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Richard Dawkins Quotes - Page 18

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No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children...I would want to argue that the truth of

No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children...I would want to argue that the truth of evolution is more interesting and more poetic

Richard Dawkins
Children, Fun, Believe

The feature of living matter that most demands explanation is that it is almost unimaginably complicated in directions that convey a powerful illusion of deliberate design.

Richard Dawkins
Powerful, Design, Demand
Richard Dawkins (2004). “A Devil's Chaplain”, p.79, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved by probably some kind of Darwinian means to a very, very high level of technology- and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. And I suppose it's possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer.

Richard Dawkins
Mean, Technology, Civilization
"Atheist Richard Dawkins makes some startling comments on religion". www.glennbeck.com. August 27, 2012.

The psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has shown great courage, in the face of spiteful vested interests, in demonstrating how easy it is for people to concoct memories that are entirely false but which seem, to the victim, every bit as real as true memories.

Richard Dawkins
Memories, Real, People

The universe is a strange and wondrous place. The truth is quite odd enough to need no help from pseudoscientific charlatans.

Richard Dawkins
Needs, Helping, Strange
"Human gullibility beyond belief, - the "paranormal" in the media". The Sunday Times, August 25, 1996.

There is economics in biology, nothing is free, everything has to be paid for, there are costs as well as benefits to everything in life, for example, there was never sufficient natural selection pressure to develop better eyes, individuals could earn other things like smiley smiles rather than waste energy & time on better eyes.

Richard Dawkins
Eye, Energy, Example

Do you really mean to tell me the only reason you try to be good is to gain God's approval and reward, or to avoid his disapproval and punishment? That's not morality, that's just sucking up, apple-polishing, looking over your shoulder at the great surveillance camera in the sky, or the still small wiretap inside your head, monitoring your every move, even your every base though.

Richard Dawkins
Moving, Mean, Surveillance Cameras

Like computer viruses, successful mind viruses will tend to be hard for their victims to detect. If you are the victim of one, the chances are that you won't know it, and may even vigorously deny it.

Richard Dawkins
Successful, Mind, Atheism
Richard Dawkins (2004). “A Devil's Chaplain”, p.137, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

... you need more than luck to navigate successfully through a thousand sieves in succession.

Richard Dawkins
Luck, Needs, Thousand
Richard Dawkins (1995). “River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life”, Basic Books (AZ)

The universe doesn't owe you a sense of hope

Richard Dawkins
Universe

I'm quite a softy, yes. I have a blank spot with respect to visual art, but I have perhaps a compensating hypersensitivity to poetry and music.

Richard Dawkins
Art, Poetry And Music, Blank

A retaliator behaves like a hawk when he is attacked by a hawk, and like a dove when he meets a dove. When he meets another retaliator he plays like a dove. A retaliator is a conditional strategist. His behaviour depends on the behaviour of his opponent.

Richard Dawkins
Play, Behaviour, Opponents
Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition”, p.96, Oxford University Press

If your plane is being hijacked by an armed man who, though prepared to take risks, presumably wants to go on living, there is room for bargaining.

Richard Dawkins
Men, Risk, Goes On
Richard Dawkins (2017). “Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist”, p.235, Random House

We should learn to understand natural selection, so that we can oppose any tendency to apply it to human politics.

Richard Dawkins
Religion, Atheism, Natural

I'm not much given to straight, irony-free hero-worship.

Richard Dawkins
Hero, Irony, Worship
"Christopher Hitchens: my hero of 2010" by Richard Dawkins, www.theguardian.com. December 1, 2010.

But, however many ways there may be of being alive, it is certain that there are vastly more ways of being dead, or rather not alive.

Richard Dawkins
Life, Death, Science
1986 The Blind Watchmaker, ch.1.

Imagine a crime series in which, every week, there is a white suspect and a black suspect. And every week, lo and behold, the black one turns out to have done it. Unpardonable, of course. And my point is that you could not defend it by saying: "But it's only fiction, only entertainment."

Richard Dawkins
White, Black, Entertainment

My untidy habits drive me to follow the slash-and-burn principle. Work on a virgin table until the mess becomes unbearable, then move on to a clean table in a clean room - or, on a beautiful summer day like this, one of the five tables dotted around the garden. Trash that table and move on again.

Richard Dawkins
Beautiful, Summer, Moving

[It] is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.

Richard Dawkins
People, Religion, Atheism
Richard Dawkins (2006). “The Selfish Gene”, p.330, Oxford University Press, USA

To invoke the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing - for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer.

Richard Dawkins
Dna, Machines, Designer
Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.141, W. W. Norton & Company

Have they discovered evolution yet?

Richard Dawkins
Evolution
Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition”, p.23, Oxford University Press

Steve Grand is the creator of what I think is the nearest approach to artificial life so far, and his first book, Creation: Life and How to Make It, is as interesting as you would expect. But he illuminates more than just the properties of life: his originality extends to matter itself and the very nature of reality. Not since David Deutsch's The Fabric of Reality have I encountered such a compelling invitation to think everything out afresh, from the bottom up.

Richard Dawkins
Book, Reality, Thinking
"What were you looking at?: A host of celebrity critics choose their books of the year". www.theguardian.com. December 15, 2000.

Scientific truth is too beautiful to be sacrificed for the sake of light entertainment or money. Astrology is an aesthetic affront. It cheapens astronomy, like using Beethoven for commercial jingles.

Richard Dawkins
Beautiful, Astrology, Light
"The Real Romance in the Stars". www.independent.co.uk. December 31, 1995.

Mysteries do not lose their poetry when solved. Quite the contrary; the solution often turns out more beautiful than the puzzle and, in any case, when you have solved one mystery you uncover others, perhaps to inspire greater poetry

Richard Dawkins
Beautiful, Inspire, Mystery
Richard Dawkins (2000). “Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder”, p.41, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

It is all too easy to mistake passion that can change its mind for fundamentalism, which never will.

Richard Dawkins
Mistake, Passion, Mind
Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.18, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt