Darwinism and popular culture: Richard Dawkins to write "improving" children's literature

by Denyse O'Leary

A friend points me to this item: "Harry Potter fails to cast spell over Professor Richard Dawkins" by Martin Beckford and Urmee Khan (Telegraph, 25 Oct 2008). Where "Harry Potter has become the latest target for Professor Richard Dawkins who is planning to find out whether tales of witchdraft and wizardy have a negative effect on children." (Re spelling, sic)

Not if you go by my kids, decades ago. They regularly heard tales of talking, reasoning cats and yet they lived with non-talking, non-reasoning natural cats parked near the radiator. I cannot think of a single instance where anyone confused the literary cat with the heat-hogging feline.

Actually, the celebrated atheist and Darwinian spear carrier is becoming something of a legend in his own laundry room. In fact,

The prominent atheist is stepping down from his post at Oxford University to write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in "anti-scientific" fairytales.

Yawn. Glad I'm not the hall monitor.

Prof Dawkins is targeting children as the audience of his next project because he believes they are being "abused" by being taught about religion at school and labelled Christian, Jewish or Muslim from a young age.

Tell that to a kid celebrating First Communion/Bar Mitzvah/Bat Mitzvah ... .

Also just up at the Post-Darwinist:

Intelligent design and popular culture: Going all "viral" on the Explore Evolution text

Catholic Church and evolution: Exquisite pleasure in skinning a cat?

Do we belittle God by calling him an intelligent designer?

Darwinism and popular culture: Op-ed writer in Canada's National Post doubts Darwin

Comments

[Jennifer (Et Tu?)]

Wow, interesting links. I just now discovered Salvo (via Aggie Catholics) and am glad to have found it. I'll definitely be back!

[JM Inc.]

Actually, it's a common misunderstanding that Dawkins thinks that learning about religion is child abuse. In fact, he's a proponent of publically-funded religious education starting from primary school. He believes it will reduce the likelihood of children being nurtured (intentionally or unintentionally) to religious extremism if they are exposed to the variety of alternative views, and help them to understand that people who disagree with their beliefs are otherwise just like themselves.

What he calls child abuse is specifically the labelling of children with the religions of their parents, which he believes serves to segregate children (in their own minds and in the minds of everyone perpetuating the label) according to the communities they were accidentally born into, thus ultimately decreasing the chance that they will be able to relate well to faith-communities outside of their own.

I agree. I am very suspicious of those who consider it educationally important to paint the world using only one brush, or educationally unimportant to do contrariwise. I recognise that many schools, among them many faith-based schools, do in fact have their own comparative religion or "worldview" courses, but I'm surprised that in a society as allegedly dedicated to pluralism as Canadian society, we don't consider it important enough to teach children about one another merely on the principle of improving cultural and religious sensitivity. Shouldn't the fact that some parents oppose this be a point in favour of doing it? It seems to me to indicate that there are people out there who think the best way to raise children is to shelter them from important realities.

[David Johnson]

Microsoftists, Agnostics and A-Microsoftists

Once upon a time, the planet was dominated by humans who held one of three different philosophies of life, metaphysics and personal computers.

There were the Microsoftists who believed that the personal computers they were using had some kind of an operating system which must have been designed and they found some ancient records telling of an entity known as "Microsoft" in a far away place called Redmond which had designed this operating system for the use of humans as they utilized their personal computers. Because they themselves had written computer instructions that they called software, and because they knew that they were also designers of some sort, then to them it followed that the ancient records had told them the truth - Microsoft existed and was indeed the designer in the far away place called Redmond.

Those holding the exact opposite philosophical position - the A-Microsoftists - rejected belief in an entity called Microsoft and believed that the so-called operating system of the personal computers had arisen quite by chance and that because computers had been around a long time the seeming design was only an illusion and that the operating system actually evolved as the best fit for the job of operating the electronics of the personal computer. They further pointed out some other facts to support their belief. Many "hackers" had discovered much of the ways the operating system worked and had shown that it didn't stay the same over time with new entries in the registry and different configurations in evidence. They also said that given enough time the hackers would completely take apart the operating system and explain fully how it worked and that this would show no need for belief in any design entity - Microsoft or whatever.

In between were the Agnostics. These humans claimed to take the humble high road of admitting that they not only could not take a position regarding Microsoft's existence but that no one else should ever think an answer could be found. They seemed, however, to be friendlier with the A-Microsoftists.

The A-Microsoftists eventually comprised the largest fraction of humankind, and used their numerical superiority to ridicule and virtually silence the Microsoftists. From their ranks certain humans arose who became the loudest voices of ridicule and who were zealots for making major reductions in the number of adherents to belief in Microsoft. For example, one of them lived across the sea by the name of Hitchard Christophins and wrote several books, such as The Microsoft Delusion and Operating Up the Slopes of Mount PC Improbable. He and his associates accused the Microsoftists of simply holding on to their belief because the hackers had not finished their hacking and that this faulty reasoning constituted a "Microsoft of the Gaps" argument which held no credibility.

Some say the A-Microsoftists were predisposed to believe the way they did because they resented any thought of a grand designer such as a Microsoft which might be superior to them. They considered themselves to be at the apex of all designers to ever exist. They prided themselves as independents. The Microsoftists, however, were quite happy to acknowledge the superior design work of this unseen Microsoft and hoped someday to see Microsoft in the land of Redmond and to express their unending gratitude for what was bequeathed to them for their personal computers.

© 2009 capisce.org Microsoft is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation

[nazir ali]

Hi there,

I'd like to ask Professor Dawkins to have a debate with a great scholar of Islam and Comparative religions Dr Zakir Naik of India who can prove Evolutionism wrong by the will of Allah with scientific facts regarding the issue "Creation or Evoltionism"

Please arrange with MCB (Muslim Council of Britain) Sir Iqbal Sacranie OBE http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Iqbal_Sacranie_Obe (or) http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Basil_Abdul-Jabbar_Mustafa&action=edit (or) http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Syed_Misdaq_Husain_Zaidi&action=edit to arrange this friendly debate to know each other's view points

Many Thanks