Richard Dawkins Zitate: 22 Zitate über natürliche Selektion, Glauben, alternative Medizin, Atheismus und das Wesen des Lebens

Richard Dawkins: 344 Zitate 50 Gefällt mir

Richard Dawkins Berühmte Zitate

„Blasphemie ist ein opferloses Verbrechen.“

Richard Dawkins

„Welch Größenwahn ist es zu denken, ein Gott den hundert Millionen Galaxien beschäftigen, würde auch nur im geringsten interessieren, mit wem Sie schlafen oder ob Sie überhaupt an ihn glauben.“

Richard Dawkins

„[Gott ist] ein rachsüchtiger blutrünstiger ethnischer Säuberer, ein frauenfeindlicher, homophober Rassist, ein Kinder-und Völkermörder, ein Philisterschlächter, ein verderblicher, größenwahnsinniger, sadomasochistischer, kapriziöser Tyrann.“

Richard Dawkins

„Die sogenannte Alternativmedizin wurde entweder nicht getestet oder hat ihre Tests nicht bestanden.“

Richard Dawkins

„Atheismus ist fast immer ein Zeichen für eine gesunde geistige Unabhängigkeit und sogar für einen gesunden Geist.“

Richard Dawkins buch Der Gotteswahn

Der Gotteswahn. Ullstein Verlag, 2007, ISBN 3550086881. Übersetzer: Sebastian Vogel. S. 15
"atheism nearly always indicates a healthy independence of mind and, indeed, a healthy mind" - S. 26,
Und es entsprang ein Fluss in Eden (River out of Eden, 1995), Der entzauberte Regenbogen (Unweaving the Rainbow, 1998), Der Gotteswahn (The God Delusion, 2006)

„Ich bin ein Gegner der Religion. Sie lehrt uns, damit zufrieden zu sein, dass wir die Welt nicht verstehen.“

Richard Dawkins buch Der Gotteswahn

Der Gotteswahn. Ullstein Verlag, 2007, ISBN 3550086881. Übersetzer: Sebastian Vogel. Vorderseite Schutzumschlag
("As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known." - S. 321
"More generally, as I shall repeat in Chapter 8, one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding." - S. 151 ')
Und es entsprang ein Fluss in Eden (River out of Eden, 1995), Der entzauberte Regenbogen (Unweaving the Rainbow, 1998), Der Gotteswahn (The God Delusion, 2006)

Zitate über Gott von Richard Dawkins

„So schwierig es auch sein mag, diese einfachen Ursprünge zu akzeptieren, so sind sie dennoch viel leichter annehmbar als komplizierte Anfänge. Komplizierte Dinge entwickeln sich spät im Universum, als Folge langsamer, allmählicher, inkrementeller Schritte. Gott, sofern er existiert, müsste in der Tat eine sehr, sehr, sehr komplizierte Instanz sein. Einen Gott als Anfang, als Antwort auf das Rätsel der ersten Ursache des Universums zu postulieren, heißt, sich selbst konzeptuell ins eigene Knie zu schießen, weil Sie damit sofort etwas postulieren, das weitaus komplizierter ist als das, was Sie zu erklären versuchen.“

Richard Dawkins

„Wir sind alle Atheisten bezüglich der meisten Götter, an die Gesellschaften jemals geglaubt haben. Einige von uns gehen nur einen Gott weiter.“

Richard Dawkins

„Entscheidend ist nicht, ob Gottes Existenz widerlegbar ist (das ist sie nicht), sondern ob sie wahrscheinlich ist.“

Richard Dawkins buch Der Gotteswahn

Der Gotteswahn. Ullstein Verlag, 2007, ISBN 3550086881. Übersetzer: Sebastian Vogel. S. 77
"What matters is not whether God is disprovable (he isn't) but whether his existence is probable." - S. 77,
Und es entsprang ein Fluss in Eden (River out of Eden, 1995), Der entzauberte Regenbogen (Unweaving the Rainbow, 1998), Der Gotteswahn (The God Delusion, 2006)

