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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Richard Dawkins is smarter than you
Mark Shea at Catholic Exchange tells the lurid tale of how Richard Dawkins, biologist and atheist extraordinaire just doesn't seem to understand when he's being lampooned.
At issue is the video embedded below, entitled "Beware the Believers." If you hate rap or have a problem with semi-bad language, don't watch it. At the same time, I don't even like rap much at all and found the video a catchy, but fairly obvious satirical send up of Richard Dawkins and his legion of atheist elites (such as self-identified "Brights".)
At least, I found it an obvious send up. Can anyone watch this video and NOT see that it's making fun of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and other anti-theists? Referring to Dawkins, the chorus contains the lines:
Yeah he's the Dick to the Doc to the phd,
he's smarter than you he's got a science degree!
The Dick to the Doc to the phd,
he's still smarter than you he studied biology!
And, at one point, this rather clever snipe at Dawkins' sometimes angry feelings about the Deity:
hell if I was dyslexic I'd even hate "dog" too.
You can read the lyrics here. Anyway, as Shea relates, the video was rather confusing to Dawkins, who posted it on his blog, along with this: If anyone can understand a single word of this, don’t bother to translate, just tell me whose side it’s on
Yep. That's Dawkins: quick, somebody tell him whose side this video is on! Shea tells the whole story and I won't steal his thunder. Suffice to say, after three and half days, Dawkins finally got around to figuring out what the hell was going on in the video, and decided he didn't like it.
I still think it's pretty hilarious. But then, I'm not as smart as Richard Dawkins.
H/T: Five Feet of Fury
Posted by Terrence Watson on July 16, 2008 | Permalink
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Comments
Dawkins has a good sense of humour, even a self-deprecating sense of humour. I remember once many years ago when "Oxford Today" magazine polled some Oxford illuminaries about a geeky-techie issue that was burning at the time -- something like whether Mac was better than PC. Dawkins's response was something like, "What's a Mac? A hamburger?"
Dawkins also appeared on the "Colbert Report" to plug his book "The God Delusion." Naturally, he expected to be skewered, but he took it all in stride and played the game quite well.
So I have no trouble believing that Dawkins was playing dumb about this video, too, making a joke at his own expense.
Satire is a tricky thing. Is the "Colbert Report" a satire of American right-wing pundits or (as I have long believed) a satire of the way American leftists *view* right-wing pundits?
Is this video a satire of Dawkins et al, or a satire of the way religious folks misunderstand him? Not so clear. After all, its attack on Dawkins is so juvenile and misconceived that it doesn't make the opposition to Dawkins look too bright, either.
Posted by: Grant Brown | 2008-07-16 9:43:30 PM
I am not a fan of elites and I hate the Left, but I agree with Dawkins that the whole god thingy and the plague of religions on this planet is completely wearisome and boring.
I share Christian values though, the one's that tell you to be a good person and like that. The kneeling and praying and giving money to the disgusting clergymen is a lot of horse shit.
Posted by: John V | 2008-07-16 9:52:24 PM
Oh ya ... like him or not, Dawkins is pretty smart.
Posted by: John V | 2008-07-16 9:54:08 PM
Grant,
I was thinking it was maybe "South Park-style" satire, attacking both Dawkins and anyone else perceived to take him or herself too seriously. South Park blasted Dawkins a while back, too, and I don't think anyone believes the duo behind that show are fans of intelligent design.
Another term I've heard for South Park's style is "nihilistic satire," because they seem to pick on anyone who holds any view at all, no matter what it is. I don't know if this video falls under that description.
Maybe Dawkins is playing a joke on everyone, his readers included. If it is a joke, it's been stretched quite a bit, and has included slams on the Bible, postmodernism, and a few other topics Dawkins has (I think) slammed when he's in a more serious mood.
Someone suggested the video might be guerrilla marketing for the film Expelled. The pre-rap stuff seems to confirm that to some degree. Maybe the video's creators will step forward, if they haven't already.
