Geburtsdatum | Mittwoch, 26. März 1941 |
Geburtsort | Nairobi |
Sternzeichen | |
Beschreibung | Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (* 26. März 1941 in Nairobi, Kenia) ist ein britischer Zoologe, theoretischer Biologe, Evolutionsbiologe und Autor populärwissenschaftlicher Literatur. Von 1995 bis 2008 war er Professor an der University of Oxford. Er wurde 1976 mit seinem Buch The Selfish Gene (Das egoistische Gen) bekannt, in dem er die Evolution auf der Ebene der Gene analysiert. Er führte den Begriff Mem als hypothetisches kulturelles Analogon zum Gen in der biologischen Evolution ein. In den folgenden Jahren schrieb er mehrere Bestseller, unter anderem The Extended Phenotype (1982), Der blinde Uhrmacher (1986), Und es entsprang ein Fluß in Eden (1995), Gipfel des Unwahrscheinlichen (1996), Der Gotteswahn (2006) und Die Schöpfungslüge (2009) sowie weitere kritische Beiträge zu Religion und Kreationismus. Dawkins gilt als einer der bekanntesten Vertreter des „Neuen Atheismus“ und der Brights-Bewegung, für die er in Artikeln in großen Zeitungen warb. In einer Umfrage des Magazins Prospect wählte eine Auswahl britischer und US-amerikanischer Juroren Dawkins 2013 zum weltweit wichtigsten Denker. |
The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.
Evolution never looks to the future.
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.
A universe with a God would look quite different from a universe without one. A physics, a biology where there is a God is bound to look different. So the most basic claims of religion are scientific. Religion is a scientific theory.
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.
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.
I'm not one of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history.
By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Personally, I rather look forward to a computer program winning the world chess championship. Humanity needs a lesson in humility.
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.
God exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or infective power, in the environment provided by human culture.
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.
At least the fundamentalists haven't tried to dilute their message. Their faith is exposed for what it is for all to see.
Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reason for its own existence.
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.
If children understand that beliefs should be substantiated with evidence, as opposed to tradition, authority, revelation or faith, they will automatically work out for themselves that they are atheists.
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
Segregation has no place in the education system.
