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Famous Richard Dawkins Quotes

“We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism - something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.”

IfsWorldWayWholeEarthTurnsBirthPureBuiltMachinesCreatorSelfishTyrannyRebelGenesAltruismWorld HistoryNurturingIndoctrinationCultivatingDisinterestedMemesSelfish Gene
Author:Richard Dawkins
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“I think we have got to start again and go right back to first principles. The argument I shall advance, surprising as it may seem coming from the author of the earlier chapters, is that, for an understanding of the evolution of modern man, we must begin by throwing out the gene as the sole basis of our ideas on evolution. 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 manuvering to maximize David Attenborough's television ratings?”

IfsThinkingMenFirstsMayMadeIdeasSeemsSportsEnjoyUnderstandingPrinciplesBloodModernTelevisionHe ManEvolutionArgumentBasesCreatorThrowingGenesSurprisingSoleChaptersTigersSpectatorsLambsRatingModern ManCheetahsGazelles
Book:The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition
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“In our prehistoric past, we would have lived in extended families, surrounded by kin whose interests we might have wanted to promote because they shared our genes. Now we live in big cities. We are not among kin nor people who will ever reciprocate our good deeds. It doesn't matter. Just as people engaged in sex with contraception are not aware of being motivated by a drive to have babies, it doesn't cross our mind that the reason for do-gooding is based in the fact that our primitive ancestors lived in small groups.”

PeopleMindMatterReasonFactsBigsMightWantedPastSexInterestCitiesGroupsBabyCrossesDeedsEngagedMotivatedAncestorGenesPrimitiveGood DeedsSmall GroupsBig CitiesContraceptionExtended FamilyPrehistoricReciprocate
Author:Richard Dawkins
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“Granted, we may try to help our own family members because they share our DNA. Or help someone else in expectation that they will help us later. But when you look at what we admire as the most generous manifestations of altruism, they are not based on kin selection or reciprocity. An extreme example might be Oskar Schindler risking his life to save more than a thousand Jews from the gas chambers. That's the opposite of saving his genes.”

TryingLooksMayHelpingMightShareExampleThousandMembersExpectationsOppositesJewExtremesAdmireSavingGrantedManifestationGenerousGasGenesAltruismDnaSelectionChamberFamily MembersReciprocityGas ChambersSchindler
Author:Richard Dawkins
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“We have the same genetic code for all living creatures. We have a large number of genes that are manifestly the same, but with detail differences - they look like different drafts of the same book. In extreme cases, like a human and a beetroot, it's like the difference between Matthew and Luke's Gospel - clearly they tell the same story, but with different words. Whereas with a human and a chimp, it's like two different printings of Matthew, with a few typos in one.”

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Author:Richard Dawkins
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“Individuals are not stable things, they are fleeting. Chromosomes too are shuffled into oblivion, like hands of cards soon after they are dealt. But the cards themselves survive the shuffling. The cards are the genes. The genes are not destroyed by crossing-over, they merely change partners and march on. Of course they march on. That is their business. They are the replicators and we are their survival machines. When we have served our purpose we are cast aside. But genes are denizens of geological time: genes are forever.”

HandsPurposeCoursesIndividualForeverSurvivalMachinesCastsPartnersCardsDestroyedMarchGenesStableFleetingOblivionCrossingsShufflingChromosomesCrossing OverGeological Time
Book:The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition
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“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 number of people who could be here, in my place, out number the sand grains in the Sahara. If you think about all the different ways in which our genes could be permuted, you and I are quite grotesquely lucky to be here. The number of events that had to happen in order for you to exist, in order for me to exist... we are privileged to be alive and nd we should make the most of our time on this world.”

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Author:Richard Dawkins
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“We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. 'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene'. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme. If it is any consolation, it could alternatively be thought of as being related to 'memory', or to the French word même. It should be pronounced to rhyme with 'cream'.”

IfsWantNeedsShouldIdeasScienceNamesBitsSoundMemoriesRootsForgivingGreekRelatedGenesCreamImitationUnitsRhymeConsolationSuitableForgive MeNounsTransmissionMemesNomenclatureClassicists
Book:The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition
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“If the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, meaningless tragedies ... are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless good fortune. Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in intention ... 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.”

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Author:Richard Dawkins
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“In true natural selection, if a body has what it takes to survive, its genes automatically survive because they are inside it. So the genes that survive tend to be, automatically, those genes that confer on bodies the qualities that assist them to survive.”

IfsBodyScienceNaturalQualitySurvivalGenesSelectionNatural Selection
Book:The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design
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“Suffering is a byproduct of evolution by natural selection, an inevitable consequence that may worry us in our more sympathetic moments but cannot be expected to worry a tiger - even if a tiger can be said to worry about anything at all - and certainly cannot be expected to worry its genes.”

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Book:The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
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