For better or worse, Richard Dawkins simply isn't one to bite his tongue.
On Sunday, the outspoken evolutionary biologist and best-selling author took to Twitter to suggest that Ahmed Mohamed, the Texas teen who was arrested last week after showing up at school with a clock some teachers thought looked like a homemade bomb, may have committed a "fraud" by wrongfully taking credit for building the clock.
Dawkins also suggested Ahmed might have wanted police to arrest him, though he said he believed the teen shouldn't have been taken into custody.
As you might imagine, the tweets sparked a spirited conversation on the social media platform. Several people praised Dawkins, with one Twitter user saying, "someone gets it." Others derided him as a "conspiracy theorist" and a "Twitter crank" -- reminiscent of Salon recently referring to him as a "sour crank."
Whether the 74-year-old Englishman is a crank or a fearless opponent of political correctness is, of course, a matter of opinion. But there's no denying he's no stranger to stirring up controversy online.
Scroll down for a sampling of Dawkins' controversial tweets on topics ranging from date rape and abortion to Islam.
Story continues after tweets.
Abortion
Rape
Pedophilia
Creationists
Islam
If his tweets seem to target certain groups -- well, it seems as if Dawkins, too, sees himself as belonging to a group that is something of a target.
Certainly, these represent just a tiny slice of Dawkins' tweets, which now number more than 27,000. Dawkins seems quick to engage those who respond to him online, whether they're agreeing or issuing an attack, and he's not above owning up to his own mistakes.