Dawkins in Vancouver
Offline Richard Dawkins was in Vancouver the past bit and yesterday gave a lecture in the Chan Centre at UBC. I was fortunate enough to get a ticket to go. I felt like a kid in a candy store. As a very big hockey fan it is normal to see people get excited to meet athletes and the like, though it never did anything for me. I was truly excited to get a signing of my copy of The Selfish Gene by Dawkins though. The guy has played such a critical role for me in recent history and I really do believe he's a man worth the praise he gets (praise the intellect, not the athelete).
The actual lecture was fantastic and I am glad to have gone. I don't think it was anything special to those that regularly follow him but still nice to get to see it live. The Q&A session was okay but I was rather annoyed by the vegetarians who managed to 4 times, essentially, ask the same question "why are you not a vegetarian?" in different manners. I really hate when people use a stage like that to promote their own cause which has nothing to do with the one being discussed. The 4th guy, much to my enjoyment, was booed down by the entire place and Dawkins refused to answer the question.
The following article was printed just prior to the lecture:
Peter McKnight's article.
Which was okay, but ... yawn.
More interesting was this blog that was posted by another local writer:
Douglas Todd's blog.
In this blog posting he says:
The author of The God Delusion has refused to be interviewed in Vancouver by me, after he read a column I wrote about his book.
I took that for what it is. Interestingly though, this isn't quite what happened from Dawkins perspective who said this on his own forums regarding the posting:
I did not 'refuse' to be interviewed by Douglas Todd, and certainly not because I had read an article by him. I have in fact no recollection of ever having read anything by him. I get lots of requests for interviews, and I have to limit my time. In this case I asked the local organizers, at the Fraser Institute who were my gracious hosts in Vancouver, to allow one newspaper interview only, and they went for Peter McKnight. It was a good decision as it turned out, for Peter McKnight proved to be a highly intelligent, thinking man. Unlike –– as I now see from reading his article (for the first time) Douglas Todd.
Richard
Ohh the joys of drama queens who kick and scream because they don't get what they want.
Anyway...great lecture and a joy to see as I am sure Dawkins won't be back anytime soon (if ever).
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I envy you for getting to see him live. I need to get my ass in gear and try to hit up a conference one of these days. Hopefully someone will put up some audio or video on youtube soon. First UFC 83, then Dawkins...you Canadians are getting spoiled!
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda
So, why aren't you a vegetarian?
While I was I had a difficult time compensating for my B12, even with suplements as well as other nutritional reasons. Protein was also a big issue considering the amount that I currently eat which made my feel, in general, quite week and tired.
Vegetables like suck. Steak is cool.
UFC 87 is coming to Minneapolis in Aug, I can not wait for that
Yeah 83 was pretty good, 87 will be interesting. As for Huerta and Florian, on paper, you gotta give the W to Florian in this one. He has fought way tougher competetition, and has had his mettle tested numerous times. Huerta is great, but they have given him the Bisping treatment so he can bring the latino/mexican demographic in to the sport. I have seen all of Huerta's televised fights and love watching the guy fight. Guida Vs. Huerta was an amazing fight, and probably top 3 of last year. I think he has a shot to win against Kenflo, but this fight really is a giant leap up in talent and experience he is facing off against. I just thank the UFC for making great matchups lately. That being said, I like Kenflo, but I will be rooting for Huerta as the underdog, and would say he is probably a 2 to 1 underdog.
Lesnar and Coleman should be good, hopefully Lesnar will have gained some ground skills and moved past his UFC intro jitters which is characteristic of so many first time UFC fighters. He had Mir dominated early on his debut and made a mistake with one of the best submission guys in the game. I kind of wish they would have given him a Kimbo lineup, but he has too much of a price tag and popular history associated with him to make that financially viable.
UFC rant ends....
Back to the subject at hand, RD's website put up his radio interview in Vancouver, Canada around his appearance. It is a bit long, but someone cut out the commercials to a 32 minute mp3. Get it here... Dawk on Bill Goodwin Radio Show
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda