Then I guess that either makes you an american or an ancestor of bigfoot
Or maybe you're just a very small man.
Now compare "applied science" ... and it most certainly did have a scientific basis circa 1900
Applied science: the discipline dealing with the art or science of applying scientific knowledge to practical problems; "he had trouble deciding which branch of engineering to study"
Eugenics is not the application of scientific knowledge to practical problems. Eugenics has no scientific basis. And you can say it had a scientific basis in 1900 all you like, but that doesn't make it true. It most certainly did not, not even at the time.
visit the wiki page on eugenics for a brief over view
Perhaps this is part of the problem. You see, I don't get my information from wikipedia. The fact that you seem to derive all of your understanding of any particular subject from a wiki page is probably why you have no understanding of any particular subject being discussed, particularly in the sciences.
Because we are kind of in the middle of a discussion where science (and the authority of its proponents) begins and ends ... in case you haven't noticed
That's an evasion, not an answer. What does "does Dawkins present an aspect of science" mean if not "Is Dawkins a scientist?" I'm trying to pin down what you're actually asking me.
which is why I asked which parts you were having problems with : understanding what is an "aspect of science" or a "presentation"
On their own, neither. But the way you phrased the question, it's not clear what you're trying to ask. You could have simply asked me "Is Dawkins a scientist," and the fact that you didn't, and instead opted for this clumsy offering, was very confusing. If that's all you were asking, then I answered your question, and I suggest you get to whatever point you were trying to make.
Then I guess you have to explain how one can undergo an applied science without the support of the scientific community ....
Again, an awkwardly phrased sentence. Undergo an applied science? Undergo means "to pass through, experience," so I guess I can't explain how one would
undergo an applied science. I'm again left to guess at what you're really trying to say. Well, if my guess is correct, this clusterfunk of a sentence is supposed to read along the lines of "Then how can something be an applied science without being scientific?" which wouldn't be a terribly dumb question on its own. The answer is simply that it can't be. Which is why I--and everyone else with a brain--has tried to tell you that it
isn't an applied science. It's a pseudoscience. You seem to grant wikipedia authority here, but even the wiki page puts "applied science" in quotation marks, indicating that the definition is merely what it is
claimed to be, rather than what it really is. It also appears to be an either/or definition in the wiki article, as it says it is an applied science "or bio-social movement."
My point is that whatever points you think makes a majority of Dawkins ideas scientific can be used to justify eugenics as scientific .... and whatever points you think renders eugenics unscientific can equally be applied to Dawkins.
How so? Give me an example of this.
The reason is that both are examples of ..." science at the highest levels is no reliable corrective to the influence of cultural prejudice but is in fact profoundly vulnerable to it."
I don't know who that barely-intelligible quote is attributed to, but if that's their grammar and not yours, then I suggest you disregard anything they tell you (though I suspect it's yours). At any rate, science isn't vulnerable to prejudice. Science kills prejudice. Even when ego gets involved, as it did when the Human Genome Project began to splinter, the science wins out and everyone eventually employs the best method regardless of their preconceptions. That's what science
is. No good scientist can hold onto those preconceptions.
all you have done is state that eugenics was not a science circa 1900 .... on the authority of a few minor criticisms at the time ... Can you think of any scientific idea that was bereft of relevant criticism.
Another straw man. It wasn't "minor" criticism, it was major criticism. It criticism of the ideology at a fundamental level. It was never good science.
Gawd ... suddenly the scope of science appears remarkably diminished
Only to someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.
Me said:
BTW, I'm pretty sure you've never read a page of Dawkins' writing.
I notice that you failed to address this charge.