Richard Dawkins Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science author. He was formerly Professor for Public Understanding of Science at Oxford and was a fellow of New College, Oxford.Dawkins came to more..more..

“ Richard Dawkins:They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines. #Sex#Sex

“ Richard Dawkins:It is normally possible to be much more certain who your children are than who your brothers are. And you can be more certain still who you yourself are! #Children#Children

“ Richard Dawkins:The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. #Life and Living#Life and Living

“ Richard Dawkins:Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun. #Evolution#Evolution

“ Richard Dawkins:It's obvious that in an intelligent educated audience such as this university, I stress this university. Who saw fit to give them accreditation? #Wives#Wives

“ Richard Dawkins:Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts which simply do not make evolutionary sense. #Choice #Choice

“ Richard Dawkins:What worries me about religion is that it teaches people to be satisfied with not understanding. #Worry#Worry

“ Richard Dawkins:Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do. #Sex#Sex

“ Richard Dawkins:The truth is that all examples of child protection and parental care, and all associated bodily organs... are examples of the working in nature of the kin-selection principle. #Children#Children

“ Richard Dawkins:I am not advocating a morality based on evolution. I am saying how things have evolved. I am not saying how we humans morally ought to behave. #Evolution#Evolution

“ Richard Dawkins:The genes are the master programmers, and they are programming for their lives. #Computers#Computers

“ Richard Dawkins:What is the selfish gene? It is not just one single physical bit of DNA. Just as in the primeval soup, it is all replicas of a particular bit of DNA, distributed throughout the world. #Bankers and Banking#Bankers and Banking

“ Richard Dawkins:But you cannot have an unnatural welfare state, unless you also have unnatural birth control, otherwise the end result will be misery even greater than that which obtains in nature. #Nature#Nature

“ Richard Dawkins:Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful! #Children#Children

“ Richard Dawkins:... a gene might be able to assist replicas of itself that are sitting in other bodies. If so, this would appear as individual altruism but it would be brought about by gene selfishness. #Sex#Sex

“ Richard Dawkins:... 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. #Evolution#Evolution

“ Richard Dawkins: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? #Superstition#Superstition

“ Richard Dawkins: The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. #Atheism#Atheism

“ Richard Dawkins:Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. #Country#Country

“ Richard Dawkins:... leaders who forbid their followers to use effective contraceptive methods... express a preference for "natural" methods of population limitation, and a natural method is exactly what they are going to get. It is called starvation. #Leaders and Leadership#Leaders and Leadership

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