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Richard Dawkins Quotes

born 1941 England

Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is known for his advocacy of atheism.

England
Biologists
Feminists
Memoirists
Non-fiction authors

Also known as: Dawkins, Dawkins, Richard

Random Richard Dawkins quote

192 quotes

Eternity is best spent under a general anesthetic – which is what is going to happen.

Interview with Joe Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience (2019)

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

River out of Eden (1995)

There are people in the world who desperately want not to have to believe in Darwinism.

The Blind Watchmaker (1986)

In fact writing a computer program is a pretty good way to summarize knowledge about any set of rules.

Climbing Mount Improbable (1996)

The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust.

The Greatest Show on Earth (2009)

The universe does not owe you a sense of hope.

The Big Questions (2008)

Our subjective judgment of what seems like a good bet is irrelevant to what is actually a good bet.

The Blind Watchmaker (1986)

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

The Blind Watchmaker (1986)

Contrary to earlier prejudices, there is nothing inherently progressive about evolution.

The Blind Watchmaker (1986)

What worries me about religion is that it teaches people to be satisfied with not understanding the world they live in.

Heart Of The Matter: God Under The Microscope | BBC (1996)

Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.

Natural selection is all about the differential success of rival DNA in getting itself transmitted vertically in the species archives.

The Blind Watchmaker (1986)

The plaint that there hasn’t been enough time for the eye to evolve turns out to be not just wrong but dramatically, decisively, ignominiously wrong.

Climbing Mount Improbable (1996)

No matter how much knowledge and wisdom you acquire during your life, not one jot will be passed on to your children by genetic means. Each new generation starts from scratch.

The Selfish Gene (1976)

There's real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality.

How can people bear to live their lives bound by such insanely specific yet manifestly pointless rules?

However many ways there may be of being alive, it is certain that there are vastly more ways of being dead.

The Blind Watchmaker (1986)

Evolution normally does not come to a halt, but constantly ‘tracks’ the changing environment.

The Blind Watchmaker (1986)

Whenever a system of communication evolves, there is always the danger that some will exploit the system for their own ends.

The Selfish Gene (1976)

It's almost impossible to say anything against Islam in this country, because you are accused of being racist or Islamophobic.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Richard Dawkins (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.