I’m about to go to bed, so don’t have time to do this justice (the entry I want to write has been lurking on my desk for about three weeks. Soon, I’ll nail it down).
However, it strikes me that, if Dawkins is being quoted correctly, then he has lost all sense of what it means to be a scientist.
the fact that so many of the stories I read allowed the possibility of frogs turning into princes, whether that has a sort of insidious affect on rationality, I’m not sure
Scientists observe, they think of a hypothesis, they test it.
That second step is crucial. If you have no imagination, if you bring all your pre-conceived ideas to the world you observe: well, you might publish lots of papers, you might write popular science books, you might even win a Nobel or get knighted, but basically, you’re a dolt.
Science consists in observing the world, and answering, but first asking, the question “How does that happen?” You need imagination to ask the question, imagination to answer it: a child-like sense of wonder in all you see and hear and feel. (Forget for a moment that children do develop a very real sense of reality).
Can a frog turn into a prince? Well, you know what, I’ve never seen it happen. But why don’t we think of an experiment to find out?
To say “No, that can’t happen, because I say so” is to murder a very human part of ourselves. And that’s child abuse, in my book.
Hooray. I can’t think of anything else to say either. I supposed that if we were to wait long enough, HWMNBN would dig himself into a hole whence he could not escape.
See, I find it interesting that he likes Pullamn more than Potter…. when Pullman bases everything on Christinity in the younger years. But of course, Pullman HATES Christianity so I guess that makes for a good book?
Why he finds Potter and fantasy I do not understand though. I guess scifi is more technical, although still I would be calling it “fantasy-like” and “fictional” – the things he did not approve of (or wants to “investigate if it is harmful”) …
and the spelling/wording mistakes in that last comment is a good explanation why I should not write anything before being awake for 3 hours, coffee or not. Sry.
Here, here, Richard – the odd thing is I’ve seen
HWMNBNDawkins elsewhere celebrating humanity’s imagination. Of course, you can celebrate something you haven’t got.Can I say wanker here?
Only if I can say ‘arking fusshole’.