I think you know the answer.
Richard Dawkins joins the advisory board of the…
Sorry.
The "University…"
Sorry.
I'm laughing too much. I can do this, I swear.
… UATX, alongside Glenn Loury, Andrew Sullivan, and more!@theUofAustin @UATX_phys @RealUofAustin pic.twitter.com/7ctVJKdbKI
— Jonathan Jarry (@crackedscience) July 7, 2022
This is not a joke.
Somebody really needs to take him aside and explain that he’s making a lot of really bad decisions lately.
I…
Dammit I used to admire that man.
Louis
He knows it’s an intellectually bankrupt vehicle for pushing a socially conservative political agenda, that’s why he signed up for it. He’s not, by his own estimation, making a ‘bad decision’. He knows full well what he’s aligning with and is perfectly happy to do so in order to further his ideology. I had no remaining respect for him to lose by now, however.
Oy.
Bunch of people blemishing their reputations with this scam
https://www.uaustin.org/board-of-advisors
Andrew Young (now 90…)
Larry Summers, well no surprise there.
Andrew Sullivan – well, no reputation to blemish, really.
Au contraire! This is what I call a true joke.
And to think that when I attended a CFI event in NYC in 2007, I was so eager to hear Richard Dawkins speak and to meet him. I cringe to think of it now.
We’ve tried. He’s not listening.
I am sure they would have picked Elizabeth Holmes for their advisory board too, if she already didn’t have commitments with the federal government and state of California.
I remember a viral video where, at a presentation to Randolph–Macon Woman’s College (now Randolph–Macon College), Dawkins viciously mocked Liberty University in answering an LU student’s question, using any LU students present to “leave and attend a proper university”. My how he’s fallen.
Did a double take at one of the other people there: John A. Nunes, former president of Concordia. Not the criminal diploma mill, (which is what I thought), but Concordia College: New York, which he led into bankruptcy. A cast of winners, for sure.
Isn’t “U”ATX a creationist Christofascist fake-college shit-show? If Dawks is joining them, that probably means his mind is utterly gone. Time to say goodbye to him and move on.
Did UATX increase their status, or did Dawkins diminish his?
Offhand, I’d say neither: “U”ATX are no less of a joke, and Dawkins’ reputation is already in the toilet. A few Christian bigots might crow about it, like “the meanie atheist Dawkins saw the light and joined our side, neener neener neener!” but it won’t affect any of their fake-academic scams for very long, if at all.
I feel like Dawkins might need to be evaluated for dementia at this point.
If only so I know whether or not to mock him (because mocking people with dementia isn’t cool).
But what if they are orange, fat and rude? Is it cool then?
Trump hasn’t had a radical change in personality or behavior in the last 20 years.
@14 Trump was evil and narcissistic before he became demented, if he’s demented, so he’s fair game.
@13
Dawkins’ remaining defenders can be mocked, I think.
@6 If he’s senile now (as I suspect he is), Dawkins is not fully responsible for his reactionary behavior.
Running for office and becoming president isn’t a change in behavior? Then again, I suppose there was still a lot of golf, so not everything changed radically….
Anyway, Dawkins has been a total blowhard for quite a while, but at one time he was “our” blowhard, so that was often brushed aside. I doubt he ever changed all that much, but society did in some ways. There’s been a lot more of a focus on LGBTQ issues now (e.g.) compared to the 90s or earlier, and people do tend to take a stronger stance on those sorts of things these days. I’m sure he was never much of a leftist either, while at least some people have become a little less forgiving of neoliberalism or the general type of do-nothing + finger-wagging “agenda” that works just fine for upper crust people like him.
I mean, sure, he is also older and crustier, but that’s not so remarkable.
@18: Does anyone have power of attorney over him?
@19: It’s weird how people seem to be incapable of remembering that Trump didn’t suddenly get involved in politics in 2015. He’d already made a run for the Republican ticket in 2012 (as a publicity stunt to increase ratings for The Apprentice), had been heavily involved in the Birther movement (though he hadn’t founded it as he’d liked to claim), and was the last high-profile member of the Reform Party. And of course, all the attention he got while running fed his ego, which was very much in character for him.
