stars in the night sky? He cant. Nature does not run to a code or formula, it is chaos that Nature adheres to and no scientist or numbers control chaos. Try harder Richard.

[SDMANUZEP]

@divorcecake I'm not going to spoil someone else's fun, disproving you. Youtube is generally good at that. Just know that you are missing the point.

[divorcecake]

@SDMANUZEP No go on, disprove me, I dont mind learning new things. I'm not anti science, I just cant see how Dawkins can actually claim there is no mystery to anything. I personally find it sad that anybody would be that cynical to try to even claim so.

[divorcecake]

@SDMANUZEP No go on, I dont mind learning new things. I'm not anti science, I just cant see how Dawkins can actually claim there is no mystery to anything. I personally find it sad that anybody who has a global reach would be that cynical to try to even claim so, and for his large audience to willingly believe it. I do not believe he can even prove it.

[Hektor88]

@divorcecake If I may but in, I don't think Dawkins has ever said, nor believes, that the universe has no mystery. I think what he would say is that the mystery of the natural, observable (read: real) world is many times more wondrous, powerful, and inspiring than the myths. I think his goal is to try and impart that same passion into his readers.

[divorcecake]

@Hektor88 But there are myths linked to mysteries to the natural world. Nobody knows how the Dogon Tribes of Africa have been able to draw out distant stars and galaxy systems that are invisible to the naked eye, those tribes have known of those stars for centuries and it is a mystery how they can point to where they are in the sky and draw their positions on the african sand. They claim their 'Gods' showed them which is of course a 'myth' but their knowledge is 100% correct. Powerfull myth.

[Hektor88]

@divorcecake Well, I don't know of this group so i can't comment on whether or not their "knowledge" is true. But supposing it is, as you say, it still doesn't lend credence to their claim of how they get the knowledge. Yes, myths are powerful, and no one would deny that. As for "nobody knows..." I would imagine there are some good hypotheses out there. I can't speak for anthropologists, but it seems obvious they would construct theories and models.

[divorcecake]

One such anthropoligist did, Marcel Griaule, his analysis was - "The problem of knowing how, with no instruments at their disposal, men could know the movements and certain characteristics of virtually invisible stars has not been settled, nor even posed"

[Hektor88]

@divorcecake But it doesn't prove the mythology to be true.

Again, all that's being said is that while myths are wonderful, science is more wonderful.

[divorcecake]

@Hektor88 And all I am saying is that science does not have the answers to every question. It does not have the answer to the Dogon question for example. Dawkins cliam is that science has the answers to every question and is infallible. Infallibility is the trait of the imams and priests that Richard himself criticises. That is why I am very wary to listen and blindly follow anything Richard says to be the 'truth'. He is a good man, but In my eyes he is just a counter balance to religous dogma.

[Hektor88]

@divorcecake I think Richard would agree that science doesn't "know everything." As one comedian said, "science knows it doesn't know everything, otherwise it would stop." But science does know a lot, and to say any other epistemology is just as good since "science can't answer X" seems to me to be a bit silly. Can the Dogon tell us what viruses are? or how new species emerge? That epistemology isn't more valuable than the whole of science just because there is some scientific mystery about it.

[dreamfoundry]

Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral. - Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

[11FrenchFry]

1 dislike

fuck you

from all of us

[dilated1990]

@nolovelost92 wait a minute, you think that being alive and having the chance to experience happiness is not wonderful. every moment that you alive, you have been given a chance to experience happiness. tell me, if you could, would you rather not exist EVER, basically think about the time before you were born, do you want that and never be born. Or, would you rather have a momentary chance to experience the euphoric feeling of bliss? you dont deserve to be alive and get this chance to be happy

[dilated1990]

@dilated1990 cont. you dont deserve it. it is a privilege. think of something that you want. lets say you got this thing and did nothing to gain it, but you got it anyway. you have to be pretty selfish to think that you getting this thing is not something wonderful.

as for suffering. at least you are not dead and every moment that you are alive is a chance to stop suffering and start building happiness. people who think death is a way out have no clue what death is

[Bodrochowski]

"Do you actually care that there are a lot of stupid people around?" Brilliantly frank.

[MikeEmery9]

"You don't believe that do you?"

[ScienceViking66]

It's nice to see Richard Dawkins mellowing in his old age. Despite that I've always agreed with him, he used to really annoy me because he was so strident in his atheism. Now that he appears to be mellowing a bit, he is much more watchable, not so off-putting, so more people now are likely to listen to what he has to say.

[SteveDutchy]

man.. Dakwins is getting old. But he's still the man!

[Alloflifedecays]

I do love how totally disrespectful to religion we Brits get to be on publically funded TV.

[tehinfidel]

@ishockmyself ♬ They will know we are Christians by our love... ♫

[IntuitiveLeap]

@ishockmyself i've always felt justified to say "there's no accounting for taste in music".

[atheistfromaustria]

@ishockmyself do you know what the bible says about paradise above all? Paradise means praising god from dusk till dawn for eternity. And when you have done so for an eternal time layer - what happens next? Praising god for eternity. Really great expectations!

[nbarrett100]

Children will have no problem understanding evolution but he might need to dumb it down a bit for fox news viewers

[freiheitsalv]

@nbarrett100 :lol: maybe a book only with pictures for them :haha:

[darnmarr]

Also calling all who disagree with you 'stupid' is easy, counter-productive and intellectually cowardly. ( I know it was the interviewer who framed it that way but still ).. Simply stick to the facts: as a scientist, you know they will always be on your side.

[hbp2m]

@darnmarr - you use the word "disagree" as if it is a question that is open for debate; it is not - there is no discussion about it: genesis is bullshit

[darnmarr]

And being kids they are at the stage where that concept of existence exactly reflects their level of empathy and consciousness. Every human must go through the stage where 'it's all about you' first. ( some adult humans never get over it)

[darnmarr]

-- their simplicity is what makes them attractive . An evolutionist of all people should accept that are brains are hard-wired in our past: where a satisfying myth has always been enough.

We are superstitious by nature because we have evolved largely in the absence of scientific method. The truth is only really satisfying to a grown mind educated in some form of logic. Kids can be far more easily persuaded that the universe has been made only for and about them because they are kids.

[IntuitiveLeap]

@darnmarr "-- their simplicity is what makes them attractive . An evolutionist of all people should accept that are brains are hard-wired in our past: where a satisfying myth has always been enough."

any person with opportunity to think this through can realize that something being 'attractive' doesn't provide any information on whether or not it is useful, important or helpful.

[darnmarr]

Much as I love Dawkins, I cannot help but feel that the interviewer has a better grasp of how a child's mind works than Dawkins does: my own impression is that this project is laudable but doomed to failure. The problem with the truth is that it doesn't coalesce into a satisfying narrative, and ( being the truth ) it cannot be bent into one.

This is why myths will always create more powerful an imprint: simply look at the preponderance and popularity of conspiracy theories:

[hszittau]

Dawkins is the best!

[dookiecheez]

As much as it's true, that literalism is stupid, I think the reason people believe it has more to do with conditioning, poor education, and that whole nurture bit. So I don't think that there are any more stupid people in the U.S. due to it's high number of literalists, then there are in any other part of the world, at least not in the sense that I shouldn't care. It's clear that better education, and an end to childhood indoctrination could reduce how many people are literalists.

[ultraollie]

I love the answer to "do you care that there are so many stupid people"....

I'd love to show this on Fox. :-)

[superhappyjen]

I've talked with my four and a half year old about various aspects of evolution.  He seems to understand it fine.

[assassthenation]

@superhappyjen Brilliant! My mother is a biologist; evolution just seemed intuitively obvious to me, no explanation needed. I very clearly remember the first time I ever really encountered the word "evolution," I must have been 7 or 8, and it was in the context of people not believing in it. I remember being very dismayed that something I'd taken for granted as blatantly obvious was being rejected by anyone; I felt great pity for anyone who could be so confused and ignorant.

[superhappyjen]

Dawkins always has the best ties.

[YimYamesPlease]

@superhappyjen I was watching this and thinking how much I wanted his bird tie only to scroll down and read this.