Zitate über Glauben von Richard Dawkins

„Es ist absolut vertretbar zu sagen, wenn Sie jemanden treffen, der behauptet, nicht an die Evolution zu glauben, dass diese Person unwissend, dumm oder verrückt ist (oder niederträchtig, aber ich würde das lieber nicht in Betracht ziehen).“

Richard Dawkins

„Dass ich von der Evolution überzeugt bin, hat nichts mit Fundamentalismus oder religiösem Glauben zu tun, denn ich weiß ganz genau, welche Voraussetzungen erfüllt sein müssen, damit ich meine Ansichten ändere, und ich würde es sofort tun, wenn die erforderlichen Belege auf dem Tisch lägen.“

Richard Dawkins buch Der Gotteswahn

Der Gotteswahn. Ullstein Verlag, 2007, ISBN 3550086881. Übersetzer: Sebastian Vogel. S. 393
"But my belief in evolution is not fundamentalism, and it is not faith, because I know what it would take to change my mind, and I would gladly do so if the necessary evidence were forthcoming." - S. 320,
Und es entsprang ein Fluss in Eden (River out of Eden, 1995), Der entzauberte Regenbogen (Unweaving the Rainbow, 1998), Der Gotteswahn (The God Delusion, 2006)

„Viele von uns sahen Religion als harmlosen Unsinn an. Glaubensbekenntnisse mögen keine stichhaltigen Beweise enthalten, aber wir dachten, wenn die Menschen eine Krücke zum Trost brauchen, wo ist der Schaden? Der 11. September hat all das geändert. Offenbarter Glaube ist kein harmloser Unsinn, er kann tödlich gefährlicher Unsinn sein. Gefährlich, weil es den Menschen unerschütterliches Vertrauen in ihre eigene Gerechtigkeit gibt. Gefährlich, weil es ihnen den falschen Mut gibt, sich selbst zu töten, wodurch normale Hindernisse für das Töten anderer automatisch beseitigt werden. Gefährlich, weil es anderen Feindschaft lehrt, die nur durch einen Unterschied der ererbten Tradition gekennzeichnet ist. Und gefährlich, weil wir uns alle auf einen seltsamen Respekt eingelassen haben, der die Religion auf einzigartige Weise vor normaler Kritik schützt. Hören wir jetzt auf, so verdammt respektvoll zu sein!“

Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins Zitate und Sprüche

„DIE MEHRHEIT der Kinder, die in diese Welt geboren wurden, neigen dazu, die Überzeugungen ihrer Eltern zu erben, und das ist für mich unter allen eine der bedauerlichsten Tatsachen.“

Richard Dawkins

Über Kinder , Über die Welt

„Wenn Medizin auf Wissenschaft beruht, heilt man Menschen. Wenn das Design von Flugzeugen auf Wissenschaft beruht, fliegen sie. Wenn das Design von Raketen auf Wissenschaft beruht, erreichen sie den Mond. Es funktioniert … Bitches.“

Richard Dawkins

Während der Think Week im Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford vom 15. Februar 2013. YouTube #1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OtFSDKrq88, YouTube #2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvkbiElAOqU&t=1h11m23s
"If you base medicine on science, you cure people. If you base the design of planes on science, they fly. If you base the design of rockets on science, they reach the moon. It works ... bitches."
Und es entsprang ein Fluss in Eden (River out of Eden, 1995), Der entzauberte Regenbogen (Unweaving the Rainbow, 1998), Sonstiges

Über Menschen , Wissenschaft

„Das Universum, das wir beobachten, hat genau die Eigenschaften, mit denen man rechnet, wenn dahinter kein Plan, keine Absicht, kein Gut oder Böse steht, nichts außer blinder, erbarmungsloser Gleichgültigkeit.“

Richard Dawkins buch Und es entsprang ein Fluß in Eden

Und es entsprang ein Fluß in Eden. Goldmann Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-442-12784-x. Übersetzer: Sebastian Vogel. S. 151
"The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference."
Und es entsprang ein Fluss in Eden (River out of Eden, 1995)

Über Universum , Böse , Gleichgültigkeit

„Seien wir auf jeden Fall offen, aber nicht so offen, dass unser Gehirn herausfällt.“

