Richard Dawkins

'Ενας μεγάλος και σημαντικός φιλόσοφος της επιστήμης

Ο Κλίντον Ρίτσαρντ Ντόκινς είναι Βρετανός ηθολόγος, εξελικτικός βιολόγος και συγγραφέας βιβλίων εκλαϊκευμένης επιστήμης.

Μέχρι το 2008 διατηρούσε την Έδρα Charles Simonyi για την Λαϊκή Κατανόηση της Επιστήμης στο Πανεπιστήμιο της Οξφόρδης.

"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."

"I am against religion, because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world."

"The chances of each of us coming into existence are infinitesimally small, and even though we shall all die some day, we should count ourselves fantastically lucky to get our decades in the sun."

"Biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose."

Απόψεις ως προς τη Θρησκεία

Ο Ντόκινς είναι ευρέως γνωστός για τις απόψεις του σχετικά με τον αθεϊσμό, την εξέλιξη, τον δημιουργισμό, τη θεωρία του ευφυούς σχεδιασμού και τη θρησκεία.

Είναι άθεος, ελευθεριακός σκεπτικιστής, κοσμικός ουμανιστής, επιστημονικός ορθολογιστής και υποστηρικτής του κινήματος των Brights.

Υποστηρίζει ότι σχεδόν βέβαια δεν υπάρχει ένας υπερφυσικός δημιουργός και ότι η θρησκευτική πίστη μπορεί να χαρακτηριστεί ως ψευδαίσθηση, ως μία ψευδής εμμονή και πεποίθηση

Μερικά από τα βιβλία του:

"Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness."

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."

"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."

"Why are we so obsessed with monogamous fidelity?"

"Astrology is an aesthetic affront. It cheapens astronomy, like using Beethoven for commercial jingles."

"We cannot, of course, disprove God, just as we can't disprove Thor, fairies, leprechauns and the Flying Spaghetti Monster."

"We should take astrology seriously. No, I don't mean we should believe in it. I am talking about fighting it seriously instead of humouring it as a piece of harmless fun."

"Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time."

"If something is true, no amount of wishful thinking will change it."

"It's a horrible idea that God, this paragon of wisdom and knowledge, power, couldn't think of a better way to forgive us our sins than to come down to Earth in his alter ego as his son and have himself hideously tortured and executed so that he could forgive himself."

"Physicists are working on the Big Bang, and one day they may or may not solve it."

"Rather than say he's an atheist, a friend of mine says, 'I'm a tooth fairy agnostic,' meaning he can't disprove God but thinks God is about as likely as the tooth fairy."

"Although many of us fear death, I think there is something illogical about it."

Ίσως οι απόψεις και οι ιδέες του Richard Dawkins να είναι απόλυτες και ριζοσπαστικές. Ωστόσο, δεν παύουν να αποτελούν πολύτιμο δώρο για την επιστήμη.