“It's been suggested that if the super-naturalists really had the power...” — Richard Dawkins Quote

“It's been suggested that if the super-naturalists really had the powers they claim, they'd win the lottery every week. I prefer to point out that they could also win a Nobel Prize for discovering fundamental physical forces hitherto unknown to science. Either way, why are they wasting their talents doing party turns on television?”

“What matters is not the facts but how you discover and think about them.”

“Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs.”

“If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worse than ignorant, they are deluded to the point of perversity. They are denying not only the facts of biology but those of physics, geology, cosmology, archaeology, history and chemistry as well.”

“Prediction in a complex world is a chancy business. Every decision that a survival machine takes is a gamble, and it is the business of genes to program brains in advance so that on average they take decisions that pay off. The currency used in the casino of evolution is survival, strictly gene survival, but for many purposes individual survival is a reasonable approximation.”

“The idea of infinite regress is absurd. The question of God cannot be reduced to a cosmological argument either. The ultimate question of reality is if there is something or not. If we agree that there is something, then the question is if that something can come into existence from nothing. Wouldn't it be more logical that there is just nothing? But just the idea that there is nothing implies, at least linguistically, that nothing is something; otherwise, we would not use the words ‘there is.’ Again, language demonstrates how limited it is.”

“I'll bite: Hard science TA's and RA's often repair equipment; it's part of our science. If you want a silver spoon, don't go to grad school. Science is all about dangerous chemicals, semi-safe experimental equipment, and 4am drives down gravel roads in old vans with a nice steep drop on one side. Guardrail? Ho ho ho. Fixing the computers is just the tip of the iceberg. Plus, where else could you get on-the-job experience with a PDP-8?”

“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.”

“Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature.”

“deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.”