The Big Moment in Jordan Peterson's Conversation with Richard Dawkins

[mobeltass]

Richard Dawkins never uses any unnecessary big words or muddle things up just to sound smart, on the contrary he is always very clear and precise in articulating the problems and his thoughts on them. Jordan Person not so much.

[jaitiwari]

This is why Dawkins in another interview compares Peterson to Chopra and says he talks in a high difficult-to-understand language called “bullshit”!

[iainclark]

Being an expert or intelligent in one area does not mean you are an expert on everything.

[juleskain]

Albert Einstein - "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough". Jordan Peterson - There is an idea of this sort of material substrate.... Pufferfish.

[abhishektyagi]

A scientist tries to simplify things. Peterson tries to muddy the water.

[HWCWTD]

A great scientific educator and communicator, and Peterson.

[DavidHands]

Jordan Peterson is excellent at saying a whole bunch of complicated sentences that make it sound like he is saying something profound, but often not really saying anything at all, or even making sense.
The pure clean easily understood logic of Richard Dawkins is Peterson's kryptonite. JP can't handle it.

[withoutwroeirs]

I'm reminded of the late Terry Pratchett quote:

“The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.”

Both sides are represented here in this discussion.

[buttofthejoke]

Omg. Yet another word salad argument from JP. 😒

[mrrolandlawrence]

I would love to see jordan peterson and russel brand try the crystal maze together. it would be like 2 middle managers trying to solve the tasks and failing miserably.

[stormhawk]

Dawkins gets straight to the point on where he stands. He just cares about what’s true, what’s factual. He understands that human beings get far too delusional over the superstitious, how it clouds the mind and divorces people from reality. Jordan, rather dangerously, embraces emotional feelings of religious faith over what’s actually real.

[mervinprone]

As a biologist, I find Peterson sometimes difficult to understand, he likes to use a lot of jargon. Of course, biology also has a lot of terms but Dawkins on the other hand is so much clearer. To me at least. For example, what is consciousness. Is it being aware of your surroundings or is it self awareness and the ability to recognize that we don’t last forever.

[tariqsaleh]

The only time Dawkins speaks in the whole interview

[tomatoterra]

Peterson just shut up for a moment and actually listen to what your ‘opponent’ has to say. will you? Constantly interrupting and talking over someone does not win you the argument.

[steelcom]

Einstein claimed that you never really know a subject until you can explain it in simple terms.

[johnwetherwaxx]

This is the problem where a smart guy like Peterson who knows a little bit outside his field thinks he knows everything outside his field.

[hamnchee]

"Why don't we talk on the way to the chapel"
Lol

[pasqualecirone]

I like JP but this was his worst interview ever. RD spoke for only 5 minutes or so out of the entire hour or so.

[brucellowayne]

Yes, word salad as said below. Jordan Peterson did that on purpose. He said (02:17): "ok, so when I look at religious epistemology, cross culturally, I see a bi-partite structure, at the bottom of the hypothesizer. There's an idea that there's a material substrate, that consists of a kind of latent potential, that might be one way of looking at it, and there's the action of a forming process on top of that. And it looks to me like it's something like--what would you call it--an intuitive apprehension of the relation between consciousness and the rise to complexity of living forms".

Now, each word here does have meaning. Epistemology, for example, is simply the study of what counts as knowledge (it's a field of philosophy, and can be quite rigorous). Religious epistmeology could be what can be known in religion, (the meaning of the phrase would depend based on context) okay, we could grant that, just about. A bi-partite structure is just a structure that has two parts. Peterson seems to suggest that the two parts are the material and the non-material (i.e. consciousness). Intuition ("intuitive") also has meaning. We intuit certain moral claims intuitively (some might argue), or the fact that 2+2=4. However, Peterson's overall sentence is bullshit. We see you Jordan Peterson. Who is doing the intuiting? The sentence makes no sense. Some of out here are not intimidated by the big words. We see the bullshit.

[glovere]

This went exactly as I would have expected with Peterson spewing a big word salad and Dawkins approaching the topic like a real scientist. I do, however, appreciate a civil discussion with people trying to understand each other. My final thought was once again wishing Christopher Hitchens was still alive. I also really want to see that fish sculpture now, so I thank Peterson for offering up something of interest.