Keep in mind, this is the same keen political observer who fell for Sam Harris’s ridiculous Red State argument because he didn’t know that American states are divided into counties:
If anyone is in doubt that Dawkins is a staunch liberal, take a quick look at his Twitter feed. On it, he describes Mitt Romney as an “awful Republican,” and — this might sound familiar
— disdains every Republican candidate and president since Eisenhower.
He constantly, almost obsessively, retweets Barack Obama’s campaign
missives. He approvingly quotes
Obama’s infamous line about those who “cling to guns or religion or
antipathy to people who aren’t like them” and contrasts it favorably
with Romney’s NRA membership, which he characterizes thus:
“No dang libruls gonna take away mah constitootional raht to carry a
gun. Pow! Bang! Weehaaar! Good shoot’n pardner.” Indeed, so partisan is
the man that he even entertained the absurd dual conspiracy theories
that Bush cheated in his debates with a radio (it’s “undeniable,” apparently) and Romney with a handkerchief in his.This is a shame, but it is not a surprise. I’ve very much enjoyed
Dawkins’s books on science, biology, and evolution, and I enjoyed The God Delusion,
too. The lattermost, however, made it clear that whatever genius
Richard Dawkins has for science does not extend into politics or current
affairs. (His passage on how to set up the “ideal society” is one of
the most excrutiatingly infantile things I’ve read.) If anybody could
profit from Thomas Sowell’s advice that experts should stay in their
fields, it is Richard Dawkins.On the lecture circuit, Dawkins likes to explain to his audiences
that faith corrupts thinking people. Alas, his love affair with Barack
Obama appears to have proven him correct.
Charles Cooke fails to follow the logic to its obvious conclusion. Richard Dawkins does not possess any genius at all. I’ve read his books on science, biology, and evolution too, and while I find him to be a generally engaging writer, I find his reasoning to be ever bit as abysmally bad with regards to science, biology, and evolution as it is to US politics. Keep in mind that of the two “scientific” concepts for which he is most famous, there is no material evidence for the one and the other is looking increasingly dubious.