Best,
Terrence
Posted by: Terrence Watson | 2008-07-16 9:55:51 PM
John V:
Dawkins IS pretty intelligent.
I wouldn't go so far as to say he's smart.
Agreed?
Posted by: set you free | 2008-07-16 10:01:30 PM
Oh, there's no doubt that Dawkins takes the whole god hypothesis debate very seriously indeed. He is dead against superstition in all its forms -- every bit as much as Bertrand Russell was, and every bit as wittily.
All I'm suggesting is that his attitude toward this particular video might be to have a bit of fun with it at his own expense.
I suspect that the video is meant to lampoon BOTH sides who get their panties in a wad over this issue. After all, as one Medieval scholar observed, "Creation only happened but once, and that a very long time ago."
Nobody of any substance can doubt that Dawkins is a penetrating thinker and a brilliant writer. I suspect his critics -- whether Stephen Jay Gould or Michael Behe -- have a heathier appreciation for his abilities than their goofball fans in the peanut gallery have.
Posted by: Grant Brown | 2008-07-16 10:35:53 PM
Since you're discovering hiphop, you should give this a try:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5R8kok_4d4
Posted by: Voice of Reason | 2008-07-16 10:36:37 PM
Dawkins has a great sense of humour -- he was fantastic on Steve Colbert -- it is such a shame Viacom has yanked all the old Colbert stuff off YouTube. Hardly any Colbert guests are really able to deal with the fact that their host is agreeing with them by disagreeing with them & what to do about that, but Dawkins figured out what was going on (apparently from scratch) and had a blast. But Dawkins is totally clueless when it comes to some things like poetry. I saw him at the Edinburgh science festival once where an admirer gave him some lines from Wordsworth that the admirer thought supported the argument of "Unweaving the Rainbow", and Dawkins asked to hear them three times & just couldn't figure out what was going on. Smart people often have weird brains, almost definitionally so.
Posted by: Joanna | 2008-07-17 2:59:44 AM
Dawkins has the video of the Colbert Report appearance on his website:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,210,Stephen-Colbert-Interviews-Richard-Dawkins,The-Colbert-Report
Posted by: Kalim Kassam | 2008-07-17 5:45:37 AM
I don't see any evidence that Dawkins is any kind of a thinker. The current Fortean Times does a number on Dawkins and concludes that he's a fool, which strikes me as fair and even generous.
Posted by: ebt | 2008-07-17 12:16:19 PM
South Park may have a nihilistic style, but each show ends with a conspicuous moral lesson that almost always leans libertarian and that momentarily undoes the shocking comedic irreverence of the entire show. Could it be a self-hating nihilistic style?
As for Dawkins, age and seriousness best explain why he didn't "get" the video. I don't think Shaidle's relational disorder theory is the most likely explanation. :-)
By the way, the best atheist thinker and writer in my view is George H. Smith.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._Smith
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 2008-07-17 5:03:33 PM
I had a similar reaction to those in Grant Brown's comments. The first time I saw this video it seemed to make fun of people who aren't smart enough to understand Dawkins as much as it makes fun of Dawkins.
Still, it's clearly intended to have its sights set on the Dawkins crowd, but it just comes across as a very juvenile response to dawkins. Kind of like the bully in school who picks on smart kids by making fun of how smart they are. Uh, well, Dawkins, with regard to evolutionary biology at least, is probably smarter than anyone who will ever see this video, so the video rings plainly true on some levels & doesn't sound like very good satire.
Posted by: JohnM | 2008-07-17 5:34:31 PM
Dude, Dawkins is smarter than you.
Posted by: Roger | 2008-07-19 5:36:18 PM
I'm not sure what I enjoyed more: seeing Dawkins humiliate himself in Expelled with his little talk about aliens or watching him debase himself and his allegedly marvelous intellect in his YouTube rebuttal to the film -- which ironically contained very little actual rebuttal, and more "the movie is boring, so THERE!".
The guy is an arrogant little ball of hate.
Posted by: Patrick Ross | 2008-07-20 12:52:41 AM
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