Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival - Session 3

[@MrYevie]

I actually really appreciate her perspective. She is quite a breath of fresh air. I love Harris and Tyson, and this woman does not speak as well or as confidently, but her points are valid and extremely important to hear and make.

[@steveharvey4245]

It's not as if when you become scientifically literate you suddenly lose love, morals, or ethics.

[@BlaccEagle]

Neil made an excellent point about Dakwins having little tact and sensitivity when it comes to persuading other people. Neil articulated that with such a high level of class and it was rather beautiful.

[@Diztrack]

We also need Carl Sagan, the world didn't get enough of him. Oh well.

[@Gryffixchannel]

It´s not easy to go somewhere where people bash your religion for several hours (which I enjoyed loads) and then speak in front of an audience that is most likely not in your favor. You don't have to agree with the woman, but at least be respectful. This is a religious person who is at least willing to accept scientific evidence and adjust her views. You can't expect from everyone to become an atheist - it would be grand, but it's not going to happen - so instead of mocking people like Joan you should applaud them. (Of course you can criticize them and make fun of them, but some of the comments down below were a bit disrespectful and unnecessary)

[@MrKrinkelz]

very true instead of mocking them their beliefs and presenting them facts saying "these are facts its either you're an idiot or not to believe them" but showing them humility and respect, even though most of them are hard to reason with

[@michaelgoudis344]

I did not see any disrespect at all. And i didnt see any intention for her to adapt her views. And her views especially about critical scholarship in catholic church are kind of meh...First of it does not work the same way as scientific research does. It does not have mechanisms of self correction. It moves on the assumption that a supreme intelligence exists. Science rarely has assumptions but even when it does they can be verified over and over again before they are used to exact scientific results.

[@Gryffixchannel]

Michael Goudis There was disrespect in the comments, which was what I was talking about.

[@michaelgoudis344]

Gryffix Οh sorry, i thought you were referring to the video, not the comment section, my bad.

[@Gryffixchannel]

Michael Goudis Haha, that's okay. :)

[@skymind4738]

The speech of the lady, 28 minutes of boredom, I wanted to die!!!!

[@defect0r1]

Yes, but suffering through it was absolutely worth it once Dawkins got up and tore her christian apologetic argument to SHREDS

[@ChaineYTXF]

It's good sometimes, actually often, to listen to the way people who think differently actually think and reason. I force myself to make such speeches interesting.

[@Benlocsei]

I just asked my gardener wheter he believes in god. He's not a scientist by any means and of catholic upbringing. What he said just made my day. It was something along the lines of "yeah whatever, but obviously he doesn't give a crap, so he can just fuck himself like anyone else who could but won't help." He judged god by his deeds rather than any bullshit about his greatness. I've never seen it so clearly, why educated people aren't less susceptible to dogma. Just look at Roughgarden. Scientific training gives you insight on one hand, but on the other hand raises your capacity to play these stupid word-games that are really the last refuge of a god that is so obviously morally bankrupt even to someone not nearly as educated.

[@Unbrutal_Rawr]

I've heard this sentiment before and I very much agree.

[@Colin-kh6kp]

Science and religion are independent of one another. Science has no agenda to refute the beliefs of any religion. Scientific findings often do contradict religious beliefs, but that is coincidental. The problem arises when religious people feel the need to defend their faith against what scientists discover. This is unnecessary as science never attacked any beliefs. If you feel that scientific discoveries are a threat to your beliefs, then maybe you should reevaluate your beliefs, but you should not defend beliefs against something that only relates to your beliefs in as much as you choose to believe they do.

[@adampowell43]

I completely agree. I was annoyed with NDT with his reprisal against Dawkins. I think Dawkins is making an excellent point.

[@BlaccEagle]

Absolutely agree, we need different types. We need someone like Dawkins, uncompromising and completely honest. We also need those who romanticize science like Lawrence Krauss. We need awesome people like Neil Degrasse Tyson, and so on...

[@EnduringOxymora]

It needs to be fostered/allowed/encouraged by the politicians (executive and legislative) so that the education programme devised by them contains this objective in mind. But also the actual commitment of the teachers in charge of delivering such a programme. No small feat...

