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Human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution.

Richard Dawkins

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Richard Dawkins
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: March 26
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Biologist
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Evolutionary Biologist
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Kenya's capital
Clinton Richard Dawkins
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Selfish
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When I say that human beings are just gene machines, one shouldn't put too much emphasis on the word 'just.' There is a very great deal of complication, and indeed beauty in being a gene machine.
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The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear.
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Maybe somewhere in some other galaxy there is a super-intelligence so colossal that from our point of view it would be a god. But it cannot have been the sort of God that we need to explain the origin of the universe, because it cannot have been there that early.
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All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities.
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I think Douglas [Adams] is writing with an eye to irony for adults at the same time as entertaining children.
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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.
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Blindness to suffering is an inherent consequence of natural selection. Nature is neither kind nor cruel but indifferent.
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Secularism is categorically not saying that the religious may not speak out publicly or have a say in public life. It is about saying that religion alone should not confer a privileged say in public life, or greater influence on it. It really is as simple as that.
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Religion is a powerful weapon that can be used because it persuades people to do things. And thus it can be used for good or ill. But it should not be a powerful weapon at all.
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In two senses: One is that you cannot go on the street and shout that you are an atheist, the other is that you are never given the intellectual framework for calling your faith into question.
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Religious fanatics want people to switch off their own minds, ignore the evidence, and blindly follow a holy book based upon private 'revelation'.
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I do understand people when they say that you destroy the magic of childhood if you encourage too much skeptical questioning.
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Thus the creationist's favourite question What is the use of half an eye? Actually, this is a lightweight question, a doddle to answer. Half an eye is just 1 per cent better than 49 per cent of an eye.
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The true scientific understanding of the nature of existence is so utterly fascinating how could you not want people to share it? Carl Sagan, I think, said 'when you're in love, you want to tell the world.' And who, on understanding a scientific view of reality, would not, as it were, fall in love and want to tell the world.
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In the beginning was simplicity.
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Even if there were no actual evidence in favor of the Darwinian theory, we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories.
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[Jay] Gould sets up an artificial wall between the two worldviews that doesn't exist in my life.
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