Richard Dawkins criticised for Twitter comment about Muslims

[Siege]

Richard Dawkins criticised for Twitter comment about Muslims

Controversial scientist accused of 'dressing his bigotry up as atheism' following comments on social networking site


The outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins was involved in an online Twitter row on Thursday after tweeting: "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though."

As users piled in to criticise him, the scientist continued: "Why mention Muslim Nobels rather than any other group? Because we so often hear boasts about (a) their total numbers and (b) their science."

His other posts included: "You can attack someone for his opinion. But for simply stating an intriguing fact? Who would guess that a single Cambridge College" and "Muslims aren't a race. What they have in common is a religion. Rather than Trinity, would you prefer the comparison with Jews? Google it."

With the debate escalating, Dawkins, who has more than 777,000 followers, said: "Many are asking how many Nobels have been won by atheists. Needs research. I'd love to know. I suspect the proportion is v high, and growing."

Owen Jones, the left-leaning commentator and author of Chavs, told Dawkins: "How dare you dress your bigotry up as atheism. You are now beyond an embarrassment." Legal blogger Jack of Kent added: "Following @RichardDawkins tweet, Trinity Cambridge has presumably also produced more Soviet-supporting traitors to the UK than Islam."

The row also drew in historian Tom Holland and Channel 4's economics editor Faisal Islam who commented: "I thought scientists were meant to upbraid journalists for use of spurious data points to 'prove' existing prejudgements".
@jptoc chipped in: "A similar (and infuriating for Dawkins) 'fact' is that Islam has more recipients of Nobel Prizes than Dawkins. It's bad scientific method."

But some users appeared more forgiving. @Chriss_m, said: "Dawkins spent the best part of 10 years attacking Christianity and not raising an eyebrow. He now turns that same eye on Islam and uproar."

Trinity College, Cambridge, has 32 Nobel laureates, as against 10 Muslims listed in Wikipedia. When the Guardian contacted Dawkins by email to ask whether he was surprised by the uproar, he replied: "Prompted by exasperation at hearing boasts of (a) how numerous Muslims are in the world and (b) how great is their science.

"This prompted the thought that if they are all THAT numerous, shouldn't they have more to show for it in terms of achievement? The comparison with Trinity Cambridge I judged less offensive to Muslims than the even more dramatic comparison with Jews (who have garnered an ASTOUNDINGLY large number of Nobel Prizes)."

He continued: "Am I surprised? Only at the number of people who seem to think Islam is a race, rather than a religion. I regard that view as racist. Anything you can convert to, or convert from, is NOT a race.

Dawkins has previously been involved in acrimonious Twitter exchanges over Muslim journalist Mehdi Hasan, prompting Owen Jones to comment "If atheism means being bigoted about Muslims or wanting to drive people of faith from public life, then I am not an atheist."

[Viking]

BTW, Orhan Pamuk is a self described "Cultural Muslim" only. So if he counts as a muslim then I count as a christian. Abdus Salam is Ahmediyha and is about as much of a Muslim as Mitt Romney is a Christian. The Muslim Brotherhood tried to kill Nagib Mahfouz and successfully murdered Anwar Sadat (who got it for promising not to try to kill jews anymore). Arafat got it for the same reason Sadat did, and like Obama got it before doing what he got it for "doing". The post Arafat peace prizes don't count simply because as Machiavelli said, titles don't make men, men make titles. That leave Ahmed Zewail who got it for studying intermediate stages of a group of kinds of chemical reactions.

But, then again, if I applied these criteria to christians and jews there wouldn't be too many of them left either.

Dawkins is factually right and the points he has made on the topic reflect the problematization suggested by the UN Arab Human Development Report http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Human_Development_Report . Dawkins adds that there is a clear theological basis for this situation and a clear theological reason for the end of the islamic golden age pointing to the Al Gazali's Incoherence of the Philosophers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incoherence_of_the_Philosophers as the starting point for the end of Philosophical side of Kalaam (Islamic apologetics and academic theology).

[Razgovory]

I'm shocked, shocked that Dawkins would say such a thing.

[mongers]

I'm shocked, shocked that Dawkins would say such a thing.

Some muslims or at least more of those on-line are easily trolled, who knew. 

[Admiral Yi]

I'm shocked, shocked that Dawkins would say such a thing.

I'm not shocked that anyone would say such a thing.

[Sheilbh]

This seems a bit of a weird non-sequitur. As Muslim Trinity alumnus Faisal Islam pointed out as it happens in the last twenty years (in real Nobel prizes) Muslims are beating Trinity.

But it just seems bafflingly stupid. Most of the Muslim world is in the developing world, very few countries there have outstanding research universities. China has 10 Nobel prize winners and I think the overwhelming majority of those are based in US and (some) European universities. India has 6-7 and one of them's Mother Theresa.

I don't understand the point Dawkins is making here. When all it suggests to me is that most of the best education institutes in the world are in the West, most of the world's Muslims (Chinese, Indians, sub-Saharan Africans) aren't so you'll get very few of the latter and lots of the former in any list of Nobel prizes. You add in that the Nobel prizes started during the high Edwardian era and there's even more complications.

