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Richard Dawkins Quotes - Page 20

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And the beauty of the anthropic principle is that it tells us, against all intuition, that a chemical model need only predict that life will arise on one planet in a billion billion to give us a good and entirely

And the beauty of the anthropic principle is that it tells us, against all intuition, that a chemical model need only predict that life will arise on one planet in a billion billion to give us a good and entirely satisfying explanation for the presence of life here.

Richard Dawkins
Giving, Intuition, Principles
Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.166, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

[R]eductionism' is one of those things, like sin, that is only mentioned by people who are against it. To call oneself a reductionist will sound, in some circles, a bit like admitting to eating babies. But, just as nobody actually eats babies, so nobody is really a reductionist in any sense worth being against.

Richard Dawkins
Baby, Circles, People
Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.24, W. W. Norton & Company

People sometimes try to score debating points by saying, Evolution is only a theory. That is correct, but it's important to understand what that means. It is also only a theory that the world goes round the Sun - it's just a theory for which there is an immense amount of evidence. There are many scientific theories that are in doubt. Even within evolution, there is some room for controversy. But that we are cousins of apes and jackals and starfish, let's say, that is a fact in the ordinary sense of the word.

Richard Dawkins
Cousin, Mean, People

It's very likely that most mammals have consciousness, and probably birds, too.

Richard Dawkins
Bird, Mammals, Consciousness

Humans are just a very, very small part of the panoply of life, and it is arguable that in a certain sense, humans have emancipated themselves from Darwinian selection.

Richard Dawkins
Certain, Humans, Small Parts
"Belief" Interview, www.bbc.co.uk. April, 2004.

The replicators that exist tend to be the ones that are good at manipulating the world to their own advantage. But other replicators are also successful otherwise they would not be common. The world therefore tends to become populated by mutually compatible sets of successful replicators, replicators that get on well together

Richard Dawkins
Successful, Together, World
Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene”, p.403, Oxford University Press

Are science and religion converging? No. There are modern scientists whose words sound religious but whose beliefs, on close examination, turn out to be identical to those of other scientists who straightforwardly call themselves atheists.

Richard Dawkins
Religious, Atheist, Atheism
Richard Dawkins (2004). “A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love”, p.146, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Science shares with religion the claim that it answers deep questions about origins, the nature of life, and the cosmos. But there the resemblance ends. Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not.

Richard Dawkins
Religion, Atheism, Cosmos
Richard Dawkins (1995). “River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life”, Basic Books (AZ)

What is interesting about the scientific world view is that it is true, inspiring, remarkable and that it unites a whole lot of phenomena under a single heading.

Richard Dawkins
Views, Interesting, World
"Going the whole hog". www.timeshighereducation.com. April 28, 1995.

I do like Philip Pullman.And that's an exception because Philip Pullman's books allow magic.

Richard Dawkins
Book, Magic, Exception
Source: newrepublic.com

I think Douglas [Adams] is writing with an eye to irony for adults at the same time as entertaining children.

Richard Dawkins
Children, Eye, Writing
Source: newrepublic.com

Who are we to say that that was an odd way to do it? I don't think that it is God's purpose to make his intention absolutely obvious to us.

Richard Dawkins
Thinking, Purpose, Way
Source: inters.org

If it suits [God] to be a deity that we must seek without being forced to, would it not have been sensible for him to use the mechanism of evolution without posting obvious road signs to reveal his role in creation?

Richard Dawkins
Deities, Roles, Use
Source: inters.org

I'm not so fond of the sort of science fiction that isn't really science fiction but is sometimes thought to be - Gothic princesses and white horses and bats and castles and things.

Richard Dawkins
Horse, Princess, White
Source: newrepublic.com

In the case of Stalinism, people actually distorted science, because it was for the good of the Communist Party.

Richard Dawkins
Party, People, Communist
Source: www.newstatesman.com

It is almost as if the human brain were specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinism, and to find it hard to believe

Richard Dawkins
Believe, Brain, Economics
Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.9, W. W. Norton & Company

The trouble with conspiracies, even those that are to everybody's advantage in the long run, is that they are open to abuse. If manipulators really had the powers claimed, they could win the lottery every week. I prefer to point out that they could also win a Nobel Prize for discovering fundamental physical forces hitherto unknown to science.

Richard Dawkins
Running, Winning, Long
"The Selfish Gene". Book by Richard Dawkins, 1976.

Of course in science there are things that are open to doubt and things need to be discussed. But among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know.

Richard Dawkins
Doubt, Doe, Needs

We have sexual lust even though we know perfectly well that, because we're using contraception, it is not going to result in the propagation of our genes. That doesn't matter, because the lust was built into our brains at a time when there was no contraception.

Richard Dawkins
Lust, Brain, Matter
Source: newrepublic.com

People who do not know the Bible well have been gulled into thinking it is a good guide to morality. This mistaken view may have motivated the "millionaire Conservative party donors". I have even heard the cynically misanthropic opinion that, without the Bible as a moral compass, people would have no restraint against murder, theft and mayhem. The surest way to disabuse yourself of this pernicious falsehood is to read the Bible itself.

Richard Dawkins
Party, Thinking, Views
"Why I want all our children to read the King James Bible". www.theguardian.com. May 19, 2012.

We have the same genetic code for all living creatures. We have a large number of genes that are manifestly the same, but with detail differences - they look like different drafts of the same book. In extreme cases, like a human and a beetroot, it's like the difference between Matthew and Luke's Gospel - clearly they tell the same story, but with different words. Whereas with a human and a chimp, it's like two different printings of Matthew, with a few typos in one.

Richard Dawkins
Book, Two, Differences
Source: www.macleans.ca

It is interesting to ask whether there's any general reason why being religious might make you do nice things or indeed nasty things. It's possible that people do nice things because they're religious. One reason might be they're hoping for a reward in Heaven, which is not a very noble reason.

Richard Dawkins
Religious, Nice, People
"Richard Dawkins at the Sydney Writers' Festival". Interview with Robyn Williams, www.abc.net.au. September 8, 2007.

[Jay] Gould sets up an artificial wall between the two worldviews that doesn't exist in my life. Because I do believe in God's creative power in having brought it all into being in the first place, I find that studying the natural world is an opportunity to observe the majesty, the elegance, the intricacy of God's creation.

Richard Dawkins
Wall, Believe, Opportunity
Source: inters.org

I would challenge the statement that my scientific instincts are any less rigorous than [Richard Dawkins]. The difference is that my presumption of the possibility of God and therefore the supernatural is not zero, and yours is.

Richard Dawkins
Zero, Differences, Challenges
Source: inters.org

I'm a sucker for nice religious leaders. I fall for it every time.

Richard Dawkins
Religious, Nice, Fall
Source: newrepublic.com