Authors@ - Professor Richard Dawkins on The Magic of Reality: How we know what's really true

Friday 17th February, 2012
This Authors@ event was part of Google London's 'Science Friday' event - a family-friendly afternoon for London Googlers.

The Magic of Reality for iPad - http://www.magicofrealityapp.com/

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science - http://richarddawkins.net/

• Category

  Science & Technology

[redmatrix]

Prof. Richard Dawkins should be stopped!

.

He makes too much sense, it hurts my brain!

[john mars]

Prof. Dawkins has a nice way of putting the truth across. Long live reason and science.

[nicola9740]

thanks

[baltazarYoung]

Home - edward sharpe & the magnetic zeros

[nicola9740]

song at the beginning ?

[BoundlessEnthusiasm]

I went to look up who this "Graham Hancock" person was you were talking about. The introduction on his wikipedia page says enough, thank you.

"Graham Hancock (born 2 August 1950 in Edinburgh, Scotland) is a British writer and journalist. Hancock specialises in unconventional theories[1] involving ancient civilizations, stone monuments or megaliths, altered states of consciousness, ancient myths and astronomical/astrological data from the past."

[Niklas Wikstrom]

Sticking their heads in the sand? Please elaborate

[LottLottie]

Haha, if I had the know-how I would take this clip and dub over his voice with KP's!

[LottLottie]

38:11 I'm guessing the guy with his son, behind the questioner forcedly grinning disagrees with Dawkins?

[Malabyte]

Anything that anyone can possibly imagine, can potentially be correct.

But "truth" is defined through actual demonstrable occurrence, because that's the definition of reality. The truth is here and now. Hancock is a false prophet, trying to make assinine arguments with false logic. Those few times he states something that IS true (and not outright lying to you), those statements are irrelevant (read: non sequitor) to his conclusions.

You think he's special with his Dänneken pseudo-reasoning?

[Malabyte]

Funny thing is that the "ultimate truth", logically speaking, is an irrational concept unless it has already been predefined by parent man-made laws (e.g. Math).

Why is it irrational, one might ask? Because of the epistemology of it. Everything that can ever be conceived as true, can potentially be wrong and vice versa. Therefore, the ONLY valid method of inquiry is the scientific one, because it opens people's minds by trying to disprove any and all theories that it comes across.

[deathsfury]

wonder how many got the Hardon collider joke