Not to grow up properly is to retain our 'caterpillar' quality from childhood (where it is a virtue) into adulthood (where it becomes a vice). In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and our ancestors. But if we don't grow out of it in the fullness of time, our caterpillar nature makes us a sitting target for astrologers, mediums, gurus, evangelists and quacks. The genius of the human child, mental caterpillar extraordinary, is for soaking up information and ideas, not for criticizing them. If critical faculties later grow it will be in spite of, not because of, the inclinations of childhood. The blotting paper of the child's brain is the unpromising seedbed, the base upon which later the sceptical attitude, like a struggling mustard plant, may possibly grow. We need to replace the automatic credulity of childhood with the constructive scepticism of adult science.
Richard DawkinsTag: growing-up reason childhood adulthood maturity
In very different ways, the possibility that the universe is teeming with life, and the opposite possibility that we are totally alone, are equally exciting. Either way, the urge to know more about the universe seems to me irresistible, and I cannot imagine that anybody of truly poetic sensibility could disagree.
Richard DawkinsTag: science life wonder universe astronomy extraterrestrial-life
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
Richard DawkinsTag: god religion atheism atheist
Of course they don't function as gills, but five-week human embryos can be regarded as little pink fishes, with gills.
Richard DawkinsTag: embyro
The resemblance of the signs of the zodiac to the animals after which they are named... is as unimpressive as the predictions of astrologers.
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Há uma condescendência devastadora em sacrificar pessoas, especialmente crianças, no altar da "diversidade" e na virtude da preservação de uma variedade de tradições religiosas. O restante de nós vive feliz com nossos carros e computadores, vacinas e antibióticos. Mas vocês, pessoinhas exóticas com seus chapéus e calçolas, suas carroças, seu dialeto arcaico e suas casinhas de banho, vocês enriquecem nossas vidas. É claro que se deve permitir que vocês aprisionem suas crianças em seu túnel do tempo seiscentista, senão perderíamos uma coisa irrecuperável: uma parte da maravilhosa diversidade da cultura humana. Uma pequena parte de mim ver alguma coisa nisso. Mas a maior parte fica é com enjoo.
Richard DawkinsTag: childhood-abuse
The word 'mundane' has come to mean 'boring' and 'dull', and it really shouldn't - it should mean the opposite. Because it comes from the latin mundus, meaning 'the world'. And the world is anything but dull: The world is wonderful. There's real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality.
Richard DawkinsPerhaps consciousness arises when the brain's simulation of the world becomes so complex that it must include a model of itself.
Richard DawkinsI don't give a damn for anybody's opinion, I only care about the facts. So I'm not an enthusiast for diversity of opinion where factual matters are concerned.
Richard DawkinsTag: truth opinions belief diversity facts
Science doesn't have all the answers, but it is good at spotting the important questions when they are camouflaged against a background of common sense.
Richard DawkinsTag: science
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