Quotes from Richard Dawkins

The genes in one organism's cells, then, can have extended phenotypic influence on the living body of another organism; in this case a parasite's genes find phenotypic expression in the behaviour of its host.

The best scientists can do is fail to disprove things while pointing to how hard they tried

As for the next nearest star, Proxima Centauri, if you look at it in 2012, what you are seeing is happening in 2008.

Scientific truths are true even if there's nobody around to know about them; were true before humans appeared; will be true after we are extinct.

The rest of us are expected to defend our prejudices. But ask a religious person to justify their faith and you infringe 'religious liberty'.

There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents. Seize every opportunity to ram it home.

What makes my jaw drop is that people today should base their lives on such an appalling role model as Yahweh—and, even worse, that they should bossily try to force the same evil monster (whether fact or fiction) on the rest of us.

We are talking about a bet, remember, and Pascal wasn't claiming that his wager enjoyed anything but very long odds. Would you bet on God's valuing dishonestly faked belief (or even honest belief) over honest scepticism?

If you have Mozart to listen to, why would you need God?

However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747.

We needn't bother with exactly what 'electric charge' means here.

agree with Nietzsche that 'The secret of a joyful life is to live dangerously.' A joyful life is an active life – it is not a dull static state of so-called happiness. Full of the burning fire of enthusiasm, anarchic, revolutionary, energetic, daemonic, Dionysian, filled to overflowing with the terrific urge to create – such is the life of the man who risks safety and happiness for the sake of growth and happiness.

Many of us have no grasp of quantum theory, or Einstein's theories of special and general relativity, but this does not in itself lead us to oppose these theories! Darwinism, unlike 'Einsteinism', seems to be regarded as fair game for critics with any degree of ignorance.

Science is but one form of rationalism, while religion is the most common form of superstition.

There exists no objective basis on which to elevate one species above another.

Either blasphemy is a victimless crime or its victim is powerful enough to take care of himself without any help from you.

History is usually a random, messy affair'

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.

Religion . . . has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. What it means is, 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not?—because you're not!

Darwin himself said as much: 'If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.' Darwin could find no such case, and nor has anybody since Darwin's time, despite strenuous, indeed desperate, efforts. Many candidates for this holy grail of creationism have been proposed. None has stood up to analysis.

and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it. No real fundamentalist would ever say anything like that.

Dan Nilsson even remarks of compound eyes that 'It is only a small exaggeration to say that evolution seems to be fighting a desperate battle to improve a basically disastrous design.

As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect.

Money is a formal token of delayed reciprocal altruism.