[@vryc]

The real problem, as I see it, is, HOW do we make difficult concepts of reality and the learning about those concepts not only interesting but also something that is desired in people? The unfortunate consequence of many of the ideas in science is that they are NOT based on common sense. Yet, THIS is how reality operates. How do we get people to be honest with their situation and their understanding of reality? Education? Seems like a sensible answer. How do we press this curative forward?

[@b.n.rivera5932]

Loving how Dawkins stood his ground. I will be just fine if I don't ever again hear the first woman speaker of session 3. She's trying to make a case for mistakes and inefficiencies in science and she's been repeatedly told that at least with science fixes itself with scientists challenging and collaborating with each other.

[@Icemario87]

I would be pretty excited to see that, as well. As it stands, however, I believe Dawkins' statement that you responded to was referencing the status quo. We currently have the equivalent of Sunday School teachers in Biology classrooms across many states in America, teaching "the controversy" and avoiding the facts. On the other hand, I agree with your divergence from Dawkins' desire to eliminate religion entirely. Humans will retain irrationally but lose the social construct that reigns it in.

[@puppetsock]

When somebody comes at me making claims about how it is necessary to persuade communities, I get nervous. Especially when they say that it's necessary to use weird parables or half-truths or "dialects" my alarms are all going off at maximum. If you can't persuade using rational, logical, fact based argument, then you simply can't persuade. Slime-ing around using colored stories and poetry and such guff is not persuading, it's indoctrinating. And it's dishonest and unworthy of science. The guff about what parts of science are not correct is also guff. Nobody can tell what parts are incorrect. If we could we'd correct them and get a better understanding of the universe. The point is, science is the only human activity that has this self correcting mechanism. Religion, for example, saves and nurtures the stuff that is not correct. It resists with all it's existence the correction of errors. This is a huge win for science.

[@RipTheJackR]

1:22:23 rofl I love how the camera focuses on the one guy who doesnt know whats going on

[@Icemario87]

Thanks. I love it when Sam makes those comparisons. They are so perfect :)

[@rytmen]

I think Dawkins, Sam and others should use more time on pointing out the fact that not only is religion still a dominating factor of society. It is only now in the last 50 to 100 years our governments and societies are not totally dominated by religion. Religion is not some sweet innocent poem waiting to be heard, its an extremely strong political force. Hitchens knew that and pointed it out many times. Religion is only starting to slightly give room for the rest of us. slightly.

I am an atheist. I feel my self honest, donating, loyal, loving, fair, not stealing, with working culture, sense of quality, beauty, aesthetics.. Could someone tell, how religion could make me better and in which categories? I can only tell that religion could try it do trough my possible fear, need for authority who tells me whats good and how to live right way. I think that religion is for covering holes(from bronze age) of lack of good example, good advise from surrounding, did Christians thought that hypothetical Jesus could not teaching religion and fear jealous God, but just value each other, and by saying that he is God's son, he in reality(I don't believe Bible, but believe that most of story is fake) told that we all are equal under the heaven and should care and respect each other no matter of race(Samarian), believe(forgive them - they don't know what they do), occupation(prostitute). We should learn to help and give good example to each other...this is most effective and sometimes only way to make people to become better.

[@SpecialHandlingUnit]

Just to add to the 'Saturn lady's' lecture, the photos of the nebula are originally gray scale mostly, the colors are added later to depict the chemical make up, blue is for hydrogen, etc. (I'm no expert though).

[@steeltip2]

dear lord, this guy, Dawkins is my fucking hero !!!

[@Icemario87]

Exactly. Friends, family. You never know who you influence that may influence others. I have family members that have met will smith, bill clinton, etc. You never know how big your impact can be.

[@erich1940]

There seems to be this definitive decision that art, love, romance, poetry come from religion - I assert strongly that passion, valor, morality, poetry and art would blossom in far more powerful and dynamic ways without religion - any that does come from religion comes from the pain of oppression which we can manufacture - the best of religion is totalitarian and oppressive demands for your morality to conform to the agenda of a human being declaring himself the voice of god - at its best it is corrosive to ethics.

[@InfinityDz]

That's what I was saying! I see people disliked my comment. What I meant was "after watching Neil talk, this woman sounds even more boring than she was the first time". I'm not a native speaker so it's probably my fault though.