Richard Dawkins

„Das Leiden hat in der Natur jedes Jahr ein Ausmaß, das alle erträglichen Vorstellungen übersteigt. In der Minute, in der ich diesen Satz niederschreibe, werden Tausende von Tieren bei lebendigem Leibe gefressen; andere laufen bebend vor Angst um ihr Leben; wieder andere werden langsam und von innen heraus durch gefräßige Parasiten zugrunde gerichtet.“

Richard Dawkins buch Und es entsprang ein Fluß in Eden

Und es entsprang ein Fluß in Eden. Goldmann Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-442-12784-x. Übersetzer: Sebastian Vogel. S. 150
"The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, […]"
Und es entsprang ein Fluss in Eden (River out of Eden, 1995)

Über Angst , Über Leben , Tiere , Über natur

„Die darwinistische Erklärung dafür, warum Lebewesen das, was sie tun, so gut können, ist sehr einfach. Sie sind gut durch die angehäufte Klugheit ihrer Vorfahren.“

Richard Dawkins buch Der entzauberte Regenbogen

Der entzauberte Regenbogen: Wissenschaft, Aberglaube und die Kraft der Phantasie, Rowohlt Verlag, 2. Auflage, Januar 2002, ISBN 3499613379. Übersetzer: Sebastian Vogel.
"The Darwinian explanation for why living things are so good at doing what they do is very simple. They are good because of the accumulated wisdom of their ancestors."
Und es entsprang ein Fluss in Eden (River out of Eden, 1995), Der entzauberte Regenbogen (Unweaving the Rainbow, 1998)

„Unser Leben ist so sinnvoll, so ausgefüllt und großartig, wie wir selbst es gestalten. Und wir können es wirklich großartig gestalten.“

Richard Dawkins buch Der Gotteswahn

Der Gotteswahn. Ullstein Verlag, 2007, ISBN 3550086881. Übersetzer: Sebastian Vogel. S. 500
"[The truly adult view, by contrast, is that] our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it. And we can make it very wonderful indeed." - S. 404,
Und es entsprang ein Fluss in Eden (River out of Eden, 1995), Der entzauberte Regenbogen (Unweaving the Rainbow, 1998), Der Gotteswahn (The God Delusion, 2006)

Über Leben

„Die Evidenz für die Evolution ist mindestens so stark wie die Evidenz für den Holocaust, sogar unter Berücksichtigung von Augenzeugen für den Holocaust.“

Richard Dawkins

Stark

„Jede Generation hat ihre darwinistischen Versager, aber jedes Individuum stammt nur von den erfolgreichen Minderheiten der vorangegangenen Generation ab.“

Richard Dawkins buch Der entzauberte Regenbogen

Der entzauberte Regenbogen: Wissenschaft, Aberglaube und die Kraft der Phantasie, Rowohlt Verlag, 2. Auflage, Januar 2002, ISBN 3499613379. Übersetzer: Sebastian Vogel.
"Every generation has its Darwinian failures but every individual is descended only from previous generations’ successful minorities."
Und es entsprang ein Fluss in Eden (River out of Eden, 1995), Der entzauberte Regenbogen (Unweaving the Rainbow, 1998)

Vogel , Phantasie , Wissenschaft

„Vererbung ist nicht das Gleiche wie Fortpflanzung. Es kann auch Fortpflanzung ohne Vererbung geben: Ein Waldbrand pflanzt sich fort, aber er vererbt nichts.“

Richard Dawkins buch Der entzauberte Regenbogen

Der entzauberte Regenbogen: Wissenschaft, Aberglaube und die Kraft der Phantasie, Rowohlt Verlag, 2. Auflage, Januar 2002, ISBN 3499613379. Übersetzer: Sebastian Vogel.
"Heredity is not the same thing as reproduction. You can have reproduction without heredity. Bush fires reproduce but without heredity."
Und es entsprang ein Fluss in Eden (River out of Eden, 1995), Der entzauberte Regenbogen (Unweaving the Rainbow, 1998)

Richard Dawkins: Zitate auf Englisch

“It is an article of passionate faith among "politically correct" biologists and anthropologists that brain size has no connection with intelligence; that intelligence has nothing to do with genes; and that genes are probably nasty fascist things anyway.”

