Coming to the defense of Richard Dawkins is an odd personal pastime for someone that did not grow up in a stifling religious community or for someone without much talent or understanding of the biological sciences, of which I am both. But time and again, I found myself defending Dawkins as a brilliant scientist first and foremost, often assuming correctly that those that disparaged him were unfamiliar with his scientific accomplishments. I have always found that his remarks on religion, though caustic and sometimes mean-spirited, have served as tools of liberation and justification for untold numbers of of people whose faith communities hurt them far worse than any of Dawkins’ rhetoric might hurt a believer.
However, the last few years of petty, sometimes vitriolic social media engagement and a strange public row with a young atheist woman rendered my usually fiery defenses a bit half-hearted. And while those instances are still troubling, the early-fall release of An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist and an interview in late December reintroduced many fans to the Dawkins that we came to admire in the first place: a brilliant but humble scientific mind whose passion for the discovery and understanding of the natural world eclipses his passion for the denigration of those who believe in a world that cannot be accounted for.
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