The Enemies of Reason
The Enemies of Reason is a two-part television documentary, written and presented by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Is it rational that the dead can communicate with the living and give sound advice on how they should live their lives? What about sticking pins into your body to free the flow of Chi energy and cure your illness?
Or the bending of spoons using your mind alone? Is that rational? Richard Dawkins doesn’t think so, and feels it is his duty to expose those areas of belief that exist without scientific proof, yet manage to hold the nation under their spell. He will take on the world’s leading proponents in their field of expertise, meet the victims who have used them and expose the history of the movements – from the charlatans who have milked these practices to the experiments and testing that have failed to produce conclusive results.
Dawkins points to some of science’s achievements and describes it as freeing most people from superstition and dogma. Picking up from his superstition-reason distinction in The Root of All Evil? (while recycling some footage from it), he then says reason is facing an "epidemic of superstition" that "impoverishes our culture" and introduces gurus that persuade us "to run away from reality". He calls the present day dangerous times. He returns to science’s achievements, including the fact that, by extending peoples lifespan, it helps them to take more advantage of live. He turns his attention to astrology, which he criticizes for stereotyping without evidence.
Richard Dawkins examines the growing suspicion the public has for science based medicine, despite its track record of successes like the germ theory of disease, vaccines, antibiotics and increased lifespan. He notes a fifth of British children are currently not immunized against measles, mumps and rubella, attributing it to fears arising from a highly controversial report linking the vaccine with autism. Dawkins criticizes the growing field of alternative medicine which does not pass the same objective and statistical rigor as scientifically derived treatments using controlled double-blind studies.
First of all, it is probably not a good idea to go around labeling people as your enemy if you want them to join your side. Secondly his arguments are more about English class snobbery than anything. He will attack the lower classes and those that are not as fortunate as to be admitted into Universities such as his. If he really wanted people on his side, he would have labeled the film something like why we need reason instead of pitting people against one another like David Attenborough's ants.
Just what the science community needs is another condescending elite displaying snobbery at the less fortunate.
O.K. it lost me within the first minute with the reductive limiting premise that there are two ways to look at the world. HOw limiting is that? It is not how you convince me. There are so many ways to look at the world.
um, i think i lost quite a few IQ points read these post. sigh
What you like to believe including your toilet or your god does not cost more than a piece of sh*t for others.
Epicurus. So grow up try to go
Science is just as ignorant and arrogant as well as those who practice religion. Science is just better at bull sh*tting everyone. I am a scientist and physician and find that there are things in this life that can not be explained by our understanding of science or medicine. For this id*ot to suggest that science alone explain everything is obviously a Darwinist and yet the THEORY of evolution is still a THEORY and not a scientific law. Its okay that this guy believe his ancestor is a monkey or a one cell bug in my toilet water but I prefer to believe that MY ancestors were human and created by GOD, not the result of chance that a toilet dweller later become human.
yep.
Dark side of the moon.
The scientific method is truly the only way t o go BUT modern science does no always stay true to it. it is corrupted by powerfull institutions and interests. So whatever method (like the placebo effect) works will be ignored aslong there is no way of making money out of it. Other example, Dawkins adresses the falsly spread rumor that 4000 jews have been tipped of before 9/11, BUT he fails to adress that the oficially stated cause of the collapse of the 3 WTC building due to a fire is absolutely NOT scientific. Also the dissapearance of the "plane" at the penntagon. Where are those sceptics when it comes to that????
Dawkins is a frequent practitioner of the "ridicule" school of public outreach on popular science education and secular skepticism. I'm not sure why he's like this but it may be attributable to being a Baliol College Brit or maybe his former exposure to being the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science (i.e; he may be getting old & impatient with "stupid human tricks") I especially enjoy it when he suddenly springs a debunking attack on some unsuspecting mushy-minded lunacy.
Whatever the reason, I love the Dawkins Canon---from media to books, all of which I've devoured with gusto. BTW: My personal preferences lie with the Penn Juliette "Bullsh*t Light" school of skeptical rebuke
This man has one of the most outrageously massive egos I have ever seen.
In the second part to this pair of videos, Dawkins comes off as apathetic, arrogant, and completely close-minded to the fact that science DOES NOT and WILL NOT have an answer for everything. In fact, all current science is generally based on old science which was commonplace for many years but has since been proven inaccurate or in some cases completely wrong.
The thing that irks me so much about this hard-nosed science mindset is that people who swear only by science are often just as hard-headed as people who are obsessed with religion. Once someone feels they have all the answers, they refuse to allow anyone else to even offer their opinion unless it is specifically backed by whatever stringent scientific testing protocol they have contrived as what is required in order for someone else's ideals or beliefs to become valid for listening to.
Science is amazing; but it's sad when I see people who completely dismiss what we do not know and only give credit to what we do know to be "correct". To live your live strictly based on proven science is to live your life by a set of rules which will eventually be proven to be as incorrect or "off the mark" as Dawkins suggests "alternative medicine" is.
