I don't get it? It may be a tad insensitive but no one ever said Dawkins was sensitive...

What's the big deal here? He has a point - it isn't a HUGE deal... maybe the chewing gum thing was a bit off the mark.. I don't know.

Agreed Thucy, we can't be surprised at the things that come out of his mouth. If anyone needs three pieces of duct tape over their mouth it's him.

Come on Ashleygirl, Ful is not that bad.

Are you trying to start trouble manganese? Just to clarify, I was referring to Dawkins :-).

Either one.

Sounds like a non-issue to me. I can understand why people don't like Dawkins. He does come across as quite arrogant sometimes. But so what. I like his books, especially the ones about evolution. He is good writer and debater. Does he get it wrong when he tries to discuss theology? Probably but such details are almost always tangential to the point he is making.

Manganese has the capacity to combine ad hominem attacks with sarcasm. Unfortunately his real opinions are difficult to ascertain as a result. I think that this is what is known as ''passive aggression''. Each to their own I suppose.

My opinions are the same as yours, Ful: Worthless.

@ Manganese. Well we have that in common anyway!

Question is can you overcome your inhibitions and walk the walk?

When you explain what that question is supposed to mean I may be able to answer.

I'll admit to being a bit of a Dawkins fan and try to explain his position. He does seem to be in a bit of fauxpaux - but not terribly so. Using the article you reference as the only reference at taking it to be true at face value; I can't say exactly what Dawkins was thinking, he is not so totally dismissable as the author suggests in sort of perfect-speach-extremism.

Using Biology and such analysis as a starting point, from Diamond's "Why sex is fun" to Pinker's "The Stuff of Thought" to Wright's "The Moral Animal" there is actually a good deal of biological literature and analysis about how homo sapiens find each other and mate. Most of these works springboard off Dawkin's own "The Selfish Gene" or Wilson's "Sociobiology". In modern civilized society it typically requires a male at some point take a socially awkward "chance". Then there is lots of writing about the nature of this chance from inter-ocular distance analysis to phermone detection. (Monty Python - try giving her a kiss boy!) Some guys read such subtle signals better than others . . . it sounds like in this case a woman was politely but unwelcomely propositioned in an elevator (close and closed space). Some guy got the process wrong. So she wrote a blanket response to all males - "don't do that". Work that reasoning out . . . males are out here trying to navigate a system with some fairly intense and non-intuitive rules. If we (human males) stopped taking potentialy awkward chances to explore pair-bonding potentials - well . . . I guess the population explosion might reduce. Maybe she is onto something. Did Dawkins think all this at the moment of his reposne? I don't know what he thought - but it sounds like he expressed exasperation and tried to point out how small this is compared to very real massaginistic injustices occuring out in the world.

Well i did say, in a recent thread, how aweful it was for society to expect me to cross the road because it 'might' be deemed as fear inducing by a woman or something to that effect.

On the other hand, propositioning a woman in a lift is poor taste, because she can't escape, and thus it hurts your chances of success... therefore i deem this poor tactically maneuvering on the male's part.

Dawkins may be annoying, obnoxious, and making comparisons to situations which have no relevance here, but that doesn't mean he's wrong. Just dis-likable as usual, and that is hardly news.

Dawkins is a rude dick as usual, but that lady's crazy to begin with. The guy asked her for coffee and left when she said no. What else do you want him to do? This guy's a champ for even having the balls to ask, and a decent human being for simply moving on when she said no.

It's too bad Dawkins had to wrap the story up in his usual dismissive assholery. There's a really good South Park episode about how Dawkin's arrogant attitude gets in the way of his messages. We've got a clear example of that right here.

Have to check that out. For my part, I would really enjoy hearing South Park tell me that attitude can get in the way of message.

Reminds me of some old saying, can't recall exactly which one right now. Something about kitchen utensils conversating.

Fulham hangs on Dawkins every word and probably stores every 'insensitive' comment he's ever said in some dossier somewhere. It's sad really.