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Richard Dawkins

The Evolutionary Future of Man (1993)

“If there is only one Creator who made the tiger and the lamb, the cheetah and the gazelle, what is He playing at? Is he a sadist who enjoys spectator blood sports? … Is He manoeuvring to maximise David Attenborough's television ratings?”

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Richard Dawkins

River out of Eden (1995)

“So whereabouts in my body might there be a black hole?”

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Richard Dawkins

The Enemies of Reason (August 2007)

“science is the best way to do anything (if you want to do terrible things with technology, a terrible weapons for example science is the best way to do it because science is the best way to do anything)”

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Richard Dawkins

“The river of my title is a river of DNA, and it flows through time, not space. It is a river of information, not a river of bones and tissues.”

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Richard Dawkins

River out of Eden (1995)

“What's to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn't right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question.”

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Richard Dawkins

"Richard Dawkins, the Atheist Evangelist", by Larry Taunton, byFaith (18 December 2007) http://byfaithonline.com/page/in-the-world/richard-dawkins-the-atheist-evangelist

“Every person I met believes if there is any disagreement between the Koran and science, then the Koran wins. It's just utterly deplorable. These are now British children who are having their minds stuffed with alien rubbish. Occasionally, my colleagues lecturing in universities lament having undergraduate students walk out of their classes when they talk about evolution. This is almost entirely Muslims.”

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Richard Dawkins

"Dawkins attacks 'alien rubbish' taught in Muslim faith schools", Daily Mail (8 October 2011) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046715/Richard-Dawkins-attacks-alien-rubbish-taught-Muslim-faith-schools.html

“You know you've won the argument when the only counter argument they can find is that you are white or male or old.”

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Richard Dawkins

https://twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/626999005747220480 (30 July 2015)
Twitter

“Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not.”

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Richard Dawkins

River out of Eden (1995)

“We’re too stupid to decide on EU (that includes me)”

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Richard Dawkins

“Most of what we strive for in our modern life uses the apparatus of goal seeking that was originally set up to seek goals in the state of nature.”

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Richard Dawkins

Darwin's Dangerous Disciple: An Interview by Frank Miele (1995)

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

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Richard Dawkins buch The Blind Watchmaker

Quelle: The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 5 “The Power and the Archives” (p. 122)

“This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous – indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.”

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Richard Dawkins

River out of Eden (1995)

“The selfish gene theory is Darwin’s theory, expressed in a way that Darwin did not choose but whose aptness, I should like to think, he would instantly have recognized and delighted in. It is in fact a logical outgrowth of orthodox neo-Darwinism, but expressed as a novel image. Rather than focus on the individual organism, it takes a gene’s eye view of nature. It is a different way of seeing, not a different theory.”

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Richard Dawkins buch The Selfish Gene

Preface to Second Edition (1989)
The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989)

“I’ve seen a dog & bitch indulging in full 69. Males of many species including Drosophila lick female genitals before copulation.”

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Richard Dawkins

https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/448240882710757376 (24 March 2014)
Twitter

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

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Richard Dawkins buch Der Gotteswahn

Quelle: The God Delusion (2006), p. 31 of the hardcover edition and p. 51 of the paperback edition; see also: Dan Barker, God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction, foreword by Richard Dawkins, 2016

“If we want to postulate a deity capable of engineering all the organized complexity in the world, either instantaneously or by guiding evolution, that deity must have been vastly complex in the first place. The creationist, whether a naive Bible-thumper or an educated bishop, simply postulates an already existing being of prodigious intelligence and complexity. If we are going to allow ourselves the luxury of postulating organized complexity without offering an explanation, we might as well make a job of it and simply postulate the existence of life as we know it!”

