Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators. The watchmaker is blind
Interpretation
Life evolves through random variations and natural selection rather than intelligent design.
The quote by Richard Dawkins emphasizes the concept of evolution, where life forms arise not from a predetermined plan but from chance variations that survive due to natural selection. The 'blind watchmaker' metaphor suggests that nature operates without purpose, akin to a watchmaker who, while creating intricate mechanisms, does so without foresight or intention, highlighting the randomness inherent in the process of evolution.
In practice
In a lecture about evolution, one might use this quote to exemplify the concept of natural selection.
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.
I was raised a black child in the South, where you're indoctrinated into a religion that an oppressor gave you.
The Church right now has more fashion than passion, is more pathetic than prophetic, is more superficial than supernatural.
There are nuclear-weapons-free zones in several parts of the world already, except that they're not implemented fully, because the U.S. won't allow it.
You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker.
Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place, (Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism, sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon, drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close, and hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, cries out, ''Where is it?''
As a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women are a crucial part of that. It is a moral necessity that we not be forced to bring children into the world for whom we cannot be responsible and adoring and present. We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society.
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