The David Pakman Show - 7/11/23: Richard Dawkins on the show, Republican defends white nationalist

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Richard Dawkins, renowned evolutionary biologist who has revolutionized our understanding of genes, memes, and the origins of life, and host of the podcast The Poetry of Reality with Richard Dawkins, joins David to discuss a number of important issues -- A discussion of the instinct to "check out" and stop paying attention to the political and news world -- Larry Nassar, the former sports medicine doctor convicted of serial child molestation and rape, is stabbed multiple times in prison -- Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville defends white nationalists in an unhinged CNN interview with Kaitlan Collins -- The supposedly missing witness to Joe Biden's supposed bribery, Gal Luft, has been charged with a long list of federal crimes -- MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell is auctioning off manufacturing equipment as his company's sales are reportedly down $100 million -- Donald Trump wildly and irresponsibly accuses President Joe Biden of cocaine use -- Donald Trump melts down over the Republican primary and once against posts a poll from "cat turd" -- The Eggman leaves a voicemail strongly approving of the Rosie O'Donnell interview on yesterday's show -- On the Bonus Show: Elon Musk proposes penis size contest with Mark Zuckerberg, lawsuit seeking reparation for Tulsa race massacre dismissed, college Republicans convention to host white nationalist Nick Fuentes, much more... 🌱 Ounce of Hope: Get 25% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://www.ounceofhope.com/ ♨️ Bon Charge Sauna Blanket: Use code PAKMAN for 15% OFF at https://boncharge.com/pakman ✉️ StartMail: Get 50% OFF a year subscription at https://startmail.com/pakman 🥄 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off Magic Spoon at https://magicspoon.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

. One of the emails that I get over and over again from people in the audience in some form is something along the lines of, hey, you know, David, things seem so terrible. Things seem so hopeless. I'm kind of fantasizing about just checking out, not paying attention to news anymore, not paying attention to politics anymore, not voting, not engaging in any way for the political system with the political system. And this isn't like an off the grid checking out where you're going to live in the middle of nowhere and generating all your own

electricity and growing your own food. I'm not talking about that sort of checking out. I'm basically saying you're just not going to follow the comings and goings of the political system and news and the like of it. And you'll just engage with stuff that you like, video games or sports or whatever the case may be, chopping wood, etc. And often when this question is asked, we on the left and sometimes on the right. But today I'm talking as someone on the left to my colleagues on the left. Sometimes we on the left will respond with this super rigid and sanctimonious response

that not only does it make sense to stay involved, but it's the right thing to stay involved. It's virtuous to be involved and you're sort of failing in some way. You're bad in some way if you choose to check out and stop paying attention. And I don't think that's the right approach. And to some degree, what makes sense really depends on the individual to just admonish and criticize people in the sanctimonious way because they want to bail on what's going on because it's so depressing or negative is actually not really something to be criticized. It does depend on how you're affected emotionally in your day to day by following what's going on in the news and the political system or not. Where I want to be super clear is that whether or not you pay attention, politics will affect you. What I mean by that is we shouldn't lie to ourselves about that component.

Just because you stop voting and just because you stop paying attention doesn't mean you won't be affected by the decisions that are made by our local politicians about roads and zoning or that your kids won't be affected by decisions made at the local school board or the PTA meeting or that your state won't be affected by decisions made by the governor or the president. So politics affects your health care, depending on who's in charge. Maybe you have access to affordable and quality health care, or maybe you don't. Politics affects education, depending on who's in charge. There may be robust public schools that are well funded and inclusive and function, or there may not be. Politics will affect our environment depending on who's in charge. There may be policies that

endanger the climate and spew pollution and whatever. Or you might have policies that are working to fix that. Politics affects your rights depending on who's in charge. We may have laws that robustly protect civil rights or we may not. So I'm not going to both sides that part of it. However, it is OK to say for me or for you or for whoever the emotional toll that this is taking doesn't justify the comings and goings of what's going on. And I'm going to stop paying attention. It's not useful to anybody, including the people who

remain involved, to have a group of people involved, but only under some kind of guilt or pressure that you must follow the news and see what people say on social media and whatever the case may be. In fact, I would actually make the argument that we all benefit if the people who are engaged are engaged in a healthy way and that those for whom it has become unhealthy do disengage. I think we're all better off in a particular sense. So this is why at the end of the day, when someone calls me and says, hey, my daughter's trans and I live in Mississippi and I'm thinking about just getting out, the sanctimonious side will often say you must stay and you must fix Mississippi from the inside out. If you bail, we all lose. And that's bad. But at the end of the day, we have one life to live.

And if what you need to do to keep your daughter safe is to leave Mississippi and go to a blue state, we should understand that that's a logical decision. In the same way, the same might apply to engaging with news and politics. We need to have people engaged in a healthy way. Now, what does this mean? Well, maybe you adopt one of my habits, which is part of the week you take yourself out of paying attention to this sort of stuff. I do this on the weekends. I'll see people Sunday and they'll say, David, did you see that thing that happened on Friday night? And I won't because I am. It's a deliberate checking out of news and politics. Disconnecting from social media can make a lot of sense. Checking out can be good for your mental health. Studies have shown that limiting your exposure to negative news and social media can reduce stress levels and improve your mood.

