I’m fascinated by the idea that genetics is digital. A gene is a long sequence of coded letters, like computer information. Modern biology is becoming very much a branch of information technology.
I suppose I’m a cultural Anglican, and I see evensong in a country church through much the same eyes as I see a village cricket match on the village green. I have a certain love for it.
I am very comfortable with the idea that we can override biology with free will.
I would like to find a way in which people in Saudi Arabia could learn that they can be something other than a Muslim. Some people may not realize this. Of course, there is the problem that you can get in trouble or get stoned.
There are people who try to get atheists to form a sort of atheist church and have atheist community singsongs and things. I don’t see the need for that, but if people want to do it, why shouldn’t they?
To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used.
I do disapprove very strongly of labelling children, especially young children, as something like ‘Catholic children’ or ‘Protestant children’ or ‘Islamic children.’
We should take astrology seriously. No, I don’t mean we should believe in it. I am talking about fighting it seriously instead of humouring it as a piece of harmless fun.
Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle.
Beauty arises out of human inspiration.
Public sharing is an important part of science.
Natural selection will not remove ignorance from future generations.
The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale.
Secularism is categorically not saying that the religious may not speak out publicly or have a say in public life. It is about saying that religion alone should not confer a privileged say in public life, or greater influence on it. It really is as simple as that.
Science coverage could be improved by the recognition that science is timeless, and therefore science stories should not need to be pegged to an item in the news.
The very idea that we get a moral compass from religion is horrible. Not only should we not get our moral compass from religion, as a matter of fact we don’t.
Complex, statistically improbable things are by their nature more difficult to explain than simple, statistically probable things.
Compassionate doctors sometimes lie to patients about the severity of their condition, and it is not always wrong to do so.
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 the ancestors of the cheetah first began pursuing the ancestors of the gazelle, neither of them could run as fast as they can today.
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
There are many religious points of view where the conservation of the world is just as important as it is to scientists.
I sympathize with politicians who have to watch every syllable they utter for fear it will be misused by somebody with an agenda.
I was brought up in a family which valued natural history. Both my parents knew the names of all the British wildflowers, so as we went walking the country, I was constantly being exposed to a natural history sort of knowledge.
I’ve never been the sort of firebrand that I’ve been made out to be. I’m actually quite a mild person.
It’s very likely that most mammals have consciousness, and probably birds, too.
The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.
The universe doesn’t owe us condolence or consolation; it doesn’t owe us a nice warm feeling inside.
Beauty arises out of human inspiration.
Either Jesus had a father, or he didn’t. The question is a scientific one, and scientific evidence, if any were available, would be used to settle it.
We are a unique ape. We have language. Other animals have systems of communication that fall far short of that. They don’t have the same ability to communicate complicated conditionals and what-ifs and talk about things that are not present.
‘What is the purpose of the universe?’ is a silly question.
People say I’m shrill and strident.
Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.
Humans have a proven track record in taking over planes by the use of threats, which work because the legitimate pilots value their own lives and those of their passengers.
I think that people in the Bible Belt are far less monolithically religious than many people imagine. There are lots and lots of people who are free-thinking, secularists, or atheists in the so-called Bible Belt.
Many people want to send their children to faith schools because they get good exam results, but they’re not foolish enough to believe that it’s because of faith that they get good exam results.
At least the fundamentalists haven’t tried to dilute their message. Their faith is exposed for what it is for all to see.
Darwin gives courage to the rest of science that we shall end up understanding literally everything, springing from almost nothing – a thought extremely hard to comprehend and believe.
In Britain, you don’t usually learn about evolution until you are about 15. I should have thought that you should start at about 8. But I could be wrong about that.
As a liberal, I would hesitate to propose a blanket ban on any style of dress because of the implications for individual liberty and freedom of choice.
People really, really hate their religion being criticized. It’s as though you’ve said they had an ugly face; they seem to identify personally with it.
If something is true, no amount of wishful thinking will change it.
I think there is a sort of box-ticking mentality. Not just in the teaching profession. You hear about it in medicine and nursing. It’s a lawyer-driven insistence on meeting prescribed standards rather than just being a good doctor.
What’s going to happen when I die? I may be buried, or I may be cremated, I may give my body to science. I haven’t decided yet.
I’m afraid the Internet is filled with people using really very intemperate language.
I do sometimes accuse people of ignorance, but that is not intended to be an insult. I’m ignorant of lots of things. Ignorance is something that can be remedied by education.
I don’t actually think ‘The Selfish Gene’ is a very good title. I think that’s one of my worst titles.
Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.
The word ‘excess’ has no meaning for a male.
As Darwin himself was at pains to point out, natural selection is all about differential survival within species, not between them.
Every night of our lives, we dream, and our brain concocts visions which are, at least until we wake up, highly convincing. Most of us have had experiences which are verging on hallucination. It shows the power of the brain to knock up illusions.
The Bible should be taught, but emphatically not as reality. It is fiction, myth, poetry, anything but reality. As such it needs to be taught because it underlies so much of our literature and our culture.
I accept that there may be things far grander and more incomprehensible than we can possibly imagine.
All the fossils that we have ever found have always been found in the appropriate place in the time sequence. There are no fossils in the wrong place.
I think it’s misleading to use a word like ‘God’ in the way Einstein did. I’m sorry that Einstein did. I think he was asking for trouble, and he certainly was misunderstood.
At the deepest level, all living things that have ever been looked at have the same DNA code. And many of the same genes.
How can you take seriously someone who likes to believe something because he finds it ‘comforting’?
We have a huge amount of DNA in common with jellyfish.
I do think imagination is enormously valuable, and that children should be encouraged in their imagination. That’s very true.
All the fossils that we have ever found have always been found in the appropriate place in the time sequence. There are no fossils in the wrong place.
If saying that religion should be a private matter and should not have special influence in public life is illiberal, then 74% of U.K. Christians are illiberal, too.
Biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose.
Saddam Hussein could have provided irreplaceable help to future historians of the Iran/Iraq war, of the invasion of Kuwait, and of the subsequent era of sanctions culminating in the current invasion.
A good scientific theory is one which is falsifiable, which has not been falsified.
What’s wrong with being elitist if you are trying to encourage people to join the elite rather than being exclusive?