[@CyndiHilston]

I love seeing the audience members falling asleep as she talks!

[@mohamedthepedophile4789]

@12:15 until 12:25, this woman says something *INSANE.* She's a bad scientist, didn't even read the biblical passage before saying dumb shit. *Here is the biblical passage. You tell me if it sounds remotely scientific.* Genesis 30:37 Then Jacob took new branches from poplar, almond, and plane trees; and he peeled white stripes on them, exposing the branches’ white color. 38 He set the branches that he had peeled near the watering troughs so that they were in front of the flock when they drank, because they often mated when they came to drink. 39 When the flock mated in front of the branches, they gave birth to striped, speckled, and spotted young. Is she working for the Discovery Institute? What the hell is she doing there?

[@buenoand]

@quazifnatik Although it is a relatively old event, it is brand new on KZbin (uploaded on Feb. 08, 2011)... those of us that found this earlier than others need to "spread the word"...

[@ravenouscolonelhart]

lol, at Tyson's summary of Dawkins' method: "Here's the facts, you're either an idiot or you're not." So awesome. His response was really good too.

[@johnnyisherela]

When Sam Harris and Neil De'Grasse Tyson went to go down, I nearly orgasmed. Dawkins, Harris and Tyson, you are all so awesome

[@erich1940]

In the end science triumphs by its emphasis as a process not a conclusion

[@bleach219]

Did anyone understand what point the first lady was trying to make? Between all the uh's and ah's and um's the most I could make out was she thought we could explain science through the use of biblical passages and she objected to all existing explanations for every single sexual topic being researched and thought the funding process was unfair to people who wanted to explore radical ideas.

[@mohamedthepedophile4789]

She's the perfect example that we humans really are *still apes.* I can't believe we come from apes. Okay, have you heard of this woman?

[@bradgrady7497]

Valkyrie Ziege She believes that God (probably Yahweh) plays a part in evolution which obviously biases her interpretation of facts, her motives and the way she colors evolution in teaching it. That is enough to shoot her down. No need to bring up the sexual identity stuff.

[@bradgrady7497]

***** I've talked to Muslim's in the Middle East before. I don't know under what circumstances or culture you're coming from. I'm here in the USA. The person I've talked with before considered himself an extremist Muslim but had sincere questions regarding the truth of what evolution is and what the theory of evolution is. I'm not qualified to answer detailed questions and I'd hate to add to any misconceptions you may or may not have. In regard to your questions, one thing seems obvious to me. I'm not a biologist but the direction that your questions seem to come from isn't Dawinistic. They are Lamarkian. In regard to your last question. I think natural selection is exactly like artificial selection in the sense that any changes in the environment would have effect on the evolution of a gene. But don't take my word for it. Here is a link to a good website which discusses evolution. I've found it helpful to start with the page concerning misconceptions... evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_teacherfaq.php

[@bradgrady7497]

***** Sorry, I don't quite follow you. Better evolution? As in domestication for human purposes? For accepting a theory, a scientific theory absolutely MUST fit the facts, evidence and observations. It must also make predictions. In other words, the theory must explain the facts. It is also true that a scientific theory must be falsifiable. That is, it cannot be simply asserted as true and taken on faith. Falsifiability is what makes a scientific theory so powerful. For instance, a monkey gave birth to a human. That would be an observed fact which would falsify evolution as a fact and therefore also the theory. So the theory is not final and incontravertable given certain new facts, evidence or observations. So, yes. Further investigation is absolutely required. What makes a scientific theory a scientific theory is when this investigation takes place and the theory holds true over and over again. This is never considered an absolute truth, it just makes the probability of it's being true higher and higher. But I might add here that the genesis of living organisms is not explained or attempted to be explained in the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution is only applicable after life has already started. I don't know what those FOUR conclusions are. What are they?

[@bradgrady7497]

Valkyrie Ziege Who are you directing your comment to?

[@FreethinkingSecularist]

Wonderful! Thanks for putting this back on KZbin. Someone had it in 80+ parts and that channel was deleted for some reason. Favorite! oh yeah and subscribe!!

[@JustinRocket1]

A hypothesis is defined as, "a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation." It is not necessarily scientifically testable (in fact, we can't know what may be scientifically testable in the future, so to propose the requirement you did is scientifically illiterate).