I tell you this at my own peril, right? Because I do a show. OK, checking out for periods of time can help avoid information overload and the cognitive biases that distort your perception of reality. Checking out for a bit can help you reconnect with yourself. So let's try to be a little less judgmental. And I'm sorry I'm using the word again, but you know, because of Rhonda sanctimonious, but let's be a little less sanctimonious with this stuff.

Let's drop the arrogance of pretending that you, me or anybody in particular knows the exact level of engagement that everybody's supposed to have with news or politics, while at the same time recognizing that if we all check out the right wing wins much more easily, which we don't want. So what seems to me to be the happy medium is do not let up with engaging as far as voting is concerned. Stay engaged because it also allows you to inspire others to create positive change. When you share your views and your stories, you can influence the opinions and attitudes of others. But at the same time, figure out a healthy engagement and recognize that the instinct you're having of, wow, I might just be much better off day to day

emotionally if I stop paying attention to all this crap and just watched fun shows and played sports or whatever the case may be. That's logical given all of the insane negative stuff that's going on. And let's not judge people who feel that way while also laying out a way to stay engaged that allows a more healthy day to day. That's my sense of it. And even as the host of this show, I do a lot of this stuff myself. Let me know what you think. There are

people gleefully cheering that serial rapist and child sex offender Larry Nassar has been stabbed in prison. Now, if you don't remember the story, I'm going to tell you about it. And I do have a lot to say about the reactions of some NBC News reports. Larry Nassar was stabbed multiple times at Florida federal prison. Union official says Nassar was sentenced to decades in prison for sexually assaulting gym gymnasts, including Olympic medalists. This this guy was the osteopathic physician who was just absolutely disgusting. He's referred to as a disgraced sports doctor over many, many, many years. He sexually assaulted numerous athletes that were supposedly under his care, although it wasn't very caring what he did. And in fact, he was convicted on endless counts. He was stabbed

in federal prison, 59 years old, stabbed twice in the neck, twice in the back, six times in the chest, sustained a collapsed lung. Reportedly, he is stable. OK, so listen, there are tons of people cheering about this. And often when sex offenders are hurt or raped or assaulted in prison, you see this reaction. Oh, this is great. He's getting what he deserves. Pedophiles don't get treated very well in prison. Remember Trump even joking about, oh, he's going to become someone's bride in prison or something like that. This is not the progressive reaction. And this is not me saying, oh, I'm offended. I'm offended that somebody said that it's not about that. OK, you can't complain about how

dysfunctional our prisons are and our incarceration status quo is and then rejoice in this. And I'll tell you what I mean. I understand saying, you know what? It's hard to find a lot of feeling bad for Larry Nassar. This guy is one of the worst of the worst. I don't feel bad that this happened. OK, listen, I'm not asking you to go out of your way and cry because Larry Nassar was stabbed. And I understand that what he did is disgusting. And in some sense, you can say, well, he deserves to suffer. And the suffering is that he's going to be in prison likely for the rest of his life. But I urge you to reconsider the gleeful reaction when convicted sex offenders are attacked or assaulted in prison, no matter what our feelings are about the offender. And this guy is the worst of the worst. When we rejoice in

their being hurt in prison, we are doing something that is completely counter to our views. Prison stabbings and rapes are not part of the punishment prescribed by the law. And so therefore, when someone is sentenced to prison, that's their punishment. They're sentenced to prison and then they're stabbed or beaten up or raped or whatever the case may be. It's evidence that our prisons are failing. Our prisons are failing to keep prisoners safe. This is something bad. It's not something to be celebrated because violence in prison isn't justice. It's actually injustice. And if you

look at any other country where incarceration rates and prison conditions make sense to us as progressives. Prisoners are safe. It's a violation of human rights. It's a breach of the rule of law and it's a threat to public safety when the prisons are so dysfunctional that people are attacked and assaulted in this way. Violence in prison is also not going to be part of the rehabilitation that as progressives we say, listen, we we want there to be an aspect of rehabilitation in prison. Now, I am not naive and believe everybody can be rehabilitated. I don't believe that. But certainly violence in

prison and prison rape aren't even plausibly part of that rehabilitation. And also when we cheer for prison violence, we're essentially endorsing a culture of brutality, revenge and vigilantism that is not only dehumanizing. Again, it's against what we say we want our prison system to be. So I would encourage everybody who has been happy about this, and there have been many to think about it a different way. We should be outraged not about Larry Nassar specifically, but about the fact that our prisons lack total human dignity and they lack human rights. And much the same way that I'm against the death penalty, not because I think serial

murderers are great people who should have fun lives going to baseball games. OK, but because when we support the death penalty, we are supporting killing by the state. And I don't support that. We're supporting revenge by the state. And I don't support that. So it's not about Larry Nassar. It's about as progressives. We want at minimum adequate security and health care and proper nutrition in prison. OK, and then we can talk about education, counseling, actual rehabilitation, etc.. Let's not be happy about this. It's just weird when I see supposed progressives happy about this. And it is, you know, Larry Nassar should get to miserably serve out his sentence in a box for the things that he did, but he should not be stabbed. That's evidence of the failings of our prison system. If you disagree with me, let me know and make sure you're subscribed on YouTube,

