I may get banned for saying this, but I've never understood the near-idolatrous veneration with which many of my secular and rationalist colleagues regard Richard Dawkins. I find the man preachy, intolerant, mean-spirited and aggressively evangelistic; as simplistic and blase about nonscience as many on the nonscience front are about science. Given that criticising him usually leads to one of his snarling acolytes accusing me of being a Young Earth Creationist, I tend to leave him alone. Recently, however, he really rubbed me the wrong way.

He has given his blessing to a summer camp for eight- to seventeen year-olds to act as an atheist alternative to Christian summer camps, as if normal, non-religious summer camps were all secret hotbeds of malicious piety, but I digress. Anyhoo, he claims that this camp will teach kids to sceptically inquire and to think for themselves, which is all well and good, but I have long been suspicious of what Dawkins calls "independent thought", and he gave the game away, as it were, with one of the planned recreations. He says he is offering a signed ten pound note to the kid who provides the best scientific disproof of the existence of the unicorn.

Now, even given that a ten pound note signed by Richard Dawkins is a fairly lame prize for an essay, I find it difficult to believe that an eight year old has sufficient command of his rational faculties to launch an unbiased examination of the evidence for and against the existence of the unicorn. To say nothing of the fact that this competition, rather than asking children to examine and judge evidence on its own merits, begins with the a priori assumption that the unicorn does not exist and orders them to work from there, biasing the study with social pressure to reach a single conclusion. Also, proving that something does not exist is usually impossible, proving that something NEVER existed probably is impossible. All that can be done is to evaluate the evidence for and against, and make a judgement based on the balance of probabilities.

If I were staging the competition, I would ask the children to evaluate the evidence for and against the unicorn. Let them see that the vast majority of material on the creature is derived from a single paragraph written by the Greek naturalist Ctesias two thousand years ago. Let them see that Cetesias admits that his account is based on hearsay about a distant land (Arabia) hundreds of miles from his home which he had likely never visited. Let them discover that no such creature had ever been observed or believed to have been observed in Arabia. Let them discover that, allowing for the unlikely discovery of a similar creature in some as-yet unmapped region of the world, no naturalist or biologist has ever encountered anything remotely resembling a unicorn in 2000 years. Let them understand that the unicorn represents an unlikely fusion of two separate lineages within the ungulate mammals: horses and deer, a fusion that is not supported by any evidence either genetically or within the fossil record. Let them understand also that, even given the possibility that the unicorn may have originally referred to a type of deer, that no deer has ever been found with merely a single horn. All found throughout the world have had two. Allowing for the possibility of a freak genetic mutation (artificial "unicorns" have been created by splicing calves' horn buds together) the overwhelming balance of probability is that the unicorn, as envisioned, neither exists nor has ever existed.

That would, to my mind, be the proper sceptical method for disproving the unicorn. Does anyone think Dawkins is expecting eight year olds to do all that?

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

A one horned deer was reported in Italy recently. There are photos of it online.

Google is your friend.

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smile, and the Universe smiles with you

Ah done seen a yooneecorn at the Barnoom an Baylee circus. It didn't look nothin' like no calves horns stuck together.

'Cept for the horny part, tho, it did look kinda like a goat.

I had the same thought, but I found this article in the Telegraph a while later that explains it in a bit more detail. I'm still a bit confused though. Maybe his purpose is to show that the prize cannot be won.

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OK, that makes a bit more sense, even if it is a bit cruel to set kids a task that by definition cannot be completed. Wouldn't it be simpler just to explain the concept to them?

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

The rest of the camp's activities will be explaining the concept to them.
I think we have to assume that the default position for these kids is that they don't believe in unicorns. Now they're going to be presented with "evidence" for unicorns, and they're going to have to decide how plausible it is. I'd guess the evidence will escalate from eye-witness testimony to physical stuff like hoof-prints. Much entertainment will be had, on a par with the fun that derives from Van Rijn's invisible elf.
I'd further guess that the prize goes to the person who best critiques the evidence presented, rather than for some nonsensical "proof of nonexistence".

Grant Hutchison

No, of course not, but a very valuable exercise for a seventeen-year-old.

ETA: I think you are being a bit hard on him. His purpose is to get the children to think for themselves, which is more than the religion-based summer camps do. There is credit in that, surely?

I wonder if they'll remember to mention that she's pink.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

For what it's worth, I agree with you; I think he's only hurting science. And this doesn't help, really, as it's easily mockable. Especially that prize; wouldn't the kid rather have a ten-pound note they can spend and an autographed copy of On the Origin of Species or something?

