Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Richard Dawkins
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: March 26
Actor
Author
Biologist
Epistemologist
Essayist
Ethologist
Evolutionary Biologist
Geneticist
Science Communicator
Science Writer
Screenwriter
Kenya's capital
Clinton Richard Dawkins
Clinton Dawkins
C. Richard Dawkins
C. Dawkins
CR Dawkins
R. Dawkins
Time
Cells
Geological
Evolution
Trillions
Creatures
Bacteria
Half
Colony
Stills
Ecology
Still
Ancestors
Firsts
Ancestor
First
Complexity

More quotes by Richard Dawkins

Image
Words are our servants, not our masters. For different purposes, we find it convenient to use words in different senses.
Richard Dawkins
Image
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.
Richard Dawkins
Image
Islamic myths are mostly actually plagiarized from the Christian ones, both biblically and in terms of modern creationism. If you read Islamic creationist literature, it's pretty much lifted from American evangelical literature.
Richard Dawkins
Image
The body is a survival machine programmed to propagate the genes that reside inside it.
Richard Dawkins
Image
[If] there is mercy in nature, it is accidental. Nature is neither kind nor cruel but indifferent.
Richard Dawkins
Image
I think we certainly benefit from social institutions which encourage us towards moral behavior. It's very important to have law. It's very important to have a moral education.
Richard Dawkins
Image
The Bishop goes on to the human eye, asking rhetorically, and with the implication that there is no answer, 'How could an organ so complex evolve?' This is not an argument, it is simply an affirmation of incredulity.
Richard Dawkins
Image
The argument from improbability, properly deployed, comes close to proving that God does not exist.
Richard Dawkins
Image
Effective searching procedures become, when the search-space is sufficiently large, indistinguishable from true creativity.
Richard Dawkins
Image
[Creationists have] lost in the courts of law they've long ago lost in the halls of science and they continue to lose with every new piece of evidence in support of evolution. Taking offense is all they've got left.
Richard Dawkins
Image
I doubt that religion can survive deep understanding. The shallows are its natural habitat. Cranks and fundamentalists are too often victimised as scapegoats for religion in general. It is only quite recently that Christianity reinvented itself in non-fundamentalist guise, and Islam has yet to do so.
Richard Dawkins
Image
If it is solely an evolutionary convenience, there is really no such thing as good or evil.
Richard Dawkins
Image
The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable.
Richard Dawkins
Image
Science is interesting, and if you don't agree, you can fvck off.
Richard Dawkins
Image
It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).
Richard Dawkins
Image
Being an atheist frees you up to live this life properly, happily, and fully.
Richard Dawkins
Image
Let us understand Darwinism so we can walk in the opposite direction when it comes to setting up society.
Richard Dawkins
Image
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.
Richard Dawkins
Image
If ever there was a slamming of the door in the face of constructive investigation, it is the word miracle. To a medieval peasant, a radio would have seemed like a miracle.
Richard Dawkins
Image
I'd like everybody to be secular. I suppose I have to say politically I would like religion to become gentler and nicer and to stop interfering with other people's lives, stop repressing women, stop indoctrinating children, all that sort of thing. But I really, really would like to see religion go away altogether.
Richard Dawkins