Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Byron Lumley on February 6, 2010 at 12:17am

I would ask him about what we currently know about Abiogenesis, about the religious claims that it is not possible, something along those lines.

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Permalink Reply by Galen on February 6, 2010 at 6:33am

I'd like to know what he thought of the South Park parody of him.

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Permalink Reply by Dave G on February 6, 2010 at 3:46pm

He found it amusing, but thought that the accent they gave him was atrocious. (Asked at the AAI 07 convention)

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Permalink Reply by Rob Bishop on February 6, 2010 at 7:55am

I would ask him to help me understand the frequency of intersexual babies and identical twins in the population. The fact that they happen so often seems to call for an explanation. I might also run a couple of book ideas past him and see if he'd give me a leg up with his publisher.

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Permalink Reply by Rob Bishop on February 6, 2010 at 8:13am

If you'll read carefully, you'll see that I said, "the frequency of intesexual babies and identical twins." It's not identical twins I'd like explained, it's the frequency of identical twins.

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Permalink Reply by Rob Bishop on February 6, 2010 at 8:40am

If you'll read carefully, you'll notice that the Wikipedia article you reference does not discuss the frequency of twins in detail, and especially makes no attempts to explain it.

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Permalink Reply by Rob Bishop on February 6, 2010 at 10:13am

Ok, now you're just deliberately missing the point. Fine, it does discuss the frequency in detail. I was wrong. But that is not the point, and if you had bothered to read ANY of my posts you would have seen the word EXPLAIN or EXPLANATION in every single one of them, irrespective of the fact that I missed the two pointless paragraphs on the frequency DATA.

The point is that I would ask Professor Dawkins to help me to UNDERSTAND the frequency of identical twins, to get an EXPLANATION for the frequency. You posted on my wall something about feeling free to ask you any questions. Here's one: do I have to block you to get you to stop harassing me?

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Permalink Reply by Kirk Holden on February 6, 2010 at 12:05pm

I want to know if he still thinks that "The Extended Phenotype" is his most important work. I often wonder why the constant complaint - that he is a greedy reductionist, is not quickly countered with "read TEP and get back to me on that".

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Permalink Reply by ANGEL TAFOYA on February 6, 2010 at 2:18pm

Have a Great Time Jin!!

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Permalink Reply by Dave G on February 6, 2010 at 4:02pm

I have been fortunate enough to meet Professor Dawkins twice. Once at the Atheist Alliance International Convention in DC in 2007, and once at the American Atheists convention in Atlanta in 2009.

At the first, I asked him about a point he'd made in The Selfish Gene regarding gene cooperation that I had been unclear on. He cleared up my misunderstanding quite easily. At the second, I asked him about a book he'd recommended that I could not recall the author's name.

If I met him again? I'd probably ask him about his Doctor Who cameo. :)

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Permalink Reply by Dave G on February 6, 2010 at 4:44pm

A little at first, he is a world-famous biologist and author after all. But that was more me than him.

He was a pretty nice guy, once I got over the nervousness and the feeling that anything I said would be me making a fool of myself. Very courteous, too. When I asked him about the author of that book, he didn't recall the name at first, so I thanked him and moved on. About 5-10 minutes later, he waved me over as he'd remembered the name.

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