A very interesting Richard Dawkins interview with a Christian right leader

[Questioninggeller]

Someone just posted the uncut video of Richard Dawkins interviewing Wendy Wright for his television special The Genius of Charles Darwin. It's an amazing video showing how a creationist thinks and responds to science. Dawkins is amazingly restrained as she launches into personal attacks and say's she being persecuted.

Wright is a creationist and the head of Concerned Women for America, which promotes Christian-right values.

Richard Dawkins interviews Wendy Wright (Part 1)


Richard Dawkins interviews Wendy Wright (Part 2)


Richard Dawkins interviews Wendy Wright (Part 3)


Richard Dawkins interviews Wendy Wright (Part 4)


Richard Dawkins interviews Wendy Wright (Part 5)


Richard Dawkins interviews Wendy Wright (Part 6)


Richard Dawkins interviews Wendy Wright (Part 7)


She denies speciation, won't say how old the Earth is, and blames racism on science. It's common creation ignorance until Wright claims she's being persescuted. During part five Wright says she was "arrested for just praying outside an abortion clinic." A rough transcript of that part:

...
For praying. Sure, a judge signed an injunction saying certain things cannot be done within 100 feet of abortion clinics in Houston .... and the judge sentenced me to jail for six months and a $500 fine.
...
A injunction is basically a judge made law. It only applies to certain people. I was not named on the injuction and yet found me guilty of it. Thankfully she was overturned by by a higher court. But there are experiences like that throughout the United States where certain people are told, um, um, punished for acting out their beliefs.
...

First, let's put that in context with this:

Abortion Opponents Rush Wichita Clinic; 130 Arrested - Protest: Activists scale fence, knock down counterdemonstrator.
Los Angeles Times
August 21, 1991

WICHITA, Kan. — Anti-abortion demonstrators stormed the Women's Health Care Services abortion clinic Tuesday in defiance of a court order against blocking it, and 130 of them were arrested.
...
Mahoney was arrested under U.S. District Judge Patrick F. Kelly's order that cites the protest leaders with failure to post a $100,000 peace bond on Aug. 6. A peace bond is sometimes imposed when a group's activities may cause disorder or property damage.
...
Two more people named in the arrest order, Wendy Wright of Binghamton, N.Y., and Joe Slovenec of Cleveland, were in Wichita and said they planned to surrender.
...
During the clinic protest Tuesday, demonstrators knocked down two sawhorse barricades, scaled a wrought-iron fence and blocked the driveway of Women's Health Care Services, in what one officer described as the protesters' most aggressive action yet.
...
The protesters also knocked down an abortion rights demonstrator while rushing toward the building.
...
Women's Health Care Services, operated by Dr. George Tiller, has been a target of the protesters because he performs late-term abortions.
...

Full article: Los Angeles Times

That clinic, Women's Health Care Services in Wichita, was the place where Dr. George Tiller worked. Tiller, of course, being the doctor who was killed in his church by an anti-abortion protestor a few months ago. And following that murder, Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue and one of the people with Wright in the early 1990s, said: "George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God."

Then in 1992, a year later in Houston they were jailed for contempt of court for violating a retraining order:

Anti-abortion leader jailed in Houston
Author: Associated Press
Publish Date: August 28, 1992


HOUSTON -- Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry and the Rev. Joe Slovenec were jailed Thursday after a state judge ruled they had violated a demonstration limit issued during the Republican National Convention.

State District Judge Eileen O'Neill found the two abortion foes in contempt of an Aug. 6 temporary restraining order that prohibited protests within 100 feet of any abortion clinic or within 25 feet of anyone entering or leaving the clinics.
...
Flip Benham of Dallas, Wendy Wright and Keith Tucci in jail. ... Norman Weslin, leader of the group Lambs of Christ, also was arrested after demonstrating...

Or this one:

4 Abortion Foes Jailed After Defying Judge
New York Times
Published: Sunday, August 16, 1992

A state judge sent four opponents of abortion rights to jail for up to six months on Thursday for violating a restraining order prohibiting them from demonstrating in front of abortion clinics here.

On Monday, the four Operation Rescue leaders went to a Planned Parenthood clinic here, prayed and tore up a copy of the judge's order. One, Flip Benham, asserted that they were just praying, not demonstrating, but Judge O'Neill ruled Wednesday that their actions violated her order.
...
In addition to Mr. Benham, they are the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Wendy Wright and Bob Jewitt.

It was overturned, but the Texas Surpreme Court ruled they must post "$100 bond to win their release pending an appeal of the contempt of court ruling". Hardly a "victory," but the leader was claiming they were perscuted for praying, I guess forgetting about their history and the injunction.

Texas Supreme Court orders abortion protesters released
Author: AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Date: September 1, 1992

HOUSTON (AP) - The Texas Supreme Court on Monday ordered the release of six abortion protesters who were jailed for violating a judge's order to keep their distance from abortion clinics during the Republican National Convention.
...
Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry was among the six protesters who were jailed on contempt of court charges stemming from protests made at Houston clinics before and...

Terry said as much yesterday, saying, "We are going to jail this morning because we preached, prayed and made a plea to the President inside this 100-foot...

Far from being persecuted, Wright's group had to pay and pay big:

Abortion Foes' Court Losses Are Frustrating the Victors
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: Saturday, June 11, 1994
New York Times

With millions of dollars in court judgments and a new Federal law barring demonstrators from obstructing access to abortion clinics, it might seem that abortion rights groups have won the decadelong battle over clinic blockades -- and been well-compensated in the process.

