Posted by Hemant Mehta in Richard Dawkins is on Time magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. Not surprising given what he’s done for atheism in the past year with his book The God Delusion.
Which esteemed scientist wrote his profile?
Michael Behe.
The intelligent design advocate who wrote Darwin’s Black Box,
Next on the list, Sylvia Browne writing an homage to James Randi. And the late Ayatollah Khomeini saluting Sam Harris.
And Rhonda Byrne, the author of The Secret, is also on the Time 100 list… that’s a sad reflection of our society…
(via Pharyngula)
[tags]athiest, atheism, Richard Dawkins, Time, 100 Most Influential People in the World, The God Delusion, Michael Behe, intelligent design, Darwin’s Black Box, Sylvia Browne, James Randi, Ayatollah Khomeini, Sam Harris, Rhonda Byrne, The Secret, Pharyngula[/tags]
This makes me nauseous.
Given the already absurdity of this, did Khomeini salute Harris before or after he died? Because I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have done it while he was alive.
Gee, that’s quite the underwhelming praise there. The best he can say about the man is that he “invigorated the debate” and he “admires his determination”?
Yikes. You’d think there might be something else that would explain to those who don’t know him why Dawkins landed on the list in the first place. Sheesh.
Youmay like this:
http://mysticonomics.blogspot.com/
best
Un fucking believable.
Either the editors of Time have a perverse sense of humor or somebody on staff doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. There must be some religious leaders on that list; did prominent heathens write their profiles?
Check out the post from the anti-evolution blog site Uncommon Descent (I won’t provide link here), in which the original, uncut version of Behe’s writing is posted.
Now, you will notice a Dawkins image on that post. The title of that image is:
Obsolete imperialist myth-maker
This is a disgrace. I have posted a comment on Uncommon Descent which I think they will not publish it.
You can read about it a bit more on my own post.
Eh. It seems to be a theme. Newt Gingrich wrote the profile of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
I read this and shot off a quick email to TIME.
Here’s my email and TIME’s very quick response:
>Dear editors;
>
>This is a brief note to let you know how shockingly absurd it was to
>have the bio written by Michael Behe, a man so fundamentally opposed
>to everything Richard Dawkins stands for.
>Without taking one side or the other, can’t you see how ridiculous
>it makes TIME appear? It would be like having a tribute to Ehud
>Olmert written by Abu Ubeida.
>
>Vincent Lyon
Dear Reader:
Thank you for writing. We welcome timely, insightful reactions to
material we have published, and we can assure you that your
observations found an attentive audience among the editors. Should
your comments be selected for the column, you will be notified in
advance of publication. Again, our thanks for letting us hear from
you. We hope that you will write again should you discover something
of particular interest in the news or in our reporting of it.
Best wishes.
TIME Letters
There are dozens of comments from readers in Time’s “Talk Back” section on that site (including my own) objecting to the asinine use of Behe. Many compare it to having David Duke write a profile for Martin Luther King.
This is just absurd. I’m glad so many of you are writing in. I hope they publish the objections.
Stogoe wrote:
Yes, but Newt Gingrich actually WAS a Speaker of the House. This makes sense. In many respects he’s very qualified to write the piece.
But Behe writing about Dawkins is like getting a “Moon Landing was Faked” conspiracy theorizer to write the obit for Wally Schirra.
They had Dr. Oz from the Oprah Winfrey show write about a real doctor too (Oz is technically an MD but he also claims to believe in psychic healing so I don’t consider him a real doctor).