YouTube dot com slash The David Pakman Show and make sure you're following me on threads. I'm on threads at David Pakman. Quick break. Back after this. One of our sponsors today is Ounce of Hope, giving you 20 percent off. Ounce of Hope is a farm that delivers high quality cannabis products right to your door, including CBD, Delta eight THC and Delta nine THC. Unlike other companies selling these products, they do all of the THC extraction themselves. You know, the safety and the quality of the product, their top notch. When you open the box, their psychoactive THC products do give you the effect

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and support. There is a senator named Tommy Tuberville Tuberville. I keep hearing his name pronounced multiple ways. I don't know. OK, Tuberville. Let's go with Tuberville for today. And then tomorrow we'll say Tuberville. He was on CNN's The Source. This is Caitlin Collins's new show, and it debuted last night. And he was asked about an interview that he gave NPR back in May. And during that interview, when he was sort of confronted with with his seemingly lack of opposition to white nationalists, he said, listen, white nationalists are Americans at the end of the day.

And Caitlin Collins did something interesting, which is she gave him the opportunity to explain, clarify and expand on those comments. And Tuberville actually made it worse. I am the the lens through which I'm suggesting you watch this interview is that this is now the Republican Party where we are is playing footsie with white nationalists. And he actually at one point says, I don't know that white nationalists are racist. If they're racist, I'm against that stuff. But that's an opinion that white nationalism is racist. Let's start with the first clip.

This is this is sad as much as it is outraging. I do want to give you a chance to clarify some comments you made recently on white nationalists serving in the military. For those who are watching, if they haven't heard your remarks, this is what you said. Do you believe they should allow white nationalists in the military? Well, they call them that. I call them Americans. Do you want to explain those comments, Senator? Yeah. First of all, I'm totally against any

type of racism. OK, I was a football good to mention that coach for 40 years and I dealt and had opportunity to be around more minorities than anybody up here on this. Did you guys catch that little slip? OK, so there's two layers to what he just said. And I sort of stepped on it. So we're going to go back and listen again in argue in in in order to prove how not racist he is. He goes, I was a football coach. OK, so he's saying I dealt I dealt with he actually is what I dealt with black people. And then he catches himself dealt with. Sounds like it's a little bit negative. I had to deal with the burden of black people.

And then he goes, you know, I and so we had every minority. It's actually stunning that this quickly it implodes. OK, I was a football coach for 40 years and I dealt and had opportunity. I dealt with what that sounds bad. I had the opportunity to have minorities. OK, let's continue to be around more minorities than anybody up here on this hill. Yeah. But when our military has been attacked, was being attacked after 9-11, after January 6th,

and that was my first day on the Senate floor. I thought it was I thought it was outrageous of what senators from the Democratic side, Chuck Schumer, said on the floor that night. Calling out people, calling people racist, calling people nationalist, white nationalist. White nationalist is just another word that they want to use other than racism. I'm totally against anything to do with racism. But the thing about being a white nationalist is just a cover word for the Democrats now where they can use it to try to make people mad across the country. Identity politics.

Right. Totally against that. But I'm for the American people. I'm for. Can you imagine not wanting white nationalists in the military is now identity politics. That is really something else. And then when Caitlin Collins really gets to the critical part of this, which is white nationalists are racist.

That's that's what makes the if you're a white nationalist and you get rid of the white nationalist beliefs, you're just white. You're no longer racist. The racism is in that white nationalism. He goes, well, that's your opinion. Caitlin, you said a white nationalist is an American identity politics. White nationalists is an American, but a white nationalist is someone who, who believes horrific things. You don't, do you really think that's someone who should be serving in the military? Well, that's just a name that has been given. I mean, it's not real. It's a real definition.

There's real concern. So if you're going to do away with most white people in this country out of the military, we got huge problems. It's not. We got huge problems. Is he saying that most white people in the military are white nationalists and therefore if you got rid of the white nationalists in the military, you'd have no white people left at all.

Is that what this guy's saying? He's digging the hole deeper. And this is the Republican Party. Who are white? It's white nationalists that have a few probably different beliefs, right? They have that have different beliefs. Now, if racism is one of those beliefs, I'm totally against it. I am totally against racism.

But there's a lot of people that believe in different things. Is racist senator. Well, that's your opinion. That's your opinion. But if it's racism, if it's racism, I'm totally against it. So listen, the three main ideas of white nationalism are, number one, white people. And by the way, it's always real white people, right? Like it's it's European white, European Americans, white

people, white people are threatened by race mixing, multiculturalism, immigration of black and brown people, the low birth rates of whites, etc. That's one belief. That's a racist belief. Number two. White people should be seeking some kind of a white only state, a white ethno state to preserve racial purity and identity. That's belief number two of white nationalists. And number three, typically white people are also superior to nonwhite people. Now, sometimes they they know that that one's not as palatable as some of these others. So they'll stop short of that. They go, listen, I don't have to weigh in on whether white people are superior or not, but we should certainly be separate for sure. Those are the if you remove the

white nationalism, then it's no longer white nationalism. And what Tommy Tuberville is saying, of course, doesn't make any sense. This is where we are in 2023. Republicans multiple times, even when given the opportunity to clarify, restating that white nationalists are simply Americans, maybe whose views differ, but they aren't necessarily racist. And of course, part of this is this environment in which Trump has sort of normalized. You never back up. You never backpedal. You never apologize. And in a sense, I understand the reason for that, because if that's the way Trump sets the tone, if these guys start apologizing and backtracking, then all of a sudden they seem weak and they're called the beta and all of this different stuff.

