Richard Dawkins has vowed to “use every one of the prohibited words” that scientists have called to be phased out because they are no longer “inclusive”. The Telegraph has the story.
On Tuesday, academics working in ecology and evolutionary biology called for the avoidance of words such as male, female, man, woman, mother, father, alien, invasive, exotic and race.
Instead, they encouraged the use of terms such as “sperm-producing” or “egg producing” or “XY/XX individual” to avoid “emphasising hetero-normative views”.
But Prof. Dawkins, the eminent evolutionary biologist and author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion branded the suggestions ridiculous.
“The only possible response is contemptuous ridicule,” he told the Telegraph. “I shall continue to use every one of the prohibited words. I am a professional user of the English language. It is my native language. I am not going to be told by some teenage version of Mrs Grundy which words of my native language I may or may not use.”
Other experts also branded the alternatives “absurd” and argued they could cause confusion in scientific fields.
They also pointed out that the terms “egg producing” and “sperm producing” were simply synonyms for male and female, and continued to confirm that sex is binary.
Prof. Karol Sikora, a cancer expert, said: “I certainly do not agree and such language will not be appearing in any of my scientific work.”
Commenting on the research on GB News, Francis Foster, the comedian, said: “As always with these things it’s completely meaningless, it’s going to obfuscate what we are actually talking about and it’s laughable, it’s beyond parody.”
The EEB Language Project, which was launched in this month’s Trends in Ecology and Evolution journal, is compiling a repository of “problematic words” that have been identified by U.S. and Canadian scientists as harmful and it suggests alternatives.
Part of me wonders if we’re not falling into a trap here by publicising this project in what is otherwise an obscure journal. Still, it seems worth pushing back on woke gobbledegook as this stuff has a habit of finding its way into speech and behaviour codes before you know it.
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Almost all of this woke nonsense is coming from children who’ve been groomed by delusional lefties. Time for the adults to say ‘NO’.
It’s ‘Lord of the Flies’ only with adults not wanting to take charge and just encouraging the children.
There is no noticeable difference, except size, between adults and children. Since the 1980 children have not progressed emotionally and intellectually beyond the age of two.
Dawkins is confronting the consequences of his actions.
He showed his arrogance and at the same time his naivety in his book “The God Delusion” in which he must have thought he was being terribly clever comparing the belief in god to the belief in the flying spaghetti monster.
He failed to consider properly what useful functions religions play in society beyond what he thinks are childish attachments to god figures. Well now he knows. A society untethered from any religion will… produce a religion. And this one wants to stop him from using words he likes and tell him how he wants to think.
Religions clearly go through authoritarian phases and they need to be “tamed” – for lack of a better word. Christianity in Britain in the late 20th century was completely tamed and for the most part a harmless institution giving some stability to our society. Dawkins did his bit to destroy what was left of it. He can now deal with what has grown in its place.
Another example of a clever person who is actually a bit stupid.
There are hundreds of gods, but don’t worry! – yours is the best!
There are hundreds of theological and atheistic beliefs, Marcus, but don’t worry – yours is the best!
Atheism is not a belief, it is an absence of belief.
Atheism is a faith that there is no G(g)od(s).
“Dawkins is confronting the consequences of his actions”
The idea that he is in any way responsible for the collapse of Christianity in the UK is ridiculous.
Western societies have created their own religions, or idols at least: climate alarmism, diversity, identity politics, safetyism, etc.. They call them “the science” but as we know there is little if any science to support them. So they have become systems of beliefs instead and are being enforced in the way cults control their members, through the use of tyranny. We are all paying a terrible price for it too.
And yet the most hated of dictators is happy to state that “mothers are women and fathers are men”. A statement that our own politicians refute or at least shy away from, on the grounds of multiple phobias or isms.
This is beyond Orwellian, it is literally straight out of The Giver by Lois Lowry.
They called it “Precision of Language”.
Ditto for Brave New World.
Good on Dawkins. What ridiculous, disgusting and insulting terminology though. He is a controversial figure and I don’t agree with him on everything, for instance, did he not famously say that babies with Down’s Syndrome should be aborted? Anyway, with this farcical nonsense we are on the same page.
As an evolutionary biologist, engaging in a debate about religion, the question was put to him whether religion served an evolutionary purpose and he answered yes. Asked then what it was, he said he didn’t know. Which is fair enough.
But it didn’t seem to make him reconsider his militant advocacy for atheism. Seems like quite a few scientists have a proclivity for just going for it and worrying about the consequences later. Mainly those who stray beyond scientific enquiry and into policy making.
The collapse of the C of E is down to the leadership of the C of E, not to people like Dawkins.
I have a very un PC and non woke response to Orwellian garbage such as this:
F#ck Off!
Let’s just ban communication. Lot easier.
Could this be a wind up?
Hi Stewart and all on this thread within a thread. I gave up my religion when I was 15 or 16 and was for many years a Dawkins fanboy. I was active on his website in the early days when he used to actually add his comments below the line. I’m still an atheist and I have not found much sense in any of the new forms of religion that many of our friends in our loose sceptic alliance hold dear. But as Stewart says, religion and the CofE in particular have “useful functions … in society” and I have come to regret the loss of an institution that, for a while, on some questions, stood in opposition to government. In the old days, we had the government, the church, the media and the crown all competing with each other. Now the government is in complete charge … and dare I say, Heaven help us.
Richard Dawkins was the Noah Harari of his day. Rather than claiming to be on the side of Humanity, he would do well to contemplate the dystopian world that he helped create in the name of scientific rationalism and ask himself if he really is so sure there is no God to whom he will be called to give account.
The academics calling for this gibberish are most likely all Ph.Ds, a credential that increasingly demonstrates a very specific kind of stupidity.
As a devout atheist and crusader against Judaeo-Christian beliefs, Richard Dawkins finds himself swimming in a cesspool that is partly of his making. Nevertheless, I’m sure he believes that secularism is going very well.
Dawkins was also a lockdown fanatic and Force-vax ’em all enthusiast. This came on top of him already being an unpleasant person with a god delusion.
Didn’t know that (your 1st sentence).
in which case, not sure his intervention is helpful here.
one of those people whom one would be glad when/if they realise “Silence is Golden”.
I had to read and write papers on several of Dawkins’ publications for various degrees. His own fanatical scientism and ‘contemptuous ridicule’ of anything not deemed acceptable to The Science™ – often using the same emotive language as the most staunch religionists – shone through it all. Even some of the most committed atheists were embarrassed by The God Delusion. He is a True Believer right enough but it now appears that even he has his limits.
A rose by any other name is still a rose.Is a woman by any other name still a woman?