It doesn’t? You’re in the top one percent of people who know shit about the Constitution and that doesn’t make you an expert? Damn, experting is a tough field to break into.
This is just an argument from authority, framed in the negative, and as unconvincing as such arguments usually are.
The only relevant question is whether what Dawkins says is wrong. Do you have anything to say about that? If you did, that might be worth something depending on the quality of your arguments.
Your OP however, is a waste of electrons.
I have no idea why an evolutionary biologist would need to to become an advocate for secularism.
I’ve got an uncle who was a fireman all of his adult employed life. When he retired, he wrote a great book on taxonomy.
Jesus was a carpenter by trade, so he has no reason to opine on what God thinks. (If you believe in any of that.)
Is the OP insinuating that one’s profession is the only route to being an expert on a subject? Because that would be really dumb if he did.
A very poorly thought out pitting. Funnily enough, Dawkins complains about this kind of thing in his book, The God Delusion. Why defer to religious figures? What is their expertise exactly?
The thing is, little of that can be understood through theology, which is essentially exercises in apologetics. Most theists aren’t well versed in theology, so an understanding of theological arguments does little to explain the spread of religion. (Which is an interesting question, and not one that should be readily dismissed. I thought the weakest parts of the The God Delusion were where Dawkins tried to this.)
Theology is a sub-branch of philosophy, but it’s limited by it’s inherent assumptions. It’s quite fair to be dismissive of theology itself on that basis. However, it’s not fair to dismiss someone’s writings because they are a theologian, that doesn’t prevent them from being well versed in philosophy or ethics.
…I don’t trust that Richard Dawkins. I don’t want anyone I know to grow up joining one of those “star cults.”
Dawkins has been writing about religious topics for quite some time- The Blind Watchmaker came out in the mid to late 80’s and he has been involved in many, many secular and Humanist associations for a very long time. I don’t think people “lap up his every word because he’s a Professor” but because he’s been thinking and writing on the topic for 35 years.
Time was, all you had to be was some damn fool from out of town.
There is no accounting for taste. All the same, this is completely false.
Amen.
And this is evidence of your mad rhetorical skillz?
(I’m not a fan of Dawkins, either, though I heartily concur with the group that the fundamentalists need to get the fuck outta science)
AK84, did you read something by Dawkins that you disagreed with, or do you just object to him in some vague, “he’s wrong”, sort of way?
I can’t address the other guy you mentioned- Hanson- as I’m not familiar with his writings. A quick Google shows he seems to write on military history, a subject that’s not of much interest to me. What do the two (Dawkins and Hanson) have in common that you mention them together?
Ask yourself why it appears to be necessary for a man to have an advanced degree in botany, physics, and an encyclopedic knowledge of anthropology in the Middle East to disprove a guy who once read a story about a spontaneously combustible bush.
Then we can quibble over how many things one can be an expert in at one time.
It’s evidence for how low the bar is. 
The claims of religions aren’t exactly deep or meaningful. You don’t need to be the pope to look at the claims of Catholicism and realize they’re full of shit. You need to be able to reason and evaluate evidence.
Prescient PZ Myers rebutted the OP six years ago:
The Courtier’s Reply
If a commentator who is not a theologian grossly misrepresents the tenets of religion, or displays a stunning ignorance of political facts, then the OP would have a point that they should think about sticking with things they know about.
I don’t see that problem with Dawkins or Hanson (though I frequently disagree with Hanson). Religion and politics are pretty much sport for everyone anyway and not rocket science.
Speaking strictly of science, I see a big problem with scientists who set themselves up as experts in fields outside their area of expertise. The most obvious example of this is Nobel prize winners making asses of themselves (i.e the “Nobel disease”). Frequently you’ll see promoters of alternative medicine and various forms of woo touting the physicians and scientists who support their claims, but who have limited or no expertise in the areas cited. And there was the recent op-ed in the Wall St. Journal by climate change doubters, most of who seemed to be trained in non-climate related fields but felt themselves qualified to emote on the subject.
As it should be. I probably know more about computers and information technology than 99% of people in the US, but I wouldn’t set myself up as an expert either. There are still 3 million out there who might know more about it than I do.
Nobody who counts(industry decision makers) would listen to me pontificate about how I think IT departments should work, or what the role of the CIO ought to be; I’m not experienced enough, for one thing, and for the most part, I’m probably not educated enough either.
That being said, maybe there’s a little misinterpretation on the OP’s part on Dawkins’ goals and work. If it is just pointing out that religion is non-scientific and ultimately required a great deal of faith, that’s fine. It’s pretty obvious to most of us, religious or atheist, who have spent any time thinking about it.
However, if he’s going off and arguing that the Church had it wrong about Arianism or stuff like that, then yeah, he’s not qualified to talk about that.
Hanson is particularly problematic because he seems to think that Athenian society is an ideal. It’s rare, at least in the 21st century, for a classicist to go native, but he has actually bought a date farm and begun living as a smallholding hoplite. His desire to reconstruct Western society along agrarian militarist lines certainly strikes one as a bit fascist.
I went to parochial school for kindergarten through 12 grade. I went to a catholic university where I was required to take multiple theology classes in order to graduate. I understand what theology is and it’s worthless. Everything you say theology does, some other field does better with practical results and is based on empirical evidence.