The same Richard Dawkins who wanted all Downs babies aborted? Yes - proper hero, full of compassion.

He never said that though did he?
He later elaborated that discovering your unborn child had a genetic disease leaves the parents with a difficult decision to face, surely pro choice is what we all want isnt it?

The mountains are calling & I must go.

"Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice."

Sounds pretty categorical.

I quite like him and read a lot of his books. Personally I don't really rate the God Delusion that much, he's clumsy with his theological and philosophical arguments and relies to heavily on semantics and rhetoric; falling into the same mistaken approach that Creationists do with evolution - they clearly don't understand what they're arguing against, and end up arguing against something entirely different.

Now the 'Blind Watchmaker' makes the arguments much better, by sticking to a subject he clearly understands and you won't find a much better primer on Evolution than this and the 'Selfish Gene'. In fact the Blind Watchmaker is one of the best defenses of Evolution ever produced.

Creationism doesn't need evidence to disprove, it immediately fail due to it being an attempt to present unscientific theory as a scientific theory. Similarly with intelligent design (Dawkins and many others have long since proved these to be unscientific and thus invalid science theories). Unfortunately Dawkins seems to have embraced the role of poster boy for atheism, and has increasingly found himself drawn into a slagging match, rather than argument.

His initial issues with religion were valid, his later decent into a more adversarial atheist, undermine what was a valid argument.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

Also he's 74 year old man, it shouldn't be entirely surprising if he isn't a bit sexist or otherwise holding of prejudiced values.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

Yes, but he's an expert in evolution - the occasional 'different' offspring surely is a factor in aiding nature to adjust to fit into various niches. Who's to say that downs is not something which may prove advantageous in some as yet undiscovered field? Surely it's up to nature to decide.

I could even cope with his personal decision to abort, but to claim it's immoral not to seems to go against nature's way.