That's basically what he intimated, eg don't worry about the usual ethics (safety) approval, just get the politicians and scientists off the hook by developing a heavily uncooked product into the bodies of the trial participants via mandating...
@@geecee6320 the vaccine worked on many levels, so there’s that and apparently you don’t know anything about how mRNA vaccines work and are developed by using the word uncooked. I think your ignorance is showing.
Yes. The almighty authority. He’s stuck in that last century’s paradigm of true intellect being in pure, holy of holies, science. Very emotionally invested too. Funny how many of us others don’t think those who think themselves authorities are really all that …
@calvinlang3026 Doesn't matter what anyone knows, as long as the individual has the right to choose for himself. The problem is that academics want to force people into doing what they say (because they know best) but aren't willing to bear the consequences of the individual. I will listen, but decide for myself as long as I am the one who has to bear the consequences.
@any0n378 Yeah, everyone gets everything wrong at one time or another mate, but who would you rather listen to? Some average Joe who's always in the pub or a virologist? Just because your guess turned out to be right doesn't suddenly make you a genius on the subject. Like we should come to you during the next epidemic and seek your advice because you happened to guess correctly. Einstein got a shit load wrong, but we would all be speaking German if we had shunned him for it.
He can't admit he was wrong until he admits it to himself. He's squirming and using weaselly phrases because it would be stressful to resolve his contradictory beliefs.
@@edeledeledel5490well said. The majority of commenters here are into a herd mentality (albeit a ln alternative one) that they claim to be free of. Bizzare.
In Sweden the authorities were clear with their limited yet growing knowledge and they continually modified their recommendations accordingly. Much respect to them.
Sweden was also a much less dense country with a culture that didn't really seem to inspire drastic levels of tranmission. Comparing countries in COVID response protocol handling is pointless because of the unlimited amount of permutational outcomes that can occur.
@@user-xx7tv7cc1y that really is beside the point. No matter the country the authorities should still have been honest about the scope, limits and developing knowledge and continually have adjusted it's respons while informing the public on the grounds for it's decisions.
@@naalsoegat Absolutely very good point. Scientists /medics put all their eggs in one basket these vaccines. I do not agree with the anti vax community that they were a complete failure but they weren't a really great success either (with some very tragic outcomes) -they especially became more not so relevant during Omicron they did save many lives pre Omicron (but with tragic causalities as well)
Feel disgusted with this just like I did with Sam Harris. These people are simply fascists sympathetic to power, not the people suffering under the boot of power.
they believe in science based technocratic government, at world-wide scale; and as established scientists, they believe to be entitled to more decision making powers
Sam Harris has gone over to the dark side completely, and if you watch his recent interviews e.g. with Megyn Kelly, he seems like a completely broken man. That is the price one pays when one forfeits one's integrity. Now Sam even defends "trans 4 year olds". He's absolutely a woke fanatic and insane as they come.
I have always respected Richard Dawkins due to his championing of science as something that should always be open to questioning but on this issue his approach seems to be very unscientific. Kudos to the articulate and knowledgeable interviewer.
Attempting to compare Sweden to other countries in Europe which have several times its population, different climate and way more social interactions isn't scientific... it's ridiculous. What works in Sweden, won't necessarily work in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, etc... and vice versa.
what if I said the same about the measles vaccine " just becuse it works in the US doesnt mean it will work in sweeden due to several times less population, different climate and way fewer social interactions " Of couurse these things can be compared or if you dont like that compare to sweeden to countries of similar sizes ... you still get the same amnswer lockdowns did not work!
Richard Dawkins has always taught us to question everything and the importance of the truth, whether it is ugly or not. I am surprised how forgiving he is to govts who hid the truth from us for years!
@@grantmcphee5149 Yes and he'd go over the Bible with a fine tooth comb scorching every perceived injustice he could find in the reasoning. Yet here..... all is forgiven in the name of scientific progress.
@@msgoldberg Tbh, you don't need a fine tooth comb to find injustices in the bible eg. When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)
Dawkins, famous for criticizing religion for giving yes/no answers without concrete evidence, feels sympathy for scientists and politicians who had to give solid, concrete yes/no answers on things they didn't know about
actually it was worse than "they didn't know"; any scientific mind could have understood early in 2020 that the mortality was below 1% overall, and quite insignificant for everybody under 50 with no co-morbidities; also the devastating impact of the lockdown policies was obvious to everybody with half a brain; he's now asking us to feel more sympathetic and understanding, but keeps quiet about the WHO power grab unfolding under our eyes at this very moment how shameful, and what a pathetic individual...
@@psalm1197 I'm still waiting for somebody to ask Dawkins why he even bothers spreading his views, when as per his views, there is ultimately no point in spreading said views, in the first place.
My thanks to you for addressing the public vilification of unvaccinated people during the pandemic. I was medically advised against vaccination because of an inflammatory eye disease and found the resulting public judgements quite painful.
I pushed back on this/him almost 15 years ago and got howled at, berated, harrassed and bullied. Those people are very quiet now. But not one apology lol
When I was a litigation solicitor, I had the good fortune to come across a number of experts in their fields. The people who really impressed you with their intellect were those who had the humility to recognise that the more they learnt, the more there was still to learn, They were open to the truth and to recognising their limitations. Dawkins is not worthy of their company - those who do not understand their limitations are the most dangerous - and they make the most mistakes. As my mother used to say, i can forgive their ignorance, but not their arrogance.
it's a disappointment to some and a mere confirmation to others, which may indicate that your disappointment comes from expectations based on delusory assumptions. In other words, you created an idea of a scientist that exists only in your mind. For me, this interview just confirms his stubbornness and inability to admit mistakes or encompass new worldviews, all are aspects I have always noticed in him.
@@RogerioLupoArteCientifica Excellent comment and I fully agree. Dawkins suffers from intellectual arrogance like most academics. I was in utter amazement at the so called intellegent people of the world were all so blatantly duped and the horror & evil tyranny they inflicted on everyone around them who could see through it.
I lost a few friends during the Covid hysteria. And I lost faith in many public figures whom I had trusted. Richard Dawkins is among them, as are Sam Harris and Noam Chomsky, to mention but a few. They all failed the character test. And continue to do so. Utterly disappointing.
@@omram566 agree. I still like Dawkins, even though he was wrong about Covid. We're all too quick to judge as if we ourselves are flawless. I admire many public figures but don't agree 100% with any of them.
Just WOW! I was expecting Dawkins to understand the failings of both science and politics during COVID, and provide some insights into what we need to learn. But there was absolutely NO understanding at all… no insights, just defence. His glorification of the speed of the creation of the various vaccines is just astonishing. He clearly doesn’t understand the massive negative health outcomes that these vaccines have created. The interviewer clearly had his finger on the pulse of the public’s perceptions here. Does Dawkins not understand how damaging this is to his brand? I am not listening to him again.
Freddie is as always incredibly well-mannered, rational, clear, tolerant and open-minded but firm and sincere... One of the best interviewers in the world, in my opinion.
I agree he did a good job pressing him on what he was totally avoiding and failing to address. I would have liked to see the issue of censorship and its connection to scientific consensus (that ended up being not only overstated but erroneous!) brought up as well.
Governments had to make difficult decisions between what was best for public health and what was best for business. The correct way to handle it wasn't clear at the time, and I would argue still isn't clear now.
This is very much appreciated. He was rich and didn't have his financial life ruined so no biggy. Amazing he thinks scientific credibility hasn't been undermined.
Scientific credibility is not the issue - if it were, we'd be debating the effectiveness of vaccines versus prayer. The debate is on health policy in an environment of limited knowledge and time where lives are at stake. He admitted mistakes were made in this, so what more do you want?
@@lord_summerisle Totally agree with you. I find it odd how the majority of comments here seem to be deriding Dawkins, yet what he is saying is utterly reasonable and consistent with his overall position on things. The decisions made at the time (by the powers that be) re how best to respond to Covid was an issue of pragmatics. Science offered it's best case' given' the available evidence at any given time, policy makers made their choices (varying in degree from county to country) concerning lockdowns and mandates (for certain sectors of society anyways); often siding with the 'hardly counterintuitive' position of 'best err on the side of caution' as 'the lesser of a two evils ... though an evil none the less'. It's pure hindsight bias to say 'after the fact' that 'such extreme measures turned out not to be as necessary as thought' so they were 'just wrong' to have made them (whether or not this is 'actually the case' is not the point here).
My respect for Dawkins after seeing this has plummeted to near zero. 1. They knew early on that the vaccines didn’t prevent transmission yet policy makers chose to ignore this 2. He didn’t mention a nuanced approach to vaccines - that the healthy especially children didn’t need them 3. As a scientist he didn’t even mention natural immunity. Those that had already caught Covid before the vaccines came out didn’t need to be vaccinated. He comes over as very arrogant as well as ignorant.
No. At least the mRNA vaccines are still at least two orders of magnitude less damaging than to let the virus (before Omicron) roll through. That should be our base of decision. The "damage" of the vaccine is dtill "disputed" which means we have next to no evidence for damages beyond the nocebo effect. The alternative to science is never to have a different but no science whatsoever. If we decide to go "without" we should do that in any other case, too. Imagine the side effects of Ibuprofen and how lax it is sold. Maybe the total sum of side effects are worse than just to endure pain? Not in any single case but in the great majority of cases I bet. Why do we ask not a singke question about Ibuprofen and just take it while many are super skeptical with a vaccine that has been made by more science attention Ibuprofen ever had?
