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Indeed.
Yup.
He might be right but the way he's said it is not going to have any positive effect. He called brexiters stupid, that tends not to go down well.
Not watched it. Does he blame Religion at some point?
[i]He called brexiters stupid, that tends not to go down well.[/i]
Truth hurts
not stupid necessarily but maybe misled turkeys that ordered xmas?
...so what do we do?
Ignorant and ill-informed, not stupid. Although they're not mutually exclusive, I guess.
Yep. Whilst I agree 100% id not be sharing it on Facebook.
He called brexiters stupid
I don't think he did. He said the [i]electorate[/i] was ill-informed and ignorant, not Leave voters.
ill-informed, ignorant and misled, not stupid
all of which are true
[b]ill-informed,[/b]
the media has distorted this for years, Borris' columns about straight bananas
the constant demonising of immigrants in the tabloids,
[b]ignorant[/b]
outside of specific fields who even knew we were part of Euratom, the European Medicines Agency, Horizon 2020, ERASMUS, and the many other brilliant EU collaborations
[b]misled[/b]
Gove lying about Turkeys accession to the EU
Everything ever said by Farage
The Leavers on here wear the 350m lie on the bus as a badge of honour as it helped them win...
youre right tho, in this PC gone mad world you cant call a spade a spade these days 😉
funkmasterp - Member
Not watched it. Does he blame Religion at some point?
no
[quote=molgrips ]He might be right but the way he's said it is not going to have any positive effect. He called brexiters stupid, that tends not to go down well.
he said they were ill informed
What % of brexiter voters could explain how the EU elects the parliament, president and the "unelected " commissioners and see if you disagree
Probably true of all voters to be fair . It was many things but it was not the informed choice of a well educated populace armed only with impartial facts
Dawkins ruins the content with his delivery, non shocker.
I also think he's generally getting a bit desperate for the oxygen of publicity, but at least the mail and express will have a big feature on this I assume, so big win.
He called brexiters stupid, that tends not to go down well.
1) He said the electorate as a whole was ill-informed/ignorant, not just those who voted Leave.
2) He accused no-one of being "stupid".
Other than that, I agree.
not stupid necessarily but maybe misled turkeys that ordered xmas?
Probably one of the best descriptions I've read.
Blaming the electorate is not what he is doing.
Ask an ill formed and ignorant question and you'll get a stupid answer.
There is clearly someone to blame for the present fiasco but it isn't the people who voted, even if they voted differently to you or I.
He said the electorate as a whole was ill-informed/ignorant, not just those who voted Leave
Same effect though.
all of which are true
I don't disagree, I've been saying it for years. But it won't win anyone over unfortuantely.
Dawkins may irritate many by sometimes appearing condescendng but to be frank he's normally spot on with what he says and doesn't resort to using rhetoric and obfuscation like most politicians do in order to win a debate.
why wouldn't you share it on facebook?...I have.
Likes.
Truth hurts.
jonnyboi - Member
Dawkins ruins the content with his delivery, non shocker.I also think he's generally getting a bit desperate for the oxygen of publicity, but at least the mail and express will have a big feature on this I assume, so big win.
really?
hes one of the greatest living theoretical biologists, his work has helped shape science and medicine for the last 40 years.
We are all idiots for allowing technical, complex questions to be decided by a combination of Politicians persuading voters to vote on it.
He is quite right. We should have had a two-thirds majority to take us into the EEC and to approve Maastricht and Lisbon. We can change this now. Any major new agreement like rejoining the EU should have a two-thirds majority.
jambalaya - Member
He is quite right. We should have had a two-thirds majority to take us into the EEC and to approve Maastricht and Lisbon. We can change this now. Any major new agreement like rejoining the EU should have a two-thirds majority.
If we wait a few years for all the old brexies to die off, shouldnt be a problem 😉
I studied for too many years at Oxford and it was well known Dawkins was at heart an attention seeker. Only time I met him was at the Computer Services where "three phones" Dawkins was trying to get one fixed to continue the expansion of his Media Empire.
As someone above said, people are bored of the New Atheism so he needs to find a new gig, but he can recycle the old rhetorical methods by swapping religious believers for Leave voters.
DezB - MemberHe called brexiters stupid, that tends not to go down well.
Truth hurts
why go down the road of abuse, if I had voted in the referendum I would have voted leave and I'm far from stupid.
Ignorant and ill-informed, not stupid
there was a large percentage of people who knew what they were voting for, but there was also a very significant percentage of people that were ignorant and ill-informed and persuaded by the media.
We can add all the people that didn't vote, including the youth, to the ignorant list.
Overall it is the EUs fault that this happened and there is such dissent across Europe.
They should have recognised what was happening and that the working classes in particular were feeling shafted by their vision, and changed their model accordingly.
The fact that they didn't and instead sought to impose agreements like TTIP is justification enough to wish the current EU project to crash and burn and perhaps EU v2.0 to come along in future.
really?hes one of the greatest living theoretical biologists, his work has helped shape science and medicine for the last 40 years.
