Professor Richard Dawkins was on Newsnight this Tuesday night. I'll admit now that I have, and still haven't watched it, but this isn't really about his Newsnight appearance.
Because of this, Dawkins became trending topic on twitter, as a long time admirer of Dawkins -as a writer, a scientist and an atheist - I was personally insulted at some of the misinformed, and sometimes just dumb criticisms. Some where Atheist saying they where embarrassed to have him as their spokesperson -I don't know what the basis is for this. But a word I kept see recurring in most tweets was 'preacher'... well yeah, I guess he is a bit of a preacher, but he's a scientist, and you know what preaching science is called? ... Education!
Another one that got me rattled was calling him 'Unscientific.' At first I struggled to understand this one. But what I soon found out that this was because /apparently/ it's unscientific to believe that there's no God[s], and that to be scientific you should mark it as 50/50. This isn't scientific. it isn't even mathematical. The scientific method would be to calculate a decision based on the evidence, and, to be brutishly honest, the evidence against God[s] profoundly outweighs the pros. What would be wrong, would be to completely abrogate the existence of God[s]. (although I do this on a daily basis) But Dawkins doesn't say this, he's said countless times that there is a possibility, though it be one he puts at 00.01%.
That's pretty much all I had to say, it's not a long post. All the other tweets I saw where mostly rightful admiration. The only other thing I saw that bothered me was one about him being sexist - which I have no idea what he's talking about. Maybe he means a different Richard Dawkins, or maybe he's just stupid - I think this is the most likely, if judging only by his spelling.
So please, leave Richard Dawkins alone, or if you feel the need, at least read one of his books, *before* you impugn him.