"Let us be sympathetic to those who pretended they knew when they did not, and then took harsh discriminatory extreme policing decisions instead of being sympathetic to those who were right al along, suffered from these decisions and were insulted for it". R. Dawkins
Oh shut up you clown. Being pro-vaccine was not wrong then, and it is not wrong now, and no, you or like-minded individuals did not "suffer" from it. Vaccine greatly increases your chances of surviving any disease, and the only downside is some very minor side effects, which happen a small percentage of time. The only thing the scientists got "wrong" during those days was that, as Dawkins said here, the vaccine was also being pushed as "altruistic", and now we know that even if you had taken the vaccine, you could still transmit the virus. This does not change the fact that the vaccine brought a great deal of benefit and basically no downsides
what lie are you talking about? a lie is when you purposefully say something that is false. Dawkins is talking about mistakes that happen in the course of a major event that is unfolding in real time while hundreds of thousands of people are dying and the spread of the virus will only strengthen it. i'm sure you are one of those that say let weak people die though.
This interview was very well conducted. Dawkins, on the other hand, displays (soullessly) the phenomenon of people being unwilling to publicly confess that a previous opinion was perhaps wrong
He admitted he was wrong in terms of that tweet about the snakes, but I agree he is far too mealy-mouthed and unwilling to point out the catastrophic failures and overt violations of citizens' rights on a false justification. I think the sad part is there is actually nuance to this case, in the first few weeks or months I actually do share the opinion that extreme measures could be justified, for example if the mortality rate of the virus was like the Black Plague, then extreme measures would be justified, but the fact is that by the time a few months passed, there should have been a reassessment of the danger posed and all of the extreme measures should have been softened. While Dawkins wants to cling to the development of the vaccines, he should also acknowledge the unwillingness of the scientific community to change their stance with the evidence, and he should reflect on his own hesitancy to come to terms with the evidence as it stands regarding his "glorious" scientific product.
@@Xanlet I think what you're trying to say that he admitted his mistake and is open to new evidence but because he doesn't agree with you he's still wrong?
Freddy, you are a legend. Dawkins comes across as an apologist for all the poor decisions during the relevant period, begrudgingly half-admitting to a limited number of mistakes.
@@pavlos712 lol yes it's opened my eyes to the stupidity of religion. Stupid things deserve to be mocked and I'd be doing disservice by not complying. The fact you can't seperate the flu from Atheism demonstrates that perfectly. You've nothing but a poorly constructed strawman. Keep trying it's very amusing.
Right at the end he said "There was a need for rapid decisions." but I would argue that need was manufactured by a hyperbolic media apparatus. Whipping up people's fear to hysterical levels creating a political environment where politicians felt the need to make rapid decisive moves in order to capitalize on public sentiment.
Snap! You are correct, even prior to the dodgy untested trial quax, Gov and the media were hooked and paid for quite literally (and still are to this very day).. The fear that was generated was psychological warfare ahead of the sale of the quax, no one can tell me that wasn't orchestrated!!
Rather than offer my applause to the interview I'd prefer to offer it to the comments below. They're brilliant. 👏 I feel Mr Dawkins is out of his depth in this interview in my humblest of opinions. Facts didn't change, never have. They were simply hidden by people like Mr Dawkins.
And Phizer wanted to keep their data hidden for 75 years. Governments world wide swallowed the false data that Big Pharma allowed out. How many other people believed the data that was out? 6 billion?
Dawkins wasn't out of his depth in the interview - he was actually confronted over the failures of those he trusted and has to face up to the reality that science knows significantly less than he has been pushing He won't change.
@@truth.speaker we’re a global community driven by a political & scientific “elite” with closed minds and open pockets. Dawkins most certainly has a closed mind.
This is an excellent example of modern science. Hastily come to conclusions without adequate knowledge and then spend decades fudging reality to defend the belief that they were right.
I agree with Dawkins that the scientists cannot simply say they don't know because that would cause mayhem and civil unrest. HOWEVER, we'd have to be idiots to think saying either we definitely know or don't know are the only two choices. Another much more skillful honest answer is to say, based on ongoing research and current data, this is what we think is the best course of action. We will continue to adjust as new information becomes available and we are working hard to get that. That he just jumps to "well the alternative is to say we don't know and that would be a disaster so I sympathize with..." is outrageous. Distancing himself from any recognition of the disaster that happened in the transition from data to policies is downright neglect of duty.
@@zachhessler8722 I agree entirely with what you are saying. I think the problem lies here "we'd have to be idiots to think saying either we definitely know or don't know are the only two choices". When some have a few PhDs and many UA-cam videos with hundreds of books on shelves behind them, they tend to think that they are smart enough to know the answer, the only other option is that they are too stupid to know the answer. Very smart people have a lot of difficulty accepting that they can be ignorant too. They much prefer inventing any old shit, than admit that they don't actually know.
@@johnfisher7143 Knew someone would bring up climate change. COVID and climate change are two completely different areas of science and the research behind them is at two completely different levels of maturity. There is no evidence that climate scientists have tampered with the temperature record. The claims people make that I know of (climategate, temperature updates when changing from measuring using boats to satellites, and a satellite that had changed its orbit) have all been clarified/debunked. Where pharmaceutical companies may have a profit motive to push a vaccine, the opposite is the case for climate scientists: they can make thousands, sometimes millions from fossil fuel industry donations if they're willing to contradict the established science.
@@robinhood4640 "They much prefer inventing any old shit, than admit that they don't actually know." Which is the very reason THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN is going down the road of DESTRUCTION ... if your (perceived) livelihood depends ONLY on your reputation of BEING RIGHT there is no other way but DENY DENY DENY ....
He says he sympathised with the scientists who were put in that position by politics. The problem Freddie made was asking Dawkins what he thinks the COVID response meant for SCIENCE. Dawkins rightly asserted the speed the vaccines were produced with was a great scientific achievement and took responsibility and admitted his mistake in his own messaging. The only disgrace befalls our politicians and your anger is misdirected at Dawkins and his ilk
@@Eilfylijokul Why couldn't the scientists admit the science wasn't fully certain yet. If they were willing to say that then politicians/leaders wouldn't have had the pressure to go along with mandates.
@@sleepyfish3929 …because of stature, their place in the pecking order, money, being ostracized by peers or snubbed from getting research papers printed by “unbiased and objective” journals.
No doubt about it, you would not have to search long to find evidence of this. Dawkins claimed science now know something can come out of nothing, that was a lie and there are many more.
Always really respected Richard but he was dreadful during Covid. Richard has always advocated the answer “I don’t know” that’s perfectly fine, far better than lying.
And he still is. He still thinks there was a vaccine, he is an apologist for those that made awful decisions that cost lives. Any 'respect' I had for him before seeing this blatant back covering from him has gone.
Absolutely! I don't know IS honest. If they were honest, less people would have been vaccinated, perhaps only the vulnerable and over 60s, and there would have mo meaningful change except for in the pharmaceutical company profits.
I am proudly unvaccinated and every unvaccinated person deserves a public apology and compensation. I will not have my integrity insulted by those stupid enough to fall for pharmaceutical propaganda and lies. You have willfully excluded capitalism from your false little world, where there were trillion dollar incentives and lobby money involved in these lies and the hate being spread!
He really can't see the mistakes that were made at all can he. His take on the Covid saga is either intentionally biased or he is extremely naive. He was wrong on every front during the pandemic and still hasn't woken up.
The only time Dawkins was relevant to me, was when I was a teenager rebelling against Religion. It wasnt because he was particularly smart, just that he was saying things I wanted to hear and regurgitate. It has become a rather shameful time and I regret how I handled myself. A learning curve of appealing to and mimicking authority.
I used to have a lot of respect for Dawkins and was expecting much more from him here. He basically says, nothing went wrong and under the circumstances everything was done right. Admits nothing, still dancing with the narrative and contradicting everything I used to like about him. Justifying all these errors must help him believe he was still right. For a man whos spent his lifetime trying to make people believe they've got things wrong, it must be a hard knock to your identity to suddenly be the one in the wrong.
Ironic that Dawkins is here doing EXACTLY one of the things he critcises religion for, i.e. getting attached to a paradigm and not being able to admit mistakes
ironic but not surprising, as he has always been a preacher and quite a dogmatic scientist, totally attached to his worldview and completely unable to change his mind even in the face of strong evidence.
What a FOOL. It took me just one sentence to determine. Yes, govts should've said 'we don't know', & empowered people to help themselves. He's a stubborn big govt & big pharma idealogue & a shame to both democracy & science. ❌ Well done Freddie. 👍🏻
If there was one thing that COVID taught us that we greatly underestimated the negative effects of lock downs on people's mental wellbeing (let alone economic wellbeing). Personally I think that if COVID was dangerous enough you wouldn't have to convince people to lockdown. They'd do it themselves.
BS look up the history of the Spanish Flu. Certain areas locked down, had crowd restrictions but over time they relaxed and the spread was like wildfire. A viral pandemic takes 2-3 years to wind down NY reopened after about 3 months. We were fine.
If it killed at a fast higher/far rare, then it would never have become a pandemic. It would have burnt out as mortality would have outpaced the infection rate.
Add in Neil deGrasse Tyson's slightly unhinged rant on the PBD show, and these SCIENCE authorities and ambassadors are in short order breaking down much of the public good will & faith they've attempted to cultivate. Interesting side note: In the documentary "The Unbelievers" with Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss, Krauss gets a question suggesting that he and Dawkins are "authorities." Krauss quickly corrects the questioner saying that there are no authorities in science, that Richard is an expert in evolution and he in physics, but there is no position of authority they occupy.
@@alexprice3747 Both Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins said that there is nothing wrong with incest. Richard Dawkins said that there was nothing wrong with two adult biological sisters having an incestuous and sexual relationship with each other. Those two, Richard and Lawrence, are weird.
I am proudly unvaccinated and every unvaccinated person deserves a public apology and compensation. I will not have my integrity insulted by those stupid enough to fall for pharmaceutical propaganda and lies. You have willfully excluded capitalism from your false little world, where there were trillion dollar incentives and lobby money involved in these lies and the hate being spread!
