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.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the intellectual and moral accomplishments of the U.S. population.
Richard Dawkins emphasizes the impressive qualities and achievements of the U.S. population, noting their high levels of education, talent, and resourcefulness. He asserts that by various standards of civilized achievements, including Nobel prizes, the United States stands out globally, showcasing the nation as a leader in progress and human spirit.
In practice
This quote can be used in a graduation speech to inspire students about the prowess of their nation.
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.
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.
No matter how much knowledge and wisdom you acquire during your life, not one jot will be passed on to your children by genetic means. Each new generation starts from scratch.
In raising children, we need to continuously keep in mind how we can best create the most favorable environment for their imitative behavior. Everything done in the past regarding imitation must become more and more conscious and more and more consciously connected with the future.
Reading is rapture (or if it isn't, I put the book down meaning to go on with it later, and escape out the side door).
Mathematics consists in proving the most obvious thing in the least obvious way.
I had a stormy graduate career, where every week we would have a shouting match. I kept doing deals where I would say, 'Okay, let me do neural nets for another six months, and I will prove to you they work.' At the end of the six months, I would say, 'Yeah, but I am almost there. Give me another six months.'
PowerPoint is like being trapped in the style of early Egyptian flatland cartoons rather than using the more effective tools of Renaissance visual representation.
Once children learn how to learn, nothing is going to narrow their mind. The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another.
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