Dawkins vs. Harry Potter

Posted on October 28, 2008
Filed Under Religion, Science |

I’m sure you’ve seen this. But it kind of boggles the mind. Richard Dawkinds plans to find out if stories like Harry Potter have a pernicious effect on children. For some reason this immediately reminds me of all those people talking about the evils of comic books.

The prominent atheist is stepping down from his post at Oxford University to write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in “anti-scientific” fairytales.


“I think it is anti-scientific – whether that has a pernicious effect, I don’t know…”

OK, while I disagree with much of his heated rhetoric on religion I can at least understand where he as an atheist is coming from. But children’s books that have a fantasy element? Come on.

If he merely is writing a book using myths as a vehicle to teach science then of course that’s fine. It reminds me of the whole Pop Culture and Philosophy series that is so popular (although I find most of those books a mix of how well they do this). There’s also the series Physics and Pop Culture with things like the Physics of Superman. So it’s not that new an idea.

On the other hand Dawkins has a history of excess in all this.

Comments

2 Responses to “Dawkins vs. Harry Potter”
1 Michael Dorfman on October 29th, 2008 1:04 am

I’m curious as to what is really going on here.

One the one hand, as you point out, Dawkins tends towards the extreme.
On the other hand, he seems to be starting out from an eminently reasonable position: “I haven’t read Harry Potter, I have read Pullman who is the other leading children’s author that one might mention and I love his books. I don’t know what to think about magic and fairy tales.”

If he really doesn’t know what to think, and the plan is to sit down and read the books and explore the implications, it sounds like an interesting project. If he’s already convinced of his conclusion in advance, well, there’s nothing remotely scientific about it, is there?

If he’s already convinced of his conclusion in advance, well, there’s nothing remotely scientific about it, is there?

Seems like he’s already pretty much convinced.

Let me put it this way:

If I said ““I think Dawkins is a mean person – whether that means he’s a serial shoplifter who kicks puppies, I don’t know… I haven’t met Stephen Dawkins, I have met Christopher Hitchens who is the other leading atheist that one might mention and he’s not a serial shoplifter who kicks puppies. I don’t know what to think Dawkins. He just may be a serial shoplifter who kicks puppies.”

- well, that would hardly sound like I was being fair and unbiased up front or that I had purely scientific motives from the start.

Coupled with his claim that calling a child a Muslim or a Christian is child abuse, it seems like he’s already made up his mind.

(and no - I haven’t actually met Hitchens. That was a hypothetical sentence).

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