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
Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are… — 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
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
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
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
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
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
Granted, we may try to help our own family members because they share our DNA. Or help someone else in expectation that… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die, because they are… — Richard Dawkins Copy Share Image
The machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like. Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of a molecular biology journal might… — 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
The genetic code is not a binary code as in computers, nor an eight-level code as in some telephone systems, but a… — 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
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
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
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
