26/10/2008

Harry Potter and the Potty Professor

The Half Blood Welshman in his usuall erudite way draws attention to the latest folly of the Archbishop of the Fundamentalist Atheist Church, Professor Richard Dawkins.

The Prof according to the Daily Telegraph, is going to research the damaging effects that books, such as the Harry Potter series might have on children. As the Harry Potter stories about wizardry, witchcraft and spell making are not scientifically factual (do bears cast spells in the woods?) the Potty Prof believes that they might be damaging to child development!

If Professor Dawkins' extreme views and extreme prejudices against those who dare to disagree with him, were not so frightening, his latest nonsense might be considered laughable.

But not just laughable, a tad hypocritical too.

The TV programme Dr Who is just as, if not more, scientifically dubious than the Harry Potter stories. There is little basis in science for believing in Time Lords (or Ladies). It is doubtful that any scientific research has shown the likelihood that a 1950's police call box could be used as a means of travelling through time and space. There are probably no Daleks - now stop worrying and enjoy your life.

If Harry Potter and, by extension Dr Who, are a danger to children then those who act in tv versions of these dangerous follies are guilty of propagating such unscientific abuse. People such as the actress Lalla Ward who played the part of Roana, a Time Lady (Time Peeress?) in a number of episodes of the abusively dangerous unscientific programme.

Never heard of Lalla Ward? She's better known, these days, as Mrs Richard Dawkins!

As a PS here is a Poems and Politics Extra courtesy of The Wilted Rose:

I was once an amoeba in for a swim,
And then I was a tadpole with my tail tucked in.
Then I was a monkey in a banyan tree,
And now I'm a professor with a Ph.D.


Spellbound Others:
Holy Webb
The Daily Quail
St Aiden
Zadok the Roman
Burke's Corner
Massinformation

7 comments:

  1. Of course, Dawkins has *not* said that the Harry Potter books are dangerous, for the simple reason that he hasn't read them. The Telegraph piece mentions this, and then precedes to act as if Dawkins has already damned the whole of children's literature to his fundamentalist atheist bonfire.

    Bah!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't think he has the read the Bible either!
    You might find Terry Eagleton's criticism of his book fascinating! http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl01_.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. Heavens I just thought of this one! He's just like those Fundamentalist in the Mid West that tried to ban the "Wizard of Oz"

    ReplyDelete
  4. "I read the Bible, then put away childish things".

    Thank goodness for Dawkins, or is that ..... "thank your god for Dawkins".

    Of course you could read Ludovic Kennedy's "All in the Mind: A Farewell to God" before heaping derision on Dawkins .......

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh come on Stony! Dawkins knows as much about religion as Joe the Plumber does about foreign policy!

    ReplyDelete
  6. But I read Kennedy .......

    "All gods from time immemorial are fantasies, created by humans for the welfare of humans and to attempt to explain the seemingly inexplicable. But do we, in the third year of the 21st century of the Common Era and on the springboard of colonising the universe, need such palliatives? Should we not heed the message of Corinthians that while we once spoke as a child, understood as a child and thought as a child, we are now grown-up and should put away childish things?"

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi HP Fans:

    You'll love this HP spoof!

    http://action.walmartwatch.com/page/content/waldemartIII

    ReplyDelete