If you happened to pick up today's Sunday Times, you could easily develop an exciting new opinion of Richard Dawkins, author, television presenter and formerly Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.
A headline in the paper declares "Richard Dawkins: I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI", which suggested to my overly-active Sunday morning imagination that when the Pontiff arrives in September, the good Professor intends do his best Bond-gone-mad impression and personally attack the Papal Plane, kick in the door, rough up a few Swiss Guards, present an arrest warrant, slap on a pair of handcuffs and then drag Benedict XVI kicking and screaming to the authorities to face charges for his alleged role in covering up child abuse by errant Catholic priests around the world.
An amusing image, but it didn't take much research to discover that the headline was, to say the least, misleading. Dawkin's own website points out that the headline did a disservice to both himself and the Times journalist responsible for the article, and unless someone decides to make the movie (& if they do, who owns the rights?) that image of Dawkins the action hero will have to remain nothing but a diverting fantasy since the rather less funny truth is only that Pr Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have been exploring the possibility of mounting a legal challenge to the Papal Visit.
Thanks to Marc Horne, the Sunday Times reporter, for not only providing a topical addition to Tuesday's Critical Thinking workshop, but also inspiring the Photoshopping which has produced an image for the summing up session.
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Ive always thought of RD as a superhero fighting the evil enemies of critical thinking
ReplyDeleteWith a large "S" for Science on his chest?
ReplyDeleteOr "Skeptic"?
ReplyDelete