Jeremy Stangroom

Yeah this misses the point. The point is that Dawkins makes error of fact and logic; people provide him with that information; yet his beliefs don’t update.

And there is in fact an analogy with religion: if Dawkins is presented with solid evidence that contradicts his stated beliefs about religion, then rationality requires him to update those beliefs too. Right?

Yes, but that's question begging. The suggestion, I think, is that Dawkins is betraying his commitment to rationality by not updating his beliefs. My view is that's not true if he doesn't consider the evidence to be persuasive (even if he's actually wrong about that).

Of course, there must come a point at which one says not being persuaded amounts to a betrayal of rationality. But I'm sceptical that one gets to that point as a result of tweets, especially if the people making the tweets have a large stake in the game.

Not because that means their evidence counts for less - it might count for more (if they have expertise, etc) - but because if you're Dawkins it's inevitably you're going to get 1000s of responses disputing just about anything you say. So what are you going to do?

Moreover, people don't treat Dawkins with anything approaching a principle of charity. I've not paid much attention to this stuff, but didn't Bertrand Russell say something very similar about Aristotle and evidence? That his teleological approach held back intellectual progress?

I don't think Erik was making an argumentum ad populum, I think he was implying that enough people have corrected Dawkins that it's reasonable to believe Dawkins should have noticed at least some of those corrections by now.

Begs the question. A religious person could say exactly the same. It amounts to the claim that if enough philosophers explain why philosophy is useful, philosophy must be useful. Well, no.

Isn't it more like, enough people have messaged Dawkins that the message should have reached him by now. Not that the message is correct BECAUSE many people said it.

Begs the question again. It's entirely possible Dawkins doesn't think the message is correct. Switch it around. A religious person could make exactly the same point, and you wouldn't think numbers were relevant, nor that it were a matter of you ignoring the message.

Yes, it's possible Dawkins has read the responses and found them unconvincing. Whether the message is correct is a different question. It could be that the rebuttals to Dawkins were in fact strong.

Well, exactly, in which case it's entirely unreasonable to suggest that Dawkins is ignoring evidence in not being convinced by the arguments. I could certainly make a convincing argument for the disutility of philosophy.