Manganese - <* PLONK *>

On a somewhat tangent, its like the woman who knowingly dresses in what would generally be defined as scantily or provocative and then are offended if/when a man looks at her overtly because she herself doesn’t find that person ‘attractive’.

Dawkins could have used a better example or articulated it more clearly but I think that his point was that its not the man’s fault for making an ‘advancement’ (do to it being only verbal) and its equally acceptable for the woman (or any woman) to decline the ‘invite’ but that one can not take that or any woman seriously if she felt offended or accosted, being that it was non-physical, because where does it end?; ’please stop chewing that gum because it offends me.’ and in saying so have the expectation or some moral justification to having/making that person stop.

His point was that the chick needs to get some perspective if she was really so offended by some dude asking her to coffee in an elevator that she felt the need to post a video about it. And she does. Just turn down the offer politely and go on your merry way and if the dude starts getting pushy then do something about it.

And the Muslim woman bit actually makes a larger point (as I'm reading it): Women who call that much attention to a complete non-incident like this one and make an incident out of nothing and take a stand against misogyny that doesn't exist only trivialize the plight of women like the ones in Muslim theocracies/pseudo-theocracies who really DO suffer from misogynistic societies; same story with any other form of discrimination. There's enough real problems to waste time bitching about non-incidents like this.

I'm honestly more shocked that she was bothered enough about it to put up a video on the internet. Get some thicker skin, seriously -- from the sounds of it, the guy didn't do anything remotely offensive to a rational human being. Just asked her to coffee, she declined, move on. If it was some late-night thing as I understand it was, then yeah, bad timing. Okay. So just say no and move along. No reason to try to make some larger point about men asking women out from this. There isn't one to be made.

And considering I did, the one time I admittedly wasn't thinking about where I was, ask a girl to coffee in an elevator -- and she accepted without a single bit of concern for the fact that we were in an elevator -- this doesn't even hold true for every woman. So this really IS just one woman whining about some dude that asked her out in a place she didn't like to be asked out in at a time she didn't like to be asked out at. Fair enough, you don't like it -- just say no and move on. Jesus.

President, picture sharing a jail cell about the size of a lift with someone much more powerful than you, how would you feel about macho man's innuendo of ''sharing a coffee'' with you. I have asked my wife and daughter about this and, I have to say, that they too would be very uncomfortable/intimidated in this situation - it is inappropriate behaviour at best, and threatening at worse. We men need to be much more sensitive of women's feelings in this and similar situations.

Then to top it all some idiot, supposedly the leading light of the rationalist movement of which you also align yourself with, tells you not to complain and brings up two totally irrelevant comparisons. One of them being the focus of his obsession rather than anything to do with your justifiable concerns.

Incidentally, you might also suspect that this particular leading rationalist holds to the belief that the hypothesis of Natural Selection will be able to explain all human behaviour, may hold the view that rape was/is/will be/ not absolutely wrong.

Private UK universities founded and supported by leading members of the rationalist community (i.e., Dawkins and Grayling) are entirely consistent with a future of ever increasing inequality based on your parentage rather than your ability. To be fair, however, they probably see nothing immoral about this, probably concluding that it is the ''natural order'' of things.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jun/05/new-college-dawkins-grayling-ferguson

I'm not surprised that Fulham, after whining about Dawkins going on irrelevant tangents and making unjustified implications from the complaint about the propositioning, goes as far as to say that Dawkins doesn't think rape is wrong. Of course, it probably also means he loves National Socialism and wants poor people to be euthanized.

No, it does mean he has a dismissive attitude towards feminists in the west and overreacted to the video. A legitimate complaint to be sure, but considering the wild statements you make about your 'rationalist' bogeymen it appears that you suffer from the same problem that Dawkins does.

"Private UK universities founded and supported by leading members of the rationalist community (i.e., Dawkins and Grayling) are entirely consistent with a future of ever increasing inequality based on your parentage rather than your ability. To be fair, however, they probably see nothing immoral about this, probably concluding that it is the ''natural order'' of things."