"Scientific findings that amount to little more than gossip, when de-contextualized..." > people have ceased to trust their own judgement ..... Tools for Conviviality and DESCHOOLING SOCIETY by IVAN ILLICH
That's like saying that if we ever manage to reverse climate change it isn't a moment of triumph because ultimately science was responsible for the Industrial Revolution in the first place. Dealing successfully with unexpected side effects of human activity can be just as glorious as dealing with acts of God, you know.
Never thought much of Dawkins stand on things, think even less now. "We don't know" is actually a good answer in a lot of cases when it comes to science.
Thanks to the covid debacle I have lost trust in the entire medical community. I have seen the nastiest sides of my family come out and saw some real horrors unfold. The gargantuan lies, murdering the elderly and the lockdowns were by far the most heinous things I've ever witnessed as an adult (I saw the 911 3 building collective detonation as a teen). Scary stuff.
I lost my trust in medical doctors a long time ago, even before my mother's doctor prescribed a drug treatment that killed her. Even her last doctor told me the previous doctor killed Mom.
So well said. Good to get the perspective of a younger person. I'm a Brit and I was 30 when 911 happened. But this is by far the worst thing. Yes I had the family problems too, and the rest. I don't know of anything else happening like this for hundreds of years in the UK and US at least
Sorry to hear about the issues with your family. The pandemic certainly showed the darker side of many people and also exposed their ignorance and lack of critical thinking. No wonder it’s been so easy for dictatorships to flourish throughout the millennia.
It seems our entire adult lives have been a continuous slide down the slippery slope towards ignorance and outright stupidity... Not to mention the corruption and pure evil of the people running things. Sadly, science has become a tool of them and not of the people. There are good scientists still around, but they get shoved to the margins and even canceled by this culture that cares more about consolidating wealth and driving fear. In its attempt to solve for a theory of everything, science forgot that it still needs a basis of philosophy and ethics, and now looks more like religion than an honest attempt to seek what is true. It's all knowledge and no wisdom....
my takeaway was that the understanding of scientific process and how findings are tested, confirmed, and continually re-tested based on new evidence is so poorly understood in the general public that it is no wonder that the anti-vaccine folks now think they were right. There is rarely a right and wrong, just the best decision based on the evidence at hand
The facts very often didn't change over covid as Dawkins is claiming. They were suppressed so we weren't allowed to talk about them. He was one of those who gave their high profile voices in support of that.
It has been the game of *re-6r@ndin9* . Patents have been obtained for the *fairy* that they came up with to f001 the world. To be specific, the name of the *fairy* and the methodology that that they came up with in order to detect the *fairy* . Then they made up stories for people to believe that the *fairy* is real.
It has been the game of *re-6r@ndin9* . Patents have been obtained for the *fairy* that they came up with. To be specific, the name of the *fairy* and the methodology that that they came up with in order to detect the *fairy* . Then they made up stories for people to believe that the *fairy* is real.
He barely acknowledged the mistakes. Instead he spoke about being required to provide certainty when the situation was uncertain, for fear of unsettling the public. Which is odd, because scientific rigour would require the admission of uncertainty. From which I gather 1) he's happy for "science" to be politicised, 2) he doesn't think the public can be treated like adults, and 3) he's missed the news that unsettling the public was very much deliberate policy anyway.
Wow Freddie, you did not let him off the hook. The fact that he doesn't notice the "mistrust" is his testimony that he is still in denial. Thank you Freddie for helping to break the spell he is under! These powerful people need to be held accountable for the way they influenced others to attack their fellow citizens.
It surprises me how idiotic people can be in relation to this topic. Statistics tells us that when we don't have exact answers, the best path is early decisive action until we do have more evidence to plan a course. Hence lockdowns initially, and later vaccinations made perfect sense. Secondly, in relation to lockdown severity and duration, the main objective was always to smooth the curve and reduce the hit on our health systems so they didn't collapse. Anyone who doesn't accept this obviously hasn't talked to anyone on the front line who suffered greatly (and in comparison, the rest of the population had it easy)
I recall that many in Sweden evacuated to their second home, holiday home or island…. Swedens death rate was not particularly low. NZ had the lowest death rate of developed countries - until they reduced their isolation policies. It is a fundamental fact, infectious disease control 101, that isolation reduces spread of infectious disease.
Dawkins says that the public were demanding simple "yes or no" answers but it seems to me the opposite is true. Most of the public appreciated nuances that scientific advisors and politicians wanted to downplay, such as the highly age-dependent mortality profile of Covid, or the probability that prior infection would provide at least some future protection against Covid.
The last 3 years has shown that “scientists” like Richard Dawkins follow it more like religion, rather than being true to science. If he can’t acknowledge his mistakes, then it shows who he really serves.
He is not a scientist. He has not made any major contribution to science. He is just a guy who made money talking about science. Overrated journalist at best.
My g*d. As almost everyone is commenting… I’ve lost 90% of the respect I once held for Dawkins. The *evidence* that’s pretty widely available to anyone with just some basic scientific knowledge is quite simply the opposite of what he’s saying & yet he denies/makes excuses for all of this!? Wonder if he’s being paid off???
The biggest disappointment of my rather long medical career, was the failure of the vaccines (beyond Delta). Personally, it was a very difficult time to be in practice. There was a great deal of conflict. Hindsight is easy - being there and having to act on the best clinical grounds available. Let us never forget that in the USA alone, 1 million died. We simply had to act. There and then. There was no time for long term studies
Prof Dawkins is incredibly unscientific in this case is all one can say. Refusing to revisit a stand taken in view of new conclusive evidence shows how unscientific a person is.
Where all his anti God rhetoric and moral hubris could have all come out and shown the world how scientific he is , well he went along with the crowd like a regular cult follower. A real piece of work
And this guy is supposed to be one of the smart ones. Even he disregarded the existence of greed, authoritarianism, and the manipulation of science. His arrogance still blinds him.
There goes my trust in the integrity of Dawkins. This man is too intelligent not to acknowledge the powerful financial forces which guided our governments covid policies.
After all his posturing over the years finally you are losing trust. Oh well, better late than never, I guess. To me, his covid nonsense is par for the course. How anyone did not see through his blow-hard anti-logic and anti-science posed as hard fact throughout the years is beyond me.
Here is the thing: the original effectiveness numbers were not lies, nor were their mistakes. They were the measured results when tested against the only available strain: the original wild strain. The virus mutating was almost inevitable with the lack of effort in completely stopping the transmission, and you say "the final number" as if they did not actually deliver the promised results against the pre-omicron covid. It did, and it still does. But hey, keep offering people the "choice" and lets see where the next pandemic takes us with that mentality.
tbf, many or even most in circles close to more postmodern thinkers like Foucault and his highly relevant concept of biopower were even more hypocritical. Their epistemic humility and scepticism against authority vanished in the face of "parasitic stress".
..in other words: I'm not surprised that modernist thinkers like him are like that. It's more shocking to me that other, more relativist, more postmodern people were the same.
5:06 Freddie - I could never have said it better!! His insufferable political answers are excruciating to listen to, thank you for your perfectly calmly formulated response.
He just said, "Just imagine what would have happened if scientists said, 'We don't know'." Dr. Dawkins, please turn in your scientist card at the door as you leave.
The very foundations of science are "we don't know" so let's make a hypothesis and test it. He is saying they didn't have time to be scientific with this. So disgusting.
No, Richard……just imagine what would happen if the scientists said “we know, with certainty…and you must follow us,” but were completely wrong. This, is what happened. (save for those who did not do this, and for the fact that it was generally political mouthpieces that promoted this “follow the science” narrative, not research scientists). Besides, this constitutes a false dichotomy….there’s not only “we know” and “we don’t know,” there are a billion honest degrees of certainty in between that can be expressed…. It is infantilizing to suggest that people can only handle binary answers. Fuck you.
This stood out for me also. He cuts his thought off there because even he realizes the pathetic stupidity of his argument. “Imagine if scientists told the truth”. A once great mind corrupted by ideological madness.
The problem was the persecution of those who had a different opinion. They were silenced, slandered and maligned. This historic moment served to show the authoritarian spark existing in a portion of the population, including mr. Dawkins.
Absolutely in agreement with Prof. Dawkins here. The interviewer was, to my knowledge, not involved as a scientist at the time that decisions were being made. It would be interesting to ask the interviewer what role he played apart from investigating the outcome.
When I was young I was a big Dawkins fan, he's a smart man no doubt. As I aged and wised up I recognized in him an arrogance that almost seems pathological. He is the type who never acknowledges being wrong even if everyone else knows he is wrong. I no longer pay that much attention to him. Shame.
Exactly. Two quick examples: what happens when you trust authority on how to eat? America. What happens when you trust authority about how much (unprotected) sun to get, low vitamin D and global poor health.
How ridiculous to argue that it's preferable to give a 'guess' answer instead of admitting that one DOES NOT KNOW. Especially in a matter of such importance.
I am proudly unvaccinated and every unvaccinated person deserves a public apology and compensation. I will not have my integrity insulted by those stupid enough to fall for pharmaceutical propaganda and lies. You have willfully excluded capitalism from your false little world, where there were trillion dollar incentives and lobby money involved in these lies and the hate being spread!
Well done Freddie. You are doing a fantastic job of gently uncovering the huge hubris and hypocrisy at that time. RD was clearly one of those who is now looking rather foolish : "mistakes may have been made"
I just heard the man admit he was wrong on something, and people are still saying he can’t admit he was wrong. Frankly, I’d trust Dawkins scientific knowledge over the combined scientific knowledge of everyone commenting on this video. He is a world renowned authority on evolutionary biology; he knows his stuff. That doesnt mean he’s infallible, but he said what he said based on other contagious virus like measles. People who are complaining base their opinions on nothing
He didn't admit he was wrong. He said, after much probing, that he 'may' have been wrong about it being everyone's altruistic duty to take the vaccine. A little more contrition wouldn't have gone amiss. The misery caused by him, and others like him, cannot be understated.
