Controversial evolutionary biologist, generator of headlines, and person with 1.25 million Twitter followers Richard Dawkins has slammed 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed, saying that the teenager didn’t invent the clock that got him arrested when his teacher thought it was a bomb.
Going on a Twitter rampage last night, Dawkins kicked the whole thing off by linking to a YouTube video by Thomas Talbot that claimed (and explained) that Ahmed didn’t build a clock, nor did he invent it.
The nuts and bolts of the video is that Talbot reckons Ahmed simply bought an alarm clock, removed it from its casing, and put it in a box; it is “not an invention”.
He also said: “I suspect this was brought into school to create an alarmed reaction.”
Dawkins, who tweeted that Talbot was a man who “seems to know what he’s talking about”, used Talbot’s explanation to fuel his rant that Ahmed was lying.
Assembling clock from bought components is fine. Taking clock out of its case to make it look as if he built it is not fine. Which is true?
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) September 20, 2015
When the backlash started – a few disgruntled murmurs which later evolved into a full blown shit-storm – Dawkins linked to a blog post on Art Voice entitled: “Reverse Engineering Ahmed Mohamed’s Clock… and Ourselves“, which had gone viral.
Author Anthony (whose last name is not published) writes:
“I found the highest resolution photograph of the clock I could. Instantly, I was disappointed. Somewhere in all of this – there has indeed been a hoax. Ahmed Mohamed didn’t invent his own alarm clock. He didn’t even build a clock.”
“For starters, one glance at the printed circuit board in the photo, and I knew we were looking at mid-to-late 1970s vintage electronics.”
[Anthony goes into much, much further detail about why he believes the clock is a fake, which you can read HERE.]
This ‘proof’ only seemed to enrage Dawkins further, with him posted tweet after tweet griping about Ahmed’s used of the word ‘invention’:
OK, fraudulent claiming of an “invention” is not heinous. And he certainly should not have been arrested by the police.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) September 20, 2015
. @smenor @MhaskarChief He didn’t only claim to have built it. He claimed, on Youtube, that it was his INVENTION.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) September 20, 2015
etc.
The Independent is also reporting that Dawkins claimed Ahmed might have “wanted to be arrested”, but if that is the case, Dawkins has definitely deleted that particular tweet.
At some point, presumably when he got over people ragging on him, he appears to have realised that he was getting pretty narky over a 14-year-old kid, and toned it right the fuck back.
That could well be true, in which case I apologise. I guess I’m a bit sensitive about being among the many fooled. https://t.co/Tkhg3rfM2L
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) September 20, 2015
Ahmed is yet to respond, but TBH he’s probably too busy making plans with the White House and going to town on the ridiculous bag of goodies sent to him by Microsoft, which included a Microsoft Surface Pro 3, a Microsoft Band, a Cube 3D printer, and a Raspberry Pi. #Boss.
Picture: Don Arnold via Getty Images / Twitter.
