As an ethologist is a practising scientist (of animal behaviour), then knowing at least 'a jot' about science would be in order, wouldn't it. If kcurie meant 'physics', then that should have been said ...
I don't know what kcurie meant, but if indeed he meant 'physics' instead of 'science' then it's an example of hyperbole. Just a little while downthread I defend Dawkins using hyperbole, so surely kcurie should have the same license...
but it would have buggered up the force of the comment, by appearing to be something of a non-sequitur ('can't take anything Dawkins says seriously, he's not a physicist.')
Not at all. The objection was to Dawkins pulling data out of his butt. There is a world of difference between simply commenting on something that one is not knowledgeable about - which is something we all do from time to time - and trying to pass as a competent person while in reality pulling stuff out of one's butt.
Now, before we go down that road, I would like to emphasise that I'm guessing at kcurie's intentions here, which means that I really wouldn't like to take the discussion too far, because I'm making (more or less educated) guesses about a position that I don't hold myself. Which is frequently A Bad Idea. In general (from what little I have read), I find Dawkins' reasoning to range from excellent and tightly argued to execrable apologetics. Sometimes within the same text. But I haven't myself ever caught him pulling stuff about physics out of his butt, and I'm not competent to judge the rest of the specialist stuff he says.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
That is why I asked what was meant.
There is a world of difference between simply commenting on something that one is not knowledgeable about - which is something we all do from time to time - and trying to pass as a competent person while in reality pulling stuff out of one's butt.
And how do you know Dawkins was not actually doing the former instead of the latter, during whatever it was knurie is objecting to? Let's say I comment on something I am not knowledgeable about - say, the US current account deficit - and screw up the numbers - the data - from memory. Which category is that in? Does it even matter, if I have otherwise made a good argument that does not hinge on a discussion of the US current account deficit, an argument in which it is largely tangential and brought up in the heat of debate? Do you think that might happen to Dawkins, as it does to most people who are engaged in public debate?
I agree with you about That Which is Frequently a Bad Idea ... :)
There are other important stuff in ethology but I do not know enough and I would say that he is/was a respected ethologists.
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
