Richard Dawkins: Trending quotes (page 10)

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“It really comes down to parsimony, economy of explanation. It is possible that your car engine is driven by psychokinetic energy, but if it looks like a petrol engine, smells like a petrol engine and performs exactly as well as a petrol engine, the sensible working hypothesis is that it is a petrol engine.”

Richard Dawkins

The Richard Dimbleby Lecture: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (1996)

Cars

“Thus the creationist's favourite question "What is the use of half an eye?" Actually, this is a lightweight question, a doddle to answer. Half an eye is just 1 per cent better than 49 per cent of an eye.”

Richard Dawkins

Part 2: "The Virus of Faith"
The Root of All Evil? (January 2006)

Question

“The fact that something is written down is persuasive to people not used to asking questions like: ‘Who wrote it, and when?’ ‘How did they know what to write?’ ‘Did they, in their time really mean what we, in our time, understand them to be saying?’ ‘Were they unbiased observers, or did they have an agenda that coloured their writing?’.”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion (2006), p. 118 of the Black Swan paperback edition of 2007

People , Understanding , Question , Time

“The world becomes full of organisms that have what it takes to become ancestors. That, in a sentence, is Darwinism.”

Richard Dawkins

River out of Eden (1995)

World

“This not only misses the point, it is the precise antithesis of the point.”

Richard Dawkins book The Blind Watchmaker

Source: The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 10 “The One True Tree of Life” (p. 261)

“More generally it is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims.”

Richard Dawkins

"When Religion Steps on Science’s Turf", Free Inquiry (1998)

Religion , Universe , Science

“It would be deeply depressing if the only way children could get moral values was from religion. Either from scripture, and God knows we don't want them to get it from scripture, I mean, just look at scripture. Or, from being afraid of God, being intimidated by God. Anybody who is good for only those two reasons is not really being good at all. Why not teach children things like the Golden Rule, do as you would be done by, how would you like it if other children did that to you, so why do you do it to them… I think it's depressing that anybody should suggest that you actually need God in order to be moral. I would hope that our morals come from a better source than that, and therefore they are genuinely moral rather than based on outmoded scripture, or based on fear.”

Richard Dawkins

BBC http://youtube.com/watch?v=HtUd7-tha_w, ()

God , Children , Fear , Religion

“… it seems that it would take less than half a million years to evolve a good camera eye … It's no wonder "the" eye has evolved at least 40 times independently around the animal kingdom … It is a geological blink.”

Richard Dawkins

River out of Eden (1995)

Time , Animals

“Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 1. Why Are People?

Sun

“You contain a trillion copies of a large, textual document written in a highly accurate, digital code, each copy as voluminous as a substantial book. I'm talking, of course, of the DNA in your cells.”

Richard Dawkins

The Richard Dimbleby Lecture: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (1996)

Books

“[…] if I am asked for a single phrase to characterize my role as Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, I think I would claim Advocate for Disinterested Truth.”

Richard Dawkins book A Devil's Chaplain

"Science, Genetics and Ethics: Memo for Tony Blair"
A Devil's Chaplain (2003)

Truth , Understanding , Thinking , Science

“For the first half of geological time our ancestors were bacteria. Most creatures still are bacteria, and each one of our trillions of cells is a colony of bacteria.”

Richard Dawkins

The Richard Dimbleby Lecture: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (1996)

Time

“We no longer have to resort to superstition when faced with the deep problems: Is there a meaning to life? What are we for? What is man?”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 1. Why Are People?

Life , Problem

“Isn't Deepak Chopra just exploiting Quantum jargon as plausible-sounding hocus pocus?”

Richard Dawkins

The Enemies of Reason (August 2007)

“Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them. Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival: the analogue of steering by the moon for a moth. But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility. The inevitable by-product is vulnerability to infection by mind viruses.”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion (2006), p. 176

Nature , Parent

“Gravity is not a version of the truth. It is the truth. Anybody who doubts it is invited to jump out of a tenth-floor window.”

Richard Dawkins

The Genius of Charles Darwin (2008)

Truth

“Our subjective judgment of what seems like a good bet is irrelevant to what is actually a good bet.”

Richard Dawkins book The Blind Watchmaker

Source: The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 6 “Origins and Miracles” (p. 162)

“… a lion wants to eat an antelope's body, but the antelope has very different plans for its body. This is not normally regarded as competition for a resource, but logically it is hard to see why not.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 5. Aggression: stability and the selfish machine

“If God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them? Who's God trying to impress? Presumably himself, since he is judge and jury, as well as execution victim.”

Richard Dawkins

Part 2, 00:29:56
The Root of All Evil? (January 2006)

God , Forgiveness , Parting

“It's almost impossible to say anything against Islam in this country, because you are accused of being racist or Islamophobic.”

Richard Dawkins

2008 comment quoted in "Fury over Richard Dawkins's burka jibe as atheist tells of his 'visceral revulsion' at Muslim dress", Daily Mail (10 August 2010) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1301750/Fury-Richard-Dawkinss-burka-jibe-atheist-tells-revulsion-Muslim-dress.html

Country