But the problem, of course, is that people sometimes do say the wrong thing. And now the Tuberville is just doubling down on it. It's really wild stuff. And we'll see what the next follow up is on this if there is any. This is just amazing, but not altogether surprising. The missing so-called witness to Joe Biden's so-called bribery has now been charged with multiple crimes and might be a Chinese spy. Is this a surprise to anybody? The Daily Beast reports Republicans missing Biden probe witness faces laundry list of federal charges. Gal Luft was accused yesterday, Monday, of being an unregistered foreign agent working on the behalf of China, international arms trafficking, violating U.S. sanctions on Iran and lying to investigators. This is their big witness.

Remember the witness that was missing? This is now the person subject to multiple criminal charges. The missing witness, long touted by Republicans in Congress as the missing link to their probe into alleged Biden family corruption, was accused Monday of being an unregistered foreign agent for China and an international arms trafficker while violating U.S. sanctions on Iran and lying to investigators among a laundry laundry list of other federal charges. Dual U.S. Israeli citizen Gal Luft had already skipped out on his bail while in Cyprus, awaiting extradition to the U.S. for a

separate case in March, though he alleges the sprawling case against him represents political persecution and retaliation by the Biden administration. The House Oversight Committee has for months touted a secret informant who could provide evidence of an alleged quid pro quo deal for foreign aid between an Obama era Biden and an unnamed country. Details remain murky and unverified. Those claims partially unraveled when James Comer in May held a much hyped press conference where he promised to expose preliminary findings while failing to air any real evidence of corruption. He then offered a partial excuse. The star witness up and disappeared. The Republican Party wants to give immunity to an alleged international black market arms dealer who may also be a Chinese spy. Remember this instant

classic moment on Fox News where James Comer said the informant is missing and Maria Bartiromo reacted like this was the biggest scoop in American history. Hold on a second, Congressman. Did you just say that the whistleblower or the informant is now missing? Well we we're hopeful that we can find the informant. Now, remember, these informants are kind of in the spy business. Speaker 4 Hold on a second. We're hopeful that we can find them.

We're hopeful that we can find them. This is where we are right now. The best evidence, if you can call it that, that the Republican Party has against Joe Biden in their desperation to get him implicated in some crime which seems so elusive. The best they've got is an alleged criminal that's been missing for years that disappeared at one point whose own evidence seems to have evaporated or never materialized. And that is now what they are hanging their hats on. And it should it come as a surprise? No, probably not. This is the sort of thing they've been doing for a while and much. You know, someone actually sent me an email this morning, said, David,

whatever happened to those hearings about rampant crime in the United States that Republicans were doing? And I actually had forgotten about it myself. A couple of months ago, there was this hearing in New York City, total dog and pony show in New York City. Republicans held a hearing congressional hearing because that's where the rampant crime was, even though the crime rate in New York City is actually lower than that of Oklahoma City. Doesn't matter. New York City is where they're holding it.

They said this is just one of many of these. The entire hearing went so terribly wrong, so disastrously wrong that we haven't seen another hearing since we haven't heard about another hearing since. Similarly, with this Biden bribery thing, they've become very quiet since it turned out. It's not clear that the tapes exist. We don't know where the informant is. Now the informant's been charged with multiple crimes. I expect this to continue. We'll have this infamous clip of James Comer on our Instagram, on our YouTube channel, on our tick tock. It'll be everywhere. Make sure you're following us. We're going to take a quick break and back with some very big stuff right after this. Think of your most personal emails. If you're using a free email provider, you should know that they're scanning every email you send and receive,

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It's terrific to welcome to the program today, Richard Dawkins, a renowned evolutionary biologist who has really revolutionized our understanding of genes, memes and the origins of life. He's also the host of the podcast, The Poetry of Reality with Richard Dawkins, available on YouTube. And we will be certain to link to that. I really appreciate your time. And it's so great to have you on today. It's a pleasure. So maybe to start, you know, you've done so many interviews over the decades. I've reviewed so many of them in preparation for our discussion today to start with something maybe

timely and then work back into some of some of your other work. We are seeing in the United States and also elsewhere this new it's not new, but we're seeing a new wave of attempts to ban certain books, to challenge the validity of certain books, to contest or question whether in some cases children, in some cases high school students, in some cases even beyond that should be, quote, exposed to certain materials. Can you talk a little bit about whether you see this as a new wave of what, for example, led to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie? Is this a different phenomenon? How do you see it? I'm not sure I know what you're talking about. Maybe this is an American phenomenon. What is this new trend you're talking about? Well, in places like Florida and