[@JustinRocket1]

Dawkins says that he values fiction as fiction, but then asks why we should use fiction to teach. Some truths are so complex that, outside of the experts in the field (and maybe that isn't always an exception), metaphor is the best teaching tool. The themes in Oliver Twist (the failure of government charity, the folly of individualism, the effect of environment on a man's soul) would probably fail to create deep resonance if not stated in metaphor mutis mutandis the Bible.

[@johnnyisherela]

I really like the way you put that man. It reminds me of, I think Sam Harris' point about it's okay to take the mick out of people who believe in Elvis, but there is tabboo on religion

[@rockgrandioso]

This is not in support of becoming a religious practitioner but Richard Dawkins says that it is inappropriate to view "faith" as a human value...He says "faith" is belief in something without evidence. I ask you then, how do we find the strength to achieve ANY goals? Where is the evidence that our effort is going to have us succeed at our goal? Faith to me means we may still strive without knowing that we will succeed...I personally divorce the word from any "God" relation. What do you think?

[@andymartinez2959]

Does anyone know where these conferences are held ?

[@JustinRocket1]

That's part of the problem. The other part of the problem is that those who claim to be anti-religious are not only confusing all religion with Christianity, but confusing all Christianity with that nut bar intelligent Design crap. After all, not every Christian is a fundie (literalist).

[@diegooland1261]

My new bumper sticker will read "Science is interesting, if you don't think so, then you can $uck off." LOL I love this discussion. But they do need Karen Armstrong's voice.

[@aysikl]

that moment when dawkins comes back up to sit down - and shakes her hand and theyre all nice'n'smiley.. huge lol :P iz very cool cuz gives room for open chit-chat stuff rather than the priest and his absolute opinions and the flock sitting and hating on the opposition.. love this stuff so much...

[@fleafrier1]

I find it regrettable that many commenters were unable to comprehend or even listen to many of Joan's quite poignant comments because her delivery was not up to their liking. It's as if they're saying her points are not valid because they weren't entertaining. To me that is yet another indicator of the sad state of our narcissistic society. Perhaps they should be watching game of thrones or some other imaginary bullshit like that.

[@williamarthurfenton1496]

fleafrier1 Not at all-- her content was watery and irrelevant, appealing to sentiment and emotion, rather than rationality and common sense.

[@Icemario87]

Honestly, I was surprised at how much they let her say without rebuttal. A lot of her accusations were misguided. I don't think anyone that spoke at that event is close-minded. The closest would be Dawkins. But that doesn't really count because being close-minded about myths isn't exactly indicative of close-minded thinking. For example, you could call me close-minded for acting like Dawkins to a true-blue Sasquatch-believer. But that's not quite what "close-minded" means.

[@b.alexanderjohnstone9774]

Follow The Science. Yeah, that worked beautifully.

[@CapitalJ2]

1:19:35 lol his accent makes it that much funnier

[@JimiHendrix998]

Joan drove me up the wall.what an orgy of bumbling, hesitant woffling with gross over use of the word "issue". Dawkins blessedly brings the ability to string two words together, though manifestly unprepared. It looks like all of them have turned up and none have expected to be speaking. poor stuff.

[@SaintBrick]

+ThePigvincent Interesting you should say that, I thought Joan was on point and, as per usual Dawkins was rude and dismissive of ideas he disagrees with.

[@grejen711]

+Saint Nick Dawkins accepted her points about speaking to theists at their own level. He disagrees - vehemently - with her philosophy that theism (esp religion) needs to be treated with more respect or held more special than any other misconception or disproved theory.

[@SaintBrick]

I watched the video too. Her reasons for respecting religious philosophy are imo valid. If any progress is going to be made in decreasing the membership in religious extremism, and flawed ideology at all it's my opinion that we should tread carefully. At the moment Dawkins and Harris are rather representative of the moral secular ideology. And treating their beliefs like barbaric crazy nonsense will alienate the very people we want to reach regardless of how true it is. She was making a point about method, not goals. I thought it humors that dawkins couldn't get past, or even understand what she was saying, then threw it out without giving it a moment's notice. Arrogance isn't going to win us any prizes.

