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Richard Dawkins Quotes - Page 29

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The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across generations, and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see them as individuals.

The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across generations, and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see them as individuals.

Richard Dawkins
Two, Evil, People
Richard Dawkins (2004). “A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love”, p.160, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I sympathize with politicians who have to watch every syllable they utter for fear it will be misused by somebody with an agenda.

Richard Dawkins
Watches, Agendas, Politician
"Richard Dawkins is not an accommodationist" by Jerry Coyne, whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com. October 4, 2009.

In other words Luke's story is historically impossible and internally inconsistent. He lied to fudge the fulfillment of Micah's prophesy and to provide a villain to play off Jesus in his fictitious drama. Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you. Some people find that thought disturbing. I find the reality thrilling.

Richard Dawkins
Jesus, Drama, Reality

There are many religious points of view where the conservation of the world is just as important as it is to scientists.

Richard Dawkins
Religious, Views, Important

The resemblance of the signs of the zodiac to the animals after which they are named... is as unimpressive as the predictions of astrologers.

Richard Dawkins
Animal, Zodiac, Predictions
Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.53, W. W. Norton & Company

I mean I think that when you've got a big brain, when you find yourself planted in a world with a brain big enough to understand quite a lot of what you see around you, but not everything, you naturally fall to thinking about the deep mysteries. Where do we come from? Where does the world come from? Where does the universe come from?

Richard Dawkins
Fall, Mean, Thinking
"Richard Dawkins on the Truth of Evolution". "NOW with Bill Moyers", billmoyers.com. 2004.

...there are no natural borderlines in evolution. The illusion of a borderline is created by the fact that the evolutionary intermediates happen to be extinct.

Richard Dawkins
Facts, Evolution, Illusion
Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.340, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I'm sure Obama is an atheist, I'm sure Kennedy was an atheist, but I doubt if Pope Frank is.

Richard Dawkins
Atheist, Doubt, Pope
Interview with Bill Maher, 2013.

Writing a computer virus program is child's play. Any fool can do it, which is why the silly little twerps who do have nothing to be proud of.

Richard Dawkins
Children, Silly, Writing

With so many mind-bytes to be downloaded, so many mental codons to be replicated, it is no wonder that child brains are gullible, open to almost any suggestion, vulnerable to subversion, easy prey to Moonies, Scientologists and nuns. Like immune-deficient patients, children are wide open to mental infections that adults might brush off without effort.

Richard Dawkins
Children, Effort, Brain
Richard Dawkins (2004). “A Devil's Chaplain”, p.129, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Design can never be an ultimate explanation for anything. It can only be a proximate explanation. A plane or a car is explained by a designer but that's because the designer himself, the engineer, is explained by natural selection.

Richard Dawkins
Car, Design, Natural
"The atheist". Interview with Gordy Slack, www.salon.com. April 30, 2005.

We are digital archives of the African Pliocene, even of Devonian seas; walking repositories of wisdom out of the old days. You could spend a lifetime reading in this ancient library and die unsated by the wonder of it.

Richard Dawkins
Reading, Sea, Library
Richard Dawkins (2004). “A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love”, p.103, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I mean, in a way, I feel that one of the reasons for learning about Darwinian evolution is as an object lesson in how not to set up our values and social lives.

Richard Dawkins
Mean, Lessons, Way
"Religion and Atheism". "Q&A" with Tony Jones, www.abc.net.au. April 9, 2012.

Explaining is a difficult art. You can explain something so that your reader understands the words; and you can explain something so that the reader feels it in the marrow of his bones. To do the latter, it sometimes isn't enough to lay the evidence before the reader in a dispassionate way. You have to become an advocate and use the tricks of the advocate's trade.

Richard Dawkins
Art, Use, Way
Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.7, W. W. Norton & Company

I think that a new kind of replicator has recently emerged on this very planet. It is staring us in the face. It is still in its infancy, still drfiting clumsily about in its primeval soup, but already it is achieving evolutionary change at a rate which leaves the old gene panting far behind.

Richard Dawkins
Thinking, Soup, Faces
"The Selfish Gene". Book by Richard Dawkins, 1976.

I get the feeling more and more that religion is being left behind.

Richard Dawkins
Feelings, Left Behind, Behinds

[Invading Iraq] will unite the entire Arab world against the West.

Richard Dawkins
Usa, Iraq, World

The history of science has been one long series of violent brainstorms, as successive generations have come to terms with increasing levels of queerness in the universe.

Richard Dawkins
Long, Generations, Levels

The thing that defines a species is that all members have the same addressing system for their DNA.

Richard Dawkins
Dna, Members, Species
Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.120, W. W. Norton & Company

How any government could promote the Vardy academies in the North-East of England is absolutely beyond me. Tony Blair defends them on grounds of diversity, but it should be unthinkable in the 21st century to have a school whose head of science believes the world is less than 10,000 years old.

Richard Dawkins
Believe, School, Government
"Richard Dawkins: Beyond belief" by John Crace, www.theguardian.com. January 9, 2006.

Science coverage could be improved by the recognition that science is timeless, and therefore science stories should not need to be pegged to an item in the news.

Richard Dawkins
Needs, News, Stories

If you want to do evil, science provides the most powerful weapons to do evil; but equally, if you want to do good, science puts into your hands the most powerful tools to do so

Richard Dawkins
Powerful, Hands, Evil
"Science, Delusion, and the Appetite for Wonder". Richard Dimbleby Lecture on BBC1 Television, www.edge.org. November 12, 1996.

Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven. Each believes that if he could kill the other, his path to paradise in the next world would be even swifter. The delusional "next world" is welcome to both of them. This world would be a much better place without either of them.

Richard Dawkins
Believe, Evil, Heaven
"The Atheist". Interview with Gordy Slack, www.salon.com. April 30, 2005.

Religion ends and philosophy begins, just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins, and astrology ends and astronomy begins.

Richard Dawkins
Philosophy, Science, Astrology

Never say, and never take seriously anyone who says, 'I cannot believe that so-and-so could have evolved by gradual selection.' I have dubbed this kind of fallacy 'the Argument from Personal Incredulity.' Time and again, it has proven the prelude to an intellectual banana-skin experience.

Richard Dawkins
Believe, Intellectual, Skins
"River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life". Book by Richard Dawkins, March 20, 2014.