Now, at least I know there’s another book on my bookshelf that I need to never make time to read. Thank you, Freddie, for exposing these absurd beliefs.
Being a child of 2 brilliant PhDs, having had COVID 3 times, having been vaccinated twice i can totally identify with those who’s faith in science and institutions is shattered.
@@Xen0PhanesHis anecdote in comparison to what? The science…? Are you understanding the issue yet? Watch the video. It’s literally a doctor and a scientist discussing how science got it wrong.
He’s basically said it’s ok to lie to the public because they are not capable of making their own decisions based on what facts are known and their personal situation.
The way the people were persecuted for refusal to take the jab was disgusting. . They reached their decision about its efficiency and safety by doing their own research . Probably took them hours and hours to come to a decision that was right for them !
I'm from Australia where we had amongst the hardest lockdowns. Sweden had 2900 deaths per million where we had 870, for no economic advantage in the end for Sweden.
"Imagine what would have happened if we'd said we don't know when we didn't know!" What would have happened is you would have been speaking the truth instead of lying.
Sadly on this point I think Dawkins is correct. People don't accept an I don't know answer. That is the truth. What is the problem is lying when you know what you're saying is wrong but you're doing it for political or financial reasons or to save face.
@@waterkingdavid "People don't accept an I don't know answer." That isn't my experience at all. Perhaps you are speaking for yourself? By and large people prefer honesty to bs! Furthermore, you seem to have entirely missed the point, which centres around the consequences of the loss of trust in scientists after having been misled by them. If Dawkins admits that lying is justified, how are we supposed to distinguish between the truth and a contingent lie? For example, if he says we must adopt a certain policy measure because climate science predicts disaster if we don't, maybe science does, or maybe it doesn't but he thinks we should 'err on the side of caution.' Of course the sensible attitude to adopt in this circumstance is to treat everything he says with scepticism. Dawkins evidently has a massive ego and considers himself above normal conventions. And so 'THE TRUTH' is really nothing other than Dawkins' personal judgement, which may coincide with science or may not, but we are too stupid to be involved in such complications and so he will do the deliberation for us.
Amen! Only thing is…they KNEW!! That argument sounds great to those who were willfully blind, ignorant and stupid. Far less intelligent than 1/2 the people they were trying to fool and control. They blew it up beyond all reasonable proportion and then made ‘decisive’ decisions to harm, kill and impoverish the population.
Shame on Dawkins. He got every point wrong. He has picked the wrong side of ethics, science, and history. Now he hides behind banality and the sorry excuse of expediency to avoid accountability.
As weak as his admission was, imagine a politician or TV doctor coming out with even half this amount of humility. It’d be a miracle… and then Dawkins would have to become a theist.
He's a modernist. To me, it's not surprising that he is like that. The hipocrisy of authoritarian non-critical views of circles which are close to postmodern thinkers like Foucault and his concept of biopower is much worse.
Great interview by Freddie, sharp and professional. Richard Dawkins is a perfect example of establishment rhetoric who aims to manipulate the listeners through his false humility. Thank you for delivering this interview, while most Dawkins fans are now perhaps a little disappointed, the video did continue to reveal his nausiating arrogance and inflated ego. All in all a good result for humanity.
It's disappointing to see how blinkered Dawkins has become. Not an ounce of critical thinking left in him it seems.
It does happen when they get old in many cases. Chomsky the same
@@texluh Same with David Starkey.
@@sturmhalo His old age has something to do with it, but he was always abrasive and not really a critical thinker to be honest.
Specifically what is it that makes you believe Dawkins doesn't think critically?
Dawkins: If the authorities are short on time then authoritarianism is permissible.
If we fabricate an emergency we can do what we want 🤔
That’s not what he said.
That's basically what he intimated, eg don't worry about the usual ethics (safety) approval, just get the politicians and scientists off the hook by developing a heavily uncooked product into the bodies of the trial participants via mandating...
@@geecee6320 the vaccine worked on many levels, so there’s that and apparently you don’t know anything about how mRNA vaccines work and are developed by using the word uncooked. I think your ignorance is showing.
@@heressomestuffifound No he would never be so honest.
The problem with academics is that they truly believe they know best and should be in a position to tell the lesser masses how to live.
Yes.
The almighty authority.
He’s stuck in that last century’s paradigm of true intellect being in pure, holy of holies, science.
Very emotionally invested too.
Funny how many of us others don’t think those who think themselves authorities are really all that …
Who knows better? You? 😂 The problem with PEOPLE is that they always seem to think they know more than the actual experts.
@calvinlang3026 Doesn't matter what anyone knows, as long as the individual has the right to choose for himself. The problem is that academics want to force people into doing what they say (because they know best) but aren't willing to bear the consequences of the individual.
I will listen, but decide for myself as long as I am the one who has to bear the consequences.
@@calvinlang3026 Also, history is fraught with academics who got it terribly wrong, so they are by no means the gold standard.
@any0n378 Yeah, everyone gets everything wrong at one time or another mate, but who would you rather listen to? Some average Joe who's always in the pub or a virologist? Just because your guess turned out to be right doesn't suddenly make you a genius on the subject. Like we should come to you during the next epidemic and seek your advice because you happened to guess correctly.
Einstein got a shit load wrong, but we would all be speaking German if we had shunned him for it.
He can't admit he was wrong until he admits it to himself. He's squirming and using weaselly phrases because it would be stressful to resolve his contradictory beliefs.
Did you watch the same video as me? Or did you start off wearing your tin hat, and it seriously affected your comprehension?
@@edeledeledel5490well said. The majority of commenters here are into a herd mentality (albeit a ln alternative one) that they claim to be free of. Bizzare.
In Sweden the authorities were clear with their limited yet growing knowledge and they continually modified their recommendations accordingly. Much respect to them.
Exactly.
Sweden was also a much less dense country with a culture that didn't really seem to inspire drastic levels of tranmission. Comparing countries in COVID response protocol handling is pointless because of the unlimited amount of permutational outcomes that can occur.
@@user-xx7tv7cc1y that really is beside the point. No matter the country the authorities should still have been honest about the scope, limits and developing knowledge and continually have adjusted it's respons while informing the public on the grounds for it's decisions.
@@user-xx7tv7cc1y dude have you ever been in Stockholm??? it's a classic overcrowded city of europe with people packed in the public transportation
@@naalsoegat Absolutely very good point. Scientists /medics put all their eggs in one basket these vaccines. I do not agree with the anti vax community that they were a complete failure but they weren't a really great success either (with some very tragic outcomes) -they especially became more not so relevant during Omicron they did save many lives pre Omicron (but with tragic causalities as well)
Feel disgusted with this just like I did with Sam Harris. These people are simply fascists sympathetic to power, not the people suffering under the boot of power.
they believe in science based technocratic government, at world-wide scale; and as established scientists, they believe to be entitled to more decision making powers
Agreed. And yes, Sam Harris - disappointing to say the least.
Fascists? I do not think that word means what you think it means, sir.
Sam Harris has gone over to the dark side completely, and if you watch his recent interviews e.g. with Megyn Kelly, he seems like a completely broken man.
That is the price one pays when one forfeits one's integrity.
Now Sam even defends "trans 4 year olds".
He's absolutely a woke fanatic and insane as they come.
The same way and fully agree.
I have always respected Richard Dawkins due to his championing of science as something that should always be open to questioning but on this issue his approach seems to be very unscientific. Kudos to the articulate and knowledgeable interviewer.
Attempting to compare Sweden to other countries in Europe which have several times its population, different climate and way more social interactions isn't scientific... it's ridiculous.
What works in Sweden, won't necessarily work in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, etc... and vice versa.
what if I said the same about the measles vaccine " just becuse it works in the US doesnt mean it will work in sweeden due to several times less population, different climate and way fewer social interactions " Of couurse these things can be compared or if you dont like that compare to sweeden to countries of similar sizes ... you still get the same amnswer lockdowns did not work!
Where his scientific integrity would actually matter and cost him something he failed. He can go back to deriding religion.
What do you find so "unscientific" about Dawkins' approach?
Richard Dawkins has always taught us to question everything and the importance of the truth, whether it is ugly or not.
I am surprised how forgiving he is to govts who hid the truth from us for years!
Wasn't that a big part of the promise of the athiest movement? That athiests like him couldn't be fooled by silly lies?
@@grantmcphee5149 Yes and he'd go over the Bible with a fine tooth comb scorching every perceived injustice he could find in the reasoning. Yet here..... all is forgiven in the name of scientific progress.
He doesn't believe that governments "hid the truth" so he does not have to forgive them.
It's not that they hid the truth , it's more like nobody knew any better .
@@msgoldberg Tbh, you don't need a fine tooth comb to find injustices in the bible eg. When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)
Dawkins, famous for criticizing religion for giving yes/no answers without concrete evidence, feels sympathy for scientists and politicians who had to give solid, concrete yes/no answers on things they didn't know about
Scientism.
actually it was worse than "they didn't know"; any scientific mind could have understood early in 2020 that the mortality was below 1% overall, and quite insignificant for everybody under 50 with no co-morbidities;
also the devastating impact of the lockdown policies was obvious to everybody with half a brain;
he's now asking us to feel more sympathetic and understanding, but keeps quiet about the WHO power grab unfolding under our eyes at this very moment
how shameful, and what a pathetic individual...
The irony makes me chuckle.
Yep. Sam Harris is another one - totally uncovered himself.
Sympathy? For doctors and politicians afraid of their jobs? NO!
