This morning the BBC recorded a live interview with Richard Dawkins on Facebook. It’s about 16 minutes long and it’s free. Click on the screenshot below to see it.
It was nominally about his book but is actually wide-ranging, and the BBC doesn’t just throw him softballs. One question, for instance, goes something like: “You’re such a polite and genial man. Why do you have to start so many fights?” And there’s a lot of discussion of religion.
I do recommend Richard’s new book: Science in the Soul, a collection of his published and unpublished essays. I’ve read it and it’s good. If you’re a P. G. Wodehouse fans, there are two essays about God in which Richard imitates the style of one of his literary heroes. I can’t say I share his love of Wodehouse, but many here do.
Have a listen:
Quick feedback, both links to Facebook throw an error.
No problem here (UK)
Me too — in Firefox I get a perpetual drain-circling symbol, and Internet Explorer requires me to sign in to Facebook (something I will never do…) before I can see the video.
Though I can’t watch the video, I see that it has had 386,000 views since it went up only seven hours ago!
I’m on Firefox, and I was already signed into FB, so had no problem. If you’re not on FB at all, that’s probably a problem since the video runs on a FB page.
Andrew Sullivan’s latest article has an excellent critique of KPFA’s deplatfoming of Dawkins.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/a-week-of-reckoning.html
Excellent interview. Nothing we haven’t heard from Dawkins before, but it bears repeating through as many media as possible. Hopefully there are many who learn from this.
Nice to hear a journalist describe him using “polite and genial” which are far more accurate than the usual “strident and obnoxious.”
Very interesting interview! Does anyone else here agree with Michael Ruse that Richard Dawkins is kind of like Billy Graham? At The Daily Ant, Ruse makes the case:
https://dailyant.com/2017/07/28/philosophy-phriday-all-about-ants/
He offers some charming commentary on Jerry!
Love Wodehouse. My name is a nerdy character from Jeeves and Wooster. Gonna listen to interview now
An underappreciated achievement of Wodehouse is the song lyrics to “Bill” from the Kern and Hammerstein musical “Showboat”.
Most of the show’s lyrics are by Oscar Hammerstein, but Bill was resurrected by Kern after it was nixed from a lesser known musical by Kern and Wodehouse “Oh, Lady, Lady”.
Lyrics here: https://www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/showboat/bill.htm
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So he’s not a messiah, eh?
Does that mean he’s a very naughty boy?
(Sorry, couldn’t resist)