I don't think that either of our comments disproves the other, do they?
Supports my theory that voting rights should be proportionate to your intelligence. Everyone sits an IQ test, gets one vote for every 10 IQ points they have.
Domestic and world politics would look very different if that was applied
'Well known personality is an attention seeker' shocker 😉
We should have had a two-thirds majority to take us into the EEC and to approve Maastricht and Lisbon.
Much as I can't stand Jam's political point of view, he's right here - this is the glaring hole in Dawkins' argument.
I don't think that either of our comments disproves the other, do they?
true, depends whether newsnight approached him for their click generating opinion piece feature or he sought them
I suspect the former
"there was a large percentage of people who knew what they were voting for"
really ? ..the gov't itself doesn't seem to know and is struggling to formulate an acceptable plan . As for Theresa May .....priorities
1/ego/power
2/not losing face
3/party
4/face cream
^^^ You forgot shoes. 😆
Absolutely spot on, Mr Dawkins. He could also have picked up on the fact that if 16 & 17 year olds had been given the vote the result would have been very different. Probably.
Being insulted by Dawkins will just make them rub their hands faster in anticipation for the new whiter, cleaner bigger hospitals. You know, the ones that Brexit would usher in? Like a 1950s vision of paradise. Pubs full of Farage, bars full of Babs and none of that doner rubbish just proper pork pies from British pigs. If you want to know what Brexit Britain thinks about the BBC go read the Express et al.
*Edit
And, to us remoaners: Dawkins to Brexit-voters is like Farage to us. A cartoonish and self-interested baddie-twit who becomes even more annoying as he thinks he knows better than all of us.
Brexit here, Trump there. 'Unity' has never seemed so far away.
The fact that they didn't and instead sought to impose agreements like TTIP is justification enough to wish the current EU project to crash and burn and perhaps EU v2.0 to come along in future.
but they didnt impose anything
It was debated for years, delayed indefinitely by France in particular, while our own government under Dave & Gideon was in favour of TTIP !
good job turnerguy, I think youve managed to tick at least 2 out of Dawkin's 3
😆ill-informed, ignorant and misled,
He's right , although I'm not sure you can necessarily blame people , the way the campaigns were run were a disgrace . There simply wasn't enough proper information to make an informed desicion . Leave took advantage by making stuff up and the remain campaign was so fractured and complacent they failed to convince people that the status quo was the best option .
I'm not really looking forward doing it again , I live in Scotland , next year where the basic argument is the same . Leave saying is your life a bit crap ? Well vote leave and it will be better and remain saying is your life a bit crap ? Well it will be even worse if you vote leave .
TurnerGuy, no one has really been shafted by the EU, Westminster has been doing the shafting. Why are Sweden and the UK and Greece such different places yet all within the EU. For that matter why are Cornwall and London economically in such different states.
Ever noticed the blue EU development signs scattered across south wales?
Turkeys and Christmas comes to mind.
poah - Memberwhy go down the road of abuse, if I had voted in the referendum I would have voted leave and I'm far from stupid.
Did you consider watching the video? Or reading any of the dozen or so posts explaining that he didn't call anyone stupid?
Perhaps you're not stupid but you are clearly keen to believe or to pretend people have said things they haven't. How much does that inform your views?
He could also have picked up on the fact that if 16 & 17 year olds had been given the vote the result would have been very different.
This simply doesn't fit the narrative that leavers were stupid, as are 16/17 years olds really more clever and well informed than the over 60's?
People could be more informed but as the EU isn't inherently either good or bad, I doubt it would make much difference as at the end of the day it comes down to personal preference. May as well had tossed a coin to pick a side. Oddly if everyone had tossed a coin I doubt the % difference in the vote would have been much different.
Did you consider watching the video? Or reading any of the dozen or so posts explaining that he didn't call anyone stupid?Perhaps you're not stupid but you are clearly keen to believe or to pretend people have said things they haven't. How much does that inform your views?
I was replying to the post of DezB, not the video so reread their comment 😉
really?hes one of the greatest living theoretical biologists, his work has helped shape science and medicine for the last 40 years.
This is simply not true. He's one of the greatest living popularizers of evolutionary biological theory, but his original contribution is less impressive. He just took the work of Wilson, Trivers, Hamilton and others and put it in a (very good) popular science book in the 'selfish gene'. Look at his publication record, there a few animal behaviour papers from his PhD in the late 60s/early 70s on choice in birds, a couple of more ambitious papers in the later 70s on the extended phenotype, and then nothing but opinion pieces and popular science.
His oxford chair is for the public understanding of science, not evolutionary biology. I'm always amazed how he's pulled off a reputation as a brilliant scientist for the last 30 years, but I guess being a brilliant communicator helps.
We should have had a two-thirds majority to take us into the EEC and to approve Maastricht and Lisbon.
Much as I can't stand Jam's political point of view, he's right here - this is the glaring hole in Dawkins' argument.
We [i]did[/i] have a two-thirds majority to join the EEC. 67.23% of votes were in favour, in 1975.