Is Richard Dawkins starting to take a GC view?

[2Rebecca]

I have previously posted on here about being disappointed that Dawkins a biologist seemed to be on the TWAW side which surprised me. He has recently been reading and writing stuff that suggests he has had enough of the "woke" social justice brigade.
This tweet twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/1178928923976974336
and this Spectator article
www.spectator.co.uk/2019/10/richard-dawkins-its-hard-to-imagine-that-leave-would-win-a-second-referendum/
where he praises Douglas Murray's excellent book "The madness of crowds" and says
" He mercilessly exposes the hypocrisy and embarrassingly blatant contradictions that run rife through the current ‘woke’ vogue: compulsory surrender to yelling, screaming students who betray the whole purpose of a university by shutting down free speech; or sanctimoniously applauding doctors who instantly accept the unsupported claim of a child to be in the wrong body, and provide sex-changing hormones without consulting the parents; or attacking and ‘de-platforming’ distinguished feminist writers who choose not to use the word ‘woman’ for someone with a penis and a Y-chromosome." give me a lot of hope.

Yeah but he just doesn't like people who aren't posh blokes, he has no interest in supporting women, cis trans or otherwise.

Well Alice Roberts also seems woker than woke & I would never have expected that either. I've always had vaguely unsettling feelings about Dawkins - think he must have displayed misogynist views that I've now chosen to bury. I'm always impressed, though, that anyone stays awake when listening to an audio book. They always send me to sleep. Sorry Rebecca not a very erudite post, I'm afraid! (Mine, not yours)

I don’t think many people other than some quite deluded individuals actually believe that TWAW. Everyone knows what a transgender person is. The very definition of transgender is someone born one sex but wishes to live as the other sex. I really can’t believe that someone who is a scientist genuinely thinks that biological sex can change on a whim.

The ones who shout about it want to a) score woke points b) deflect attention from themselves because they secretly disbelieve it c) hate women or a certain type of women and relish the chance to indulge in misogyny without consequences.

think he must have displayed misogynist views that I've now chosen to bury.

He did.

He has been dodgy in the past but that sentence gives me a lot of hope! Don't forget that the TWAW mantra is big among skeptics (so much for critical thought) so if Dawkins leads the way in challenging this then either all the skeptics will think, sheep-like, "Damn, I must be wrong", or else they'll condemn Dawkins as a transphobe, which will generate its own publicity and be good for us, I think.

Bandwagon jumping.

He’s been writing in support of free speech and academic freedom (and ripping the piss out of postmodernism) for decades, and yet manages to be years late to this party.

"There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance..."

I’ve never understood how Dawkins of all people can possibly believe TWAW. To believe that you have to believe in being born in the wrong body, and to believe that you have to believe in souls.

lol RoyalCorgi.

I've met him - he's not a young man, I think he's at the stage of life where he sees this issue only insofar as it's relevant to the things he believes in (atheism, science) rather than wanting to wade into it for its own sake.

His jumping on the bandwagon is fine by me.
If there is a bandwagon for him to jump on then we have come a long way.

He did say a few years ago that TWAW was a matter of "semantics" and he used preferred pronouns out of "courtesy":
m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/10/27/richard-dawkins-taught-a-lesson-by-trans-women-_n_8397344.html

Which naturally got him into trouble with the true believers.

I think I read an interview recently where he stated he respected Peterson’s (the Canadian academic?) stance on pronouns. I think.

I've always had vaguely unsettling feelings about Dawkins

Dawkins is an interesting character but does, for me, have something of the zeal of a convert about him. It's fairly common among prominent atheists, I guess because they are dealing with mixed feelings. They are leaving behind a community which does hold value for them, Dawkins often talks about enjoy hymns for example, in a way born and raised atheists like myself are not.

I sometimes find that side of his character a little, not off-putting exactly, but more something that cannot speak for my atheism I suppose.

I'm not entirely surprised he hasn't wanted to get overly involved in the trans debate though. He isn't getting any younger and trans privilege activists are vicious and being a wealthy man it doesn't really impact him directly.

What misogynist views has Richard Dawkins voiced in the past? (Just out of interest.)

He’s a bit of an arrogant sexist dick of the Male UK Cambridge academia type. Kind of like Watson lite (very lite). In past he has said stuff like “well I couldn’t find ANY qualified women to put in my book and that’s fine” even though more than half of published scientists in evolutionary biology are women. Anyway. Glad he’s onside

Jerry Coyne is similarly moderately GC. He’s kind of the US version of Dawkins - curmudgeonly elder evo genetics guy. He has a blog called whyevolutionistrue which has some good entries (primarily railing about how even evolution societies are conflating sex and gender now)

“well I couldn’t find ANY qualified women to put in my book and that’s fine”

I'llhelp him.

Rachel Carson : The Silent Spring

At an atheist convention a female speaker complained that a male attendee cornered her in the hotel lift at 4am. This incident generated discussion about sexism and harassment in the atheist/skeptic community. Dawkins decided that it was no big deal because much worse things happen to women in Islamic countries.

He wrote this rhetorical letter as a reaction to the debate

“Dear Muslima

Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and… yawn… don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.

Similarly, Rebecca’s feeling that the man’s proposition was ‘creepy’ was her own interpretation of his behaviour, presumably not his. She was probably offended to about the same extent as I am offended if a man gets into an elevator with me chewing gum. But he does me no physical damage and I simply grin and bear it until either I or he gets out of the elevator”

There is something quite disturbing about a man who flippantly refers to FGM in an attempt to stop a woman complaining about something.

Whenever men remind women how much worse other women have it elsewhere, and how we should be grateful, it always sounds a bit like a veiled threat.

Dawkins has never been supportive of transgenderism in any sense of the word. He just didn’t involve himself in the issue and perhaps didn’t care a great deal? I don’t know his motivations but doubt it’s because he’s frightened of any controversy or criticism. The man is a scientist to the nth degree.

I know publicly mocking the TG movement is considered perilous to many here but don’t think being one of the most visible critics of religions (all yes) but specifically focusing his disdain on the religion of Islam is taking the easier road. Come to think of it there are commonalities between the two despite being total opposites. No science. No proof. No reasonable evidence and any dissent or criticism viciously not tolerated.

Sorry Muslims. I don’t want to pick on you guys specifically but you do tend to be a bit more touchy than the other ones.

"Sorry Muslims. I don’t want to pick on you guys specifically but you do tend to be a bit more touchy than the other ones."

Caucho, you haven't met my Baptist cousins. My uncle's funeral was largely devoted to an attack on David Hume, who died over 200 years ago.

@AncientLights I agree with your unsettled feelings. I was raised an atheist so have no faith based bias against him but he just seems the type to be muttering “bloody woman” under his breath from time to time. I wasn’t surprised by his gendered agreement.

Let's be honest here. Anyone who isn't a complete moron realises that it isn't possible to change sex. Anyone who isn't a complete moron understands why letting men into women's sports, women's changing rooms, women's prisons etc is a bad idea.

Once you leave the morons out of it, you only have two groups left: people who are willing to speak out about the injustice and people who aren't. So what Dawkins has done is significant purely because he's had the guts to speak out, not because his view is in any way exceptional.