Disappointing. No secret I find Krauss & Dawkins too simplistic (reductionist scientistic) when it comes to their idea of “rational” arguments against theists or the otherwise religious. But, having bought and viewed the DVD of The Unbelievers, I was baffled how little content there was in this fairly short documentary film, and what content there is, is mostly already public in various clips. Nothing I hadn’t already heard either of them say before.
Lots of wistful shots of them travelling to and talking about the various speaking engagements, and sitting around airports, hotels and studios – very brief snips of the actual talks / debates / interviews, and as I say little of that unseen before.
The one thing that stuck in my mind, probably because it was some time since I last saw it, was Dawkins “debate” with the top Oz Catholic cleric, where Dawkins merely chuckles and ridicules him for not being too expert on practical details of evolution – confusing cousins vs parental heredity genetically speaking. Irrelevant to anything they were actually debating, but of course that’s practically the only clip you see. Highly disningenuous.
Just a big ego-trip for “The Unbelievers” the documentary itself. No content or arguments either way. We need some of the other “horsemen” to step up to more reasoned debate – Harris & Dennett say.
[Aside – saw another recent Krauss tweet, need to dig up, where he referred to others pointing out – as I have done – that arguing against something-from-nothing arguments (life and cosmos examples) on the grounds that their nothing is already something, as “nit-picking”! I have one the life examples in my Nagel post draft – upcoming.]
So they left in this “best of youtube” collection the interview where Dawkins claims victory when the Australian Cardinal doesn’t know all the different names for the extinct human-like primates. I’m not sure I’ll get to the end, thank netflix for eliminating marginal cost from viewing.
Thankfully it’s not very long, but yes it was like very selectively edited You-Tube highlights (and I’d bought the DVD) There’s a showing in London in October with Krauss present, but I’ve bought tickets to see Michael Sandel the same night. Quandary.