Peter Higgs criticises Richard Dawkins over anti-religious 'fundamentalism

[cbayer]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/dec/26/peter-higgs-richard-dawkins-fundamentalism

Higgs boson theorist says he agrees with those who find Dawkins' approach to dealing with believers 'embarrassing'

Alok Jha, science correspondent
The Guardian, Wednesday 26 December 2012 13.58 EST


Prof Peter Higgs said he was relieved not to win the Nobel physics prize this year. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

As public disagreements go, few can have boasted such heavy-hitting antagonists.

On one side is Richard Dawkins, the celebrated biologist who has made a second career demonstrating his epic disdain for religion. On the other is the theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, who this year became a shoo-in for a future Nobel prize after scientists at Cern in Geneva showed that his theory about how fundamental particles get their mass was correct.

Their argument is over nothing less than the coexistence of religion and science.

Higgs has chosen to cap his remarkable 2012 with another bang by criticising the "fundamentalist" approach taken by Dawkins in dealing with religious believers.

more at link

[rug]

1. Good for him.

[Shadowflash]

2. Hahahaha. Really?

Please.

Anti-religious 'fundamentalism'?

Is someone who doesn't belive in unicorns an anti-unicorn 'fundamentalist'?

Is someone who doesn't buy into bigfoot an anti-bigfoot 'fundamentalist'?


So someone who doesn't buy into fairy tales and mythology is a 'fundamentalist'?

I think 'realist' is the word they are looking for.

[broiles]

3. Thank you. I wish we could rec responses, cause this deserves a rec.

[rug]

4. You may be right.

A better word is asshole.

[cbayer]

9. I believe he was referring to Dawkins, not you.

[rug]

10. Feel free to wear it but the reference is to Dawkins.

[Shadowflash]

12. Cool. Sorry.

I completely mis-read that.

[Angry Dragon]

13. really poor taste

[rug]

21. I agree.

Dawkins actually said child sex abuse is "yucky".

A true asshole.

[cleanhippie]

22. Hold up a sec, rug. You call Dawkins an asshole for using too soft a word for child abuse,

much of which he talks about happened in the church YOU support, yet fail to condemn that abuse yourself with strong words right here?

[rug]

23. No, I call him an asshole because he is an asshole.

I am compelled by the evidence.

That statement of his is but one of the data. He is so monomaniacal when it comes to anything religious that he's become tone deaf and a parody, so much so that, in his zeal to attack a religion, he terms child sexual abuse as something "yucky" that children will get over, much worse that growing up in a religion.

Tu quoque, as you know, is a fallacy.

He is an asshole.

[okasha]

14. Actually, I think the people who use "fundamentalist"

for anti-theists are attempting to avoid the word "fanatic."

[cleanhippie]

20. Use whatever word continues to make you feel superior to them all.

Either way, you win!

[cbayer]

5. Dawkins describes himself as an anti-theist and many who

wish to promote the further acceptance of atheism and causes like separation issues are distancing themselves from him.

There are all kinds of fundamentalists and, IMHO, Dawkins is one.

[trotsky]

11. IMHO, you're a fundamentalist, cbayer.

You promote the superiority of your viewpoint over all others, to the point of demeaning and marginalizing those who disagree with you by labeling them as you see fit.

[immoderate]

6. Higgs doesn't sound as confrontational as you characterize him.

And he does agree with Dawkins on the nature of reality.

--imm

[cbayer]

7. It's not my article and I am not characterizing Higgs at all.

He agrees with Dawkins on many things, I am sure. But he does not support his approach.

[immoderate]

15. Some of which is a sense of civility...

...and the rest is accounted for by the bow to agnosticism, which they both ascribe to, but with different results.

Higgs seems ever the gentleman. And Dawkins is more assertive. Higgs seems to deplore the confrontation.

--imm

[cbayer]

16. I think Higgs sees the confrontation as counter-productive, something with which I agree.

[skepticscott]

17. Yes, those confrontations

during the American civil rights movement sure were counter-productive, weren't they? Why didn't those uppity blacks just go along to get along and mind their place? The racist white south would have come around in a few hundred more years if they'd just STFU and given things a chance to happen peacefully.

[dimbear]

18. Higgs is one of the very few atheists whose name is a synonym for God.

It's a special honor, and seems to have gentled him down.

[skepticscott]

19. Is Higgs anything but a tone troll here?

Does he have anything remotely original or insightful to contribute? He simply rehashes some of the same criticisms that have been directed at Dawkins many times already, and answered. The author is apparently too lazy for any of that, and would rather just launch a roundabout argument from authority and hope it sticks, at least so he can say he's met his deadline.

[rug]

24. And of course, here is PZ's predictable response.

What I learned from this interview is mainly that Peter Higgs is an intellectual coward who retreats from his convictions in the face of potential social disapproval, and will cheerfully join in the mob in kicking a fellow atheist. He should be…embarrassed.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/12/27/no-one-should-be-embarrassed-to-speak-the-truth/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freethoughtblogs%2Fpharyngula+%28FTB%3A+Pharyngula%29

The man who spent decades tracking down a fundamental particle of everything is being called an intellectual coward by -who?

[cbayer]

25. What an ugly post by Myers.

While Higgs calls for a recognition of different kinds of theists, Myers just perpetuates the stereotypes. Nice bunch of bigotry there.

[okasha]

27. And remarkably like the comments of a religious fundy,

one of whose brethren has "gone over the wall."

If it's not fundamentalism--or fantaticism; the readily offended may take their pick--to declare that an atheist's first and strongest loyalty should be to his fellow atheists, I don't know what is.

[cbayer]

28. Exactly. He has turned on the brethren and betrayed the flock!!

[okasha]

26. By the guy who thought his adolescent attention-getting stunt

was brave, courageous and death-defying blasphemy, that's who.