How Richard Dawkins will win you over to his side
Author, speaker, and public intellectual Richard Dawkins is a first-class debater on subjects as grand and reaching as the very existence (or lack thereof) of a master creator. But he's got a simple yet highly effective technique to win people over to see his point of view. Find out what it is right here.
Many people would like to have a one-on-one argument with renowned professor, author, and all-around big thinker Richard Dawkins. He's most one of the world's most prominent public intellectuals and has written over a dozen books on matters as wide-ranging as atheism and science. Because he attacks such deeply held beliefs, many people disagree with him. But how is he so effective at what he does? Simple. He imagines his argument from the other side's perspective. That way, Richard Dawkins posits, there's a much higher chance that he can land his point. Richard Dawkins' new book is Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist.
Do We Need Religion to Survive? Is That Even the Right Question?
Does religion help us survive? No more than moths thrive in flame, says Richard Dawkins.
What is the Darwinian survival value of religion? That's not the right question, says Richard Dawkins. To find the right question, he relies on an evolutionary analogy: Why do moths fly into flames? It means instant death, so what's the evolutionary value of this kamikaze behavior? Dawkins delivers a crash course in proximate and ultimate causality, two very important distinctions in biology. Moths evolved to navigate using celestial objects as compasses. The moon and the stars emit parallel light, a very reliable and consistent beam, meaning a moth can fly in a straight line guided by that light. Candle light is an entirely different source that emits light in a spiral... leading straight to the hottest part of the flame. These moths aren't suicidal, says Dawkins, it's a misfiring of an evolutionary trait because of a modern technology in their environment. "The right question is not, 'What’s the survival value of a suicidal behavior in moths?'" he says, "The right question is, 'What is the survival value of having the kind of physiology which, under some circumstances, leads you to fly into a flames?'" There survival value of religious behavior may be at the genetic level, Dawkins suggests, and the proximate question in this case would be: what part of our brain does religion serve, and is religion really the only way that function is manifested? Richard Dawkins' new book is Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist.
Why A.I. Might Run the World Better Than Humans Do
Will A.I. take us over, and one day look back on this time period as the dawn of their civilization? Richard Dawkins posits an interesting idea, or at the very least a premise to a good science-fiction novel.
Richard Dawkins has made a career out of hypothesizing and articulating ideas that move the world forward, insomuch as many of those ideas could be called "ahead of their time." Having said that, he tells us here that we might be living in the dawn of not just artificial intelligence but of a silicon civilization that will look back on this time period as the dawn of their kind. They could one day, Dawkins suggests, study us the same way that we studied other beings that once ruled the earth. Sound crazy? Open your mind and think about it. Dawkins isn't that far off from a potential actuality on this planet. Richard Dawkins' new book is Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist.
Why Science Must Embrace Imagination, Intuition, and Evidence
All science begins with a leap of intuition, says Richard Dawkins, but we can only ever find objective truths by knowing when to let evidence take over from emotion.
You can be committed to science, but as soon as you're committed to a hypothesis, you've walked off the trail of objective truth, says Richard Dawkins. For him, that is the mission of science and the purpose of the scientific method: these truths exist—they are the foundations of innovations like vaccinations, antibiotics, and space travel, because they are built on something solid: evidence. Einstein is known for highly valuing the role of imagination in science, and Dawkins agrees: imagination and intuition are the springboards scientific progress depends on—but when evidence refutes a hypothesis or a feeling, that's the end of the line. Dogged persistence doesn't get you any closer to the truth, says Dawkins, only critical thinking can do that. Richard Dawkins' latest book is Science In The Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist.
Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist and the former Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. He is the author of several of modern science's essential texts, including The Selfish Gene (1976) and The God Delusion (2006). Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Dawkins eventually graduated with a degree in zoology from Balliol College, Oxford, and then earned a masters degree and the doctorate from Oxford University. He has recently left his teaching duties to write and manage his foundation, The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, full-time.
