Richard Dawkins to Appear on Doctor Who

Ravalox writes "In an interview with The Independent, current curator of the Doctor Who legacy Russell T. Davis announced that distinguished evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins would be making an appearance in the new season of Doctor Who. To quote Davies: 'People were falling at his feet ... We've had Kylie Minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins people were worshipping.' Dawkins is the author of many best-selling non-fiction books, from The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker to The God Delusion, and a renowned advocate of both Darwin's evolutionary theory and the merits of atheism."

Comments

Not the first member in his family...

[nebaz]

I just thought I'd mention that Richard Dawkins is married to Lalla Ward, who played the Time Lady Romana (second version) in the original series. She was also married to Tom Baker for a short time.

Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi

[exitmoose]

Even Dawkins admits that, strictly speaking, he's an agnostic. He doesn't know that God doesn't exist. But there's any number of things that could just as easily apply to. No one says they're an agnostic with respect to unicorns. They just say "Unicorns aren't real." Only when it comes to this "God" concept, does everyone become such a pedant. If we applied the same standards to God that we did to unicorns, no one would take Dawkins to task for saying he's an atheist. He explains this all in "God Delusion." I suggest you read it.

Atheists, Come Out!

[gQuigs]

View his call to arms: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/113

Have we ever done a poll on religious beliefs on Slashdot?

Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi

[Alain Williams]

But he's only famous/infamous for his atheism He has published a set of highly readable books on evolution over many years.

He certainly wouldn't be invited to be on "Dr. Who" if he wasn't an Atheist. Where is your evidence for this statement ? I find it sad that those of religious pursuasion are prepared to make definitive statements without the facts to back them up.

Theists do better in society, Again: evidence ?

Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi

[Black Parrot]

I never really understood atheism anyway. They mock theists for their faith Yeah, and here's what happens when a calm and reasonable theist tries to engage a drool-spewing atheist in a reasonable discussion.

there's certainly no way to prove that there's not a god, so aren't they also believing in something independent of scientific proof? Actually, they are *not* believing in something that lacks any supporting evidence.

By your reasoning, we should believe every religious claim that has ever been made.

IMO agnosticism is the only tenable position for the non-theist. Everyone is an agnostic, including you.

As for "non-theist", that's exactly what a-theism means. (The Greek alpha privative is in fact cognate with our "non".)

Nonsense.

[warrax_666]

their world would be shattered completely if they learned that they were wrong.

"Learned" implies evidence, and if there were any evidence they would simply change their stance to the appropriate form of theism. That's the rational way to go about things. To date there has not been any single piece of credible evidence for the existence of God(s).

Like the other poster said: Please just read The God Delusion, it explains all of this.

Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi

[demi]

I never really understood atheism anyway.

Usually "agnosticism" means someone who actively believes you cannot know whether God exists or not. Atheism comes in two flavors: strong and weak.

"Strong" and "weak" refer to the comprehensiveness of the propositions encompassed, not to the degree of conviction or its vigor. A weak atheist position is that of a person who is without a belief in God. They don't "actively disbelieve" in God any more than you "actively disbelieve" in the brown chicken in my attic. There is no reason to think such a chicken (or God) exists--you simply lack belief in it, without "denying" the chicken. Or God.

A strong atheist position is the position that no God exists, supported by proof, evidence or belief. Whether this is the sort of thing that can be proved is perhaps open to debate--reasonable people disagree on whether it is a religious belief or not.

In my view, it's pretty slam dunk to see that any time a religious belief has resulted in something testable that could be offered as proof or disproof of God's existence, we have found that that sort of God doesn't exist. I don't know how many times you need to be told by someone that there is a chicken behind this door, no really, only to find when you open it that there is no chicken, before you suspect that there probably aren't any chickens here at all.

Re:Dawkins may may a renowned evolutionary biologi

[CmdrGravy]

Listen.

There is no evidence at all for the existance of any god never mind a specific type of one
There isn't now and never has been any evidence for any type of god like entity
There is nothing at all which requires anything like any sort of god like entity for us to understand it

At least unicorns would be a sort of an animal and we do know that animals exist whereas we have never seen any evidence for, never seen any examples of, never seen any hints of any sort of god like being at all and until we do the argument as to whether "he" exists or not is totally pointless because "he" obviously doesn't in the real world, only in the demented minds of the terminally deluded.