The Enemy of Reason is a two-part television documentary written and screened by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Is it reasonable that the dead should be able to communicate with the living and give sound advice on how to live their lives? How to insert needles into your body to release the flow of chi energy and heal your disease?
Or use your wits to bend the spoon? Is this reasonable? Richard Dawkins doesn’t believe this and feels it is his duty to expose beliefs that persist in the absence of scientific evidence but still captivate the nation. He’ll take on world leaders in their fields, meet the victims of their use and unravel the history of the movement — from the charlatans who exploited the practices to the experiments and tests that yielded inconclusive results.
Dawkins points to a number of scientific achievements and describes them as liberating most people from superstition and dogma. Continuing his distinction between superstition and reason in The Root of All Evil? (recycling some footage of it at the same time), he then says that reason is facing an “epidemic of superstition” that has “impoverished our culture,” and introduces the masters who persuade us to “escapate reality.” He called the present a dangerous time. He goes back to the achievements of science, including helping people make better use of their lives by extending them. He turned to astrology, which he criticized for baseless stereotypes.
Richard Dawkins examines the growing public distrust of science-based medicine, despite its successes in the germ theory of disease, vaccines, antibiotics and life extension. He pointed out that one in five British children is currently not vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella, attributing this to fears over a highly controversial report linking the vaccine to autism. Dawkins criticized the developing field of alternative medicine for not meeting the same goals and statistical rigor as scientifically derived treatments using double-blind, controlled studies.
Directed by: Russell Barnes
