Re: Richard Dawkins accepted my invitation!
ZachPlease don't invite anyone to the chat if they aren't going to read the book and participate on the boards. If this were someone different I would encourage you to spread the word, but in this case I can't fathom needing to fill empty seats in the chat room. I would really appreciate you spreading the word though, but just keep in mind that this chat is for people who have read the book. We can only have a total of 25 people in the chat room and we don't want to have seats occupied by people who don't even know what the book is about. Quite frankly...I'm not about to waste Dawkins time like that. My idea is to NOT tell people about the chat details any time soon. Lets try to get more readers. The chat room will fill up if we have enough readers.
Next Thursday in the chat room I'll tell you about the conference. Dawkins talk was incredible - I'm going to have to get a copy of
"A Devil's Chaplain" and I strongly suggest you do too. James Randi and Michael Shermer were also excellent. Its after 4am and I just got home from the convention for the day. Several of us sat around drinking and talking all night...including Reggie aka
"Infidel Guy." I'm soooo tired. My sentences here are probably nonsensical.
Tomorrow I'm going on some sort of dinner cruise with a group of people - including Dawkins. For some reason I feel somewhat shy around Dawkins. I've admired him for so long that it almost doesn't seem real to be able to talk to him. With your love of science you would have been on the edge of your seat listening to him talk. Only Sagan ever stirred me emotionally like this.
Now that I think about it...I bet my experience with Stephen Jay Gould has left me less than comfortable initiating a discussion with Dawkins. Gould was brilliant, but a complete asshole in my opinion. Dawkins is nothing like Gould and is a perfect gentlemen. And MUCH better at public speaking/lecturing than Gould. I won't say any more on this subject on this thread. I am reading a book comparing and contrasting Dawkins and Goulds versions of evolution.
Next year it would be so nice to get a group of us from BookTalk to attend this convention together. I'm very serious about this. Perhaps if we all plan it out long enough in advance many of us will be able to fit it into our lives.
Ok, I'm going to bed. I don't want to miss Reggies talk tomorrow morning. He'll be working on 4 hours of sleep so this should be interesting. We're going to have Reggie as our guest soon too. He is a very cool person and I'm glad I've been able to spend some time with him this weekend. Night.
Chris
Tweet This Topic
at: 4/18/03 1:59:23 am
We got Dawkins. I will definately read that book. Double yaaaaayyyy for Chris! (Cheers for his hard work!) Hope the dinner cruise goes well and enjoy your time with Dawkins and the others. *giant smile* 
