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Richard Dawkins
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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
#Courage
#Face
#Great
#Memories
#True
Discrimination is not liberal. Arguing against discrimination is not intolerance.
- Richard Dawkins
#Arguing
#Discrimination
#Intolerance
What is illiberal is not persuasion but imposition of one's views.
- Richard Dawkins
#Imposition
#Persuasion
#Views
Christopher Hitchens was a writer and an orator with a matchless style, commanding a vocabulary and a range of literary and historical allusion far wider than anybody I know.
- Richard Dawkins
#Far
#Historical
#Know
#Style
#Vocabulary
It is a lamentable observation that because of the way our laws are skewed toward the plaintiff, London has become the libel capital of the world.
- Richard Dawkins
#Because
#Laws
#Observation
#Way
#World
Compassionate doctors sometimes lie to patients about the severity of their condition, and it is not always wrong to do so.
- Richard Dawkins
#About
#Always
#Lie
#Sometimes
#Wrong
I didn't know children were expected to have literary heroes, but I certainly had one, and I even identified with him at one time: Doctor Dolittle, whom I now half identify with the Charles Darwin of Beagle days.
- Richard Dawkins
#Children
#Days
#Doctor
#Know
#Time
What Darwinian theory shows us is that all human races are extremely close to each other. None of them is in any sense ancestral to any other; none of them is more primitive than any other. We are all modern races of exactly equal status, evolutionarily speaking.
- Richard Dawkins
#Equal
#Human
#More
#Theory
#Us
It doesn't hurt my feeling when I get vilified by fundamentalist religious people. I've actually made comedy out of it. I've made light of that.
- Richard Dawkins
#Comedy
#Feeling
#Hurt
#Light
#People
I'm pretty sure there is some genetic component towards intelligence.
- Richard Dawkins
#Genetic
#Intelligence
#Pretty
#Sure
I think the written word is probably the best medium of communication because you have time to reflect, you have time to choose your words, to get your sentences exactly right. Whereas when you're being interviewed, say, you have to talk on the fly, you have to improvise, you can change sentences around, and they're not exactly right.
- Richard Dawkins
#Best
#Change
#Communication
#Fly
#Time
I do think imagination is enormously valuable, and that children should be encouraged in their imagination. That's very true.
- Richard Dawkins
#Children
#Imagination
#True
#Valuable
I read novels for entertainment rather than for edification, so I tend not to read the sort of novels that are said to illuminate the human condition.
- Richard Dawkins
#Entertainment
#Human Condition
#Human
I'm fond of science fiction. But not all science fiction. I like science fiction where there's a scientific lesson, for example - when the science fiction book changes one thing but leaves the rest of science intact and explores the consequences of that. That's actually very valuable.
- Richard Dawkins
#Book
#Rest
#Science Fiction
#Science
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
#Fear
#Politicians
#Somebody
#Watch
#Will
We frequently look into the future of mankind and see dangers. We see if we carry on doing what we are doing in 20 years' time there will be no rainforests left, just to use one example. Looking into the future may be one of the reasons that brains evolved in the first place.
- Richard Dawkins
#Doing
#Future
#Look
#Looking
#Time
There is something cheap about magic that works just because it is magic.
- Richard Dawkins
#Cheap
#Just Because
#Magic
#Something
I do understand people when they say that you destroy the magic of childhood if you encourage too much skeptical questioning.
- Richard Dawkins
#Childhood
#Magic
#People
#Say
#They Say
Placebos work.
- Richard Dawkins
#Work
We have to find our own purposes in life, which are not derived directly from our scientific history.
- Richard Dawkins
#Find
#History
#Life
#Own
#Which
Genome sequencing has changed taxonomy.
- Richard Dawkins
#Changed
#Genome
#Sequencing
The usefulness of science is sometimes exaggerated. You'd never talk about music being useful or art being useful.
- Richard Dawkins
#Art
#Music
#Never
#Science
#Sometimes
I would like people to appreciate science in the same way they appreciate the arts.
- Richard Dawkins
#Like
#People
#Same
#Science
#Way
I'm not much given to straight, irony-free hero-worship.
- Richard Dawkins
#Given
#Much
#Straight
In Britain, you don't usually learn about evolution until you are about 15. I should have thought that you should start at about 8. But I could be wrong about that.
- Richard Dawkins
#About
#Evolution
#Learn
#Start
#Wrong
I can handle heckling on evolution because it's my own field.
