It is almost as if the human brain were specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinism, and to find it hard to believe
Interpretation
The quote suggests that humans inherently struggle to grasp the principles of Darwinism.
In this quote, Richard Dawkins posits that the complexities of Darwinian evolution may exceed the innate capabilities of the human brain, leading to widespread misunderstandings about its principles and implications. This reflects a broader theme of how certain truths in science can be counterintuitive or difficult for many to fully accept, illustrating a potential clash between human cognition and scientific reasoning.
In practice
During a lecture on evolutionary biology, you could quote Dawkins to emphasize the common misconceptions students may have about Darwinism.
No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children...I would want to argue that the truth of evolution is more interesting and more poetic
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 worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity.
The population of the U.S. is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the U.S. leads the world by miles.
When you make machines that are capable of obeying instructions slavishly, and among those instructions are 'duplicate me' instructions, then of course the system is wide open to exploitation by parasites.
Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.
The bitter hatreds that now poison Middle Eastern politics are rooted in the real or perceived wrong of the setting up of a Jewish State in an Islamic region. In view of all that the Jews had been through, it must have seemed a fair and humane solution. Probably deep familiarity with the Old Testament had given the European and American decision-makers some sort of idea that this really was the historic homeland of the Jews.
Our culture made a virtue of living only as extroverts. We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center. So we lost our center and have to find it again.
If a man is to be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most.
I support all people on earth who have bodies like and unlike my body.
He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.
A chair is the first thing you need when you donβt really need anything, and is therefore a peculiarly compelling symbol of civilization. For it is civilization, not survival, that requires design.
Grief seems at first to destroy not just all patterns, but also to destroy a belief that a pattern exists.
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