An interesting post over at . . ….

“the freedom of speech is meaningless unless it means the freedom of the person who thinks differently.”
-rosa luxemburg

2. Oops.

3. Prof. Dawkins requested that all applause be held to the end.

4. Prof. Dawkins was quite happy with the selection of questions, with the exception of the theme song question. He gets tired of answering the same questions over and over. In fact, he took down details of the question/answering system so that he could use it for future events.

All in all, Prof. Dawkins was very satisfied with how the event was run. I apologize if you were not, but I hope you enjoyed the rest of the event anyway.

Oh, and all the “self-promoting” was actually for the groups that helped pay for the event, and organized the publicity around it. You got to attend the event for free due to their advertising, efforts, and money.

It turns out, however, that the question-answer format touted to be “ingenious” wasn’t quite so ingenious after all.

The consensus from a lot of people I talked to outside was that this event would’ve been a lot better if the douchebag (we’ll call him Johnny) who introduced Dawkins had spent less time self-promoting and more time talking about the person that 4500 people had come to see.

A few highlights from the comedy of errors:

1. Johnny stays on the stage just a few feet away from Dawkins during the entire talk, busily sorting questions through his own little idiot filter (which I’ll come back to later). It was distracting and poorly thought out. Introduce the man, and then get off the stage. We didn’t come here to see you.

2. Dawkins has repeatedly pointed out that the title of Darwin’s book is emphatically not “The Origin　of the Species.” Its proper abbreviated title should be “On the Origin of Species.” It’s unsurprising when creationists and other laypersons do it (referring subconsciously to “the” species, i.e., humans). It’s devastating when the person introducing Richard Dawkins does it.

3. The arrogance of the self-aggrandizing douche really shone through when, after a more than usually brilliant answer to a question, the audience clapped appreciatively. Unfortunately, Johnny had already started responding and moving on to the next question. Sensing that he hadn’t been heard by all, he petulantly “reminded” the audience to hold all applause to the end of the questions. Umm.. In two words: Hell. No. That’s not how these things work. This couldn’t have been his first event like this, could it have? He must know that when some of us who have waited two years to see Prof. Dawkins finally hear his expounded brilliance, it really is okay to clap. Really. Good god. It’s almost as if anything other than a two-way conversation between Johnny and Prof. Dawkins would’ve been unacceptable.

4. Whose bright idea was it to have a single person filter out all the questions that made it to Professor Dawkins??? “What is your theme song?” Why, Johnny, why.. when you were so concerned about time that you silenced our applause, did you waste OUR time choosing to ask him the question “What is your theme song?” The question about whether or not he likes Christmas and one other that I can’t remember were okaaaaay, but they really did belong in his God Delusion book tour. He stated clearly in the beginning that his purpose in writing the book and coming out to speak to all of us was not to critique theism. It was to explain the evidence for evolution. If, in his expert judgment, Johnny deemed such questions more crowd-friendly, then he misjudged the sophistication of his audience. We know which book tour we came out to see.

Dawkins really did give a superb talk, but the event was marred by the poor planning and execution of Johnny and the rest of the SSU. It was unfortunate.

Your topic The Accidental Scientist ” Blog Archive ” Cocktails and Buffy: On … was interesting when I found it on Tuesday searching for sports blogs…

An interesting post by a bloger made me ……