I feel like society and pop culture as a whole are losing sight of the fact that these "alternative" or "new age" healing methods are in fact not new at all. Ancient healing and spiritual cleansing techniques have been put to use since the dawn of human consciousness; and there will never be enough science to change that. Modern medicine is actually more "new age" than much of the holistic medicine that Dawkins sarcastically dismisses as hokey in this documentary.
Science has served us well, as far as we can see. Im not religious by any means but to suggest that everything in the observable world must have scientific empirical evidence for human understanding is a little premature. To take what we currently think we know of the world as a ceiling is a fallacy. Science is the best way we approximate to and interpret nature, it is by no means exact. The advent of Quantum physics too has threatened the many 'beliefs' we had from Classic Physics!! has science explained the 'observer effect'? (for those that havent see the 'double slit experiment' ) how can we be so sure of what is and what isn't when it is claimed that we use less than 10% of our brains? we use more than 10% you say? rubbish conspiracy theory? what about the pineal gland is that a rubbish conspiracy too? Richard Dawkins is utterly and stupidly narrow minded and is just part of the agenda to dumb us all down.
Official government documents are not 'evidence' Richard, it is faith
This documentary was impeccable. We need to quit being superstitious and just plain stupid and realize all of humanity's achievements are a result of science.
DID YOU "eastern medicine" QUACKS WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY
if "eastern medicine" worked it would just become medicine.
what your saying is that mind body duality belief somehow forms a magic barrier that "prevents" germs and bacteria from getting in your body go ahead and wipe monkey shit on your body, eat rhino horn and stick needles in non-existent meridians and see how well that works for you.
alternative,s.c.a.m/c.a.m and "eastern medicine" are PLACEBOS, placebos don't prevent anything they just make you feel better
GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR
i hope you keep your mind open to reality instead of closing it to evidence
maybe you would learn something
also @ nazi medicine guy
people dont experiment on thier kids with medicine because THEY ALREADY TESTED THAT SHIT ON ANIMALS AND IN LABS A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF TIMES TO MAKE SURE ITS SAFE.
thats what science does, not alternative med where a shitty trial with no control counts as evidence and most of those products arent even tested for safety much less if they FREAKING WORK
if anyone likes rationalist evidence based rants or if you want to hear an opposing view point to your "faith" based medicine instead of Science Based Medicine please friend me on facebook
Xerxes said to lash the sea 300 times as a punishment? Was it a tantrum-throwing thing, or did he really think it would hurt?!?
My mind is blown. I don't know the truth about the supernatural--maybe it exists, maybe not--but this is the crap that atheists have to put up with?
Atheists, you are all owed a big apology. I'm truly sorry for contributing to the religion problem. I wish I was as sure as you. I sat back a few years ago and imagined all of you watching and being subjected to violent religious conflict over the course of human history. It has to be ridiculously laughable and horrifying at the same time. If you want to find an island to populate with only non-religious people, you have my most heartfelt support.
Religion has not be the sole source of war amoung mankind. More people have been killed due to pursuit of other ideologies, vs religion. Most of our 20th century wars have not been about religion, more people died in ww 1 & 2 than most other wars combined.
Religion can accept responsibility for atrocities it has committed, and yet the world just wants to heap blame at the feet of a single source. Easier that way isn't it? It boils down to this. Religion without the evidence science can help, well eventually become no more than mere superstition and dogma. Science, however, without religion will eventually break down into mere materialism.
If you could reason with religious people, there wouldnt be any religious people. - Dr Gregory House.
It is a waste of valuable time to try and cure ignorance. let the sheep of the church live and die in stupidity.
violence in the name of god around the world, thoughout time is the the only true evil I have ever known. learn from history that is what history is there for. The truly good people in this world are free thinking, with love for all unconditionaly.
no religion, know peace.
people who bash science have no right to use modern technology.
over 5000 year old alternative Aruvedic medicine s still known to be the best provider for preventative disease. Modern medicine is really only useful in emergencies, like surgery. This movie is probably paid for by big pharma lobbyists.
Whatever..... which is an answer I save for the few chosen ones.
And if you want to get a little angrier go see what I think about his documentary on religion, "the source of all evil".
No robertallen, I do not believe in a lot of things that you probably think small minded people like me believe, but I was thinking about it some more and here is where I think a big misconception of Western medicine is found. They see the body as isolated parts, and as a result, they experiment and try to cure accordingly. So if you go to the doctor for a stomach ache he or see usually sees you as a big stomach. Well the body is a unit and that should guide our philosophy when we try to cure it. The mind body connection is also important and it should be explored further. I agree that Eastern medicine (and I know your blood is boiling when I call it medicine) allows for a lot of BS but it is not all BS, and I think their basic premise that usually we can not cure body parts independently, and that we can not separate body and mind is correct.
I am not surprised.