elsewhere, there are lists of books that have been submitted to be banned, removed from school libraries, told to teachers and librarians you are not allowed to or it would be damaging to children to teach. That's the general trend I'm referring to. OK. Are any of my books on the list? You know, not on the list I've seen. That's a shame. I enjoy that. It is good publicity in some sense for one's books to be on that list. I'm sure. Which books are on the list that I ought to know about that you ought to know about is harder for me to say. But it's all it's books that teach history of the United States in certain ways that may paint certain chapters of American history in a less than favorable light. It's sometimes books where characters are gay or bisexual, for example, or

these. So it's really quite a quite a gamut that it runs. I see. Well, I'm strongly against any kind of censorship of that kind. So that that's that's your answer to the question to delve a little further into the idea. You are someone who so many times has debated those with whom you vehemently disagree, whether it's their views about the Bible or empiricism or whatever the case may be. My understanding of your work generally has been that sunlight is a useful disinfectant in many cases. At the same time, there's now a discussion being had about, for example, to make it timely, should empiricist scientists, doctors debate anti-vaccine individuals? Is it good to take their views head on versus

are they given a sort of legitimacy through these debates that may be more damaging? I watched some of your recent conversation with Russell Brand. And although I agree with your perspective completely, I don't know that it went extraordinarily well from the standpoint of changing the minds of his audience, for example. What's your sense of this? I've had to wrestle with this earlier about creationists because once again, the problem is, should you give them a platform by agreeing if a real scientist appears with a creationist, it kind of makes it look as though there's a sort of level playing field. Yes. That somehow there's a there's a debate to be had. And on the

other hand, it's couldn't be seen as a bit patronizing if you mine, but we agree about that. And he advised me strongly not to do it, not to give them the platform. Now, vaccine deniers, I suppose that is a debate that we ought to be having because it is very, very widespread. Vaccine denial is a very widespread thing and it influences a lot of people. There are possibilities of presidential candidates being strong vaccine deniers. So I think it is a debate we really do need to have. And I'm not the best qualified to do that. But epidemiologists and doctors, I think, probably need to get out there and have that debate.

One of the I don't know if criticisms, but maybe cautionary warnings that's often issued in any of these contexts is that these debates, by virtue of their structure, it often ends up that whoever is most charismatic and articulate rather than whoever is empirically correct appears to win, for lack of a better term. Is that a problem? That is the structure of these conversations or is it something bigger? I think it's a big problem. I think that's correct.

And we've seen it again in the creationism, especially as many people are just ignorant of what the facts are. And so if somebody sounds plausible and has a loud voice, they are apt to win the argument, although they haven't really won it. They're apt to apparently win the argument. In the case of the vaccination debate, I think I was possibly, I forget whether I said this to Russell Brand, but I have said it to somebody else, that I may have been a little bit too gung-ho earlier on in taking on board the doctrine which applies to many other vaccines, for example, the measles vaccine, the MMR vaccine, that getting vaccinated is a public altruistic act because if you do not get vaccinated, then you are part of the problem of the spread of the epidemic. And now that's true of other diseases such as measles. Yes. But it's possibly not true of COVID. And I've heard

conflicting replies to my question about that. There's absolutely no doubt that vaccination against COVID is effective. That's not in question. That's true. Yes. What may not be necessarily true is that to refrain from getting vaccinated is itself an antisocial act for epidemiological reasons that that may not be entirely true. Yeah. I mean, I think the truth of that has also shifted from the first vaccine tailored to the original variant, where it seemed from the data that indeed it did prevent infection and transmission to these later variants and later vaccines, where it seems quite effective at preventing one's own more serious case of COVID, but maybe not effective at preventing transmission. I feel like the problem comes

where if our counterparts in these discussions are operating in bad faith, where they were saying it wasn't effective from the beginning, we end up almost having to appear to to backpedal because the facts have changed. Yes. And because we are honest. Yes. To some degree, because we are honest. You know, I'm wondering, I reviewed some of your older debates that you did with young

earth creationists. There was a woman whose name I now don't remember, but it's quite a highly viewed debate that's on YouTube that you probably did 20 years ago from it, from a young earth creationist organization. Is your view. Do you feel that your opponents in whatever debates you are engaging in have either declined in intellectual rigor over the last 20 or 30 years or have operated in increasingly bad faith over the last 20 or 30 years? Or has that not been a change that you've observed? I think you're thinking of Wendy, right?

Speaker 2 Wendy, right. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Speaker 1 I'm not much of an observer of of changing the changing scene. I wouldn't like to say whether whether over 20 years things have changed. I as I said, I don't really do debates anymore on that subject. So I haven't really the experience to answer that question. And I haven't looked at any data. Is your sense more broadly that there is a difference today, at least when it comes to the expectations of scientists like you and others, when it comes to balancing what is empirically true and what is socially or culturally acceptable to say, maybe I'm sort of getting at either political correctness or whatever phrase we want to apply. Have have scientists had to adapt to a different environment in the publishing and discussion of their work? I fear they have. I think that this

