Quotes About Richard Dawkins

To quote Richard Dawkins, in The Blind Watchmaker, "The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is, in principle, capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity. Even if the evidence did not favor it, it would still be the best theory available." The

Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.

The militant atheism proselytized by authors such as Richard Dawkins, has, in spite of the success of their books, caused hardly a dent in the armor of even the most open-minded believers, who cannot help being shocked by the virulence with which their most sacred beliefs are attacked.

The usefulness of science is sometimes exaggerated. You'd never talk about music being useful or art being useful.

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.

Atheism is a moral position - a rather rigid one, if you've ever read the opinions of its highest-profile espousers, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.

I am very comfortable with the idea that we can override biology with free will.

Rodney Stark puts it this way: "To expect to learn anything about important theological problems from Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett is like expecting to learn about medieval history from someone who had only read Robin Hood.

Offense is what people take when they can't take argument.

I did not end up as broadly educated as my Cambridge colleagues, but I graduated probably better equipped to write a book on my chosen subject.

Science is a victim of its own reductive metaphors: 'Big Bang,' 'selfish gene' and so on. Richard Dawkins' selfish gene fitted with the Thatcherite politics of the time. It should actually be the 'altruistic gene,' but he'd never have sold as many books with a title like that.

Who will say with confidence that sexual abuse is more permanently damaging to children than threatening them with the eternal and unquenchable fires of hell?

In the original introduction to the word meme in the last chapter of 'The Selfish Gene,' I did actually use the metaphor of a 'virus.' So when anybody talks about something going viral on the Internet, that is exactly what a meme is, and it looks as though the word has been appropriated for a subset of that.

The feature of living matter that most demands explanation is that it is almost unimaginably complicated in directions that convey a powerful illusion of deliberate design.

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.

Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.

a quick check of Dawkins's documentation reveals a lot more time spent on Google than at Oxford University's Bodleian Library.