I can't find it but Private Eye have a brilliant spoof of Richard Dawkins. The New Statesman described it: 'It captures perfectly, with almost documentary verisimilitude, in fact, the blend of irascibility, conceit and high-handed disdain for religion that shines through Dawkins' online persona. Brown's version of the God Delusion author berates a shop assistant wearing a crucifix, criticises Bach for sneaking references to Jesus into his St Matthew Passion and wonders exasperatedly why anyone would be stupid enough to think it a "good point" that you can't prove God doesn't exist.' But it is better and pretty accurate.

"Dawkins spent the best part of 10 years attacking Christianity and not raising an eyebrow. He now turns that same eye on Islam and uproar."

I think this is sort-of true. Everyone seems to have found Dawkins pretty tiresome for the last few years. Also I'd note that many of his critics are suddenly finding him refreshingly direct because he said something about Muslims.

Personally I think the Telegraph had a point, I wouldn't be surprised if he was a Jesuit secret agent:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10233530/Come-in-Agent-Dawkins-your-job-is-done.html

[Razgovory]

  I'm not really shocked either.  It's simply par for the course to make such absurd observations.  People in the first world have earned more Nobel prizes then people in the third? Not exactly surprising.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't understand the point Dawkins is making here.

I think it's quite obvious.  Islam has stultified intellectual inquiry in the Muslim world.

[Iormlund]

But it just seems bafflingly stupid. Most of the Muslim world is in the developing world, very few countries there have outstanding research universities. China has 10 Nobel prize winners and I think the overwhelming majority of those are based in US and (some) European universities. India has 6-7 and one of them's Mother Theresa.

I don't understand the point Dawkins is making here. When all it suggests to me is that most of the best education institutes in the world are in the West, most of the world's Muslims (Chinese, Indians, sub-Saharan Africans) aren't so you'll get very few of the latter and lots of the former in any list of Nobel prizes. You add in that the Nobel prizes started during the high Edwardian era and there's even more complications.

Lack of resources is not an excuse. Tiny Israel has as many Nobel laureates as the whole of Islam. So do Hungary or Norway.

The simple fact is an environment that focuses on blind obedience instead of personal initiative will naturally lead to lacklustre performance. And that's just as true in science as in many other areas, like warfare.

[Sheilbh]

I think it's quite obvious.  Islam has stultified intellectual inquiry in the Muslim world.

But how does he actually make that point?

As it is it just looks like the 'look what happened to Greeks/Romans' argument against gay marriage. It seems maybe slightly interesting but totally off-point.

[Razgovory]

I don't understand the point Dawkins is making here.

I think it's quite obvious.  Islam has stultified intellectual inquiry in the Muslim world.

I'm guessing that Shelf was hoping there would be something more to it then that.  There's not, but he's an optimist.

[Sheilbh]

Lack of resources is not an excuse. Tiny Israel has as many Nobel laureates as the whole of Islam. So do Hungary or Norway.

Those countries don't lack resources, they lack size.

As I say tiny Israel also has almost as many as China and more than India (both roughly the same population as 'Islam' from my understanding). The whole of sub-Saharan Africa's got five and of them four are for peace and one's for literature. South America's got ten and, with the exception of Argentina, most of them are for literature. I don't see what this is demonstrating about Islam as opposed to the developing world.

[grumbler]

But how does he actually make that point?

As it is it just looks like the 'look what happened to Greeks/Romans' argument against gay marriage. It seems maybe slightly interesting but totally off-point.

Very few people are capable of writing a PhD thesis in the 140 characters allowed in a tweet.  I think you are WAY over-analyzing this.

[Razgovory]

But it just seems bafflingly stupid. Most of the Muslim world is in the developing world, very few countries there have outstanding research universities. China has 10 Nobel prize winners and I think the overwhelming majority of those are based in US and (some) European universities. India has 6-7 and one of them's Mother Theresa.

I don't understand the point Dawkins is making here. When all it suggests to me is that most of the best education institutes in the world are in the West, most of the world's Muslims (Chinese, Indians, sub-Saharan Africans) aren't so you'll get very few of the latter and lots of the former in any list of Nobel prizes. You add in that the Nobel prizes started during the high Edwardian era and there's even more complications.

Lack of resources is not an excuse. Tiny Israel has as many Nobel laureates as the whole of Islam. So do Hungary or Norway.

The simple fact is an environment that focuses on blind obedience instead of personal initiative will naturally lead to lacklustre performance. And that's just as true in science as in many other areas, like warfare.

I'm not sure how pointing out Israel has more Nobel Laureates as the whole of Islam proves your point about resources.

[Admiral Yi]

Those countries don't lack resources, they lack size.

Israel has no resources to speak of, Hungary not much more, whereas the Gulf states have some of the highest per capita incomes in the world.

What Israel has in abundance is human capital, which is sort of the point.