- Richard Dawkins
#Evolution
#Field
#I Can
#My Own
#Own
We are a unique ape. We have language. Other animals have systems of communication that fall far short of that. They don't have the same ability to communicate complicated conditionals and what-ifs and talk about things that are not present.
- Richard Dawkins
#Ability
#Communication
#Fall
#Language
#Unique
The earliest books in the New Testament to be written were the Epistles, not the Gospels. It's almost as though Saint Paul and others who wrote the Epistles weren't that interested in whether Jesus was real.
- Richard Dawkins
#Almost
#New
#Others
#Real
#Who
What's going to happen when I die? I may be buried, or I may be cremated, I may give my body to science. I haven't decided yet.
- Richard Dawkins
#Body
#Die
#Going
#Happen
#Science
The interesting question would be whether there's a Darwinian process, a kind of selection process whereby some memes are more likely to spread than others, because people like them, because they're popular, because they're catchy or whatever it might be.
- Richard Dawkins
#More
#Others
#People
#Process
#Whatever
Humans have a proven track record in taking over planes by the use of threats, which work because the legitimate pilots value their own lives and those of their passengers.
- Richard Dawkins
#Because
#Own
#Track
#Value
#Work
A guided missile corrects its trajectory as it flies, homing in, say, on the heat of a jet plane's exhaust. A great improvement on a simple ballistic shell, it still cannot discriminate particular targets. It could not zero in on a designated New York skyscraper if launched from as far away as Boston.
- Richard Dawkins
#Great
#Improvement
#New
#Simple
#Zero
As Darwin himself was at pains to point out, natural selection is all about differential survival within species, not between them.
- Richard Dawkins
#About
#Between
#Point
#Survival
#Within
Public sharing is an important part of science.
- Richard Dawkins
#Important
#Public
#Science
#Sharing
I like to think 'The God Delusion' is a humorous book. I think, actually, it's full of laughs. And people who describe it as a polarizing book or as an aggressive book, it's just that very often they haven't read it.
- Richard Dawkins
#Aggressive
#Book
#Delusion
#God
#People
I think it's misleading to use a word like 'God' in the way Einstein did. I'm sorry that Einstein did. I think he was asking for trouble, and he certainly was misunderstood.
- Richard Dawkins
#God
#Misunderstood
#Sorry
#Trouble
#Way
Beauty arises out of human inspiration.
- Richard Dawkins
#Arises
#Beauty
#Human
#Inspiration
#Out
Teachers who help to open young minds perform a duty which is as near sacred as I will admit.
- Richard Dawkins
#Duty
#Help
#Open
#Will
#Young
I think a fundamentalist is somebody who believes something unshakably and isn't going to change their mind.
- Richard Dawkins
#Change
#Mind
#Somebody
#Something
#Think
I don't actually think 'The Selfish Gene' is a very good title. I think that's one of my worst titles.
- Richard Dawkins
#Good
#Selfish
#Think
#Title
#Worst
Nico Tinbergen was my doctoral supervisor, and he was a benign, avuncular sort of influence; everybody loved him.
- Richard Dawkins
#Everybody
#He
#Influence
#Loved
#Sort
I have begun several projects which were never completed, not necessarily because they failed, but because I got interested in other things.
- Richard Dawkins
#Because
#Got
#Interested
#Never
#Things
I can remember at the age of about six being fascinated by the planets and learning all about Mars and Venus and things.
- Richard Dawkins
#Age
#I Can
#Learning
#Planets
#Remember
There's branches of science which I don't understand; for example, physics. It could be said, I suppose, that I have faith that physicists understand it better than I do.
- Richard Dawkins
#Better
#Example
#Faith
#Physics
#Science
When brains get sufficiently big, presumably, as human brains have, consciousness seems to emerge.
- Richard Dawkins
#Big
#Consciousness
#Get
#Human
#Seems
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
#Come
#History
#Long
#Science
#Universe
People like to trace their ancestry.
- Richard Dawkins
#Ancestry
#Like
#People
#Trace
There are many religious points of view where the conservation of the world is just as important as it is to scientists.
- Richard Dawkins
#Important
#Just
#View
#Where
#World
Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle.
- Richard Dawkins
#Argument
#Because
#Cannot
#Out
#Religion
Once a viral program gets started, there is nothing to stop it.