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Actually, I think it would be much better for the children to be asked to prove the existence of the unicorn using probability and critical thinking to explain how various real animals might have been the source of the myth. Why ask them to attempt the impossibility of priving a negative when there is ample evidence to support counter-hypotheses?

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

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smile, and the Universe smiles with you

To teach it can't be done! Would you rather have someone repeat a mantra at them "you can't prove a negative.. you can't prove a negative.." hoping they'll remember? Or come at them with boring logic lessons to explain it? Or have them try, and find out for themselves what the problem with the proposition is? And then explaining why?

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.

I don't find that MY secular and rationalist colleagues venerate him to near-idolatrous levels. Perhaps you are associating with colleagues that prefer to make simplified arguments rather than get into the details themselves.

As to the threat of getting banned, the biggest error you seem to have made is not in characterizing a celebrity as having human foibles, but rather in collectively dissing a large group of our members.

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Forming opinions as we speak

I don't believe in snarling acolytes, either. If you're going to make that claim, I want to see pictures.

Narwhal unicorn of the sea.

http://animals.nationalgeographic.co...s/narwhal.html

http://images.google.com/images?gbv=...he+sea&spell=1


I proved and disproved one; I deserve two 10 pound notes.

You're taking the "area around their tents" rather loosely, don't you?

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.

US Patent 4429685 Issued on February 7, 1984 - Surgical procedure, How to create a Unicorn. Not a joke. Pictures here for those who don't have an account.

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smile, and the Universe smiles with you

I hope his forthcoming book on the evidence for evolution is a return to the form of "The Extended Phenotype" and "The Selfish Gene" - their candour and insight are a better rebuttal of the supernatural than giving it mystique by challenging it directly.

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Yonder is Dubhe seen on Earth tonight as it was in the days of Grover Cleveland's presidency whereas this way is Deneb seen as it was in the lifetime of Muhammed . If one somehow travelled to Deneb at very close to c then whenever you looked back you'd measure Earth as closer to you than the distance you would simultaneously measure between Earth and Dubhe.

I wish people would stop saying that "you can't prove a negative". In some cases you most certainly can prove a negative. Teaching this claptrap to youngsters is a decided disservice.

There are proofs for the following negatives, among many others:

1) There is no rational number whose square is 2.

2) There is no largest prime number.

3) Anthrax is not caused by a miasma in the pasture.

4) The sun is not powered by an external electrical current.

5) Fire is not an outflow of phlogiston.

6) The Earth is not 6000 years old.

7) All material cannot be constructed from earth, air, fire and water.

8) There is not a sixth platonic solid.

9) It is impossible to "square the circle" (construct a square of area pi).

10) There is no general solution by radicals for quintic polynomials.

Isn't it more about the form of the statement?

For example, you prove your negative (4), by falsifying the positive form "The sun is powered by an external electrical current". Or by a related, again positive, statement "The sun is powered by nuclear fusion".

I don't know about the mathematical proofs. And anyway I'm no expert, so explain away.

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Richard Dawkins is not a toaster.

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smile, and the Universe smiles with you

A unicorn is a mythological beast so, by definition, is not real. If some animal with a horn growing out of its forehead were found it would be a real animal and not mythological so, by definition, it would not be a unicorn.

Do I get a prize?

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

Math is not a science. At least in my worldview.

Semantics is not a science.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

There is a clear difference between a negative statement and denial of physical existence, the latter being what the saying is supposed to mean. Sloppy language.

Only because they haven't found one yet.

Herodotus' giant gold-collecting ants were mythical animals until the identification with the Bobak marmot in Pakistan.

And if as nasty as described could just as well have been burrowing wolverines.

http://en.mimi.hu/animals/wolverine.html

Sorry if I caused offence. But in my experience, arguing against Richard Dawkins, particularly online, tends to lead to furious ad hominem shouting matches.

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

Especially if you kick off with an ad hominem assault on Dawkins ("preachy, intolerant, mean-spirited"). Were I an acolyte, I would snarl.

Grant Hutchison

I agree, a negative statement is harder to almost prove than a positive statement. In the real world, proof of positive statements beyond unreasonable doubt is also impossible. None of the 10 negative statements by Aca Pacis are proved beyond unreasonable doubt, nor are the positive equivalents. Ie NASA landed astronauts on the Moon 5 times. Neil

Well to be fair, I wasn't stating that he was those things, only that I perceived him to be that way.

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.