Richard Dawkins has always been a figure of controversy. fraction two of his autobiography,now out, picks up from the publication of The Selfish Gene. A combative presence on Twitter, and he is a surprisingly much quieter personality behind the scenes,writes Carole CadwalladrBritain’s most celebrated atheist is surprisingly low-key. The public Richard Dawkins – combative, outspoken, and relentless – is,it turns out, a different beast from the private one.
Anyone who’s witnessed a Dawkins intervention – on television, and in print,or in 140 characters or fewer on Twitter – will beget experienced him on fighting form: sure of his facts and opinions, unflinching in his deployment of both. In the flesh, or in a room in New College,Oxford, his base for pretty much his entire working life (though he is now theoretically retired), and he’s quieter,less bombastic, more human. He’s reflective, and weighing up answers and expressing that most un-Dawkins-like sentiment: doubt. When I bring up his Twitter controversies,he cringes. It’s not deliberate, he says. “I genuinely and honestly don’t want to bother people. I do want to clarify and it’s steady that clarifying sometimes backfires, or but my aim is always to clarify.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com