Science in the Soul Quotes

“Which of our unnoticed isms will the hindsight of future generations condemn?”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“Given a hundred clones of Carl Sagan, we might have some hope for the next century.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“The habit of questioning authority is one of the most valuable gifts that a book, or a teacher, can give a young would-be scientist.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“In any case, you won't get rich doing science, so why do it at all if you undermine the only point of the enterprise by lying?”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“What matters is not the facts but how you discover and think about them.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“Sanırım söylediğim şey, bilimcilerin sahip oldukları değer ölçülerinde, doğanın gerçekleri hakkında neredeyse kutsal olan bir şeyler olduğu. Diğer insanlar astrologları, kaşık bükücülerini ve benzeri şarlatanları zararsız eğlendiriciler olarak hoşgörüyle tolere ederken, bazılarımızın onların karşısında bu kadar hararetlenmemizin sebebi bu olabilir. İftira yasası, bireyler hakkında bilerek yalan söyleyen insanlara ceza verilmesini öngörür. Fakat dava açamayacak olan doğa hakkında yalan söyleyerek para kazanırsanız ceza almazsınız. Değerlerim belki de çarpıktır, ama doğanın da tıpkı istismar edilmiş bir çocuk gibi mahkemede temsil edilmesini isterdim.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“I am a deeply religious nonbeliever – this is a somewhat new kind of religion.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“It is in the nature of scientific truths that they are waiting to be discovered, by whoever has the ability to do so. If two different people independently discover something in science, it will be the same truth. Unlike works of art, scientific truths do not change their nature in response to the individual human beings who discover them. This is both a glory, and a limitation, of science.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“The moral vacuum we now feel ourselves to be in has always been there, even if we haven’t recognized it Religious people are already entirely accustomed to picking and choosing which texts from holy book they obey and which they reject. There are passages of the Judeo-Christian Bible which no modern Christian or Jew would wish to follow. The story of Isaac’s narrowly averted sacrifice by his father Abraham strikes us moderns as a shocking piece of child abuse, whether we read it literally or symbolically.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“There is mystery but never magic, and mysteries are all the more beautiful for being eventually explained. Things are explicable and it is our privilege to explain them.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“Real science can be hard but, like classical literature or playing the violin, worth the struggle.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“Hijacking by pseudoscience and bad science fiction is a threat to our legitimate sense of wonder.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“But the very fact that Darwinism is true makes it even more important for us to fight against the naturally selfish and exploitative tendencies of nature.We can do it.Probably no other species of animal or plant can. We can do it because our brains (admittedly given to us by natural selection for reasons pf short-term Darwinian gain) are big enough to see into the future and plot long-term consequences.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“Social habits that are universal among all peoples, such as laughing, smiling, weeping, religion, and a statistical tendency to avoid incest, are likely to have been present in our common ancestors too.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“To many Native American tribes the Grand Canyon is a sacred place: site of numerous origin myths from the Havasupai to the Zuni; hushed repose of the Hopi dead. If I were forced to choose a religion, that’s the kind of religion I could go for. The Grand Canyon confers stature on a religion, outclassing the petty smallness of the Abrahamics, the three squabbling cults which, through historical accident, still afflict the world.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“Quantum uncertainty and chaos theory have had deplorable effects upon popular culture, much to the annoyance of genuine aficionados. Both are regularly exploited by obscurantists, ranging from professional quacks to daffy New Agers. In America, the self-help ‘healing’ industry coins millions, and it has not been slow to cash in on quantum theory’s formidable talent to bewilder. This has been documented by the American physicist Victor Stenger. One well-heeled healer wrote a string of best-selling books on what he calls ‘Quantum Healing’. Another book in my possession has sections on quantum psychology, quantum responsibility, quantum morality, quantum aesthetics, quantum immortality and quantum theology. Chaos theory, a more recent invention, is equally fertile ground for those with a bent for abusing sense. It is unfortunately named, for ‘chaos’ implies randomness. Chaos in the technical sense is not random at all. It is completely determined, but it depends hugely, in strangely hard-to-predict ways, on tiny differences in initial conditions. Undoubtedly it is mathematically interesting.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“This intrepid warrior for truth, this cultured, courteous citizen of the world, this devastating, coruscating enemy of lies and cant – well, maybe he has no immortal soul – none of us has.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“Discretion can be abused, and rulebooks are important safeguards against that. But the balance has shifted too far in the direction of an obsessive reverence for rules.”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“It is not self-evident that abortion of a one-month human foetus is murder”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

“Of course”
― Richard Dawkins, Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist