Richard Dawkins vs. Bill O'Reilly

In the next few days and weeks I would like to start writing some entries about interesting articles and videos I've come across. I'll start with this "interview" between Professor Richard Dawkins and FOX news commentator Bill O'Reilly on his show 'The O'Reilly Factor', which aired on the 10th of October. Dawkins was on the show to promote his new book, 'The Greatest Show on Earth'. Here is the link:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,4432,Bill-OReilly-vs-Atheist-Richard-Dawkins-,Fox-News

If you have never seen or heard of Bill O'Reilly you are in for a nasty shock. As this "interview" shows, he is one of the most belligerent and hypocritical ignoramuses in the US, a country where the ignorance barometre is higher than anywhere else. In critiquing this man it's hard to know where to start, but I'll begin by explaining why I put "interview" in quotes. The reason is simple: this is not an interview. This is, sadly, a typically one-way rant from O'Reilly in which the vast majority of the five minutes is taken up with his very loud soliloquies. Dawkins can hardly get a word in. O'Reilly shouts down his reasoned counter-arguments, then pretends to be gracious by giving him, "the last word", which lasts about ten seconds.

He's hypocritical and ignorant, but he's smart enough to have created a medium in which he can dominate the discussion and loudly diminish the opposition. It pains me to say it, but Dawkins made a mistake in agreeing to appear on such a forum. He would do much better to debate O'Reilly in a formal debate and for much longer than five minutes.

To the exchange itself, and again, I'm at pains to say that Dawkins did not do very well. The most crucial point they debated was why "creationism" should be taught in a science class. Dawkins did not say what I was screaming at the computer, which is that "creationism", "intelligent design" or any of those other nonsense ideas have absolutely no scientific merit. There is no science behind them - no experiments, no reports, no fact checking. Nothing. They can be talked about in an ethics class, a religion class or a debate class, but not in a science class. Dawkins did not make this point strongly enough.

"Until you guys can explain it [the creation of the universe], I'm sticking with Judeo-Christian philosophy." This is what O'Reilly says in the clip he showed from a previous interview, and the point he parrots again in the recent interview. Dawkins says very politely that this is an extraordinary piece of logic, and he's right. Science is very close to explaining the origin of the universe; there is plenty of evidence for it. But because it's incomplete, O'Reilly chooses to believe in something for which there is absolutely no evidence and defies all scientific beliefs.

Dawkins doesn't challenge the assumption that Jesus existed. People believe this because it was in the New Testament. That's not evidence. Jesus did not exist. If he did, he certainly didn't walk on water, or rise from the dead or fly bodily up to heaven. And his 33 years on Earth (of which only the first 12 and the last one are documented in the New Testament) were, in many ways, filled with examples we should not follow. He never married, nor had children. In fact, his attitude to women seems entirely sexist - what kind of modern leader would want a band of followers that contains no women? He is not the perfect example of human behaviour that O'Reilly claims he is. And I believe George W. Bush followed Jesus. He executed 165 prisoners as Governor of Texas and launched two wars as President. Just as Jesus would have wanted it.

Around 1'10" there is another gem from O'Reilly: "I'm a creationist. I believe in evolution, but I believe it was overseen by a higher power." Dawkins is a very polite Englishman, but he should have jumped in immediately and asked for an example of this. "Overseen"? How? When? And what on Earth does that mean? Did God suddenly throw all the fruit on the ground so our ape ancestors would have to walk on the ground to collect it? After 2.5 billion years did he suddenly lob a few fish out onto the land? It's an absolutely ridiculous belief. O'Reilly is one of these modern Christians who tries to fuse his fairy-tale beliefs with modern science. It actually makes him, and all the other people who do it, look more absurd than those lunatics who believe everything in the Bible is real. He says later in the clip that he doesn't believe in Adam and Eve, so presumably he doesn't believe in all the other fairy-tales of the Old Testament (e.g. the man in the whale, the flood, the ark, the talking snake, etc). Thus we can conclude: he believes in the central character of this book of fairy-tales (God), but not the actually fairy-tales that involve him. Or as I like to put it, he believes in Jack, but not the beanstalk. It's ridiculous.

Dawkins must challenge this moron to a full debate. Given a forum in which he cannot be interrupted every 10-15 seconds and in which he can ask his own questions, he would expose this man for the ignoramus and hypocrite that he is.