is true of some scientific journals, actually lots of scientific journals, notably Nature Science, Scientific American, where editorial policy has swung in a very political direction to the point where scientists have to conform to a kind of political orthodoxy, which almost amounts to a religion. And this, I think, goes against the spirit, the open spirit of science, which I've always treasured throughout my scientific career. And I do feel that this is a very bad retrograde tendency. What is the, in your opinion, right way to fight that? Is it, you know, some will say it's simply to keep saying the truth and to. But the truth is that once you're really in the middle of it, that can be easier said than done. Jobs can be at stake, so on and so forth. What is the right way to push back against that? Well, obviously,

my first thought is that the right way is to present the evidence. But if on if you've if you're a young assistant professor or a young postdoc or something who is in danger of losing your job, losing your grant, losing your colleagues, if you speak out and one hears horror stories of this happening, it's a tragedy if people do have to self censor. And I feel it's a responsibility for people like me who are retired and no longer have a job to lose to speak out on their behalf. At least in some theoretical sense, tenure would be a protection for those who are currently employed rather than retired. But there's also criticisms of tenure at institutions of higher learning. Do you have a position on the role of tenure and either

enabling these conversations or not? Speaker 4 Not really. I mean, I think it's it's something that once you've been promised something, you should people should not renege on that part on that promise. So if you if you've been promised something, you should people should not renege on that on that promise. So if you if you've been given tenure in good faith, then that should not be undermined. It should be it should be up front. And in other words, that that tenure doesn't actually mean tenure. Right. No, without without without a doubt.

Let me switch gears a little bit. I was watching the trailer for the new podcast, The Poetry of Reality with Richard Dawkins, and I noted that the voiceover from the trailer is quite a similar script of sorts from your 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow. And one of the interesting things that's often brought up to me and to others is that sometimes the view of folks like you and others is that when you remove some kind of biblical story, God creation story, et cetera, you're left with a sort of nihilistic pessimism. There's no meaning and purpose, et cetera. And

you've talked about this before, that much of the meaning is the meaning we assign rather than what some arbitrary text assigns or whatever the case may be. Can you talk about that a little bit in the sense that what's concerning to me is when I hear an argument from a religious individual that says, how can you really prove to me murder is wrong if you don't have some text to tell you that my reaction always is you're telling me the only thing preventing you from murder is some religious text. I mean, it seems as though there's another side to that argument, isn't there? Speaker 1 Yes. Well, coming to the first point first, you're perfectly right, of course,

that the script of the Poetry of Reality trailer is straight from my book, Unweaving the Rainbow. And that entire book is about the poetry of science. It's about what nonsense it is to say that science somehow is nihilistic, somehow takes away from the poetry, the romance of, well, the spirituality, actually, in one sense of science. So, yes, that's the answer to that. Now, the thing about if you don't believe in God, what's to stop you murdering? I mean, if anybody says that, I think it was Herb Silverman said, I'm going to step away from you. I mean, you're not the kind of person I would like to know if that's the only reason why you don't go around murdering people is that you're frightened of God.

What a terrible, terrible reason that is. What a terrible basis for morality that is. If that's what you call morality, then I don't wish to know you. Yeah, I mean, it gets to often this conversation of the moral relativism and the idea that anything that can be science's best approximation simply is not as definitive at some kind of prescribed set of rules, the likes of which we get from from religion. Now, I would say that's a virtue of science and the fact that it only goes as far as what can be demonstrated and not beyond.

And sometimes it may not feel as prescriptive, but there are those who say it simply doesn't feel as definitive or as strong to me. Well, they admit they may say that. I mean, I think that morality, what's right and wrong is something we have to discuss. It's something which actually does evolve on a cultural scale, on the scale of cultural evolution. It evolves over the centuries. And what we take to be morality today is very different from what it was 100 years ago, 200 years ago, even a few decades ago, actually. I've called it the shifting moral zeitgeist. And it's manifestly the case that not that long ago, just about everybody was racist, just about everybody was sexist, and we're not anymore. Things are moving in the right direction.

And it's quite mysterious, but nevertheless, obviously true that things are moving in the right direction. I'm not clear what's going on. I'm not clear what it is. One can use a phrase like it's something in the air, something hovering in the air, but we mustn't get mystical about that. It's an amalgam. It's a combination of parliamentary discussion, judicial decisions, just plain conversations in pubs, in dinner parties, in courts of law, in journalism, in newspapers, in books. Something changes as the decades go by, such that our moral standards move in a consistent direction. And that direction has absolutely nothing to do with scripture. Far from it. I mean, thank goodness it doesn't. Because if we if we lived, if we lived our moral lives by scripture, we'd be stoning adulteresses to death and things like that. Let's pause our

conversation with renowned biologist Richard Dawkins there. We will have part two tomorrow and the full conversation will be available on our YouTube channel. time and it's fully FDIC insured. When you keep your money in a Yotta bank account, you'll have a shot at winning nightly cash prizes ranging from two cents to a million dollars for every twenty five dollars in your account. You get one recurring ticket to the nightly prize drawing. So if you deposit one hundred dollars, you get four tickets every single night without needing to make any more deposits. Yotta also offers some great budgeting features, the possibility of early paydays, a debit card that rewards you with up to 100 percent cash back and tickets on every purchase. Yotta members have