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Richard Dawkins buch The Blind Watchmaker

Quelle: The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 11 “Doomed Rivals” (p. 316)

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

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Richard Dawkins buch The Selfish Gene

Quelle: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 11. Memes: the new replicators

“An atheist is just somebody who feels about Yahweh the way any decent Christian feels about Thor or Baal or the golden calf. As has been said before, we are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”

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Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins on militant atheism http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism.html, (February 2002)

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

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Richard Dawkins buch The Blind Watchmaker

Quelle: The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 1 “Explaining the Very Improbable”

“We've reached a truly remarkable situation: a grotesque mismatch between the American intelligencia and the American electorate. A philosophical opinion about the nature of the universe which is held by the vast majority of top American scientists, and probably the majority of the intelligencia generally, is so abhorrent to the American electorate that no candidate for popular election dare affirm it in public. If I'm right, this means that high office in the greatest country in the world is barred to the very people best qualified to hold it: the intelligencia, unless they are prepared to lie about their beliefs. To put it bluntly American political opportunities are heavily loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest.”

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Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins on militant atheism http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism.html, (February 2002)

“I don't withdraw a word of my initial statement. But I do now think it may have been incomplete. There is perhaps a fifth category, which may belong under "insane" but which can be more sympathetically characterized by a word like tormented, bullied, or brainwashed.”

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Richard Dawkins

Sincere people who are not ignorant, not stupid, and not wicked can be cruelly torn, almost in two, between the massive evidence of science on the one hand, and their understanding of what their holy book tells them on the other. I think this is one of the truly bad things religion can do to a human mind. There is wickedness here, but it is the wickedness of the institution and what it does to a believing victim, not wickedness on the part of the victim himself.
2001
Summer
Ignorance Is No Crime
Free Inquiry
21
3
0272-0701
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=dawkins_21_3
Regarding his 1989 statement "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)." (see above)

“Thus the creationist's favourite question "What is the use of half an eye?"”

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Richard Dawkins

Actually, this is a lightweight question, a doddle to answer. Half an eye is just 1 per cent better than 49 per cent of an eye.
Part 2: "The Virus of Faith"
The Root of All Evil? (January 2006)

“Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: 'Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?' And, next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: 'What kind of evidence is there for that?”

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Richard Dawkins buch A Devil's Chaplain

And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.
"Good and Bad Reasons for Believing" [open letter to his daughter]
A Devil's Chaplain (2003)

“Never say, and never take seriously anyone who says, "I cannot believe that so-and-so could have evolved by gradual selection". I have dubbed this kind of fallacy "the Argument from Personal Incredulity."”

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Richard Dawkins buch Und es entsprang ein Fluß in Eden

Time and again, it has proven the prelude to an intellectual banana-skin experience.
River out of Eden (1995)

“I don't believe you until you tell me, do you really believe, for example, if they say they are Catholic, "Do you really believe that when a priest blesses a wafer, it turns into the body of Christ? Are you seriously telling me you believe that? Are you seriously saying that wine turns into blood?"”

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Richard Dawkins

Mock them. Ridicule them. In public. Don't fall for the convention that we're all too polite to talk about religion. Religion is not off the table. Religion is not off limits. Religion makes specific claims about the universe which need to be substantiated and need to be challenged and, if necessary, need to be ridiculed with contempt.
Reason Rally, National Mall, Washington, DC,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq7rHRplZKU
YouTube
Richard Dawkins and his Foundation at the Reason Rally
2012-04-07

“Our ethics and our politics assume, largely without question or serious discussion, that the division between human and 'animal' is absolute. 'Pro-life', to take just one example, is a potent political badge, associated with a gamut of ethical issues such as opposition to abortion and euthanasia.
What it really means is pro-human-life. Abortion clinic bombers are not known for their veganism, nor do Roman Catholics show any particular reluctance to have their suffering pets 'put to sleep'. In the minds of many confused people, a single-celled human zygote, which has no nerves and cannot suffer, is infinitely sacred, simply because it is 'human.”

