I hear a tale that at the Daily Mail, two reporters are always sent to cover each story: they interview the same people (or maybe different people), they do the same research and then they write their articles. The editors compare them the better article is used, maybe with parts lifted from the lesser piece.
Spiked now appears to be following the same philosophy by having two people review The Root of All Evil, that eye-poppingly silly programme Richard Dawkins presented on Channel 4 on Monday that tried to claim religion was the cause of all the world’s problems.
Now being an atheist myself but having gone to Christian schools since the age of four, I’m aware of the arguments on both sides and know it’s not as clear cut an issue as Dawkins would have us belief. Jesus or Mohammed may well turn up tomorrow and say, “Yes, I know the evidence in my favour was very flimsy and mostly contradictory. But guess what? I am the son of God, so there.” Can you prove they won’t? No, you can’t. You can’t prove a negative: it’s just a matter of faith, based on probabilities and past experience that they won’t. Personally, my money’s on Buddha though, but I’m just a contrarian.
Indeed, Dawkins’ frothings have gone past the point of usefulness. Where once he used to spell out the case for evolution so that even those with no biology education could see how it was all really, really obvious and well supported, now he just struts about sneering at people and tarnishing the relatively good name of atheism. All that does is convince believers and abstainers alike that atheists are a bunch of arrogant nobs who think we know it all and have nothing but contempt for others who “can’t think as clearly as we do”. Honestly, true believers, we’re not all like that.
Demolishing a programme in which the host just sits there, driven so angry with rage at the ‘stupidity’ of everyone he meets that his face starts to glow and he’s incapable of speech, shouldn’t be hard. Yet while the science correspondent at Spiked delivers a well reasoned and well written critique of the programme, the TV reviewer has chosen to launch his inaugural column with a stream of pretentious piffle that’s impossible to wade through. Amazing. I’d suggest they swap jobs but the fewer arts graduates writing about science the better, I reckon. Maybe the science guy could do the TV reviewing as well.
For once, the former Living Marxism should take a leaf out of the Daily Mail’s book and remember to drop the rubbish version of the article, not publish it and give it greater prominence. Fat chance though.