richard dawkins - beyond reason channel 4

[Sheherazadethegoat]

i am loving it - i hate those parasitic mediums.

Aloha, does the expression "thieving, fanatical Albanian dwarf" mean anything to you?

"Please stop talkink about ze war"

"You started it!"

"NO ve did not!"

"Yes, you did! You invaded Poland!"

Stalin was a totalitarian dictator who kept power by means of mass murder, actually. He was never democratically elected.

The catholic church were not exactly pro-active against the rise of Nazi's either.

Totally wrong to suggest Hitler was supported in Europe until 1939! By that point he'd invaded most of it!

Good point Aloha.

I think the point I'm making is that rationality can be quite subjective!

But that sort of argument is really irrelevant to what Dawkins is doing. He is is very happy to allow psychics, mystics, dowsers etc to prove their abilities in trials that are NOT subjective but objective. Oddly enough, they don't usualy like that, mainly because whenever they do put their 'abilities' to the test, the trials always show that they are either fraudulent or sadly mistaken in their belief in their powers.

haven't read the whole thread and didn't see the programme but I can categorically attest to the success of homoeopathy - I have had treatment in the past and it worked completely. No placebo there.It has also worked for several people I know.

As for Richard Dawkins - what a bore he is. Always wheeled out on Radio 4 to whinge and whine about something or other - the man doth protest too much , and then some. Always the same abrasive blustering - same old same old.

I personally think Dawkins secretly believes in God and hates himself for it, which is very very funny. Either way, he is a great advert for religion!!

btw have now skim read thread - what are dowsers?

Do tell, Donnie - how did you manage to nullify the placebo effect?

Do tell, Donnie - how did you manage to nullify the placebo effect?

The year is wrong due to misremebered History a level - but the point remains that we were slow to actively condemn Hitler. Hate to totally nullify my arguement by being hazy on dates - i blame the state education system

best get me coat

I like Richard Dawkins. And I have a religious faith.

i think there is a long tradition of blessed god fearing nations supporting lunatic dictators to achieve their ends. non?

There was a long period of appeasement, granted, which makes more sense when you realise that Hitler's rise to power came so shortly after the appalling and still vivid carnage of WWI (the war to end all wars) and there was, understandably, no appetite in Britian for another war.
But there was almost no support for fascism in Britain.

I watched the programme but missed the bit on dowsing due to crying toddler needing comforting in bed. I have no idea what dowsing is either. Not sure I want to know tbh.

Dowsing is when you find water (or in some cases, hidden objects) by holding something (typically metal rods, birch(?) twig or a pendulum) above it and the object is meant to pick up vibrations from the hidden thing and start to move.

The only British fascist that comes to mind in that era is Mosely and his party lost a lot of supporters when WW2 broke out.

Thanks Kathy. Sounds like these Dowsers have too much time on their hands.

John Diamond's (Nigella's late husband)Snake Oil covered much the same ground and he in a humorous likeable way (if you find RD a wee bit abrasive as DH and I did....)

The reason he is abrasive is that he has been arguing the same things for 30 years and people still keep coming back at him with the same irrational stuff. He's only human,so I think he has a right to be a little bit pissed off.

Homeopathy - right. There's medicine, and then there's stuff which doesn't work. If it's medicine, it will have been trialled and monitored in carefully-controlled conditions designed to eliminate random outside factors.

Something changes when "alternative" medicine starts to show evidence of working - by which I mean proper, researched, peer-reviewed, demonstrable carefully-logged evidence that it is effective more often than it is effective (and not just "it worked for me", because there are hundreds of other factors which could come into play there, e.g. the placebo effect which Kathy mentions).

What happens is that then it ceases to be "alternative" and is just "medicine".

There's medicine, which works.
There's rubbish stuff, which doesn't work.

It's pretty simple.

The point of discussing the war has been lost somewhere - but just to clarify I didn't mention active fascists in Britain - I said that certain members of britains political elite would have had some sympathy with Hitlers views (certainly in the early 30's) privately - not that there was an active influential Fascist movement in the uk at this time - cos there was not.

With Hitler acting the agressor and Britain still considering itself an empire builder not an annex of Germany - there was never a question of resistance here when the crunch came.

butI really will stop responding on this now sorry

Nah UQD, Dawkins is abrasive because it makes good tv, and because it makes women (the lovely Lalla Ward for instance) fancy him.

Well, there could be an element of that!
He's just tetchy by nature, I think. Easily exasperated. But he does, by the nature of his writing, lay himself open to people who would try the patience of a saint!

Donnie: whatever condition you treated with homeopathy would have got better in time on its own - or was nothing much of a conditon in the first place (and would have gone away if you simply got more rest and ate well). Homeopathy is a load of old cock with no more beneficial effects than a kick up the arse or looking at a picture of a kitten. No one ever claims to have cured anything like bacterial meningitis or heart failure with it, do they?