So sad to see someone like this unable to think critically or admit their scientific, moral, and ethical failures.
He never did think critically though. He brought his personal word view to everything he was involved in. As do we all
@@psalm1197 I'm still waiting for somebody to ask Dawkins why he even bothers spreading his views, when as per his views, there is ultimately no point in spreading said views, in the first place.
@@cathalsurfs he’s a blind leader of the blind
No sir, we the People have the right to here the truth, and choose for ourselves
@@psalm1197 delusional you are.
My thanks to you for addressing the public vilification of unvaccinated people during the pandemic. I was medically advised against vaccination because of an inflammatory eye disease and found the resulting public judgements quite painful.
Sucks when the people you idolized at one moment turn out to be almost fraudulent…
That means you've grown as a person. Keep that same energy 😀
Who, Dawkins? He's making as much sense to me as ever. What is he saying that has you so disillusioned? He even "took back" his tweet.
It’s like listening to an idiot talking rubbish with a plumb in his mouth
Yeah, you have to wonder if Christopher Hitchens would have shit himself.
I pushed back on this/him almost 15 years ago and got howled at, berated, harrassed and bullied.
Those people are very quiet now.
But not one apology lol
When I was a litigation solicitor, I had the good fortune to come across a number of experts in their fields. The people who really impressed you with their intellect were those who had the humility to recognise that the more they learnt, the more there was still to learn, They were open to the truth and to recognising their limitations. Dawkins is not worthy of their company - those who do not understand their limitations are the most dangerous - and they make the most mistakes.
As my mother used to say, i can forgive their ignorance, but not their arrogance.
So well said!
Couldn’t have said it better 👏👏👏
“A man has got to know his limitations “
Philosopher poet - Dirty Harry
😈👀😈
😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇 oooo
I’m in shock with Dawkins .. what a disappointment … with all the factual stuff we know .. I’m amazed by his viewpoint!!
Totally agree.
Triple that
it's a disappointment to some and a mere confirmation to others, which may indicate that your disappointment comes from expectations based on delusory assumptions. In other words, you created an idea of a scientist that exists only in your mind. For me, this interview just confirms his stubbornness and inability to admit mistakes or encompass new worldviews, all are aspects I have always noticed in him.
People can be gracefully right, but not being graceful when wrong is a sure sign of unmerited intellectual narcissism.
@@RogerioLupoArteCientifica Excellent comment and I fully agree. Dawkins suffers from intellectual arrogance like most academics. I was in utter amazement at the so called intellegent people of the world were all so blatantly duped and the horror & evil tyranny they inflicted on everyone around them who could see through it.
I lost a few friends during the Covid hysteria. And I lost faith in many public figures whom I had trusted. Richard Dawkins is among them, as are Sam Harris and Noam Chomsky, to mention but a few. They all failed the character test. And continue to do so. Utterly disappointing.
what a simplistic way you look at life.
@@omram566 agree. I still like Dawkins, even though he was wrong about Covid. We're all too quick to judge as if we ourselves are flawless. I admire many public figures but don't agree 100% with any of them.
You're failing to see the unequivocies that people are expected to take as politicians and/or scientists. Disappointing take from you.
@@omram566 You have a simple way of looking at life, you just do what you are told.
@@hoffmanthemilkman1 How was he wrong?
Just WOW! I was expecting Dawkins to understand the failings of both science and politics during COVID, and provide some insights into what we need to learn. But there was absolutely NO understanding at all… no insights, just defence. His glorification of the speed of the creation of the various vaccines is just astonishing. He clearly doesn’t understand the massive negative health outcomes that these vaccines have created. The interviewer clearly had his finger on the pulse of the public’s perceptions here. Does Dawkins not understand how damaging this is to his brand? I am not listening to him again.
Such a brain dead post. Come back when you have a phd from Oxford
Anything concrete?
Freddie is as always incredibly well-mannered, rational, clear, tolerant and open-minded but firm and sincere... One of the best interviewers in the world, in my opinion.
A very good opinion,stay blessed 👍🏾
I agree he did a good job pressing him on what he was totally avoiding and failing to address. I would have liked to see the issue of censorship and its connection to scientific consensus (that ended up being not only overstated but erroneous!) brought up as well.
Cannot agree more!😊
He didn't lose his livelihood. To him, it was just a few "mistakes". What a pathetic apologist.
Governments had to make difficult decisions between what was best for public health and what was best for business. The correct way to handle it wasn't clear at the time, and I would argue still isn't clear now.
@@111tedward Nonsense
Exactly!
"Nothing more dangerous than the ignorance of the intelligent" my favourite quote by Thomas Sowell
What utter shit.
The mental gymnastics made by professor Dawkins in order to accommodate me forgive the pandemic heavy handed management are quite impressive.
This is very much appreciated. He was rich and didn't have his financial life ruined so no biggy. Amazing he thinks scientific credibility hasn't been undermined.
Nothing can defile his Holy God Science, just ask him.
Absolutely amazing that you think it has.
This blows any of the credibility of the water completely ua-cam.com/video/L-aIvz995U8/v-deo.html
Scientific credibility is not the issue - if it were, we'd be debating the effectiveness of vaccines versus prayer. The debate is on health policy in an environment of limited knowledge and time where lives are at stake. He admitted mistakes were made in this, so what more do you want?
@@lord_summerisle Totally agree with you. I find it odd how the majority of comments here seem to be deriding Dawkins, yet what he is saying is utterly reasonable and consistent with his overall position on things. The decisions made at the time (by the powers that be) re how best to respond to Covid was an issue of pragmatics. Science offered it's best case' given' the available evidence at any given time, policy makers made their choices (varying in degree from county to country) concerning lockdowns and mandates (for certain sectors of society anyways); often siding with the 'hardly counterintuitive' position of 'best err on the side of caution' as 'the lesser of a two evils ... though an evil none the less'. It's pure hindsight bias to say 'after the fact' that 'such extreme measures turned out not to be as necessary as thought' so they were 'just wrong' to have made them (whether or not this is 'actually the case' is not the point here).
"Nothing more dangerous than the ignorance of the intelligent" my favorite quote by Thomas Sowell
Great quote. Thomas is easily one of the greatest thinkers of our time
Sowell speaking about himself 🫠
This "professor" is a good example of this.
and Sowell is a huge perpertrator of his own quote.
Totally agree. The ignorance of the dumb could at most result in an unsubstantiated youtube comment, after all.
My respect for Dawkins after seeing this has plummeted to near zero.
1. They knew early on that the vaccines didn’t prevent transmission yet policy makers chose to ignore this
2. He didn’t mention a nuanced approach to vaccines - that the healthy especially children didn’t need them
3. As a scientist he didn’t even mention natural immunity. Those that had already caught Covid before the vaccines came out didn’t need to be vaccinated.
He comes over as very arrogant as well as ignorant.
Lots of children died of Covid, thousands all over the world. Didn't need them?
Well said. Typical self serving protecting his institution.
No. At least the mRNA vaccines are still at least two orders of magnitude less damaging than to let the virus (before Omicron) roll through. That should be our base of decision. The "damage" of the vaccine is dtill "disputed" which means we have next to no evidence for damages beyond the nocebo effect.
The alternative to science is never to have a different but no science whatsoever. If we decide to go "without" we should do that in any other case, too. Imagine the side effects of Ibuprofen and how lax it is sold.
Maybe the total sum of side effects are worse than just to endure pain? Not in any single case but in the great majority of cases I bet.
Why do we ask not a singke question about Ibuprofen and just take it while many are super skeptical with a vaccine that has been made by more science attention Ibuprofen ever had?
All excellent points that were obvious even to us non scientists
Not only ignore, but lie about it.
"Let us be sympathetic to those who pretended they knew when they did not, and then took harsh discriminatory extreme policing decisions instead of being sympathetic to those who were right al along, suffered from these decisions and were insulted for it". R. Dawkins
Let's not
You misquoted him.
Urghhhh yes.
Oh shut up you clown. Being pro-vaccine was not wrong then, and it is not wrong now, and no, you or like-minded individuals did not "suffer" from it. Vaccine greatly increases your chances of surviving any disease, and the only downside is some very minor side effects, which happen a small percentage of time. The only thing the scientists got "wrong" during those days was that, as Dawkins said here, the vaccine was also being pushed as "altruistic", and now we know that even if you had taken the vaccine, you could still transmit the virus. This does not change the fact that the vaccine brought a great deal of benefit and basically no downsides
@@damienx0x He perfectly and succinctly paraphrased him.
imagine the horror if scientists just said we don't know instead of lying just imagine 😂.
what lie are you talking about? a lie is when you purposefully say something that is false. Dawkins is talking about mistakes that happen in the course of a major event that is unfolding in real time while hundreds of thousands of people are dying and the spread of the virus will only strengthen it. i'm sure you are one of those that say let weak people die though.
The scientists on the government payroll developed the whole thing. Of course they knew but this is spun as a mistake.
This interview was very well conducted. Dawkins, on the other hand, displays (soullessly) the phenomenon of people being unwilling to publicly confess that a previous opinion was perhaps wrong
He admitted he was wrong in terms of that tweet about the snakes, but I agree he is far too mealy-mouthed and unwilling to point out the catastrophic failures and overt violations of citizens' rights on a false justification. I think the sad part is there is actually nuance to this case, in the first few weeks or months I actually do share the opinion that extreme measures could be justified, for example if the mortality rate of the virus was like the Black Plague, then extreme measures would be justified, but the fact is that by the time a few months passed, there should have been a reassessment of the danger posed and all of the extreme measures should have been softened. While Dawkins wants to cling to the development of the vaccines, he should also acknowledge the unwillingness of the scientific community to change their stance with the evidence, and he should reflect on his own hesitancy to come to terms with the evidence as it stands regarding his "glorious" scientific product.
