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Blindness to suffering is an inherent consequence of natural selection. Nature is neither kind nor cruel but indifferent.

Richard Dawkins

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Richard Dawkins
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: March 26
Actor
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Biologist
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Evolutionary Biologist
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Kenya's capital
Clinton Richard Dawkins
Clinton Dawkins
C. Richard Dawkins
C. Dawkins
CR Dawkins
R. Dawkins
Suffering
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You cannot be both sane and well educated and disbelieve in evolution. The evidence is so strong that any sane, educated person has got to believe in evolution.
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There is a whole field of inquiry that has come up in the last 30 or 40 years - some call it sociobiology or evolutionary psychology - relating to where we get our moral sense and why we value the idea of altruism, and locating both answers in behavioral adaptations for the preservation of our genes.
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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).
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Scientific truth is too beautiful to be sacrificed for the sake of light entertainment or money. Astrology is an aesthetic affront. It cheapens astronomy, like using Beethoven for commercial jingles.
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After sleeping through a hundred million centuries, we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life.
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I'm a sucker for nice religious leaders. I fall for it every time.
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Religion is not the root of all evil, for no one thing is the root of all anything.
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The so-called sophisticated theologians, especially ones who are very nice, like Rowan Williams and Jonathan Sacks, you sometimes don't quite know where you are with them. You feel that when you attack them, you're attacking a wet sponge.
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Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil.
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Faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.
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I think that [Jay] Gould's separate compartments was a purely political ploy to win middle-of-the-road religious people to the science camp. But it's a very empty idea. There are plenty of places where religion does not keep off the scientific turf.
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All the great religions have a place for awe, for ecstatic transport at the wonder and beauty of creation.
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We should take astrology seriously. No, I don't mean we should believe in it. I am talking about fighting it seriously instead of humouring it as a piece of harmless fun.
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Human beings are just gene machines.
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There are sincere believers who interpret Genesis 1 and 2 in a very literal way that is inconsistent, frankly, with our knowledge of the universe's age or of how living organisms are related to each other.
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Religious people split into three main groups when faced with science. I shall label them the know-nothings, the know-alls, and the no-contests.
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Compassionate doctors sometimes lie to patients about the severity of their condition, and it is not always wrong to do so.
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The argument from improbability, properly deployed, comes close to proving that God does not exist.
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We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA. ... This is exactly what we are for. We are machines for propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a self-sustaining process. It is every living object's sole reason for living.
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It's very likely that most mammals have consciousness, and probably birds, too.
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