Sunday reading – Richard Dawkins reads some of his “fan mail”

Posted on January 25, 2015 | 13 Comments

This is a more recent version of Richard Dawkins reading some of his “fan mail.”

Don’t remember much of the first batch he read – but get the impression the language skills of fundamentalists has become even poorer in the intervening period.

Warning – explicit language.

via Love Letters to Richard Dawkins – YouTube.

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13 responses to “Sunday reading – Richard Dawkins reads some of his “fan mail””

  1. mart | January 25, 2015 at 4:04 pm |

    Amusing

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  2. mart | January 25, 2015 at 4:06 pm |

    I suspect many are written bt poes however…

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  3. soundhill1 | January 25, 2015 at 5:38 pm |

    I wish he had read something from anyone needling him about epigenetics, which can annoy him. How we manage our food/environment can produce heritable results. Here is an interview from Simon Morton yesterday, with some relevance. http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20164630 and if Ken’s Dawkins reading raised a few eyebrows I think that may, too.

    Dawkins is frustrated by people using epigenetics to say Darwin is wrong.

    (Actually Darwin talked about “pangenesis,” which can also irk the Neo-Darwinists.)

    I am sure epigenetics is going to come up in tooth health. Does low fluoride have an epigenetic effect like low food intake?

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  4. Ken | January 25, 2015 at 5:51 pm |

    Soundhill, I know Richard gets pissed off with the idiots who use things like epigenetics, and anything else, to “prove” Darwin wrong. But that is simply a matter of misrepresentation of the scientific process and I am not aware of any specific hostility of his towards epigenetics. There is obviously scientific debate about the extent of its significance but I certainly have not seen anything from him dogmatically opposing it.

    If you have something. What about a link.

    It is silly to suggest he should have included anything serious in this particular video.

    >

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  5. Marco | January 25, 2015 at 9:52 pm |

    http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/642737-is-epigenetics-a-revolution-in-evolution

    So, yes, Dawkins gets irritated when people claim epigenetics shows Darwin is wrong. Because it doesn’t…

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  6. Steve Slott | January 26, 2015 at 2:08 am |

    Sounds remarkably like replies I get to my comments about fluoridation….

    Steven D. Slott, DDS

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  7. David Fierstien | January 26, 2015 at 3:54 am |

    Sounds like you have to be a pretty bad-ass motherfucker to get into heaven.

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  8. David Fierstien | January 26, 2015 at 7:28 am |

    Sorry for that comment, what I meant to way was: Sounds like you have to be a pretty bad-ass motherfuckin’ homophobe to get into heaven.

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  9. soundhill1 | January 26, 2015 at 4:28 pm |

    @Marco,

    Thanks for the ref and discussion. At least getting acknowledgement of feedback from RNA, though not admitting from protein.

    Chris Banks doesn’t think we have enough time on the school curriculum to deal with anything other than the one way direction. I feel that is a bit dogmatic.

    A population who have gone without food on a long ocean voyage and so have the thrifty gene switched and passed on to progeny then have other implications for natural selection as I see it. Diabetes when food in plenty arrives next generation or three.

    Thinking about fluoride. My mum was a tea drinker, but what about offspring of low fluoride intake mums? Do they get a methylated gene and what happens when they are then exposed to a higher dose?

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  10. Richard Christie | January 26, 2015 at 6:34 pm |

    The article linked to by Marko was by Gerry Coyne, it was only hosted on Dawkin’s site.

    On http://www.whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com Coyne periodically posts similar excerpts of the hate mail that he too receives. Somehow, in print it comes across as more sinister than in Dawkin’s examples, Dawkin’s verbal delivery completely pwns those who write it.

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  11. soundhill1 | January 26, 2015 at 7:26 pm |

    @Richard
    and in Comment 20 by helical4
    ” So, epigenetic marks could provide another level of hereditary information that would have some influence on phenotype and could extend the range of variation for evolution to act on. The effect of epigenetic marks and feed back from environmental signals could control alterative live cycles, but any changes in behavior or morphology in response to environmental cues would be subject to natural selection. There is no Lamarckianism at work here.”

    Or. could I put it: any changes in behavior or morphology in response to environmental cues would give natural selection something to work on.

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  12. Richard Christie | January 26, 2015 at 8:42 pm |

    Soundhill, I’m not qualified nor interested in debating here the validity of comments written on other websites by unknown authors, or even with you. No offence, and my apologies for derailing your diversion,

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  13. Chris Banks | January 26, 2015 at 9:10 pm |

    “Chris Banks doesn’t think we have enough time on the school curriculum to deal with anything other than the one way direction. I feel that is a bit dogmatic.”

    Soundhill, how dare you put words in my mouth?

    Are you so desperate for attention that you want to drag me into some fresh bout of insanity?

    Push off.

    If I want to get involved in a conversation involving you, I will do so of my own accord.

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