@@Xanlet I think what you're trying to say that he admitted his mistake and is open to new evidence but because he doesn't agree with you he's still wrong?
Well put, Gavin.
@@SueMyChin My reaction too SueMyChin.
Much like fellow atheist Sam Harris
Freddy, you are a legend. Dawkins comes across as an apologist for all the poor decisions during the relevant period, begrudgingly half-admitting to a limited number of mistakes.
Man, Dawkins is still balls deep in the narrative. 😂😢😅
The illuminating consequences of atheism
@@pavlos712 lol what😂 it has nothing to do with Atheism silly creatard
@@johnthumble5154 your immediate insult testifies of how atheism has illumined you.
And off course it has, oh you great thinker.
@@pavlos712 lol yes it's opened my eyes to the stupidity of religion.
Stupid things deserve to be mocked and I'd be doing disservice by not complying. The fact you can't seperate the flu from Atheism demonstrates that perfectly.
You've nothing but a poorly constructed strawman.
Keep trying it's very amusing.
@@pavlos712 please excuse the atheists. Their insults are just reflection of their misery.
Right at the end he said "There was a need for rapid decisions." but I would argue that need was manufactured by a hyperbolic media apparatus. Whipping up people's fear to hysterical levels creating a political environment where politicians felt the need to make rapid decisive moves in order to capitalize on public sentiment.
Snap! You are correct, even prior to the dodgy untested trial quax, Gov and the media were hooked and paid for quite literally (and still are to this very day).. The fear that was generated was psychological warfare ahead of the sale of the quax, no one can tell me that wasn't orchestrated!!
Rather than offer my applause to the interview I'd prefer to offer it to the comments below. They're brilliant. 👏 I feel Mr Dawkins is out of his depth in this interview in my humblest of opinions. Facts didn't change, never have. They were simply hidden by people like Mr Dawkins.
Here,Here!..faith in humanity restored, somewhat..
And Phizer wanted to keep their data hidden for 75 years. Governments world wide swallowed the false data that Big Pharma allowed out. How many other people believed the data that was out? 6 billion?
Dawkins wasn't out of his depth in the interview - he was actually confronted over the failures of those he trusted and has to face up to the reality that science knows significantly less than he has been pushing
He won't change.
@@truth.speaker we’re a global community driven by a political & scientific “elite” with closed minds and open pockets.
Dawkins most certainly has a closed mind.
The "we couldn't have known!" gambit when, yes, we absolutely did know. Despicable man.
This is an excellent example of modern science. Hastily come to conclusions without adequate knowledge and then spend decades fudging reality to defend the belief that they were right.
Yes, exactly, like adjusting past climate data to fit their future modeling
I agree with Dawkins that the scientists cannot simply say they don't know because that would cause mayhem and civil unrest. HOWEVER, we'd have to be idiots to think saying either we definitely know or don't know are the only two choices. Another much more skillful honest answer is to say, based on ongoing research and current data, this is what we think is the best course of action. We will continue to adjust as new information becomes available and we are working hard to get that. That he just jumps to "well the alternative is to say we don't know and that would be a disaster so I sympathize with..." is outrageous. Distancing himself from any recognition of the disaster that happened in the transition from data to policies is downright neglect of duty.
@@zachhessler8722 I agree entirely with what you are saying.
I think the problem lies here "we'd have to be idiots to think saying either we definitely know or don't know are the only two choices".
When some have a few PhDs and many UA-cam videos with hundreds of books on shelves behind them, they tend to think that they are smart enough to know the answer, the only other option is that they are too stupid to know the answer. Very smart people have a lot of difficulty accepting that they can be ignorant too. They much prefer inventing any old shit, than admit that they don't actually know.
@@johnfisher7143 Knew someone would bring up climate change. COVID and climate change are two completely different areas of science and the research behind them is at two completely different levels of maturity. There is no evidence that climate scientists have tampered with the temperature record. The claims people make that I know of (climategate, temperature updates when changing from measuring using boats to satellites, and a satellite that had changed its orbit) have all been clarified/debunked. Where pharmaceutical companies may have a profit motive to push a vaccine, the opposite is the case for climate scientists: they can make thousands, sometimes millions from fossil fuel industry donations if they're willing to contradict the established science.
@@robinhood4640
"They much prefer inventing any old shit, than admit that they don't actually know."
Which is the very reason THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN is going down the road of DESTRUCTION ... if your (perceived) livelihood depends ONLY on your reputation of BEING RIGHT there is no other way but DENY DENY DENY ....
Well done Freddie for putting him so respectfully on the hook
Mistake may have been made he says. That’s the understatement of the year.
A use of the past exonerative tense.
And yours is the overstatement of the century.
If Dawkins sympathizes with people who’d rather lie than humbly admit ignorance, that reveals to me he’s done the same
He says he sympathised with the scientists who were put in that position by politics. The problem Freddie made was asking Dawkins what he thinks the COVID response meant for SCIENCE. Dawkins rightly asserted the speed the vaccines were produced with was a great scientific achievement and took responsibility and admitted his mistake in his own messaging. The only disgrace befalls our politicians and your anger is misdirected at Dawkins and his ilk
@@Eilfylijokul Why couldn't the scientists admit the science wasn't fully certain yet. If they were willing to say that then politicians/leaders wouldn't have had the pressure to go along with mandates.
@@sleepyfish3929 Thank you
@@sleepyfish3929 …because of stature, their place in the pecking order, money, being ostracized by peers or snubbed from getting research papers printed by “unbiased and objective” journals.
No doubt about it, you would not have to search long to find evidence of this. Dawkins claimed science now know something can come out of nothing, that was a lie and there are many more.
Well done Freddie, for asking the right questions so calmly.
Freddie is a TREASURE !!
yes ! not many can ask the right questions, well done, indeed !
Always really respected Richard but he was dreadful during Covid. Richard has always advocated the answer “I don’t know” that’s perfectly fine, far better than lying.
And he still is. He still thinks there was a vaccine, he is an apologist for those that made awful decisions that cost lives. Any 'respect' I had for him before seeing this blatant back covering from him has gone.
Absolutely! I don't know IS honest. If they were honest, less people would have been vaccinated, perhaps only the vulnerable and over 60s, and there would have mo meaningful change except for in the pharmaceutical company profits.
I am proudly unvaccinated and every unvaccinated person deserves a public apology and compensation. I will not have my integrity insulted by those stupid enough to fall for pharmaceutical propaganda and lies. You have willfully excluded capitalism from your false little world, where there were trillion dollar incentives and lobby money involved in these lies and the hate being spread!
@@CassiaChloeYou are delusional in your own thoughts.
@@factsevidenceagainstmarxis4474 Contest them.
They just can't admit they were wrong. And they never will.
He really can't see the mistakes that were made at all can he. His take on the Covid saga is either intentionally biased or he is extremely naive. He was wrong on every front during the pandemic and still hasn't woken up.
he's a modernist in terms of scientific authority. This shouldn't be a surprise if you look at the history of science.
Dawkins simply should have admitted that he didn't know what he was talking about and that he was complicit in propaganda.
The only time Dawkins was relevant to me, was when I was a teenager rebelling against Religion. It wasnt because he was particularly smart, just that he was saying things I wanted to hear and regurgitate. It has become a rather shameful time and I regret how I handled myself. A learning curve of appealing to and mimicking authority.
I used to have a lot of respect for Dawkins and was expecting much more from him here. He basically says, nothing went wrong and under the circumstances everything was done right. Admits nothing, still dancing with the narrative and contradicting everything I used to like about him. Justifying all these errors must help him believe he was still right. For a man whos spent his lifetime trying to make people believe they've got things wrong, it must be a hard knock to your identity to suddenly be the one in the wrong.
Ironic that Dawkins is here doing EXACTLY one of the things he critcises religion for, i.e. getting attached to a paradigm and not being able to admit mistakes
Reverend Dawkins.
How dare you insult our prophet like that 😂
ironic but not surprising, as he has always been a preacher and quite a dogmatic scientist, totally attached to his worldview and completely unable to change his mind even in the face of strong evidence.
Oh yeah, what a hypocrite.
The scientism is the new religion.
What a FOOL. It took me just one sentence to determine. Yes, govts should've said 'we don't know', & empowered people to help themselves. He's a stubborn big govt & big pharma idealogue & a shame to both democracy & science. ❌
Well done Freddie. 👍🏻
Absolutely....and they actively suppressed the things we DO know (Vitamin D, Exercise, general health).
Don't know? They are the ones who came up with the whole thing...
If there was one thing that COVID taught us that we greatly underestimated the negative effects of lock downs on people's mental wellbeing (let alone economic wellbeing). Personally I think that if COVID was dangerous enough you wouldn't have to convince people to lockdown. They'd do it themselves.
The problem was we shut down discussion from people warning us of those negative effects.
BS look up the history of the Spanish Flu. Certain areas locked down, had crowd restrictions but over time they relaxed and the spread was like wildfire. A viral pandemic takes 2-3 years to wind down NY reopened after about 3 months. We were fine.
If it killed at a fast higher/far rare, then it would never have become a pandemic. It would have burnt out as mortality would have outpaced the infection rate.
@@restlesscow2137which would have been of great comfort to all the dead people...
@@monkeymox2544 I said that because the OP stated intimated that covid wasn't dangerous enough to warrant lockdown, but it was.
I love you confronted him this directly and professionally 🔥 respect
Beware of dangerous fools. Thank you, Freddie, for continually exposing truth to your audience.
Add in Neil deGrasse Tyson's slightly unhinged rant on the PBD show, and these SCIENCE authorities and ambassadors are in short order breaking down much of the public good will & faith they've attempted to cultivate.
