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If you set out in a spaceship to find the one planet in the galaxy that has life, the odds against your finding it would be so great that the task would be indistinguishable, in practice, from impossible.

Richard Dawkins

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Richard Dawkins
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: March 26
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More quotes by Richard Dawkins

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Evolution is not a genetically controlled distortion of one adult form into another it is a genetically controlled alteration in a developmental program.
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We have this one life, let's enjoy it, let's live it to the full and don't get so worked up about don't identify yourself so passionately with this business called religion.
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Ironically, I originally wrote the tweet with Jews and thought, That might give offense. And so I thought I better change it.
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I am at a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the breathtaking inanity of the content.
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Words are our servants, not our masters. For different purposes, we find it convenient to use words in different senses.
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We accept that people are irrational for good Darwinian reasons. But I don't think we should be so pessimistic as to think that therefore we're forever condemned to be irrational.
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Even if it were true that evolution, or the teaching of evolution, encouraged immorality that would not imply that the theory of evolution was false.
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Design cannot precede evolution and therefore cannot underlie the universe.
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All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities.
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I suppose if you look back to your early childhood you accept everything people tell you, and that includes a heavy dose of irrationality - you're told about tooth fairies and Father Christmas and things.
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False beliefs can be every bit as consoling as true ones, right up until the moment of disillusionment.
Richard Dawkins
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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.
Richard Dawkins
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[It] is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.
Richard Dawkins
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It could be any of a billion Gods. It could be God of the Martians or of the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri. The chance of its being a particular God, Yahweh, the God of Jesus, is vanishingly small - at the least, the onus is on you to demonstrate why you think that's the case.
Richard Dawkins
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Scientists can have their judgment clouded by their professional aspirations. And the pure truth of faith, which you can think of as this clear spiritual water, is poured into rusty vessels called human beings, and so sometimes the benevolent principles of faith can get distorted as positions are hardened.
Richard Dawkins
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If all the evidence in the universe turned in favour of creationism, I would be the first to admit it, and I would immediately change my mind. As things stand, however, all available evidence (and there is a vast amount of it) favours evolution.
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I think there could be a very large number who are creationists by default. Those are the people I want to reach.
Richard Dawkins
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It is an absurd law [Section 295A of the Indian penal code] but also extremely dangerous because it gives fanatics, whether they are Hindus, Catholics or Muslims, a licence to be offended. It also allows people who are in dispute with you to make up false accusations of blasphemy.
Richard Dawkins
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There are many religious points of view where the conservation of the world is just as important as it is to scientists.
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Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not.
Richard Dawkins