Richard Dawkins Recalls the “Passionate Hatred of Religion” of Nobel-Prize-Winning Chemist Harry Kro

[rug]

May 5, 2016
by Terry Firma

Sir Harold Walter Kroto is dead at 76. He shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering a new arrangement of carbon called the buckyball (after the architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller).

Harry Kroto was a passionate advocate of science who, by the way, delighted in calling himself “a devout atheist.”

Born in England, Kroto eventually settled in the United States where he spent the last decade of his professional life at Florida State University. The brilliant chemist was a frequent and prominent foe of the kind of unscientific dumb-assery promoted by evangelical legislators. On this blog, he made an appearance for his opposition to the misuse of the word “skeptic,” after he signed on to the following statement issued by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry:

We are concerned that the words “skeptic” and “denier” have been conflated by the popular media. Proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. It is foundational to the scientific method. Denial, on the other hand, is the a priori rejection of ideas without objective consideration.

He also told the Associated Press, some years earlier, that

“The lawmakers of Louisiana are a laughing stock as far as the scientific community is concerned,”

after that state allowed public-school teachers to supplement scientifically solid textbooks with their own materials — including amateur content about Creationism and Intelligent Design.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/05/05/richard-dawkins-recalls-the-passionate-hatred-of-religion-of-nobel-prize-winning-chemist-harry-kroto/

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/05/science/harold-kroto-nobel-prize-winning-chemist-is-dead-at-76.html?_r=0

[MisterP]

1. but that's exactly the definitions the deniers use!

Proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. It is foundational to the scientific method. Denial, on the other hand, is the a priori rejection of ideas without objective consideration.

many of the skeptic groups are as rife with "climate skeptics" as they are with "race realists"

[Brettongarcia]

2. Conservative religious ideologues. ..

... often try to mime or co opt the language of science. Just as Creation "Science"does. But to an expert eye, clearly they are just apeing the real thing, real science. They are not really scientific "skeptics." They are really just misusing any means they have, to defend ancient dogmas.