Saturday 12 September 2009

Four intellectuals in pursuit of a theorist

Last night Newsnight Review broke new ground when it managed for the first time in television history to interview four leading academics / writers who all took exactly the same line on Charles Darwin. The BBC has often in the past been accused of trying to generate debate for the sake of it, of engineering conflict, even of sowing seeds of discord. Some critics have suggested that a public service broadcaster has a duty to take a more singularly educational line.

In the past the Beeb has sadly resisted banging that drum in the name of objectivity. But last night its flagship Newsnight Review came out unequivocally on the side of Charles Darwin and invited four like minded liberals to engage in a classic 'set-piece love-in'.

It is hard to say who loved whom more. Did Margaret Atwood love Dawkins more than Darwin because he had effectively spread the word, was a more influential writer (nowadays at least) than Darwin? Did Ruth Padel love herself more than her great-great grandfather (Charles Darwin) because she felt a sense of occasion that simply did not exist in the Victorian 'dark ages' when his efforts were largely unappreciated... even derided? Or did the token fellow in the dog collar who clearly loved Darwin also love Richard Dawkins deeply, madly, passionately simply because... well, hey, a Christian can learn to love evolution, can't he?

At one point the discussion descended into animal impersonations when Margaret Atwood offered the insight that we don't know if animals sense impending death and we never will do, but insisted that it was a point still worth harping on about - it was the kind of consideration that she bungs in her novels, needless to say. Dawkins, ever the selfish genius then rolled over and tried to make love to himself, intermittently mentioning the words 'the prime directive', and suggesting that masturbation is simply an extension of the selfish gene.

But surely the night will forever belong to interviewer Martha Kearney for her unceasing and devoted sycophancy in the face of four trenchant Darwinists and her courageous attempts to agree with everything that these very public intellectuals said, skillfully avoiding tricky questions like, "If you are that confident about your beliefs, why do you tend to belittle those who don't sign up to them?"

It was a love-in alright... a night from television history that we'll be talking about for quite some time to come, testimony to the power of faith and language and intellectualism, and of course to the real 'prime directive,' the power of the BBC.

15 comments:

  1. You're not keen on Dawkins are you?

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  2. Evolution is a tricky subject

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  3. Wasn't that Padel woman the one who had to resign her poetry post at Oxford?

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  4. Arrogance is even better than intellectualism

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  5. No posts yesterday? Was it a day's silence on 911?

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  6. More like over-indulgence the night before

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  7. If you must know, computer fucked

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  8. Poor old Richard Dawkins. At least someone gives him a good press nowadays

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  9. Doctor Dirk Dawkins12 September 2009 at 10:11

    ... For I am the Lord thy intellectual teacher of the new evolutionary Gospel, and thou shall worship none other than me (and maybe Charles Darwin), and those who offer other theories shall be heavily smited as was Galileo, for I am the Lord thy Dawkins...

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  10. I would say that it was a Newsnight set piece - a bunch of smug intellectuals who love the sound of their own birdsong and the effect it creates in the academic jungle

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  11. Do not doubt the power of Langdon

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  12. Dawkins is scary, classic fanatic. Everyone who doesn't see the truth is mad or dangerous. Its a bad way of teaching. He sets up oppositions, conflicts, resentments when he should be cajoling, encouraging.
    Darwins is the best theory so far, but to preach it as Gospel as RD does is like saying are you for us or against us..?

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  13. A (soon to be) Doctor12 September 2009 at 12:04

    Intellectuals are smug, but deserve to be that way. After all they have spent years studying complex academic texts for the good of mankind.
    They carry on their shoulders the future of learning and truth and education.
    No mean feat.

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  14. Remember that sometimes the anger shown by people like Dawkins is down to frustration that people won't even accept stuff that is staring them in the face

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  15. Madamoiselle Pompadou12 September 2009 at 16:34

    yes, one wonders whether dear Mr Murdoch would allow such debates...

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