But the money has proved almost impossible to collect from the individuals and anti-abortion groups that have lost in court -- groups like Operation Rescue and Rescue America. And abortion rights organizations are beginning to acknowledge their frustration.
...
On May 9, a Houston jury ordered two anti-abortion groups to pay more than $1 million in punitive damages to a Planned Parenthood clinic that was disrupted by protests during the 1992 Republican National Convention.
...
Wendy Wright, a spokeswoman for Operation Rescue National in Dallas, cheerfully describes herself as living a life of poverty. "I live on donations," said Ms. Wright, who worked in Binghamton with Mr. Terry, then in South Carolina with Keith Tucci, the past director of Operation Rescue National, before moving to Texas to assist Flip Benham, the current director.
...

Full: New York Times

It's worth pointing the other cases when she was held in contempt of court, such as in Florida in 1993, but maybe for another thread.

That was Wendy Wright's best example of being a Christian persecuted in a country where 76% are Christians. When creationists can't argue evidence or logic, they say they're victims.

 

[Towlie]

Thanks for taking the time to put all of that together! It's well-researched and very informative.

 

[themusicteacher]

This sort of stuff proves that fundies really do think differently (and vice versa). I'd love to see a brain scan of a skeptic and a fundie when shown clips of hot-button video and such. I have heard, though, that there have been scans done of "liberal" and "conservative" peoples and the results, unsurprisingly, reveals that the two brains are wired differently. Is it more nature or nurture though?

 

[fls]

It was very useful to see how Dawkins responds to these various claims. I kept wanting him to ask her for examples of what she thought should be taught. It seemed woefully naive, on her part, to use genetic variation as evidence against evolution, and Dawkins made short shrift of it. She seemed so well-coached on all the usual talking points, I was hoping to see how he responds to some of the more standard bits of 'evidence'.

Linda

 

[Skeptic]

This sort of stuff proves that fundies really do think differently (and vice versa). I'd love to see a brain scan of a skeptic and a fundie when shown clips of hot-button video and such. I have heard, though, that there have been scans done of "liberal" and "conservative" peoples and the results, unsurprisingly, reveals that the two brains are wired differently. Is it more nature or nurture though?

So you're saving Gilbert and Sullivan are vindicated?

When all night long a chap remains
On sentry-go, to chase monotony
He exercises of his brains,
That is, assuming that he's got any.
Though never nurtured in the lap
Of luxury, yet I admonish you,
I am an intellectual chap,
And think of things that would astonish you.

I often think it's comical – Fal, lal, la!
How Nature always does contrive – Fal, lal, la!
That every boy and every gal
That’s born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative!
Fal, lal, la!

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Is there a particular 'pwnage' moment? It's hard to watch this all without suffering high blood temperature.

 

[Seismosaurus]

Funny watching him ask her about all the fossils showing Human evolution only to have her change the subject... so he asks her again, and she changes the subject again... and again... and again...

 

[JenseitsDavon]

I could only stomach about one and a half of those clips, but I think I heard Ms. Wright use the phrase "So what I go back to is . . ." I wonder if this particular group has ever tried going forward. When she asked for evidence, he gave it. I particularly liked the bit where she assumed all evidence for evolution that's ever been collected is on display in the Smithsonian. I admit, I've never been there, but that seems horrifyingly naive.

 

[kerikiwi]

She certainly seemed to totally, completely and utterly fail to absorb and understand anything of what was said.
Dawkins said he would not like to live in a society based on Darwinian ideas,she persisted as if he had said the complete opposite.

And the really sad repetition of:
'show us the evidence'.
'Okay, here's the evidence.'
'we need to see the evidence.'
'Here you go: fossil A, B, C ... homo sapien.'
'The hardcore evolutionists have shown us no evidence.'
'Well, here are the fossils'
'I have been to the museum and the only evidence is drawings. Where is the concrete evidence?'

At this point maybe dropping an australopithecus fossil on her head might have an effect...

And that is just one little snippet of the gobsmacking rubbish she kept spouting.

Actually quite compulsive watching.

 

[Towlie]

If you're distressed about her, this may give you some comfort:

XKCD

license

 

[Ryokan]

I felt stupider and stupider the more I watched, so I had to stop at video #4.

I admire Dawkins' patience in talking with her.

 

[KingMerv00]

God, her self-assured laugh in the first video made my brain puke.

 

[kerikiwi]

I felt stupider and stupider the more I watched, so I had to stop at video #4.

Admittedly one wouldn't have to be especially clever to be more clever than she is, but surely watching it couldn't make you feel stupider.

 

[Questioninggeller]

According to New Scientist, Dawkins uses this interview in his new book "The Greatest Show on Earth":

...Dawkins provides a transcript of his interview with the president of Concerned Women for America which reads like a Monty Python skit as the woman, a bullheaded creationist, simply answers all of Dawkins's sophisticated argumentation by saying she's not convinced - like a cartoon character standing in front of a hail of bullets taunting, "You missed me."

Source

 

[SezMe]

The OP vids are down. Do you have a different link?

 

[Eyeron]

Yeah, I get a video removed message when I try to play them.

 

[GreyArea]

A quick search of the title the OP gave us yields:
www . youtube . com / watch?v= US8f1w1cYvs

(Sorry, I can't link yet)

 

[ugot2bekidding]

Here are the new & improved links (Thanks GreyArea):

 

[GreyArea]

Here are the new & improved links (Thanks GreyArea)

You're welcome. And thank you for putting all the parts together like that. It'll make it easier for me to watch it when I'm ready.

I looked for this on Richarddawkins Net but couldn't find it. Is it a DVD extra or something?

 

[ugot2bekidding]

Man, these really are hard to watch. My ears are ringing from the /facepalms.