“They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.” — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
The body is a survival machine programmed to propagate the genes that reside inside it. — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to because we may then at least have the chance to upset… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
“What shall it profit a male if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his immortal genes?” — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
At the deepest level, all living things that have ever been looked at have the same DNA code. And many of the… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
“The genes are master programmers, and they are programming for their lives.” — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence.… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We,… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
What are all of us but self-reproducing robots? We have been put together by our genes and what we do is roam… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
When I say that human beings are just gene machines, one shouldn't put too much emphasis on the word 'just.' There is… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
Our brains are separate and independent enough from our genes to rebel against them.. we do so in a small way everytime… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
When we talk about genes for anything, like a gene for being gay or a gene for being aggressive or something of… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
We have sexual lust even though we know perfectly well that, because we're using contraception, it is not going to result in… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
Most people understand that sexual lust has to do with propagating genes. Copulation in nature tends to lead to reproduction and so… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
There is a whole field of inquiry that has come up in the last 30 or 40 years - some call it… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
Cheetah genes cooperate with cheetah genes but not with camel genes, and vice versa. This is not because cheetah genes, even in… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
I think we have got to start again and go right back to first principles. The argument I shall advance, surprising as… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
Individuals are not stable things, they are fleeting. Chromosomes too are shuffled into oblivion, like hands of cards soon after they are… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
I think that a new kind of replicator has recently emerged on this very planet. It is staring us in the face.… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
Suppose that there's a gene that makes you gay if you were bottle-fed but that has some completely different effect if you… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
If the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, meaningless tragedies ... are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
I've always been antagonistic to any naïve application of the selfish gene theory to politics. Some people have attempted to suggest that… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
In our prehistoric past, we would have lived in extended families, surrounded by kin whose interests we might have wanted to promote… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
We have the same genetic code for all living creatures. We have a large number of genes that are manifestly the same,… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
Superficially it's a problem if homosexuality is genetic - if the difference between people's sexual preferences is genetic - because at least… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
Selfish genes actually explain altruistic individuals, and to me that's crystal-clear. — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
I am an enthusiastic Darwinian, but I think Darwinism is too big a theory to be confined to the narrow context of… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
What really happens is that the gene pool becomes filled with genes that influence bodies in such a way that they behave… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
A gene might be able to assist replicas of itself that are sitting in other bodies. If so, this would appear as… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
People who criticize The Selfish Gene like that often haven't read it. The selfish gene accounts for altruism toward kin and individuals… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
What you cannot have is a gene that sacrifices itself for the benefit of other genes. What you can have is a… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
Suffering is a byproduct of evolution by natural selection, an inevitable consequence that may worry us in our more sympathetic moments but… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
Very close cousins like humans and chimps have almost all their genes in common. Slightly less close cousins like humans and monkeys… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
In true natural selection, if a body has what it takes to survive, its genes automatically survive because they are inside it.… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
An Internet meme is a hijacking of the original idea. Instead of mutating by random change and spreading by a form of… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
At the deepest level, all living things that have ever been looked at have the same DNA code. And many of the same genes. — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
The word 'mundane' has come to mean 'boring' and 'dull', and it really shouldn't - it should mean the opposite. Because it comes from… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
“The fundamentalist Kurt Wise proclaims that all the evidence in the universe would not change his mind. The true scientist, however passionately he may… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
“I have found it an amusing strategy, when asked whether I am an atheist, to point out that the questioner is also an atheist… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
Religions do make claims about the universe--the same kinds of claims that scientists make, except they're usually false. — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
“much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents,… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
The recurrent laryngeal nerve - which runs from the head to the voice box - goes all the way down into the chest, loops… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
The Roman Catholic Church is an institution for whose gains the phrase "ill-gotten" might have been specially invented. And of all its money-making rip-offs,… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs. — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
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… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
Or why it is acceptable to train fast runners and high jumpers but not to breed them. I can think of some answers, and… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
