[user104658]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

Are scientists not entitled to an opinion based on moral and ethical reasoning?
His opinion has been formed during a career working in ethology so he is qualified to comment on the impact on the children and families affected I would say.

Yes, they are entitled to that, but opinions based on moral and ethical reasoning are not scientific. If Wayne Rooney goes out for a game of tennis, he cannot be described as playing football just because "he's a professional footballer".

A scientist Dawkins may be... But he did not have his scientists hat on when he made this tweet. As you say: it's an opinion based on ethics and morals. It is not a theory based on experimentation or scientific observation. It isn't science.

It's a scientist giving a bog-standard human opinion and dressing it up as anything else is just false.

In many people's eyes (including my own) , the opinion he is offering absolutely stinks and is perfectly fair game for criticism.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Yes, they are entitled to that, but opinions based on moral and ethical reasoning are not scientific. If Wayne Rooney goes out for a game of tennis, he cannot be described as playing football just because "he's a professional footballer".

A scientist Dawkins may be... But he did not have his scientists hat on when he made this tweet. As you say: it's an opinion based on ethics and morals. It is not a theory based on experimentation or scientific observation. It isn't science.

It's a scientist giving a bog-standard human opinion and dressing it up as anything else is just false.

In many people's eyes (including my own) , the opinion he is offering absolutely stinks and is perfectly fair game for criticism.

Whatever you or anyone else thinks is irrelevant here, we're not discussing what the general consensus on twitter/forums are.

You have reduced it to a 'bog standard opinion' which based on his career I don't think it could be.
How you can differentiate what 'hat' he was wearing is as a man or as an evolutionary biologist, where is it written that in place of moral/ethical debate science only has logic?

I don't know how Wayne Rooney fits in even as an analogy, Again I think that unlike maybe other branches of science biologists are more likely to include moral and ethical considerations as they're sometimes accused of 'playing god'?

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Yes, they are entitled to that, but opinions based on moral and ethical reasoning are not scientific. If Wayne Rooney goes out for a game of tennis, he cannot be described as playing football just because "he's a professional footballer".

A scientist Dawkins may be... But he did not have his scientists hat on when he made this tweet. As you say: it's an opinion based on ethics and morals. It is not a theory based on experimentation or scientific observation. It isn't science.

It's a scientist giving a bog-standard human opinion and dressing it up as anything else is just false.

In many people's eyes (including my own) , the opinion he is offering absolutely stinks and is perfectly fair game for criticism.

I get what you're saying. Sometimes there's just no argument left, and yet people will still argue for the sake of it. It turns from a debate to a really tedious battle that gets further and further away from the point.

Dawkins knew what he was doing when he posted that comment. He knew exactly which words he would choose and the reaction they'd get. It's the trouble with the Internet, it gives a platform for free speech to the stupidest, the cruellest, the most ill-informed people on the planet in a way no other medium has ever done before and there are an army of people determined that those stupid, ill-informed, cruel people have a right to spout their bullshyte however ridiculous it might be. Pre-Internet those people would be reduced to standing on a box in Speaker's Corner so we can all laugh at them, now, they're taken seriously and their "opinion" must be protected. Protected on a forum which is moderated and where we're not allowed to give our full and unbiased opinion on some things. The Internet is both a blessing and a curse.