Interesting side note: In the documentary "The Unbelievers" with Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss, Krauss gets a question suggesting that he and Dawkins are "authorities." Krauss quickly corrects the questioner saying that there are no authorities in science, that Richard is an expert in evolution and he in physics, but there is no position of authority they occupy.
@@alexprice3747 Both Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins said that there is nothing wrong with incest. Richard Dawkins said that there was nothing wrong with two adult biological sisters having an incestuous and sexual relationship with each other. Those two, Richard and Lawrence, are weird.
_Beware of dangerous fools._
Do I need to beware of you? How can I tell?
I am proudly unvaccinated and every unvaccinated person deserves a public apology and compensation. I will not have my integrity insulted by those stupid enough to fall for pharmaceutical propaganda and lies. You have willfully excluded capitalism from your false little world, where there were trillion dollar incentives and lobby money involved in these lies and the hate being spread!
I'll keep well clear of you.
Imagine thinking that a pandemic that started in a science lab was a 'moment of scientifc glory'
"Scientific findings that amount to little more than gossip, when de-contextualized..." >
people have ceased to trust their own judgement .....
Tools for Conviviality and DESCHOOLING SOCIETY by IVAN ILLICH
Fauxi and Gates thinks so.
Well said, his take beggers belief
The gallows used to take care of these people...
That's like saying that if we ever manage to reverse climate change it isn't a moment of triumph because ultimately science was responsible for the Industrial Revolution in the first place.
Dealing successfully with unexpected side effects of human activity can be just as glorious as dealing with acts of God, you know.
UnNeed gained a follower in me because of his respectful but quite direct questioning.
Never thought much of Dawkins stand on things, think even less now. "We don't know" is actually a good answer in a lot of cases when it comes to science.
Thanks to the covid debacle I have lost trust in the entire medical community. I have seen the nastiest sides of my family come out and saw some real horrors unfold. The gargantuan lies, murdering the elderly and the lockdowns were by far the most heinous things I've ever witnessed as an adult (I saw the 911 3 building collective detonation as a teen). Scary stuff.
I lost my trust in medical doctors a long time ago, even before my mother's doctor prescribed a drug treatment that killed her. Even her last doctor told me the previous doctor killed Mom.
top comment
So well said. Good to get the perspective of a younger person. I'm a Brit and I was 30 when 911 happened. But this is by far the worst thing. Yes I had the family problems too, and the rest. I don't know of anything else happening like this for hundreds of years in the UK and US at least
Sorry to hear about the issues with your family. The pandemic certainly showed the darker side of many people and also exposed their ignorance and lack of critical thinking. No wonder it’s been so easy for dictatorships to flourish throughout the millennia.
It seems our entire adult lives have been a continuous slide down the slippery slope towards ignorance and outright stupidity...
Not to mention the corruption and pure evil of the people running things.
Sadly, science has become a tool of them and not of the people.
There are good scientists still around, but they get shoved to the margins and even canceled by this culture that cares more about consolidating wealth and driving fear.
In its attempt to solve for a theory of everything, science forgot that it still needs a basis of philosophy and ethics, and now looks more like religion than an honest attempt to seek what is true.
It's all knowledge and no wisdom....
Dawkins showed his hand over Covid, Never Forgive Never Forget .
Agree 🎉🎉🎉
Indeed!
Agreed.
Oh do grow up
Lost all respect for that guy
my takeaway was that the understanding of scientific process and how findings are tested, confirmed, and continually re-tested based on new evidence is so poorly understood in the general public that it is no wonder that the anti-vaccine folks now think they were right. There is rarely a right and wrong, just the best decision based on the evidence at hand
"Mistakes may have been made."
Every Nuremberg defendant, ever.
The facts very often didn't change over covid as Dawkins is claiming.
They were suppressed so we weren't allowed to talk about them.
He was one of those who gave their high profile voices in support of that.
This bloke lost me with his first sentence. Scientific glory? Scientists caused the pandemic.
Science went out of the window as soon as billions of easy dollars entered the equation.
Also the timing of when they completed the vaccines was right after the election, I wonder how long they had them ready.
Who knows what was in those shots?
They don't need to disclose anything if they don't want to
It has been the game of *re-6r@ndin9* . Patents have been obtained for the *fairy* that they came up with to f001 the world. To be specific, the name of the *fairy* and the methodology that that they came up with in order to detect the *fairy* . Then they made up stories for people to believe that the *fairy* is real.
It has been the game of *re-6r@ndin9* . Patents have been obtained for the *fairy* that they came up with. To be specific, the name of the *fairy* and the methodology that that they came up with in order to detect the *fairy* . Then they made up stories for people to believe that the *fairy* is real.
He was very reasonable in my opinion. He acknowledged the mistakes made. However, his point was true about the circumstances of the time
If he'd put ethics as a priority im the decision making, he would know from the beggining that something was up
He barely acknowledged the mistakes. Instead he spoke about being required to provide certainty when the situation was uncertain, for fear of unsettling the public. Which is odd, because scientific rigour would require the admission of uncertainty. From which I gather 1) he's happy for "science" to be politicised, 2) he doesn't think the public can be treated like adults, and 3) he's missed the news that unsettling the public was very much deliberate policy anyway.
Lots of people had the same time and looked at everything differently so time had nothing to do with it
Everything has to be backed by scientific evidence except when it suits my politics - Richard Dawkins
Folks have not lost trust in the scientific process, we have lost trust in the institutions of science.
Accurate distinction. 👍
I hope it's true, though there is unfortunately overlap in those who don't make that distinction clearly, I'm sure.
Wow Freddie, you did not let him off the hook. The fact that he doesn't notice the "mistrust" is his testimony that he is still in denial. Thank you Freddie for helping to break the spell he is under! These powerful people need to be held accountable for the way they influenced others to attack their fellow citizens.
Yes, Freddy. Well done!
It surprises me how idiotic people can be in relation to this topic. Statistics tells us that when we don't have exact answers, the best path is early decisive action until we do have more evidence to plan a course. Hence lockdowns initially, and later vaccinations made perfect sense. Secondly, in relation to lockdown severity and duration, the main objective was always to smooth the curve and reduce the hit on our health systems so they didn't collapse. Anyone who doesn't accept this obviously hasn't talked to anyone on the front line who suffered greatly (and in comparison, the rest of the population had it easy)
I recall that many in Sweden evacuated to their second home, holiday home or island…. Swedens death rate was not particularly low. NZ had the lowest death rate of developed countries - until they reduced their isolation policies. It is a fundamental fact, infectious disease control 101, that isolation reduces spread of infectious disease.
Dawkins says that the public were demanding simple "yes or no" answers but it seems to me the opposite is true. Most of the public appreciated nuances that scientific advisors and politicians wanted to downplay, such as the highly age-dependent mortality profile of Covid, or the probability that prior infection would provide at least some future protection against Covid.
the public in his own bubble
The new study re lockdown, shows as much!
People where acting sensible, till the State got involved
@@bogdanpopescu1401 indeed,
He still not clocked the jabs are no longer a miracle @ the $peed if $cience🧐
They censored The Barrington Declaration!!!!!
When I was a child, my Mum used to say "want doesn't get". She meant that it was her job as an adult to moderate my childish whims.
The last 3 years has shown that “scientists” like Richard Dawkins follow it more like religion, rather than being true to science. If he can’t acknowledge his mistakes, then it shows who he really serves.
Scientism is the word.
It's curious how staunch atheists often adhere to ideological principles with fanatical religious intensity.
He is not a scientist. He has not made any major contribution to science. He is just a guy who made money talking about science. Overrated journalist at best.
🎯
Ironic considering his remarks about Snake Handlers!
My g*d. As almost everyone is commenting… I’ve lost 90% of the respect I once held for Dawkins. The *evidence* that’s pretty widely available to anyone with just some basic scientific knowledge is quite simply the opposite of what he’s saying & yet he denies/makes excuses for all of this!? Wonder if he’s being paid off???
The biggest disappointment of my rather long medical career, was the failure of the vaccines (beyond Delta).
Personally, it was a very difficult time to be in practice. There was a great deal of conflict.
Hindsight is easy - being there and having to act on the best clinical grounds available. Let us never forget that in the USA alone, 1 million died.
We simply had to act. There and then. There was no time for long term studies
We basically got a lucky break when Omicron emerged and out competed Delta.
@@andrewreid6729 Yes. Of course, the subsequent mutation could have gone either way
Prof Dawkins is incredibly unscientific in this case is all one can say. Refusing to revisit a stand taken in view of new conclusive evidence shows how unscientific a person is.
Indeed, it's remarkable how fast things move when safety and ethics are thrown out the window.
Where all his anti God rhetoric and moral hubris could have all come out and shown the world how scientific he is , well he went along with the crowd like a regular cult follower. A real piece of work
And this guy is supposed to be one of the smart ones. Even he disregarded the existence of greed, authoritarianism, and the manipulation of science. His arrogance still blinds him.
There goes my trust in the integrity of Dawkins. This man is too intelligent not to acknowledge the powerful financial forces which guided our governments covid policies.
The forces to which you refer didn't just guide the policies...they created and controlled them.
This man is too intelligent. Are you serious?
After all his posturing over the years finally you are losing trust. Oh well, better late than never, I guess. To me, his covid nonsense is par for the course. How anyone did not see through his blow-hard anti-logic and anti-science posed as hard fact throughout the years is beyond me.
He was probably in on it. Otherwise, these people are complete fakes, in that they pretend to be smart, when they are really not smart at all.
@@NikoAmeristar he speaks with a posh English accent, he must be a super brain and all knowing.
A 'we're not sure' answer would have at least been HONEST, Professor.
Here is the thing: the original effectiveness numbers were not lies, nor were their mistakes. They were the measured results when tested against the only available strain: the original wild strain. The virus mutating was almost inevitable with the lack of effort in completely stopping the transmission, and you say "the final number" as if they did not actually deliver the promised results against the pre-omicron covid. It did, and it still does. But hey, keep offering people the "choice" and lets see where the next pandemic takes us with that mentality.
