Humanist UK patron in the wrong

[Rhiannon]

But I'm not clear that the issue of combat was ever part of the discussion - from the pod cast the only point was than his daughter (not sure which one, he has 2 one about 7 the other 4) wanted to know why all the spitfire pilots were 'boys' - to point out that they weren't and that women also flew spitfires isn't actually lying at all - that is the truth. Had his daughter asked why all the combat spitfire pilots were 'boys' then he would have been lying, but my impression is that that wasn't the question.

But he is quoted as saying that he lied. He thinks he lied. What did he lie about?

[Rhiannon]

It is possible this was his 4 year old daughter - if so I disagree with you. I think the notion of combat vs non combat and selected roles for women is both beyond developmental understanding and also not relevant to what she was asking. Effectively she wanted to know whether girls could fly spitfires - and the answer is yes they could and yes they did.

I doubt whether a four year old would ask why all the people ‘rampaging’ in the photos are men to start with. I think we can safely assume that the older child asked. But even if it was the younger one, a four year old gets then/now.

[ProfessorDavey]

I doubt whether a four year old would ask why all the people ‘rampaging’ in the photos are men to start with. I think we can safely assume that the older child asked. But even if it was the younger one, a four year old gets then/now.

All we know from the podcast is that his daughter (whichever one it was) went down a series of pictures of spitfire pilots and went 'boy','boy','boy','boy' - Dan Snow's response was to show her some pictures of women spitfire pilots and said, there were women who flew spitfires too. To my mind there is no lying anywhere in that scenario - Snow was correct to point out that there were also some women who flew spitfires in response to his daughter's comment that all the pilots she saw in the pictures were men.

Clearly Snow recognises that there are elements of the story which he has missed out in his response, but I don't think that means he was lying. And when he talks about it he doesn't say 'I lied', but the more nuanced that he 'sort of lied', which I think is a recognition that he was guilty of omission rather than overtly saying something that wasn't true.