Quotes By Richard Dawkins

I am one of those scientists who feels that it is no longer enough just to get on and do science. We have to devote a significant proportion of our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organised ignorance.

It's an important point to realize that the genetic programming of our lives is not fully deterministic. It is statistical - it is in any animal merely statistical - not deterministic.

I accept that there may be things far grander and more incomprehensible than we can possibly imagine.

The question of whether there exists a supernatural creator, a God, is one of the most important that we have to answer. I think that it is a scientific question. My answer is no.

God exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or infective power, in the environment provided by human culture.

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.

It's very likely that most mammals have consciousness, and probably birds, too.

Design can never be an ultimate explanation for anything. It can only be a proximate explanation. A plane or a car is explained by a designer but that's because the designer himself, the engineer, is explained by natural selection.

Isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part of it?

It has become almost a cliche to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics.

I have often said that I am a passionate Darwinian when it comes to explaining why we exist.

Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that.

Natural selection is anything but random.

Nothing is wrong with peace and love. It is all the more regrettable that so many of Christ's followers seem to disagree.

I don't feel depressed. I feel elated.

The universe doesn't owe us condolence or consolation; it doesn't owe us a nice warm feeling inside.

My personal feeling is that understanding evolution led me to atheism.

The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.

The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity.

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.

Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.

But perhaps the rest of us could have separate classes in science appreciation, the wonder of science, scientific ways of thinking, and the history of scientific ideas, rather than laboratory experience.

The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale.

I once wrote that anybody who believes the world is only 6,000 years old is either ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked.

There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?

It would be intolerant if I advocated the banning of religion, but of course I never have.

What has 'theology' ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has 'theology' ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? What makes you think that 'theology' is a subject at all?

A delusion is something that people believe in despite a total lack of evidence.

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

I don't know what to think about magic and fairy tales.