How can Dawkins redeem himself?

Dawkins told someone to quit whinning? Via the internet, no less? He should totally redeem himself before we all start thinking he's a normal human being.
 
arthwollipot said:
He could... I don't know, maybe sit down with Rebecca and discuss the issue in a calm and rational manner?
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This^

In fact, on the latest SGU podcast, Rebecca offered to do just that with Dawkins at TAM. It would be nice to have these two work through their differences face-to-face.
 
MattusMaximus said:
This^

In fact, on the latest SGU podcast, Rebecca offered to do just that with Dawkins at TAM. It would be nice to have these two work through their differences face-to-face.
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Which is sort of like Rebecca Black offering to go onstage with Elton John to work through the differences their fans had on YouTube. :D

Would I be the only one amused if Dawkins gave a version of his standard answer when creationists want to debate him and says he isn't going to do it because 'it would give her point of view a validity he feels it doesn't have'?

I have idly speculated if perhaps the by now infamous EG is a guy who really does see the sexes as equal, they are out there you know, and therefore didn't look at it as; Man gets on elevator with woman and asks her back to his room for coffee and dialogue, but rather two people get on elevator and one asks the other back to their room for coffee and dialogue.

It would be amusing if EG came forward and stated "Umm I am fabulously gay and really just wanted to chat."
 
MattusMaximus said:
This^

In fact, on the latest SGU podcast, Rebecca offered to do just that with Dawkins at TAM. It would be nice to have these two work through their differences face-to-face.
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Why? Dawkins doesn't need to give her position any unwarranted validity, as was already pointed out, and he certainly shouldn't compromise with her.

Perhaps she should just apologize to the entire skeptic community for bringing up such an inane topic, thank Dawkins for calling a spade a spade, and move on.

Her tirade certainly hasn't helped her credibility.
 
The elevator thing is a total non-issue. Just looks like he might have had a few glasses of wine before typing it, but meh.

He should be redeeming himself about the whole "private university" thing.
 
bookitty said:
I know, right. Because if there's one thing we know about skeptics - it's that they never learn anything or change their mind. Say something out loud one time and that's you for life.
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This is true, so may be a quite word in the ear of the young female blogger would have been more appropriate than a call out in a presentation she was attending.

I also find it ironic that Athon, who used to post here, was made a persona non grata after politely suggesting, to RW, that skepchick, in the early days, was possibly sending out the wrong message to potential recruits.
 
daSkeptic said:
After reading the materials and digging into a little bit of background, my opinion of this situation is as follows ...

I see a person who has gained a bit of celebrity status and isn't happy about all of the things that come with it. Rather than shrugging off the negative and moving on, they've let those things get to them and affect who they are. I also see a hypocrite who is complaining about being sexualized when their fame is due, in part, to sexualizing themselves.
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It's more of a bait-and-switch than hypocrisy.

Frankly, I didn't really pay much attention to Rebecca Watson and Skepchick before this bruhaha. At first, I was pretty strongly on her side for the initial reactions, which seem to me still to be pretty moderate. However, the more I've looked for the things she said and did, the less impressed I am with her. Other than using sexualization to promote herself, she does not appear to be very talented.

As for Dawkins, I gave up on him a long time ago. His comment was certainly rude and inappropriately focused on Watson, and I am guessing that there was some alcohol involved. It felt to me that it had the miasma of ethanol. I think I could have made the point much better, even if I were drunk.

Because he does have a point. The point is about privilege. That is the title of Watson's response, in which she calls Dawkins a rich white male (what color does she think she is, anyway? Purple?)

As Watson frames it in terms of privilege (Dawkin's versus hers), it is worthwhile to point out how much privilege that she has. This is not only how she gets to be on a panel with someone whose career started before she was born, but how privileged Western women are to the status of women in many middle-East, Islamic countries (or even in the West, where there have been a few "honor killings").

This is particularly important as Watson invokes feminism, and for the past three decades or so, there have been a lot of feminists with a rather idealistic notion of what women face in places like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. The only major feminist (if you want to call her major) who has seriously bucked the trend has been Phyllis Chesler. When young, she married a (rich) Muslim man and lived in Afghanistan. So she has some personal experience with how restrictive such a life can be.
 
qayak said:
Why? Dawkins doesn't need to give her position any unwarranted validity, as was already pointed out, and he certainly shouldn't compromise with her.

Perhaps she should just apologize to the entire skeptic community for bringing up such an inane topic, thank Dawkins for calling a spade a spade, and move on.

Her tirade certainly hasn't helped her credibility.
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Well said!