So basically, he’s telling us that when you have to worry about things, you start lying to the public. Brilliant.
I will going to just say that academia creates the moust vile pathetic psychopatic cowerds know to man....Trust them people!!
💯. He’s totally dishonest.
Looks like he got a lot more wrong about covid. It's appalling his lack of acknowledgement of the true dimension of pharma and politics corruption.
The greatest plot twist of the past few years: atheism is illogical, out of touch with reality, and really really stupid.
tbf, many or even most in circles close to more postmodern thinkers like Foucault and his highly relevant concept of biopower were even more hypocritical.
Their epistemic humility and scepticism against authority vanished in the face of "parasitic stress".
..in other words: I'm not surprised that modernist thinkers like him are like that. It's more shocking to me that other, more relativist, more postmodern people were the same.
Altruism????
Shots that did not protect, prevent or cure. What a fool 😂
5:06 Freddie - I could never have said it better!! His insufferable political answers are excruciating to listen to, thank you for your perfectly calmly formulated response.
He just said, "Just imagine what would have happened if scientists said, 'We don't know'." Dr. Dawkins, please turn in your scientist card at the door as you leave.
their egos and their sources of funding stood against this
The very foundations of science are "we don't know" so let's make a hypothesis and test it. He is saying they didn't have time to be scientific with this. So disgusting.
No, Richard……just imagine what would happen if the scientists said “we know, with certainty…and you must follow us,” but were completely wrong. This, is what happened. (save for those who did not do this, and for the fact that it was generally political mouthpieces that promoted this “follow the science” narrative, not research scientists). Besides, this constitutes a false dichotomy….there’s not only “we know” and “we don’t know,” there are a billion honest degrees of certainty in between that can be expressed….
It is infantilizing to suggest that people can only handle binary answers. Fuck you.
This stood out for me also. He cuts his thought off there because even he realizes the pathetic stupidity of his argument. “Imagine if scientists told the truth”. A once great mind corrupted by ideological madness.
If you can’t say , “I don’t know “ you can’t be a scientist. Agreed, hand in your card.
The problem was the persecution of those who had a different opinion. They were silenced, slandered and maligned. This historic moment served to show the authoritarian spark existing in a portion of the population, including mr. Dawkins.
Absolutely in agreement with Prof. Dawkins here. The interviewer was, to my knowledge, not involved as a scientist at the time that decisions were being made. It would be interesting to ask the interviewer what role he played apart from investigating the outcome.
Real experts were not asked or ignored, laughter at, ridiculed
When I was young I was a big Dawkins fan, he's a smart man no doubt. As I aged and wised up I recognized in him an arrogance that almost seems pathological. He is the type who never acknowledges being wrong even if everyone else knows he is wrong. I no longer pay that much attention to him. Shame.
It's called scientific hubris.
Well worded
He’s not that smart really is he
Its only 1 thing... arrogance !! For him, the vaccine, an obvious failure, is a triumph for science. Madness !
The takeaway is that nobody should be “trusted with authority.” Belief in authority is the most dangerous superstition.
Exactly. Two quick examples: what happens when you trust authority on how to eat? America. What happens when you trust authority about how much (unprotected) sun to get, low vitamin D and global poor health.
A much better scientist once said "blind trust in authority is the greatest enemy of truth". It was Einstein.
How ridiculous to argue that it's preferable to give a 'guess' answer instead of admitting that one DOES NOT KNOW. Especially in a matter of such importance.
I am proudly unvaccinated and every unvaccinated person deserves a public apology and compensation. I will not have my integrity insulted by those stupid enough to fall for pharmaceutical propaganda and lies. You have willfully excluded capitalism from your false little world, where there were trillion dollar incentives and lobby money involved in these lies and the hate being spread!
Freddy is such an excellent intelligent knowledgeable & fearless interviewer . We need him on mainstream tv!
We don’t want to ruin him 😉
Only the golden oldies watch TV
This was one of Freddies best interviews as he didn't let Dawkins off the hook.
The mainstream will never allow itself to be polluted by the truth
Blow up your TV.
Well done Freddie. You are doing a fantastic job of gently uncovering the huge hubris and hypocrisy at that time. RD was clearly one of those who is now looking rather foolish : "mistakes may have been made"
I just heard the man admit he was wrong on something, and people are still saying he can’t admit he was wrong. Frankly, I’d trust Dawkins scientific knowledge over the combined scientific knowledge of everyone commenting on this video. He is a world renowned authority on evolutionary biology; he knows his stuff. That doesnt mean he’s infallible, but he said what he said based on other contagious virus like measles. People who are complaining base their opinions on nothing
He didn't admit he was wrong. He said, after much probing, that he 'may' have been wrong about it being everyone's altruistic duty to take the vaccine. A little more contrition wouldn't have gone amiss. The misery caused by him, and others like him, cannot be understated.
Exactly!
You out to listen again, he said nothing! LOLOL This man is protecting someone, of that I am very sure! He knows the truth now, but won't admit it!
His sympathy is with the authority, enough said 😊
This old man is proof that we can't trust these psychos anymore.
Ha ha !
Now, at least I know there’s another book on my bookshelf that I need to never make time to read. Thank you, Freddie, for exposing these absurd beliefs.
Being a child of 2 brilliant PhDs, having had COVID 3 times, having been vaccinated twice i can totally identify with those who’s faith in science and institutions is shattered.
Yes, your anecdote refutes all science. You're smart.
@@Xen0Phanes imagine my middle finger
Your parents must be ashamed
@@paomeimei you must imagine my 🖕
@@Xen0PhanesHis anecdote in comparison to what? The science…? Are you understanding the issue yet? Watch the video. It’s literally a doctor and a scientist discussing how science got it wrong.
He’s basically said it’s ok to lie to the public because they are not capable of making their own decisions based on what facts are known and their personal situation.
The way the people were persecuted for refusal to take the jab was disgusting. . They reached their decision about its efficiency and safety by doing their own research . Probably took them hours and hours to come to a decision that was right for them !
And they were right! The PUREBLOODS always knew to stay away from the snake oil!
Took me a few minutes
People didn’t lose faith in science… they lost faith in “experts” claiming they knew THE science
I'm from Australia where we had amongst the hardest lockdowns.
Sweden had 2900 deaths per million where we had 870, for no economic advantage in the end for Sweden.
the deaths are continuing 15% xs deaths
"Imagine what would have happened if we'd said we don't know when we didn't know!"
What would have happened is you would have been speaking the truth instead of lying.
It certainly was not to tone down the panic as everything they did was designed to ramp that up!
Sadly on this point I think Dawkins is correct. People don't accept an I don't know answer. That is the truth.
What is the problem is lying when you know what you're saying is wrong but you're doing it for political or financial reasons or to save face.
Lol, indeed
@@waterkingdavid "People don't accept an I don't know answer."
That isn't my experience at all. Perhaps you are speaking for yourself? By and large people prefer honesty to bs!
Furthermore, you seem to have entirely missed the point, which centres around the consequences of the loss of trust in scientists after having been misled by them. If Dawkins admits that lying is justified, how are we supposed to distinguish between the truth and a contingent lie? For example, if he says we must adopt a certain policy measure because climate science predicts disaster if we don't, maybe science does, or maybe it doesn't but he thinks we should 'err on the side of caution.' Of course the sensible attitude to adopt in this circumstance is to treat everything he says with scepticism.
Dawkins evidently has a massive ego and considers himself above normal conventions. And so 'THE TRUTH' is really nothing other than Dawkins' personal judgement, which may coincide with science or may not, but we are too stupid to be involved in such complications and so he will do the deliberation for us.
Amen! Only thing is…they KNEW!! That argument sounds great to those who were willfully blind, ignorant and stupid. Far less intelligent than 1/2 the people they were trying to fool and control. They blew it up beyond all reasonable proportion and then made ‘decisive’ decisions to harm, kill and impoverish the population.
Shame on Dawkins. He got every point wrong. He has picked the wrong side of ethics, science, and history. Now he hides behind banality and the sorry excuse of expediency to avoid accountability.
He's a gate keeper.
As weak as his admission was, imagine a politician or TV doctor coming out with even half this amount of humility. It’d be a miracle… and then Dawkins would have to become a theist.
Very. Difficult. To. Continue. Listening… after his first mention of “scientific glory…” smh
I agree. He's not forgiven. Millions of people with no medical or science background got it right from the beginning.
He's a modernist. To me, it's not surprising that he is like that. The hipocrisy of authoritarian non-critical views of circles which are close to postmodern thinkers like Foucault and his concept of biopower is much worse.
What you got wrong was the arrogance of thinking you were right
Complete distrust of all medical professionals
Well, now we know the truth about Dawkins. He's not a science supporter, he's a scientism propagandist.
He is an intellectual coward. Attacks Christians but is scared stiff of those who follow the Prophet.
Bingo !!
😅😅😅😅😅
@D Duckman have you see him ask the lman what's the punishment for apostasy
Likely a visitor to Little St James.......this sounds like rhetoric, not the considered opinion of an intellectual.
Great interview by Freddie, sharp and professional. Richard Dawkins is a perfect example of establishment rhetoric who aims to manipulate the listeners through his false humility. Thank you for delivering this interview, while most Dawkins fans are now perhaps a little disappointed, the video did continue to reveal his nausiating arrogance and inflated ego. All in all a good result for humanity.
I was very disappointed in Dawkins here. As you say, absolutely spot on interview.
I am one of those who held Dawkins in very high esteem. And, I am more than a little disappointed. I really never thought he could be so unscientific.
"I have'nt noticed" a very scientific statement...