Well it's obvious you read the New Statesman article and are just going from one complaint to another. Any dirt you can find on Dawkins you will post. It's pathetic that you have to resort to character assassination in order to defend your belief in magic and sorcery over Darwinian evolution.

Yeah, yeah... typical banter by the usual conservatives on how it's the male right to make passes at the female whenever he pleases under any circumstances - because, the species would die if we didn't, and true love would go unrealized, etc. And how females are entirely too sensitive blah blah... Anyway, here is what the woman in question actually said regarding said incident:

"Um, just a word to wise here, guys, uh, don't do that. You know, I don't really know how else to explain how this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, but I'll just sort of lay it out that I was a single woman, you know, in a foreign country, at 4:00 am, in a hotel elevator, with you, just you, and—don't invite me back to your hotel room *right after I finish talking about how it creeps me out* and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner." (emphasis added by me)

First of all, not that controversial. Really. Note that the guy in question was in attendance in the group where she had done her talk. So - essentially the guy had *already* received a categorical and clear "no" - and yet *still* chose to make a pass at her in the confined space of the elevator right afterward. Definitely creepy, definitely insensitive. This is a guy that clearly thinks his desires trump those of the woman alone in the elevator with him. Definitely creepy... and definitely a candidate for a potential rapist (because that is the very definition of a rapist - someone willing and able to disregard your desire to be left alone because they can't control their own sexual/controlling desires). She voiced her feelings on the matter... and then, shortly after that, Dawkins (who I normally like) sticks his nose into the matter and is a royal (and illogical) jerk. Anyway - I don't think she (Rebecca Watson) warrants any negative reaction for her, quite natural, reaction. Thankfully Dawkins is not my pope or prophet... and his personal failings prove nothing about evolution, atheism or any other scientific/philosophical view that I happen to share with him.

Interestingly enough to me, one could apply Dawkin's 'you're entirely too sensitive and don't you realize that there are women with bigger problems elsewhere' sort of reaction to Dawkins himself... Dawkin's annoyance and irritation with religion in the west could be, by his logic, dismissed as completely unimportant because there are people in Iran being executed for being atheists or infidels. They guy is blind to his own inconsistency on this contradiction, I imagine. Unfortunate. ...but he still, as an articulate ambassador for science, rationality and atheism, still brings more positive things to the table than negative.

This little gem fascinated me:
"Incidentally, you might also suspect that this particular leading rationalist holds to the belief that the hypothesis of Natural Selection will be able to explain all human behaviour, may hold the view that rape was/is/will be/ not absolutely wrong."

It's always a trip when Christians whine about sexism. Christianity and the Abrahamic tradition in general set women equality back millennia. They're very busy right now implementing horrible misogynistic laws in the states. But we're supposed to get an uproar about Dawkins being concerned about the severe repression of women in the Middle East.

If you want to bash one of the New Atheists for misogyny, a much more low hanging fruit is Christopher Hitchens, who is an absolute ogre on women's issues.

"Incidentally, you might also suspect that this particular leading rationalist holds to the belief that the hypothesis of Natural Selection will be able to explain all human behaviour, may hold the view that rape was/is/will be/ not absolutely wrong."

Yes, manganese... that struck me too. The thought occurred to me that that passage needs an accompanying sound effect. Something cartoonish, I imagine. Possibly a slide whistle, kazoo or a fart might be involved.

How about "D'oh!"?

Yeah, I get it. She was uncomfortable.

And? What is her whining about it on a video going to do about it? Any guy who would listen to her would never rape a woman or seriously even entertain the thought.

He asked at a bad time, she got uncomfortable about it, and turned him down, as was her right. Fine. No one (sane) is objecting to that; Dawkins's and others' point is that there really wasn't any purpose to baaaaawwwing on a video about it. I don't see what's so wrong about that point.