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Richard Dawkins

No other cells enjoy this exalted status.
But such 'essentialism' is deeply un-evolutionary. If there were a heaven in which all the animals who ever lived could frolic, we would find an interbreeding continuum between every species and every other. For example I could interbreed with a female who could interbreed with a male who could ... fill in a few gaps, probably not very many in this case ... who could interbreed with a chimpanzee.
We could construct longer, but still unbroken chains of interbreeding individuals to connect a human with a warthog, a kangaroo, a catfish. This is not a matter of speculative conjecture; it necessarily follows from the fact of evolution.
A successful hybridisation between a human and a chimpanzee. Even if the hybrid were infertile like a mule, the shock waves that would be sent through society would be salutary. This is why a distinguished biologist described this possibility as the most immoral scientific experiment he could imagine: it would change everything! It cannot be ruled out as impossible, but it would be surprising.
Richard Dawkins Chimpanzee Hybrid? The Guardian, Jan 2009 https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2009/jan/02/richard-dawkins-chimpanzee-hybrid?commentpage=2

“Well, what if I'm wrong, I mean — anybody could be wrong. We could all be wrong about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the pink unicorn and the flying teapot. You happen to have been brought up, I would presume, in a Christian faith. You know what it's like to not believe in a particular faith because you're not a Muslim. You're not a Hindu. Why aren't you a Hindu? Because you happen to have been brought up in America, not in India. If you had been brought up in India, you'd be a Hindu. If you had been brought up in Denmark in the time of the Vikings, you'd be believing in Wotan and Thor. If you were brought up in classical Greece, you'd be believing in Zeus. If you were brought up in central Africa, you'd be believing in the great Juju up the mountain. There's no particular reason to pick on the Judeo-Christian god, in which by the sheerest accident you happen to have been brought up and ask me the question, "What if I'm wrong?"”

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Richard Dawkins

What if you're wrong about the great Juju at the bottom of the sea?
Answering audience questions after a reading of The God Delusion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg, Randolph-Macon Woman's College,
Posed question: "This is probably going to be the most simplest one for you to answer, but: What if you're wrong?"

“Don’t ever be lazy enough, defeatist enough, cowardly enough to say “I don't understand it so it must be a miracle - it must be supernatural - God did it”. Say instead, that it’s a puzzle, it’s strange, it’s a challenge that we should rise to. Whether we rise to the challenge by questioning the truth of the observation, or by expanding our science in new and exciting directions - the proper and brave response to any such challenge is to tackle it head-on. And until we've found a proper answer to the mystery, it's perfectly ok simply to say “this is something we don't yet understand - but we're working on it.””

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Richard Dawkins buch The Magic of Reality

It's the only honest thing to do. Miracles, magic and myths, they can be fun. Everybody likes a good story. Myths are fun, as long as you don't confuse them with the truth. The real truth has a magic of its own. The truth is more magical, in the best and most exciting sense of the word, than any myth or made-up mystery or miracle. Science has its own magic - the magic of reality.
Duke University, 01/03/2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYcOoqxuroI&t=54m51s
The Magic Of Reality (2012)

“I agree that it's very difficult to come to an absolute definition of what's moral and what is not. We are on our own, without a god, and we have to get together, sit down together and decide what kind of society do we want to live in. Do we want to live in a society where people steal, where people kill, where people don't pull their weight paying their taxes, doing that kind of thing? Do we want to live in a kind of society where everybody is out for themselves in a dog-eat-dog world? And we decide in conclave together that that's not the kind of world in which we want to live. It's difficult. There is no absolute reason why we should believe that that's true - it's a moral decision which we take as individuals - and we take it collectively as a collection of individuals. If you want to get that sort of value system from religion I want you to ask yourself - whereabouts in religion do you get it? Which religion do you get it from? They're all different. If you get it from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition then I beg you - don't get it from your holy book! Because the morality you will get from reading your holy book is hideous. Don't get it from your holy book. Don't get it from sucking up to your god. Don't get it from saying “oh, I'm terrified of going to hell so I'd better be good””

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Richard Dawkins

that's a very ignoble reason to be good. Instead - be good for good reasons. Be good for the reason that's you've decided together with other people the society we want to live in: a decent humane society. Not one based on absolutism, not one based on holy books and not one based on sucking up to.. looking over your shoulder to the divine spy camera in the sky. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roFdPHdhgKQ&t=59m29s
Richard Dawkins vs. Jonathan Sacks - BBC's RE:Think Festival (2012)