- Richard Dawkins
#Nothing
#Once
#Program
#Stop
#Viral
When a company seeks a new chief executive officer, or a university a new vice-chancellor, enormous trouble is taken to find the best person.
- Richard Dawkins
#Best
#Company
#Find
#New
#Person
Tortoises can survive for weeks without food or water, easily long enough to float in the Humboldt Current from South America to the Galapagos Islands.
- Richard Dawkins
#America
#Food
#Long
#Survive
#Water
Even if 'going retrograde' or 'moving into Aquarius' were real phenomena, something that planets actually do, what influence could they possibly have on human events? A planet is so far away that its gravitational pull on a new-born baby would be swamped by the gravitational pull of the doctor's paunch.
- Richard Dawkins
#Doctor
#Far Away
#Human
#Influence
#Real
There are risks in the sheer brevity of Twitter, and it's actually quite an elegant art reducing what you have to say to 140 characters, and it's something that I quite enjoy attempting to do.
- Richard Dawkins
#Art
#Enjoy
#Risks
#Say
#Something
I'm afraid the Internet is filled with people using really very intemperate language.
- Richard Dawkins
#Afraid
#Internet
#Language
#People
#Very
The child has no way of knowing what's good information.
- Richard Dawkins
#Child
#Good
#Information
#Knowing
#Way
I think my love of truth and honesty forces me to notice that the liberal intelligentsia of Western countries is betraying itself where Islam is concerned.
- Richard Dawkins
#Honesty
#Islam
#Love
#Me
#Truth
People really, really hate their religion being criticized. It's as though you've said they had an ugly face; they seem to identify personally with it.
- Richard Dawkins
#Face
#Hate
#People
#Religion
#Ugly
Publishers like a good buzz, and negative responses sell books just as well as positive ones.
- Richard Dawkins
#Good
#Like
#Negative
#Positive
#Well
The Bible was written by fallible human beings.
- Richard Dawkins
#Bible
#Fallible
#Human Beings
#Human
Any teaching of falsehoods in science classes should certainly be identified and stopped by school inspectors. School inspectors should be looking at science teachings to make sure they are evidence-based science.
- Richard Dawkins
#Looking
#School
#Science
#Sure
#Teaching
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
#Music
#Poetry
#Respect
#Visual
The supernatural is ubiquitous in children's entertainment, from Grimm and Hans Andersen to Disney and 'Harry Potter.'
- Richard Dawkins
#Children
#Entertainment
#Supernatural
In Britain, Christianity is dying. Islam, unfortunately, isn't.
- Richard Dawkins
#Britain
#Christianity
#Dying
#Islam
Notoriously, the United States is the most religious of the Western advanced nations. It's a bit mysterious why that is.
- Richard Dawkins
#Mysterious
#United States
#United
#Why
I would like to find a way in which people in Saudi Arabia could learn that they can be something other than a Muslim. Some people may not realize this. Of course, there is the problem that you can get in trouble or get stoned.
- Richard Dawkins
#Find
#People
#Realize
#Trouble
#Way
Something about the cultural tradition of Jews is way, way more sympathetic to science and learning and intellectual pursuits than Islam.
- Richard Dawkins
#Islam
#Learning
#Science
#Tradition
#Way
I detest 'Jingle Bells,' 'White Christmas,' 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,' and the obscene spending bonanza that nowadays seems to occupy not just December, but November and much of October, too.
- Richard Dawkins
#Christmas
#Just
#October
#Red
#White
I get the feeling more and more that religion is being left behind.
- Richard Dawkins
#Behind
#Being
#Feeling
#More
#Religion
I guess the Democrats have to pretend to be more pious than the Republicans because they are under suspicion of not being.
- Richard Dawkins
#Being
#Guess
#More
#Pretend
#Suspicion
If there are other worlds elsewhere in the universe, I would conjecture they are governed by the same laws of natural selection.
- Richard Dawkins
#Laws
#Natural Selection
#Same
#Universe
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
#Diversity
#Government
#Science
#World
I don't think that it's up to government to dictate what people should wear.
- Richard Dawkins
#Government
#People
#Think
#Up
#Wear
I've never been the sort of firebrand that I've been made out to be. I'm actually quite a mild person.
- Richard Dawkins
#Been
#Made
#Never
#Out
#Person
There are many very educated people who are religious, but they're not creationists.
