Many Islamic spokesman reacted with outrage, but these same Muslim notables do not publicly question arguments that do not reach the threshold of subjective fact much less objective fact like "Western oppression created Muslim resentment." These statements do not even rise above opinion, but an objective fact gets denounced.

How can the truth be racist?

No bosox, it is only your opinion that is the point of the statement. Perception is also not reality. Calling someone a cracker is in reality a racist act. Your offense at a comment does not make the comment racist.

No. But objective facts can be used for racist purposes. Fewer Nobel prizes = fact (assuming Dawkins is correct). Fewer Nobel prizes because they're intellectually inferior as a race = racist
But no all negative uses of objective facts are racist. It has to be about race, and nothing else, otherwise it could be bigoted or prejudiced, but not racist. Eg.
Fewer Nobel prizes because their society and/ or religion discourages scientific thinking = not racist

There is an obvious implication, especially when you read the last sentence of the tweet. Don't pretend that he meant nothing and was just throwing out a random fact about Muslims and Nobel Prizes.

Rewording "It has to be about race, and nothing else"

To " It has to be about race, and not something else"

The first way I said it would leave open the possibility that it is about race and religion, which would still be racist (and religionist)

Phil, there is no assumption that Dawkins is correct. It is the truth that fewer Muslims won Nobel prizes than members of Trinity College. Do you often ignore reality?
It is your assumption that intellectual inferiority is the causation not Dawkins. Do you not realize that your perceptions are not reality?

Again bosox, you mistake your perception for fact. Your perception of obvious is not in fact reality. Do not pretend he was being racist with nothing more to substantiate that charge but your opinion. Opinions are not facts.

Dawkins, an athiest, is talking about religion, not race. The largest Muslim country is Indonesia, not the same race as the Arabs one typically thinks of. Hell, Iranians aren't even Arabs. And strictly speaking, I believe Arabs are considered part of the Caucasian "race".

it's dangerous to use facts about groups because you attribute characteristics to individuals based on their group rather than the individual themselves. unless there is a neccesary causation I would err on the side of caution...

Emac is the new TC

As a matter of fact Dawkins was not talking. The statement was made in a tweet. That is the entire context of the message.

Seems so, Fasces. But he makes everyone else look smarter, so it's all good.

"As a matter of fact Dawkins was not talking. The statement was made in a tweet."

Lol.

What is meant by "use facts?" Stating that a black has held the world record for the 100 meters for decades is an objective fact. Any "use" read into that statement comes from the reader not from the statement.

Emac, if I am to call it a fact without having verified it myself, the disclaimer had to be made that I believe that Dawkins did the research and is in fact correct. Don't take the phrase "assuming Dawkins is correct" in the sense that I question his correctness, take in the mathematical or logical sense that I am assuming this premise for the sake of my argument.

Normally I would make such a disclaimer, but the topic at hand was objective fact, so I felt I needed to be precise.

Reread my answer again regarding the rest of your comments. You'll see that I'm coming from a position closer to yours than you think

Yeah, not racist. Just Richard Dawkins being an asshole.

Philcore, Your ignorance of an objective fact does not make it false. Also a claim you make that is not verified is not an objective fact. Dawkins tweet is an objective fact.

Invictus, stating the truth (which is exactly what an objective fact is) does not make someone an asshole. Your dislike of that true statement can make them an asshole in your judgement.

That makes no sense.

Well actually it is an accurate, rational statement. Your perception of Dawkins as an asshole does not in fact make him an asshole. You to seem to believe your perceptions are fact.

What else is assholery besides someone else's perception?

I mean, he's not literally a rectum.

Ok, I'll try again. I don't know whether it's an objective fact or not. I haven't gone through the list of Nobel prize winners and counted the ones from Cambridge and the ones from Muslims. There is obviously an objective fact about the comparison that is fact, regardless of whether or not Dawkins did the research and whether he was correct about the comparison, and whether his twitter account got hacked or anything else related to the relaying of the information from Dawkins to me via twitter, then via your post here. No argument there. The objective fact of the comparison is limited to one of the possibilities

1) cambridge > Muslims
2) Cambridge = Muslims
3) Cambridge < Muslims

Whichever it is, it is an objective fact. All I was saying as a springboard to the heart of the question you posed was "I assume that Dawkins is correct and that the objective fact in question is possibility 1)" because I wasn't going to do the research to first verify that his statement was indeed fact. The relevant question you asked was about racism, which I answered after clarifying that I'm accepting the premise

I agree with both of those statements because you cannot prove someone is a non-literal rectum. You can prove that someone is not a rectum. Your previous statement simply needed to say that you thought Dawkins was an asshole for making that tweet. How could anyone argue with that.

I heard about the tweet on the radio driving today, and I've been reading "Being Logical" and thus this thread. It seems the discussion is more irritating than productive to the forum so I'll withdraw from it.

And to simplify my answer ... No it isn't racist

Phil, Dawkins statement is the truth.

Keep reading, maybe you'll understand my points better.

Does Emac think that Muslims are a race and not a religion? How stupid is this motherfucker?

Ok, I accepted that from the beginning, but unless you have verified it yourself as the truth, you too are just accepting that he is correct. It's not like is hard to verify, I was just being very clear that I haven't, but I assume he has.

For you to argue this point with me is to not understand proper logical arguments. And granted, most of the time, I'm not so precise and careful. But the term "objective fact" means we are being very precise and logical and so you have to be careful with your wording of things.

What if you did the research yourself and found out that Dawkins was wrong? Your insistence that he was right makes you look foolish without furthering the discussion which you presented, while my disclaimer that I assume he is right lets me get to the heart of the matter, which was "is an objective fact racist?" which I answered "no".