Richard Dawkins Ignites Nobel Prize Controversy

[DavidDvorkin]

Theists will no longer be able to attack him for not saying anything negative about Islam.

Author and scientist Richard Dawkins published a controversial Twitter post this morning and found himself flooded by online critics.

Dawkins wrote: “All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.”

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/richard-dawkins-ignites-nobel-prize-controversy_b75737

[dimbear]

1. The Nobel Prizes aren't any strangers to religious controversy.

A glance down the Physics recipients over the years clearly suggests that there's consonance between Torah studies (evidently after generations) and fundamental physics.
Statisticians are invited to calculate the sigma level of my remark.

[LostOne4Ever]

2. INSTEAD

They are attacking him for being islamophobic -_-

Reading the article in the religion forum just about made me sick.

Im not a fan of his by any means but the gleeful way that they are celebrating this out of context and very poor choice of words is disgusting.

[DavidDvorkin]

3. He has a very good and detailed essay about all of this, here

http://www.richarddawkins.net/foundation_articles/2013/8/9/calm-reflections-after-a-storm-in-a-teacup

But of course that's being ignored.

[LostOne4Ever]

4. Thanks

Explains alot.

But I get the distinct impression they (the religion forum in general) are not interested in what he actually meant. They seem more interested in scoring "points" if you ask me.

[DavidDvorkin]

5. Unfortunately, that also includes a lot of atheists

Here and elsewhere online.

[LostOne4Ever]

6. Absolutely

Every group does it to some extent. I have seen it a lot in General discussion in the wars on ideological purity versus party loyalty that keep on popping up there.

I try to avoid it no matter who does it.

[skepticscott]

7. There are a lot of very shallow thinkers

in the Religion forum who seem to think that if they can just make Dawkins look bad enough that it will somehow invalidate atheism. Pathetic, really.. But It's all they have.

And in this case, he stated a simple and undeniable fact. None of the religionists geniuses over there or elsewhere can explain how the truth can be bigoted, they just love to fling the word "bigot" at anyone who's getting their goat.

[LostOne4Ever]

8. I find their attempts to call him a racist especially disgusting

But I guess they are grasping at straws trying to get anything to stick.

They don't give a damn if its a fair or even legitimate criticism or not. Whatever they can get by with.

[AtheistCrusader]

10. The second someone trots that out, you can safely ignore them. For starters, islam isn't a race.

[skepticscott]

11. And the implication of his post

was that, in modern day countries when Islam is a dominant cultural force, intellectual inquiry and achievement are suppressed. You can argue about whether his illustration is really telling on that point, or provide counter-evidence to show that it isn't really true or that, if it is, that Islam is not responsible, but to call this statement racist or bigoted is just ignorant poo-flinging. Of a type often practiced by the religionists over there.

[skepticscott]

13. Of course it's being ignored

And by the same people who always throw a tantrum about anti-theists attacking what they claim is a simplistic and caricatured version of religion. And yet here they are, attacking a tweet and mocking the very use of Twitter, while not having the intellectual courage and honesty to read an in-depth discussion of the issue by Dawkins and respond to it point-by-point, rationally. They prefer to just froth at the mouth about "bigotry".

[Rob H.]

15. Part of the problem with some people there

is that they're bashing Dawkins based on the strawman version of him that exists only in their collective imaginations. And expecting them to actually read what he's written about the many things they criticize him for is expecting far too much, imo, and even if they did they'd insist that what he very clearly explained isn't what he actually meant. (Case in point: there's at least one person raking Strawman Dawkins over the coals who still claims that Hitchens never stopped supporting waterboarding even after enduring it himself and stating in no uncertain terms that waterboarding is torture and the US shouldn't continue to engage in it. She's been called on it multiple times, too. She even linked to an article to support her assertion, but he was quoted in the article saying he no longer believed that waterboarding wasn't torture! )

Edited for clarity.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. You can only do so much with 148 characters.

Actually, I suggest intellectuals of any stripe perhaps should avoid trying to distill down any idea that might fit in Twitter.

[Lugal Zaggesi]

12. Let's see now - Trinity College has produced 32 Nobel Prizes

Islam has produced 10.
Seems that Dawkins is correct.

And they did do some good things in the Middle Ages - introducing the Indian concept of "zero" to the Europeans, for instance, and preserving much of ancient Greek and Roman writings. Thanks, Muslims. They did some good work in mathematics, medicine and astronomy, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim_Nobel_Laureates
6 Peace Prizes
2 Literature
1 Physics
1 Chemistry

Of course, total Nobel Prizes are largely a reflection of conditions in the 20th century, leading to the US, UK, Germany and France winning most of the prizes. A country like Iran is not going to produce many great researchers when a country like the UK is bleeding off it's oil wealth with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later British Petroleum), and instigating coup d'etat's - by itself, or with it's powerful friend the USA - to keep them from wresting control back from gun-to-the-head contracts. Or with a corrupt, murderous Shah installed by the USA after the unsuccessful attempt by Prime Minister Mossadegh to regain sovereignty over his country.

For instance.

Yet, having only 2 winners in the Sciences - total - should be of concern to a group of 1.6 billion people. Starting now.
At LEAST, go your own route like Japan, and start your own Prize so you aren't dependent on Swedish or Norwegian people having power over who wins:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Prize

Ah, there we go - they already thought of that:
      http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/iran-announces-rival-islamic-nobel-prize-279381

Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia (12% Muslim), Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia (88%), India (15%), Egypt - these countries have a shot building some good Universities and producing some world class scientists and writers.

Afghanistan? Outlook doesn't look good right now.

[dimbear]

14. The world's religions line up Christianity, Islam, and then if you counted seculars as a religion

which they aren't they would come in third.

How many Nobels do the seculars have?

Lots of them.