gjm comments on Let Them Debate College Students - Less Wrong
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No, you said something I thought was obviously unreasonable. There's a difference.
Sorry, but if "related concepts" includes the possibility that life on earth might have been designed (really truly without any implication that the designer need be supernatural) then I don't believe you.
(Two examples of such "related concepts": In The God Delusion -- notable among Dawkins's works, of course, for its consistent open-mindedness towards religious ideas[1] -- Dawkins says, in so many words, (a) that it's very likely that there are intelligent aliens whose powers we would readily classify as godlike, and (b) that if a genuine instance of "irreducible complexity" could be found, then indeed Darwinian evolution would be dead.)
OK, so you don't consider it a good enough reason. However, if Dawkins does -- and it's not hard to see why he might -- it seems to me that your sneering at his "epistemologicical status" is un-called-for.
Excuse me, but are you even slightly serious? (Perhaps I've made the mistake of responding seriously to what's just 100% trolling, in which case I hereby apologize to anyone whose time I've wasted.) In what possible world is there any equivalence, as far as "epistemological status" goes, between (1) "Dawkins says one thing to one set of people and another incompatible thing to another set of people" -- your earlier assertion -- and (2) "Dawkins says one thing to one set of people and doesn't talk to another set of people"?
What, please, does that have to do with Dawkins's opinions, or practices, or attitudes, or honesty, or intellectual integrity?
I'm not aware that anyone has said it does. Would you care to make your argument a bit more explicit at this point?
Er, is it just me or is this a complete change of subject?
Why should Dawkins, or anyone else, care how easy it is for someone to be a devil's advocate for creationists? If what you actually mean is that it makes it easier for creationists to be advocates for creationists, then that would be more to the point, but it's not quite clear to me what you're now arguing. Earlier on, it looked like you were casting aspersions on Dawkins's honesty or integrity or something; now it seems you've switched to commenting on his tactics.
[1] Why yes, that was a joke.