Snitches gotta fly ... and pundits gotta pontificate. From the London Daily Mail:
Outspoken atheist Professor Richard Dawkins is to warn children of the dangers in believing "anti-scientific" fairytales such as Harry Potter.
Prof Dawkins will write a book aimed at youngsters where he will discuss whether stories like the successful JK Rowling series have a "pernicious" effect on children.
The 67-year-old, who recently resigned from his position at Oxford University, says he intends to look at the effects of "bringing children up to believe in spells and wizards".
'Looking back to my own childhood, the fact that so many of the stories I read allowed the possibility of frogs turning into princes, whether that has a sort of insidious affect on rationality, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's something for research.'
O my [collisions of subatomic particles occurring in random fashion], the man may be onto something!
Because history shows there's no way that children can differentiate between scientific reasoning and fictionalized accounts of magic. I mean, look at the kids who grew up reading C.S. Lewis, De Saint-Exupery, Madeline L'Engle and Tolkien. Whole generations of young minds, absolutely ruined for science. Beware!
In other JK Rowling news, it looks like nobody's prepared to remedy the mix-up regarding my personal copy of Beedle the Bard. By all rights, one of those handmade copies should have come to me. If it hadn't been for me, with all the blogging I did about the books, encouraging all eleven of you to buy them (and talk them up to your own few dozen readers), it's doubtful JK Rowling would have amassed the fortune she has today.
Not that I'm bitter! I'm just saying, it's important to remember where you came from.
Anyway, as I predicted, the almighty pound wins again, and Beedle the Bard is coming to bookstores, just in time for the holidays. But this time, I won't encourage you to buy a single copy.
Although it looks pretty cool.
You know. For a book that will sap your children's brains and everything.
As much as I respect Dawkins for his courageous promotion of atheism and rationality, I think he seriously needs to take a VERY LARGE AND QUICK-ACTING chill pill and leave JKR and HP alone. Kids generally (or at leat I did) learn to understand that most fantasy lit isn't "true" and can navigate in the real world without Dawkins's aid. I wonder if RD is aware that in his fulminations about the "pernicious effects" of Rowling he sounds EXACTLY like the hyper-serious and literal fundamentalists he so claims to despise?
Dawkins should go read Bradbury, who spent his career writing dystopic visions of socities who declare war against fantasy and imagination.
Posted by: Anthony | October 28, 2008 at 01:33 PM