February 5, 2007

• TRANSCRIPT:

  Host: “Hello, and welcome to the program this morning! We’re privileged to have with us today Dr. Terry Tommyrot, who’s going to be talking to us about his latest book, The Dawkins Delusion. Thank you for joining us, Dr. Tommyrot; it’s a pleasure to speak to you again.”

  Dr. T: “Thank you, Richard. It’s good to be here.”

  Host: “Now, Dr. Tommyrot, you are famous for declaring in no uncertain terms that you are not a believer in Richard Dawkins — you don’t think he really exists. Now why is that?”

  Dr. T: “Well, I think it’s so simple, Richard. You shouldn’t ask sensible people to believe in something unless you’ve got evidence for it. If there is a Dawkins, why hasn’t he shown himself to me?”

  Host: “In your opinion, then, are people who believe in Dawkins just a little bit dim?”
  

  Dr. T: “Well, in a way, I can understand the mistake. Simple people pick up a handful of books claiming to be written by Dawkins, and since a Dawkins seems to be a sufficient account for how they got to be there, for the similarities in all the texts and so on, they stick with common sense and fallaciously conclude that this Dawkins, which they have never seen with their own eyes, actually exists.”

  Host: “Of course, some people do claim to have seen Richard Dawkins and even shaken his hand.”

  Dr. T: “Yes, if you can believe them.”

  Host: “You think they’re all lying?”

  Dr. T: “I didn’t say that. Of course there’s no shortage of liars in the world, and undoubtedly some of these people who claim to have had these ‘Richard Dawkins experiences’ are deliberately telling fairy stories; but you know the human brain is a very, very complicated thing, and conjuring up an imaginary Dawkins would be child’s play for it. Christopher Robin had Binker, I had the slimy custard man…I suspect that something very similar is happening with people who claim to have seen a Richard Dawkins, or heard his voice, or felt his touch. But the books aren’t evidence for the existence or Richard Dawkins, either — no, of course not! As a scientist, it is no answer to the problem of ‘where did this enema rubbish come from?’ to stick a label on it that says ‘Richard Dawkins.’ Each book is a rearrangement of only twenty-six letters. Even a child should be able to see that with a little random shuffling of vowels and consonants on a computer, one can arrive at all sorts of patterns like that. Working out how each letter got into the place it did is the business of science. Claiming that Dawkins did it puts an end to an enquiry that promises to give us a full and satisfying explanation of how these books came to be — without the need for invoking a discredited, superstitious, Dawkins-of-the-gap type hypothesis.”

  Host: “But some people might point to the fact that the letters are arranged in definite patterns, spelling out sophisticated chains of arguments, and that this is a clear mark of intelligence, not random accident.”

  Dr. T: “If there was some kind of intelligence behind these books then, judging by their contents, it was obviously a pretty poor one. We would not really lose much worth having by not believing in Richard Dawkins or in what his books have to say. The scientific view of the matter is beautifully simple and invigorating: the works of Richard Dawkins are nothing but a bunch of fortuitously ordered As, Bs, and Cs, recombined from previous patterns. There is the Latin alphabet; there are the nonsense poems of Edward Lear, and there are the works of Richard Dawkins, and the one developed from the other through a series of random typing errors! …Though admittedly, we haven’t got all the details just now.”

  Host: “You admit that science hasn’t got the answers to where they come from, then.”

  Dr. T: “I haven’t got the answers; science is working on it.”
  

  Host: “But can you be sure that science will get all the answers?”

  Dr. T: “If science doesn’t have the answers to where they came from, then sure as hell Richard Dawkins’ religion doesn’t! If a Dawkins designed the books, then who designed the Dawkins? Just tell me that!”

  Host: “Moving on now, Dr. Tommyrot. In your book, you have described the Dawkins revealed in the literature as an ostentatious, acrimonious, supercilious, pusillanimous, calumnious, censorious, vituperative, querulous, embittered, obsessive, and bombastic bully.”
  

  Dr. T: “Yes. That seems fair enough to me.”

  Host: “Now some people might say that that’s going a bit over the top.”

  Dr. T: “Read you Richard Dawkins if you think that. Just read it. Read A Devil’s Chaplain. Aside from finding no evidence whatsoever for an intelligence hiding somewhere beneath the paragraphs and the mystical realm of blind faith, you will discover, on the other hand, plenty of intolerance and bigotry in every chapter. All of these very good reasons to have nothing whatsoever to do with this Richard Dawkins religion.”

  Host: “Dr. Tommyrot, you have described this widespread belief in Richard Dawkins as a ‘dangerous delusion.’ But what’s especially dangerous about people believing in the existence of Richard Dawkins if it makes them happy?”

  Dr. T: “Well, for one fairly obvious reason, these people believe any book which has Dawkins’ name on the cover, and these books say a lot of very silly things. Belief in Dawkins has been responsible for filling the internet with nonsequiters, caricatures, straw men, and vitriol. Dawkins’ disciples are militant, they are organized, and they’re out to convert you and me. Yes, I would certainly call this a dangerous delusion. If there is a Richard Dawkins, he has a lot to answer for.”

  Host: “In summary, then, Dr. Tommyrot, what would you say is your main objection to the Richard Dawkins belief?”

  Dr. T: “My main objection is simply this: People are following a delusional Dawkins who is telling them what to think and believe, when they should be following me.”
  
  Host: “Well, our time’s up. Thank you very much, Dr. Tommyrot, for joining us this morning to talk about your latest book, The Dawkins Delusion, published by Banter & Twaddle, and available on our website.”

  • 10:46 am
  • 13 Comments