Talk:Views of Richard Dawkins

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Citations[edit]

Callinus, a statement such as, "He had meant mostly that the molestation he had experienced in his childhood, less severe a form of abuse than rape or sodomy, would not have been thought of as severe within the standards of the era in which it occurred" must be followed by a citation. I do not accept your assertion that, "These are contextually covered by the refs in the first part". That seems to be a made-up explanation for not properly citing controversial material. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 07:05, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That was added 23 nov. That sentence can go out. -- Callinus (talk) 14:13, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Religious Views[edit]

Why are Dawkins religious views in an article about his political views? If there are no objections I will remove the section.. Apollo The Logician (talk) 21:16, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Dawkins has religious views. He does, however, have views on religion as it relates to politics, including where religion encroaches into politics (there is a lot of overlap). When it comes to matters of secularization, religion in the public sphere - like public education, separation of church & state, etc., there is much to be said about religion here. But that section (and the rest of the article) can use some improvement. (There is a section header called "Political views" in an article about political views? Really?) Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 02:06, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's a lot of material that doesn't relate to politics. Apollo The Logician (talk) 15:21, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Insufficient detail[edit]

This is a good start, but we need a lot more detail, probably best done by creating some sub-articles off this one. At very least we should have, "Political Views of Richard Dawkins Expressed On a Thursday", "Political Views of Richard Dawkins Beginning with the Letter H", and "Political Views of Richard Dawkins that have Resulted in Him being Chastized on Twitter." I don't think we *need*, not right now anyway, "Richard Dawkins' Wooly Jumpers and how they Influence his Political Views" but I don't see any harm in getting it started. For sure we'll want it fairly soon. Alternatively, we could get a clue, delete even this silliness, and stop making Wikipedia look like a kids' playground. 2605:6000:F343:F300:815D:3E24:7385:EF1D (talk) 03:02, 14 August 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:6000:F343:F300:859C:BF4B:9078:5D9A (talk) [reply]

For the sarcasm challenged, I am making a serious point. In my opinion---one I'm willing, here on Talk, to have challenged *without* then egregiously deleting anyone I disagree with---this page about Dawkins is silly. Otherwise, where does the drilling into details about something already covered on a primary page end? Such drillings, of the sort typically indicated by the {{Main Article}} tag, are best when they are on topics that while directly related to the primary article, are in themselves of sufficient independent conceptual integrity and significance that they are essentially not merely a sub topic but rather a primary topic in their own right.

In Dawkins' case, an example is Meme. But X's Views On Y is unlikely to be. Otherwise, should there be a page on Dawkins' views on the public understanding of science? What about one on Trump's views on real estate? Even Martin_Heidegger_and_Nazism is not an article about his views per se, but about the overall notable topic of how the great philosopher could be regarded as so closely associated with such a heinous regime? Going the other way, why here is there only one page, ostensibly, as Apollo The Logician (talk) pointed out, on politics. Either the name needs changed to include Religion and Social, or we need it split into three pages, or just two pages but with Social properly categorized *under* Political. But any of those approaches merely strengthens that point that this way lies madness. Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia, not the repository of all facts in the Universe. 2605:6000:F343:F300:F6:1532:AD7C:84F6 (talk) 18:09, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have long wondered why this article exists. Dawkins is not a politician or a commentator on politics. Evolutionary biology and religion yes, but not politics. It looks like people who dislike Dawkins creating a coatrack to display anything negative they can find.Charles (talk) 21:41, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

When I deleted your previous comment it was not personal censorship but simply following policy: your comment was a rant but suggested no specific way to improve the article ("Do not use the talk page as a forum or soapbox for discussing the topic: the talk page is for discussing how to improve the article, not vent your feelings about it"). I will now leave the thread be, because more precisions have been added and deleting or closing it would interfere with an ongoing discussion. As someone who admires Dawkins, I didn't find that the article was an attack piece. There have been improvements to make the article more neutral such as here. We could say that this article is part of a compromise: people want to insert a lot of undue weight criticism at Richard Dawkins. This articles allows to address some of those contentious topics. I do agree that the article could generally be improved. When incidents are very notable and have wide coverage in sources, they often require at least some mention in the encyclopedia; care must be taken to represent those incidents properly. Thanks, —Paleo Neonate – 22:36, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, this article exists because people like to use Wikipedia to express their indignation that Dawkins is more famous than them and says things they don't agree with. After a couple of years of trying to put WP:UNDUE factoids into Richard Dawkins, this article was created to provide space for commentary usually not based on secondary sources. The argument that preceded this page's creation was here. Johnuniq (talk) 02:29, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Economic policy[edit]

While the article details Professor Dawkin's views on a variety of issues, it doesn't touch on economic policy, which stroke me as a rather conspicuous omission, considering that many would consider it the most important field of public policy. If anyone is aware of any sources about the question or how to find them, it would probably be a valuable contribution. 77.125.146.216 (talk) 22:51, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Dawkins is not an economist or a politician so his views on those subjects are really not notable. I do not see why this article even exists.Charles (talk) 08:55, 24 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Dawkins pushes for stuff.... that's why this article exists. He accepts the Western model of free markets, but sometimes is open towards public health and social benefits, but not in an extreme leftist way. He's not the average American who doesn't care about fellow citizens; neither the average Swede... but a little bit closer to the Swede. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2149:845E:C500:B1B4:80A7:4221:7ED6 (talk) 23:41, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Lead fails to justify article[edit]

It's highly unusual for a person to have a page like this, separate from their basic BLP.

Here is the present lead:

Richard Dawkins is an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and writer. Dawkins himself has stated that his political views are left-leaning. However, many of Dawkins's political statements have created controversy even among left-wing and atheist communities.

In no shape whatsoever does this lead justify why Dawkins would be the subject of a detailed page like this one.

Worst still, the "even among" language directly presumes the reader already knows where Dawkins stands in western culture and why they're here.

Not a whisper about how Dawkins is the the single most successful published author in popularizing evolutionary theory of his generation (I can't even think of a competitor), that's he deliberately taken a prominent and outspoken role in defense of atheism (and particularly in opposition to teaching Creation Science in schools), that he was extremely public University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008, or that he's legendary for his lucid, acerbic style in the Oxford debating tradition (which also conveys all the trappings of British white male colonial privilege for those who care about such categories). — MaxEnt 01:27, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Dead link in citation[edit]

Citation #38 ("Why Richard Dawkins Was Booted from the NECSS Conference". Friendly Atheist.) is a dead link. 68.84.148.80 (talk) 15:36, 5 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]