[@1long2go]

The Universe and life happened. Did it happen because a "creator" wanted human beings to have a place to live, or is it an eternal cycle and humans are only one life form which just happened, this time around? We would like to think there is a purpose (for "us") but why should there be?

[@russellhoughton2132]

Joan needs to work on her public speaking. Experience, mostly. She sounded terrified.

[@EnduringOxymora]

In the nation/estate context, sure: voters are supposed to have the fundamental voice. However, our democracies are very weak, and the political game is in hands of oligarchies who don't necessarily represent the rest. Reviewing my comment, perhaps the fundamental change in education begins with the individual, you and I, and it's grounded on how we can make an impact on those around us.

[@manzar9121]

@mihaimoldo you beloved neil degreese tyson shows, in the above video, that most of the universe is "in-habitable", if you doubt me then you can watch the lecture. perhaps you did not understand what i was actually saying.

[@melibita]

The problem is that the Bible isn't being taught as a metaphor. It is pulled in to somehow complement science being taught.

[@HugoDeBate]

Lawrence Krauss' face at 13.37 is brilliant. He's probably playing chess on his laptop after that woman put the idea in his head while she drones on about the bible. He looks so bored when he looks up haha. Almost feel sorry for her.

[@RipTheJackR]

Lets consider we were an animal, or at least some multicellular complex of distinct objects, lets call em cells. When we consider "fear of death" as an explanation of religion, we should keep in mind that we are a social (inter-relating) structure that have some inherent benefit of not going under. Fear of death makes people not drink poison, it makes people not wanna explore the forest at night, it makes people not wanna punch their neighbor at the most slight invitation - this is a predictable character of an organism which have some benefit to being alive. Imagine we were an organism which underwent progammed cell death (and perhaps interesting behavioral adaptions a priori to that fact), unfortunately Homo sapiens doesnt undergo this process, but it had been interesting to see how that reality of life had made its impacts on our subjective considerations. My guess is that an octopus undergoing apoptosis (programmed cell death) after spawning young, would be percieved to be a positive event - but in Homo sapiens there is little inherent benefit from you or your parents dying (though their reproductive success certainly diminishes over time and you would expect a lowered evaluation of their "worth") and thusly, a "fear of death" emerges. Dunno what my point is, other than "fear of death" is inherent in some biological entities, and perhaps not in others. Either way, Saturn Lady moved me :)

[@Bord750]

"We think science is interesting, and if you dont agree..you can fuk off".. I am going to get that on a T-shirt. And I really like the woman who in the first min or so of her talk, slam dunked Russel's teapot ..like her already thanks for uploading these talks.. Go Science!

[@frederik2682]

"Science is interesting. If you don't agree, you can fuck off". Brilliant, haha..

[@airheadbomb]

For all of the people saying the first lady Joan didn't make sense. She was trying to see the side of the religious people. The religious side makes absolutely no sense. Therefore, she made absolutely no sense here. Also delivery could be better, but we are not all as articulate as Richard Dawkins, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Sam Harris.

[@SweRaider1993]

when was this? :P

[@bradgrady7497]

28:15 Very enthusiastic clapping.

[@mihaimoldo]

@manzar9121 yes i'm well aware of what he said,but it seems you didn't read my reply about what you may think it's unique. As he once said, rare events happen all the time in the universe, but they don't matter. Re-read my comment and then reply about the subject i was talking about. We may be unique HERE, but given how vast the universe is is HIGHLY probable that there are other planets out there full of life. As for in-habitable, um do you realize that we can only survive HERE? a 0.001%.

[@mrtpsoroush]

the moderator whispering throughout every talk is stupendously annoying.

[@Icemario87]

Kind of hard to make that point when fiction is being taught as fact, don't you think?

[@jacktretter3309]

The one truth from this session is that there is a competition at NASA for the best selfie...

[@speider]

@jonnyuman54 then spread it on facebook? :)

[@jonnyuman54]

@quazifnatik because everyone else is on facebook

[@hollywooda111]

fucking spit it out love!!... JESUS!... ;-)

[@Raziel_Knight]

To say that the truth should be avoided or disregarded, because of the possible implications that will lead people to do immoral things is an OLD argument and an odd one to see in this discussion at all, because it's entirely based on the naturalistic fallacy. Even if we discovered that almost all mammalian sexual selection evolved to be completely misogynistic and discriminatory towards the females, that wouldn't mean that as intelligent beings we HAD to continue to do it in that way.