already won over 15 million dollars. So say goodbye to the traditional savings account with the minimal interest rate. Freakonomics have described prize linked savings accounts like a no lose lottery. Download the app now. Start saving for a chance to win big with Y.O.T.T.A. dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. We have truly sad news today from the world of pillows and sheets and slippers and mostly pillows. My pillow CEO and founder, Mike Lindell, a guy whose name we have not mentioned for a while on the program, but he's been a guest on the program multiple times. He is now auctioning off the equipment to make pillows because the company is suffering so badly as a direct result

of Mike Pillow waging a multi-year campaign against logic and reason and attaching himself to election conspiracy theories that have cost him at most recent tally, 35 to 40 million dollars. This is amazing stuff. The Star Tribune reports MyPillow is auctioning off equipment after retailers pull its products. CEO Mike Lindell says annual sales fell one hundred million dollars after several big box retailers cut ties following his election claims. Remember that phrase that they love? Get woke, go broke or go woke, get broke. Or the whole point is, if you start supporting social justice publicly, you will lose your business because it's bad for business or whatever the case may be. Instinctually, intuitively, we suspected that it's not really true.

It really seems not to be true. My pillow did the exact opposite of going woke. They started just supporting the crazy election lies of Donald Trump. And it is not going well. And this does this make you sad or does this make you happy? That's the question I have. I want to hear from you. My pillow is auctioning off hundreds of pieces of equipment and subleasing manufacturing space after several shopping networks and major retailers took the company's product off the shelves. The Chaska based manufacturer recently listed more than 850 surplus equipment items on the online auction site. K bid sewing machines, industrial fabric

spreaders, forklifts, even the desks and chairs are up for auction. Think of that. My pillow is failing so hard that pillow is selling the desks and chairs where his employees sit. Founder and CEO Mike Lindell said my pillow has experienced the loss in revenue and the items are no longer needed as the company consolidates its operations. Major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Bed Bath and Beyond and Slumberland Furniture. I've never heard of that one. All say they will no longer sell My Pillow products as Lindell continues to falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen from former

President Trump. Lindell said in a phone interview yesterday, quote, It was a massive, massive cancellation. We lost one hundred million dollars from attacks by the box stores, the shopping networks, the shopping channels. All of them did cancel culture on us. The auction doesn't appear related to the one point three billion dollar defamation lawsuit targeting both Lindell and my pillow. What was that thing he used to say about his machines? We're doing a class action lawsuit against all machines. Right. Well, it seems now that the machines have turned on him and that they are no longer making pillows. He is auctioning off the machines. Honestly, should I look into maybe getting one of these

machines like with that? Would it be an interesting thing to get one of the famous my pillow items? Checking out on some of the things that are available. There's a 2008 Freightliner, a Freightliner truck, a four grand. That would be an interesting thing. I could get one of the pillow trucks. They have all sorts of different trucks and sprinter vans. There's a sprinter van available for twenty five hundred dollars. This is a fire sale. You can get a pillow forklift for a thousand bucks. You can get a an air compressor of some kind. I don't know what I would do with most of these things, to be totally honest. But there is some element of this that's sad. But pillow has been so damaging. I could get boxes for a hundred bucks. All right. It's depressing me to keep looking at that.

If you think I should look at maybe obtaining some of these items, let me know and we can look into that. But it does really seem like a fire sale. This could be the end of my pillow. It turns out that going anti woke did not work well. Should we be happy about this? I don't know. Let me know. Failed former President Donald Trump, who's been indicted twice and impeached twice and maybe indicted one, two or three more times, is now wildly accusing President Joe Biden of cocaine use. This happened on his platform, Truth Social Truth Central. The back story here is that there was cocaine found in a visitor's area of the White House.

Right wing media quickly jumped to suggest that it might be Hunter Biden's Fox News host Brian Kilmeade suggested it might be laced with fentanyl. They pronounce it fentanyl, whatever. You know what they're talking about. And now the failed former president is saying maybe it was Biden's trothing on truth. Central quote was crooked. Joe Biden on cocaine. Why is cocaine capitalized? We don't know. Was crooked Joe Biden on cocaine when he instructed the FBI DOJ to illegally invade my home Mar-a-Lago in complete and total violation of my Fourth Amendment rights. Was he on capital C cocaine or various other substances when he for the first time in U.S. history had his political opponent, who was leading him in the capital P polls by a lot,

indicted and arrested twice. If you include the DOJ run Manhattan D.A.'s office, we are a nation in decline. Capital all capital letters. Here's my translation. This one is a very easy one to translate. Justice might be approaching me. I may be held accountable for my actions and I am really, really scared. People asked me, David, could this be defamation against Joe Biden? I didn't even talk to a lawyer about this one. It seems very hard to imagine how a figure as public and powerful and as well protected as the president of the United States could successfully sue Trump for defamation, even at the suggestion that he is on cocaine. Now, I want to mention

