If you don't understand how something works, never mind: just give up and say God did it. You don't know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don't understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don't go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the tendency to attribute complex processes to divine intervention instead of seeking understanding.
Richard Dawkins, in this quote, expresses a satirical view on the dismissal of scientific inquiry in favor of religious explanations for complex phenomena. He suggests that instead of attempting to understand challenges in science, some may choose to give up and attribute such complexity to a divine being, highlighting a conflict between faith and reason. Through this, Dawkins promotes a culture of curiosity and learning rather than resignation to ignorance.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of scientific inquiry, one could use this quote to emphasize the necessity of understanding rather than attributing to divine intervention.
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.
If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.
You never kill any one that you want to kill in a war, he said to himself.
I admit that thoughts influence the body.
I no longer care about the financial system. I gave them my roadmap. OK? Thanks, bye. I've no idea what's going on. I'm disconnected. I'm totally disengaged.
Philosophy can't build bridges, but can encourage people to cross them.
For nothing is more democratic than logic; it is no respecter of persons and makes no distinction between crooked and straight noses.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.