[@RobSinclaire]

Science and Religion - Oil and Water: its a matter of Method (Epistemology) How Do We Know What We Know?

[@peter212]

Listening to Joan Ruthgarden?sp... need to take some public speaking courses in order to make her point of view more effective. It was torturous to listen to her speak her thoughts with "ahs, ums, and spastic breaths between every word she uttered. Whatever her message, it was lost in the delivery, I thought she was going to pass out and felt sorry for her being up there publicly speaking which was obvious she was petrified doing. Joan...join Toastmasters and be a more effective speaker.

[@acousticmany]

Dawkins dominated the lady next to him. Being nice/respectful to religious beliefs is a religious argument to deny the inquiry and expression of scientific thought, i.e., a way to keep science down.

[@b.alexanderjohnstone9774]

Dawkins gets passionate on behalf of intolerance.

[@ThePacemaker45]

If that woman says ah or um one more time!!!!

[@chen778]

that is exactly why religious people found some atheists distasteful and they tried to avoid us. I especially found Richard Dawkins' jumping in with such aggression is completely unnecessary and annoying. Both Richard and Neil misunderstood her book which was trying to introduce science (evolution) to Christians. Yes to our view she sugarcoated it, but that is needed if science is to be accepted by these people with bible in their blood!!

[@manzar9121]

i could very well say that there is a billion other things why this planet is unique and i dont want to list them here, but the moment i claim earth to be special or non-special, it's my bias, NOT SCIENCE! science nowhere can show if anything's special or not, its a human term not universal!.we give meaning to the facts which science should provide, and there is no reason whatsoever to say one particular opinion is better than the other...its same as saying that chocolate is better than vanilla!

[@steeltip2]

more idiocy from this crazy woman. You sir are erudite and thoughtful.

[@quazifnatik]

Why just 57 views?!? O_O

[@steeltip2]

neil was great and funny...

[@SomethingSea1]

@quazifnatik I believe you mean 115 views.

[@b.alexanderjohnstone9774]

Eugenics?

[@michaelgoudis344]

No young people in the audience. I do not know how much advertising this symposium had, but i find it disturbing nonetheless.

[@nneevveerrmmoorree]

Dont bother Arguing with the faithful ....you only make them clutch their foolish beliefs more tightly. And there is only the temporary satisfaction of making them look stupid....because before long you dont care what the hell they believe. They are allowed to be irrational and too lazy to research scientific answers

[@Angelmaker44]

The existence of (a) God is NOT a hypothesis. You cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. A Hypothesis is something which you can make predictions about, which can be tested, which you can work towards to confirming or falsifying. Saying that "God" is a valid hypothesis is the same as saying that the flying spaghettimonster is a valid hypothesis. Hostile environment? My ass... Seen Dawkins documentation about religion where the preacher is about to go violent on him? THAT is a host env.

[@JustinRocket1]

Not at all. I don't defend teaching Creationism in science class. But, to toss out all of religion as detritus is a greivous error. That's all I'm saying. So, I think there's a mid point. Personally, I'd be excited to see religion taught in public schools, but from a social sciences perspective.

[@ChaineYTXF]

Religions.

[@briannewman9285]

@@ChaineYTXF certainly. My point wasn’t to restrict such teaching to one religion, but rather to refer to religion as a collective noun.

[@ChaineYTXF]

@@briannewman9285 😊

[@erich1940]

NO Tyson - when we think science has to be sold for profit or influence we lose credibility - it must be cold - that doesn't mean others can't marvel and wonder upon it...but the science and by extension those doing the work must remain as news people should removed and objective in presenting the facts..not their opinion or agenda through emotion or propaganda.

[@SaintBrick]

+Eric H Interesting: you do know that dawkins and harris sell books right?

[@manzar9121]

same goes for the tyson's argument, not a lot of this universe is habitable, therefore the universe is not fine tuned...i mean, is he even a scientist or what? the very fact that most of the universe is not habitable "makes this planet unique", isn't it, if not then what's the definition of "unique"?? and the argument was not "whether the universe is habitable or not", the argument was "the constants of this universe lie within the life permitting range", and that's a known "fact"!!...jesus!