one other thing. And this, of course, this is when the conspiracy theories conflict. On the one hand, the right is saying that Biden has absolutely no energy. He looks the opposite of coked up in every public appearance. And at the same time, Trump is suggesting without evidence that Biden might be using cocaine. Don't you think that if Biden was using cocaine, he would be more energetic rather than less energetic? I don't know. Just a question that I'm asking. But again, this is where we are. This is the former president of the United States asserting without any evidence, suggesting without evidence that the current president of the United States, who beat him by many votes nationally, may be using cocaine. All right. One more quick Trump story. We've really relegated the Trump stuff to like the back pages of the United States who beat him by many votes nationally, maybe using cocaine. All right. One more quick Trump story. We've really relegated the Trump stuff to like the back pages of the show

lately. Donald Trump again has posted cat turd to truth central. Cat turd is a Twitter account right leaning. I don't know who runs it. It's all nonsense. Trump posting a cat turd poll, the poll asked who will get second place in the Republican primary, Ron DeSantis or Vivek Ramaswamy. In this poll, Vivek Ramaswamy will, according to the voters, two thirds of those who voted on this say that Vivek Ramaswamy will end up in second place in the Republican primary. And only about one third say that Ron DeSantis will end up in second place in the Republican primary. This is all meant to attack Ron DeSantis. Now, if you look at actual polling, the numbers are very different. According to polling, Vivek Ramaswamy is polling two point four percent, whereas Ron DeSantis has like eight times that level of support at twenty one percent.

So if we look at anything that is evidence based, anything empirical, it doesn't appear as though Vivek Ramaswamy is going to surge and surpass Ron DeSantis. But we know that the real numbers never really mattered to these people. Interestingly, I do want to just point out a little bit. There's not been any major polling shift for several weeks, which is why I've not been talking about polling. But in looking at these numbers, what you might see is that dating back to June 20th, there's been a little bit of an uptick again for Donald Trump and a little bit of a downswing for Ron DeSantis.

Although again, big picture, if you zoom out and you go back to Trump's first arrest, Trump has been very steady in the low 50s and Ron DeSantis has been very steady right around 21. Nobody else really making any move other than Mike Pence, who has seen a surge from roughly four to six. It's an explosive six. Trust me. But it is still only six. What is the what is responsible for that? Quite frankly, I have no idea. Six is still not going to get you particularly far. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. So many positive comments, emails and voicemails about the Rosie O'Donnell interview. If you haven't listened to it yet, if you haven't watched

it yet. Yesterday, the interview guest was Rosie O'Donnell. One such person calling in who loved it is the egg man. Listen to this. I never realized how much I'm sorry. Let's start it from the beginning. Dave, the Rosie O'Donnell interview is so good. I always kind of liked her, but I never realized how much I really liked her. I also grew up on Long Island and as a child and a young man, we always knew all the insane things that Trump did. And when you give him a reality show and and make him out to be something he's not people in New York. No, he's not.

The rest of the country and world can fall for it. And that's what media does. Thank you so much for putting her on. It was a great interview, Dave. Shalom. All right. Shalom to the Eggman. And yeah, you know, interviews and one of the things about the show is that there's a trend that's been there for many years. Interviews in general don't do that well for us unless they are like cartoonishly confrontational with lunatics and

that sort of thing. But interviews where we just hear from interesting people or about interesting topics, they really don't do that well very often. And people seem to be loving the Rosie O'Donnell interview more than 100000 views in the first 12 hours. And I think beyond that, at this point in time, we are trying to get some higher profile interviews on the show with interesting people. And at least we have a sample of one with Rosie O'Donnell so far. It does seem like there is there is interest in it. So I think it's a great thing.

I think, quite frankly, Howard Stern saying he watches The David Pakman Show probably will help us secure some of these higher profile interviews. And if you have people you would like me to talk to that, maybe we can get email in info at David Pakman dot com and we'll we'll do everything we can to make it happen. All right. We have a fantastic bonus show today. It's actually stunning the meltdown that Twitter owner Elon Musk continues to have over the success of Meta's new platform threads. Threads is not the be all end all savior of social media. In fact, it's very similar to Twitter in a lot of ways, but it exposes the triggered Lee nature of Elon Musk. And Elon Musk is now responding by proposing a penis size contest with Mark Zuckerberg.

I guess Elon Musk thinks that that would settle something. I don't know exactly what it would settle. Remember, you can find me on threads at David Pakman. Secondly, there is a lawsuit seeking reparations for the Tulsa race massacre. That lawsuit has been dismissed. We'll tell you the facts of the lawsuit and why it was dismissed and we will discuss. And thirdly, there is a college Republicans convention that will be hosting white nationalist Nick Fuentes. What? Yes, it is all happening. We will discuss these stories on the bonus show. You can get instant access by

signing up at join Pacman dot com. Also, remember that the children's book Think Like a Detective, a children's book on critical thinking is available at David Pakman dot com slash book. We are approaching 5000 copies sold. I know I told you yesterday it was like 4000. We had 500 copy copies shipped yesterday. Another 150 so far today. We are approaching 5000 copies of this, which is stunning. And you can get the book in Kindle or paperback at David Pakman dot com slash book. And please remember, if you bought the book, leave a review. We really need those reviews. Forty eight hundred copies sold so far, only one hundred and thirty nine ratings. So make sure to come back and review the book. We'll see you on the bonus show. We'll be here tomorrow. It's an incredible

week of programing. That's what they tell me anyway.