The quotations of

Richard Dawkins

English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

born 1941

15 quotes, most often on Science, Anti-Religion and Atheism.

Natural selection, the unconscious, automatic, blind yet essentially non-random process that Darwin discovered, has no purpose in mind. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.
The Blind Watchmaker
- Science
Paley’s argument is made with passionate sincerity and is informed by the best biological scholarship of his day, but it is wrong, gloriously and utterly wrong.
The Blind Watchmaker
- Science
Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism.
The God Delusion (2006) (p. 40)
- Atheism
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
The Root of All Evil? (2006)
- Atheism
Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not.
River out of Eden (1995)
- Anti-Religion
- Science
Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 1 “Explaining the Very Improbable” (p. 6)
- Atheism
- Science
The world becomes full of organisms that have what it takes to become ancestors. That, in a sentence, is Darwinism.
River out of Eden (1995)
- Science
The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.
The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 11. Memes: the new replicators
- Anti-Religion
- Faith
Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.
Speech at the Edinburgh International Science Festival (15 April 1992)
- Anti-Religion
- Faith
To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer.
The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 6 “Origins and Miracles” (p. 141)
- Anti-God
- Science
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); (20 January 2019)
- Life & Death
One of the things that is wrong with religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers which are not really answers at all.
The Root of All Evil? (2006)
- Anti-Religion
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).
Reviewing Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution (1989) by Maitland A. Edey and Donald C. Johanson
- Clever Jabs
- Science
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), pp. 131–132
- Good & Evil
- Science
Science is the poetry of reality.
The Enemies of Reason, “Slaves to Superstition” [1.01], 13 August 2007, timecode 00:38:16ff
- Poetry
- Science

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