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The Enemies of Reason. Submitted by Marcus on Sun, 2007-08-12 09:11.
Richard Dawkins is hosting a new 2-part series on UK channel 4 from this Monday called "The Enemies of Reason". The show promises to debunk various popular superstitious nonsense such as Astrology and Homeopathy. I wonder if he read my FreeRad review of "the God Delusion" with his new emphasis on reason? I will post video here if the show if it becomes available online. From the Channel 4 website: "There are two ways of looking at the world – through faith and superstition or through the rigours of logic, observation and evidence – in other words, through reason. Reason and a respect for evidence are precious commodities, the source of human progress and our safeguard against fundamentalists and those who profit from obscuring the truth."
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Video for part 2
is here.
I think taxes should not be funding science based medicine either. Given that, two points in favor of leaving alternative medicine alone:
P.S: It is definitely a good series.
Episode Two.
Episode Two focussed on so-called "alternative" medicine. Not as "punchy" as the first episode I thought, but still good.
The two best bits are when Dawkins gets riled about "tax-payer money" being spent on homeopathy. The other good part is when Dawkins says that he tries to be open-minded but that "too much open-mindedness can make your brain fall-out".
Indeed I did.
It was great. If it's anything like his doco on organised religion the 2nd half will be even better as well!
Geez you're fast Matty!
I hope you enjoyed the programme as much as I did.
Part two is aired next monday. Should be good
beat you to the punch!
here's part 1
Take that Marcus!
Thanks for pointing it out
Might have missed it but for your timely post. Great to see a sensible programme in primetime.
Dawkins certainly has a talent in communicating a reasoning approach to life without coming across too avuncular.
I just watched the first episode...
It was very enjoyable.
The best parts were when Dawkins explained that as our brains are always looking for patterns for predicting such things as food or predators - superstition may simply be false pattern-recognition that becomes reinforced through chance events and people proceed to delude themselves that there is something mystical or spiritual about it, rather then accepting that some-things just happen in reality by chance that they may not understand.
Another good part is when Dawkins laments the decrease in the popularity of science in schools due to the new touchy-feely post-modern rationalism whereby all points of view are supposed to be equally valid.
I will post the video when it comes available.