Advertise here with Carbon Ads

This site is made possible by member support. โค๏ธ

Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.

When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!

kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.

๐Ÿ”  ๐Ÿ’€  ๐Ÿ“ธ  ๐Ÿ˜ญ  ๐Ÿ•ณ๏ธ  ๐Ÿค   ๐ŸŽฌ  ๐Ÿฅ”

Richard Dawkins is a Mac guy

Richard Dawkins is a Mac guy. Calls PCs “virus-compatible”. Heh.

Reader comments

barlowJan 27, 2004 at 11:26AM

I'm glad he's a mac guy, but Dawkins bothers me - he is such an out of touch modernist that one could say he has one of the finest minds of the 19th century.

CushieJan 28, 2004 at 5:26AM

I think he is a big Alan Kay fan (or friend).

samJan 28, 2004 at 8:40AM

He might be a Mac guy, but he's also an all-round asshole in my opinion. (An opinion informed, obviously, by never having met the guy but by frequently hearing his irritating obsessionism pop up on numerous radio discussion programmes.)

Not that I'm saying those two facts are necessarily connected.

rik abelJan 28, 2004 at 10:24AM

I was going to make a tshirt bearing the legend "Dawkins in God" just to annoy him. But I never got around to it.

praanaJan 28, 2004 at 11:36AM

Nice essay. I happen to like his writing on evolution too. i wonder what's assholy about him...

samJan 29, 2004 at 8:48AM

What's assholy about him? Well, the 'holy' part of that word is a good fit. Essentially, I got the impression of him as a religious fanatic, although his religion is actually antireligion.

His world appeared to be black and white, with 'white' (good) being science and 'black' (evil) everything else; he seemed to see himself as a holy crusader for science and against anyone who might appear to hold even slightly different opinions. And he didn't seem to shut up about it.

If he were purely 'crusading' against - say - certain reactionary elements in the US who persist in teaching literal creationism (and even one bizarre school here in the UK) then good for him, but he didn't give that impression; he seemed to be anti-religion of any kind and anti-religious people of any kind.

Like I said this is what I get from having heard him a bunch of times in radio discussion shows on various topics (on BBC radio 4, probably promoting his books, I dunno) and maybe he was having three or four bad days but I don't think so. As you may guess I've never read any of his books and certainly never intend to. So I'm not suggesting this is an informed opinion. I just think he's an asshole, that's all. :)

This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.