By CHRIS MOONEY - THE INTERSECTION
Added: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 UTC

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/10/29/why-dawkins-gets-asked-about-his-atheism/

Josh had a very good post yesterday, and not only because it defended us from some ongoing misrepresentations. In it, Josh also raised an important point: Why is Richard Dawkins, promoting his new evolution book, regularly being asked about his atheism, and why he is “strident,” “polarizing,” etc? Is it the media’s fault–or is it Dawkins’?

I would actually say a bit of both.

Journalists can be quite irresponsible, and even when they’re not outright irresponsible, they love to be provocative and to stir up conflict. To them, Dawkins is “Mr. Big Atheist,” and thus instinctively seen as a polarizing figure. Many radio or TV hosts, and even print journalists that Dawkins encounters on his tour, will not have read his books carefully; instead, they will be going on impressions and what they’ve heard.

Moreover, some of these journalists probably partake of the popular misconception that evolution and atheism are somehow equivalent. They may not even be able to distinguish between Dawkins’ last two books, and so of course, they’ll leap from one to the other insensibly.

Finally, atheism is, to a trouble-making journalist, potentially a much sexier topic than evolution. It’s divisive. It’s controversial. It’s much easier to create sparks with culture war questions than it is to patiently allow Dawkins to explicate science.

Frankly, I wish the media would just let Dawkins talk about evolution–it is the topic of the new book, and would be much more educational for the audience. But I don’t believe for a second that this is how the media behaves. That Dawkins would, after The God Delusion, be framed as a scientist-atheist combo, or even the icon of atheistic science, was as inevitable as night after day. It’s the media equivalent of a law of nature.
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http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/10/29/why-dawkins-gets-asked-about-his-atheism/

TAGGED: ATHEISM, SCIENCE