Richard "Asshat" Dawkins is at it again.   It’s been a while since I’ve bitched about him, but damn if he hasn’t got me riled up this time.

Imagine for a moment that he isn’t going off on his usual atheistic crusade.*  Even go so far as to ignore Dawkins’ facile definition of god as being a "supernatural creator," a straw man if there ever was one. 

Instead, pretend that we don’t know at all what it is that Dawkins is railing about.  When we read the words "god," "atheism," "evolution,"** "natural selection" and the like, we can’t assign them any meaning.  When we read the Salon article this way, how do we find Dawkins describing his opponents, directly and indirectly?

• ignorant
• bigoted
• unsophisticated
• uneducated
• retarded
• primitive
• childish
• programmed
• infected
• delusional
• unpersuadable
• hateful
• vengeful
• violent
• hostile
• vain
• presumptous

Indeed.  All of them down to the last are clear indications that we’re dealing with a clear-headed objective scientist here.

Why should we allow someone to acting like this to pretend that he’s a public intellectual?  Isn’t talk radio enough? 

But let’s play another game while we’re at it.   Staying with the last exercise, let’s add a layer to it.  Let’s assume that Dawkins is right about whoever it is he’s talking about, down to the last adjective.

How would you label these people?  As "fully human?"  As bearing "inherent worth and dignity?"  As "human" at all?  Would you want to live next door to one of these people?  How far would you be justified in protecting you and yours from them?   Cordoning them off to special facilities?  Killing them?

Why does Dawkins allow himself to speak this way?

A delusion that encourages belief where there is no evidence is asking for trouble. Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle. Instead, disagreements are settled by other means which, in extreme cases, inevitably become violent. Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence. Much the same is true of philosophers, historians and literary critics.

So we’re back to "unpersuadable."  Apparently, the ethical response to an opponent who is "unpersuadable" (because reason was "drummed out" of them in infancy) is to dump heaps of vitriol on them as a "public intellectual." 

Now why is it that less and less Americans believe in evolution? 

*For the record, I am neither a theist nor an atheist.   I am, loosely, a panentheist, along roughly Taoist lines.

**For the record, I "believe" in evolution, whatever "belief" might mean when attached to a scientific theory.