WIST Quotations

Dawkins, Richard -- The God Delusion (2006)

Dave — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 18:08:40 +0000

Human psychology has a near-universal tendency to let belief be colored by desire.

Richard Dawkins (b. 1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, author
The God Delusion (2006)

Dawkins, Richard -- Unweaving The Rainbow, ch. 1 “The Anaesthetic of Familiarity” (1998)

Dave — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 17:55:18 +0000

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.

Richard Dawkins (b. 1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, author
Unweaving The Rainbow, ch. 1 “The Anaesthetic of Familiarity” (1998)
(Source)

Dawkins has said this passage will be read at his funeral.

Dawkins, Richard -- Speech, Edinburgh International Science Festival (1992-04-15)

Dave — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 02:15:12 +0000

It is often said […] that although there is no positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic. At first sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of Pascal’s wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. 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?

Richard Dawkins (b. 1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, author
Speech, Edinburgh International Science Festival (1992-04-15)

Quoted in "EDITORIAL: A scientist's case against God," The Independent (1992-04-20).