UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail
‘Date rape is bad, stranger rape is worse’: Richard Dawkins sparks outrage during Twitter debate
By SAM MARSDEN and STEPHANIE LINNING
Controversial scientist Richard Dawkins provoked fury yesterday after referring to ‘mild date rape’ and ‘mild paedophilia’ in comments on Twitter.
Campaigners for women and child abuse victims condemned the prominent atheist’s posts as ‘offensive and damaging’.
Professor Dawkins, 73, became embroiled in the row when he made a point about logical thinking to almost a million followers on the social networking site.
The academic sparked anger by choosing the example of sexual abuse to illustrate the idea.
He began by writing: ‘X is bad. Y is worse. If you think that’s an endorsement of X, go away and don’t come back until you’ve learned how to think logically.’
Then he added: ‘Mild pedophilia [sic] is bad. Violent pedophilia is worse. If you think that’s an endorsement of mild pedophilia, go away and learn how to think. …
However in a statement on his website last night, he said he ‘was only talking logic’, and had ‘no desire to make light of the seriousness of any kind of rape or [sic] pedophilia’
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