In my opinion, Dawkins wins this debate hands down. Though I find it amusing to think what the Bayesians here will say about the part where a commenter asks him, “If you had to bet, what would you say is the proportion of alleles that evolve neutrally?”, and Dawkins replies, “How I would bet should be of no interest to you.”
Humor aside, as for Lewontin, I actually had the attitude of humble and judicious open-mindedness towards these controversies until a few years ago, when I read that magnum opus by him, Rose, and Kamin titled Not in Our Genes. Even disregarding the parts that read like a complete parody—for example, when they advise us, apparently in full seriousness, to read Chairman Mao for enlightenment—most of the book is such a blatant ideological hack-job that I was left wondering how anyone could take these people seriously. (To make the it even more absurd, I stumbled across that book in a university library while looking for Pinker’s The Blank Slate, of which I found one single crisp-looking specimen sharing a shelf with seven or eight well worn out copies of Not in Our Genes.)
In my opinion, Dawkins wins this debate hands down. Though I find it amusing to think what the Bayesians here will say about the part where a commenter asks him, “If you had to bet, what would you say is the proportion of alleles that evolve neutrally?”, and Dawkins replies, “How I would bet should be of no interest to you.”
Humor aside, as for Lewontin, I actually had the attitude of humble and judicious open-mindedness towards these controversies until a few years ago, when I read that magnum opus by him, Rose, and Kamin titled Not in Our Genes. Even disregarding the parts that read like a complete parody—for example, when they advise us, apparently in full seriousness, to read Chairman Mao for enlightenment—most of the book is such a blatant ideological hack-job that I was left wondering how anyone could take these people seriously. (To make the it even more absurd, I stumbled across that book in a university library while looking for Pinker’s The Blank Slate, of which I found one single crisp-looking specimen sharing a shelf with seven or eight well worn out copies of Not in Our Genes.)
Dawkins’ review of Not In Our Genes was epic (pdf).
Wrong books are sometimes more popular. Penrose, is another instance that springs to mind.