She is being ridiculous, lost her credibility already.
 
Geek Goddess said:
He could write some really good books on genes and evolution, and maybe atheism, and teach people all over the world about those same subjects.



Oh.
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You mean books which say that repeatedly being raped isn't as bad as religious indoctrination?
 
Richard Dawkins has always been somewhat naive in picking his battles.

Skeptics regard him kindly when he takes creationists to task ... but how did he think skeptics would react when he attacked one of their own...and a young woman, to boot?

For some reason, Richard Dawkins criticized Rebecca Watson on the one subject for which she would forever be more knowledgeable than he. Not a wise decision.
 
Last of the Fraggles said:
Her sense of self-importance? To be honest I think RD knows a bit about that too.;)
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I don't find Rebecca Watson self-important in the least. She is very open about her non-scientific background ... very self effacing when she makes mistakes ... and very quick to give others credit (or to share it).

And sure, her passion, interest, and activity in the skeptical movement may be regarded as self-promoting. But even then, I ask myself: "Why are qualities that are nearly always admired in men, frowned upon the moment they are witnessed in women."
 
NoScotsman said:
I don't find Rebecca Watson self-important in the least. She is very open about her non-scientific background ... very self effacing when she makes mistakes ... and very quick to give others credit (or to share it).

And sure, her passion, interest, and activity in the skeptical movement may be regarded as self-promoting. But even then, I ask myself: "Why are qualities that are nearly always admired in men, frowned upon the moment they are witnessed in women."
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I find myself wondering the opposite. Why does Watson get to be on a panel with Dawkins in the first place? Why does Watson get to be so well known with her meager talents?
 
Perhaps being well-known is a talent in itself.

Calling her meager sounds a lot like envy to me. ;)

@NoScotsman: thank you for asking that question. A lot of us would like to know the answer.
 
slingblade said:
Perhaps being well-known is a talent in itself.
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Yes, and that's the point. I'm sure she would make a great marketer.

Calling her meager sounds a lot like envy to me. ;)
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That's fairly presumptuous of you, and it sounds a lot like dismissiveness to me. I've looked at some of her stuff about things other than being a woman, and I find them fairly poor. I'm not the only one. It also cannot have escaped many people's attention that Richard Dawkins began his career long before Watson has been born.

It does not bother me at all that I would never be on a panel with Richard Dawkins. Sure, I've given this or that talk at skeptic conferences to small audiences, and they seemed to go over well, but that's not where my talents lie. Now, in scientific visualization circles, I at least was once Someone. I chaired the DOE Computer Graphics Forum once, and I was on a panel with Theresa-Marie Rhyne, and I exhibited a few times at SIGGRAPH (once in the CAVE), and I've given talks at Fermilab, the University of Iowa, the American Meteorological Society (where I got the cover of the proceedings), the American Chemical Society, and a bunch of other talks at places I cannot remember. I got several articles in supercomputing and biotechnology magazines.

That's enough fame for me, and I stopped doing that when I realized that fame did not come with fortune. (Although currently, I don't even have fortune, so I guess that didn't work out either. Oh well. I'll figure out something else to do.)

So there's no reason I could possibly have envy. Still, it is important to note that Watson has gotten pretty far at a pretty young age. More power to her, but to me, it does not support the idea that she was a particular victim of sexism.
 
NoScotsman said:
I don't find Rebecca Watson self-important in the least. She is very open about her non-scientific background ... very self effacing when she makes mistakes ... and very quick to give others credit (or to share it).

And sure, her passion, interest, and activity in the skeptical movement may be regarded as self-promoting. But even then, I ask myself: "Why are qualities that are nearly always admired in men, frowned upon the moment they are witnessed in women."
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So what exactly was it (in your view) that RD was attacking RW on that she knows more about and always will?

As for your last comment, I'd say the same if RW was a guy so I'm not sure what you are getting at.
 
I think it has been covered in bits, but it needs to be spelled out:

We (well some of us) are atheists. We are skeptics. We have no gods. This 'no gods' includes people like Richard Dawkins. In other words, RD can be an icon in skeptical thinking AND a dick in some respects. Life is like that.

That said I really don't think his initial trespass is something to fuss about. So his somewhat offensive reply may be triggered by irritation over the fact that someone DID make a fuss about it. In public. I mean, if she had just yelled "Oh **** off!" at the time, it would probably have needed there.

Quite another matter is the serialization thingy, and why it is thought that one cannot view a member of one's preferred opposite sex as both a respected fellow human AND, as a potential, if theoretical, sexual object. However, that is for another thread.

Hans
 
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