[@IAmNomadical]

Really? Is science actually right? Did she actually just say that?

[@arbaje240]

Haha, I was thinking to write the same comment.....

[@JustinRocket1]

This was a hostile environment, which was hypocritical since scientists should be open to hypothesis, at least until they can be tested. What I've seen of atheists is that they aren't as scientific as they like to think they are. Take, for example, her point of dignifying the emotional. That has tremendous value. But, all of her words fell on the close-minded.

[@fleafrier1]

Oh, and I dearly wish the comment was crazy uncle instead of aunt, so that the analogy could be taken for what it was, and not diluted and obscured by someone who took offense at the gender of the imaginary person referenced.

[@noquarteratall780]

fleafrier1 Perhaps Dawkins had a "crazy aunt" of his own in mind. I view the problem as someone being so easily offended that they take a comment criticizing religion as one meant to offend women.

[@alibigham1000]

biggest lost for science is when scientists talk religion ... shame on you

[@jrhunter007]

In 1998 Jonathan became Joan. I care not which gender he/she chooses, but I see this scientist's cling to religion as a fail.

[@peterbarker8249]

..how do you gain a B...🤔 ....inner thee... . beginning.... ...and thee again beginning..

[@IAmNomadical]

Why should we make the extra effort to coddle people who can't tell what is accurate? These people believe in invisible wizards in the sky.

[@gedoug]

Yeah, irritating uh. I know it irritates Neil. I heard him castigate a young women for asking a question in which the third, sixth, and, eighth phrase was uh.

[@grahamreid2512]

well said richard , look this woman know;s time;s up 4 the church;s and religion , ur belief;s r 4u if that;s what u think , not 2b pushed on some one else , she is so insecure

[@medalist305]

why is there no Asians?

[@Mark-Tyson]

Blanket statement... not back by evidence other than opinion.

[@TomTeaza]

I, um, think, uh, that, uh, she, um, is, ah, feeling, uhh, rather, um, intimidated, uhh, by, uh, her, um, fellow, uh, panel, um, members.

[@MrAgnosticman]

She doesn't seem prepared at all, she makes a couple good points but her points are muted from her inability to speak in front of an audience.

[@ImAwakelN]

'She' is also a transsexual. I'm very confused why they would bring 'her' to speak at this event of distinguished scientists.. The only conclusion I can come to is they wanted to make a fool out of 'her'.

[@MrAgnosticman]

I really don't think whether she is transsexual or not had anything to do with it. My guess to why they brought her to the discussion was to get more than one type of view to the panel. If you just let one type of thought come to your events of any discussion whatever it may be, you run the risk of being called out on trying to have a one way discussion where everyone agrees that their view to be truth without any opposition. I always like to have other people from different walks of life join in my discussions because then I can hear their views and believes. I feel more satisfied debating my views with someone else than having a huge talk on why we are the best and the rest can suck it.

[@MrAgnosticman]

And that what science IS. It's a peer view society based on discovery and understanding. We all check each others work for flaws and inconsistencies so we don't get something wrong.

[@ImAwakelN]

MrAgnosticman I don't disagree with you and I am very aware of what the scientific process constitutes. All Joan did was offer a rather irrelevant and ill-prepared speech on why we need to dumb down science for religious idiots. She spoke in a very condescending way (which Richard pointed out) about the general public being unable to grasp evolution without the Bible. I found it to be redundant and ineffective.

[@MrAgnosticman]

I think maybe then they had a hard time finding people willing to come to talk from that side of the argument. One of the things she said that I agreed with is to use something that the other side likes to get evolution across to them, using a harsh approach will only turn people off to the idea and make people like science less than they already do. Maybe it doesn't make a whole lot of sense using the bible to explain evolution but if it works for them then why not. I personally don't think religion should influence science in any way.

[@khushbuubana3917]

Sam Harris @ 1:03:38 and 1:10:13

[@bruceliu1657]

what is interesting is the science section in anythink libraries is about the size of a watermelon

[@razonyciencia842]

Man, Dawkins is harsh... :)

[@robzrob]

Good thing too. I'm 'fed up' with these religious types.