- Richard Dawkins
#Educated People
#Educated
#People
#Who
From a Darwinian perspective, it is clear what pain is doing. It's a warning: 'Don't do that again.' If you burn yourself, you're never going to pick up a live coal again.
- Richard Dawkins
#Doing
#Live
#Pain
#Perspective
#Yourself
A universe with a creator would be a totally different kind of universe, scientifically speaking, than one without.
- Richard Dawkins
#Creator
#Different
#Universe
#Without
A native speaker of English who has never read a word of the King James Bible is verging on the barbarian.
- Richard Dawkins
#Bible
#King
#Never
#Read
#Who
If you think about it, 534 members of the U.S. Congress cannot all be religious. That's just statistical nonsense. Many of them are quite well-educated.
- Richard Dawkins
#About
#Cannot
#Congress
#Nonsense
#Think
There are people who try to get atheists to form a sort of atheist church and have atheist community singsongs and things. I don't see the need for that, but if people want to do it, why shouldn't they?
- Richard Dawkins
#Atheist
#Church
#Community
#People
#See
I have a strong feeling that the subject of evolution is beautiful without the excuse of creationists needing to be bashed.
- Richard Dawkins
#Beautiful
#Evolution
#Feeling
#Strong
A good theory explains a lot but postulates little.
- Richard Dawkins
#Explains
#Good
#Little
#Lot
#Theory
You can't imagine how gratifying it is to have a reader come up to you and say, 'You changed my life.'
- Richard Dawkins
#Imagine
#Life
#My Life
#Say
#Up
We should not live by Darwinian principles. But Darwin explains how we got here.
- Richard Dawkins
#Got
#Here
#How
#Live
#Principles
Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs.
- Richard Dawkins
#Chance
#Own
#Selfish
#Understand
#Upset
I'm not a good observer. I'm not proud of it.
- Richard Dawkins
#Good
#Observer
#Proud
The world is well supplied with spiders whose male ancestors died after mating. The world is bereft of spiders whose would-be ancestors never mated in the first place.
- Richard Dawkins
#Ancestors
#First
#Never
#Place
#World
The word 'excess' has no meaning for a male.
- Richard Dawkins
#Excess
#Male
#Meaning
#Word
Of course you can use the products of science to do bad things, but you can use them to do good things, too.
- Richard Dawkins
#Bad
#Good Things
#Good
#Science
#Things
There's clearly a lot of Ludditism, and you see it in all the hysteria about every scientific story.
- Richard Dawkins
#About
#Every
#Hysteria
#See
#Story
There's a mystical strain in every country, and eclipses are likely to bring that out.
- Richard Dawkins
#Bring
#Country
#Every
#Mystical
#Strain
When you make machines that are capable of obeying instructions slavishly, and among those instructions are 'duplicate me' instructions, then of course the system is wide open to exploitation by parasites.
- Richard Dawkins
#Capable
#Machines
#Me
#Open
#System
I wouldn't want to have the thought police going to people's homes, dictating what they teach their children. I don't want to be Big Brotherish. I would hate that.
- Richard Dawkins
#Big
#Children
#Hate
#People
#Police
I think I would abolish schools which systematically inculcate sectarian beliefs.
- Richard Dawkins
#Beliefs
#I Think
#Think
#Which
#Would
It's a difficult business, finding out what's true about the world, the universe.
- Richard Dawkins
#Business
#Finding
#True
#Universe
#World
For me, the level at which natural selection causes the phenomenon of adaptation is the level of the replicator - the gene.
- Richard Dawkins
#Level
#Me
#Natural Selection
#Selection
Why did humans lose their body hair? Why did they start walking on their hind legs? Why did they develop big brains? I think that the answer to all three questions is sexual selection.
- Richard Dawkins
#Body
#Hair
#Lose
#Start
#Walking
Einstein was adamant in rejecting all ideas of a personal god.
- Richard Dawkins
#Adamant
#Einstein
#God
#Ideas
#Personal
I was brought up in a family which valued natural history. Both my parents knew the names of all the British wildflowers, so as we went walking the country, I was constantly being exposed to a natural history sort of knowledge.
- Richard Dawkins
#Family
#History
#Knowledge
#Parents
#Up
I want very much to communicate science to as wide an audience as possible, but not at a cost of dumbing down, and not at a cost in getting things right.
- Richard Dawkins
#Audience
#Down
#Possible
#Science
#Want
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