@21: Also, Trump was half-assedly pretending to be a Democrat before he started half-assedly pretending to be a Reformist or a Republican. I’m sure he’s been in politics as long as he’s been pretending to be a big-time New York real-estate mogul — the posh-urban real-estate biz involves both corrupt politicians and organized crime.
If this is the “institution” I’m thinking of, don’t they just pay ppl to have their names involved?
I believe that’s one of the innovative logical techniques Dawkins has developed – if they pay him, they’re scientific!
Is this that Bari Weiss thingy? LOLOL if so….
I don’t know this institution, but it’s in Texas, so I would assume the worst.
Richard Dawkins had 2 great ideas in his life and wrote successful books about them.
Atheists liked him because he wrote the right things for them, Pharyngula liked him because he linked to it in The God Delusion. But the couple times I met the guy briefly, he always came across as a privileged conservative wealthy man who had absolutely no idea at all about social or equality issues. But I find it a bit tasteless to explain this latest move with a mental condition. Don’t think we should speculate about that, and as far as I can see, there is a certain consistency to this move when you consider his character.
Doing another grift, seeking more power and money isn’t a change in behavior.
He didn’t suddenly become political; he found a way to keep ahead of the Russian mobsters that he owed hundreds of millions to, and left the actual work of governance to others and doesn’t care if it gets hollowed out by embezzlement, so long as he could claim all the benefits. Just like how he runs his companies.
Perhaps Dawkins has been a grifter all his life, or maybe he transmogrified into an ostrich with his head in the sand. UATX is a hoax, a scam, a “right wing” money-grubbing enterprise that is all about donations from the gullible and nothing about education. A better name would be Fringe University. This is nothing more than a Bob Jones/Liberty/Patriot “University” shell company angling to get tax-exempt money into the pockets of the “advisors, founders and board.”
There is no university. There is no curriculum. No professors. No students. It’s a house of cards built on “right wing” buzzwords. They claim they will ban the teaching of “critical race theory” and other “woke” subjects. Yeah, I don’t know what that means, either. Imagine a university where every professor is Jordan Peterson. However, the Texas GOPQ is salivating at the prospect of funding Phony U, lining up state funds.
The one bulwark that hopefully holds is the Texas Higher Education Board which authorizes institutions to grant degrees. When the Creation Research Institute (ministry) tried to relocate from California to Texas, the Board rejected their Kristian Kreationist nonsense. Had they succeeded then for a mere $20,000 you could buy yourself a diploma mill sheepskin and teach science in public schools in Texas. But, they failed because the Board held the line. Of course, Unfit U has way more political weight behind them and the Board may fold. We’ll see.
There is no university. There is no curriculum. No professors. No students. It’s a house of cards built on “right wing” buzzwords. They claim they will ban the teaching of “critical race theory” and other “woke” subjects.
Well, if you sleep through all their classes, then you’ll be able to call yourself “anti-woke.” That’s what it means, right?
Somebody really needs to take him aside and explain that he’s making a lot of really bad decisions lately
Pretty sure his hateful self sells better than his not-hateful self. Literally NOTHING can discourage this man, because he has bought into the grift, and the grift loves him. The grift loves
a smart itiot.
What I’m gettting at is this: Someone probabably did explain all that internet stuff to this not-very-savvy old man. And he thought that it all sounds wonderful, anyway. Fuck RD. Fuck him with a corkscrew. This man is not smart or good, he never was.
Hey, PZ! Wanna earn a few million bucks before you kick the bucket?! Super easy, just be an asshole. Malign some trans people. The rest is automatic. Be a dick, it pays! It pays so well!
Lean into the whole liberal-brain-washy-university-spiel. That gig is going really well, right now. Strike while the iron’s hot, my dude!
That first sentence was suppose d to be a quote…
Well, I did wait.
“Did UATX increase their status, or did Dawkins diminish his?”
Basically.
Dawkins has for some time now coasted on his deeds as a mature man, that is, in days of yore, and pretty much has used up his bank of esteem.
It’s all withdrawals these days.
UATX has snaffled (or so it seems, for now) another notorious name.
Makes it mildly more notorious.
(But needs must. I’m thinking it’s a sinecure)
Where “lately” means “for more than a decade“.
Happy anniversary + 1 week since that posting.