[Tubby Isaacs]

Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist, not a "professional atheist".

He was when he wrote The Extended Phenotype. He's long been a polemicist, and a not particularly pleasant one. It's been quite the decline.

[Abernathy]

Cannot disagree more. Dawkins is, and remains, one of the foremost and most pre-eminent evolutionary biologists of our time. . He is a “polemicist” only in as much as a small proportion of his writing has been given over to criticism of the redundancy and absurdity of religious faith/belief. Certainly if you asked him, the last thing he’d describe himself as is a polemicist.

However, if he is to be described as such, you could not wish to meet a more pleasant polemicist. He is courtly and courteous, and duly respectful of tradition - though rightly and properly intolerant of intellectual absurdity and ready to respond to robust debate in kind.

“Quite the decline” is not only wildly inaccurate, but somewhat insulting. I’ll credit it to you as, hopefully, unintentional.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I've seen him lecture, he's indeed very amiable.

Of course, I don't mean cognitive decline. But I think the quality of his public engagements has declined. He's lined up with Rowling, for instance. It's not uncommon for that to happen among emeritus professors.

His career has had different phases, broadly speaking. The first was original scientific theorizing, the Selfish Gene, the Extended Phenotype etc, and he was fantastically readable even here. Then there was the "public understanding of science" stuff, where he specialized more in established stuff which he sought to explain, often with brilliant metaphors that almost felt like an original theory in themselves. I love both of these phases. Then there was a phase where he was closer to a French-style public philosopher. I'm not particularly keen on this, and there's where he spends too much time now.

[Abernathy]

Well, that’s a view. I don’t agree, but it is a view. As for his current “phase”, the guy is 84 years old now. I think he’s earned the right to spend his time as he now sees as most productive and valuable.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fair enough. "Phase" sounds a bit disrespectful, like I'm talking about a teenager having a Marillion phase or something. I didn't intend that. Perhaps thinking in terms of his career evolving would be more appropriate. I don't know what the right word would be.

It's a wonderful career he's had, he's well entitled to do what he wants. But I don't think the public philosopher particularly suits him. I'll give you one example from The God Delusion, where he talks about some C of E guy (he's warmer towards the C of E than other religions, as I am too, probably for the same reasons) who has a very sophisticate argument in favour of God's existence. I was thinking, great, let's hear it and let's hear you take him on. Yet he doesn't. I can see why he wanted to attack the more common and much cruder arguments, but I was left unsatisfied by that.

[Abernathy]

Who was the guy with the very sophisticated argument for the existence of god (and what was it )? I don’t recall that from The God Delusion, and I’ve read it at least twice.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I can't remember, but it was someone from the C of E, I'm pretty sure.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

" I don't infer anything bad about her from it."

Depends on whether or not you think low moral standards are bad.

[Youngian]

A man of Dawkings's academic achievement who wants to engage in public theological debate should have something more profound to contribute than all religious observance is no different to believing Santa comes down the chimney at Christmas.

[Tubby Isaacs]

" I don't infer anything bad about her from it."

Depends on whether or not you think low moral standards are bad.

I infer lots of bad things about her moral standards generally. But I don't infer she's bad from the fact she used to be religious and isn't any more.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I infer her badness from the fact that she used to be religious and isn't any more - for a very superficial reason.