Author: Richard Dawkins

A substantial proportion of religious-Right voters care about, or at least vote on, only one issue: abortion. They swallowed their distaste for Donald Trump’s hypocrisy and (by their lights) egregious sinfulness and voted for him because of just one thing. He promised (and, as we now know, alas, delivered) a U.S. Supreme Court that would …

Imagine that you are a teacher of Roman history and the Latin language, anxious to impart your enthusiasm for the ancient world—for the elegiacs of Ovid and the odes of Horace, the si newy economy of Latin grammar as exhibited in the oratory of Cicero, the strategic niceties of the Punic Wars, the generalship of …

Religions puzzle me with their power to subvert otherwise intelligent minds and turn them in directions that an outside observer (and under normal circumstances, the subverted mind itself) would instantly recognize as ridiculous. Francis Collins is an excellent scientist whose success in running the huge organization that was the official American Human Genome Project demonstrates …

Charles Darwin had a big idea, arguably the most powerful idea ever. A powerful idea assumes little to explain much. It does a lot of explanatory “heavy lifting” while expending little in the way of assumption or postulation. It gives you plenty of bang for your explanatory buck. Its Explanation Ratio—what it explains divided by …

Below we present the conclusion to Richard Dawkins’s foreword to The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, edited by Free Inquiry editor Tom Flynn (the first part was published in the February/March 2008 issue of Free Inquiry). Dr. Dawkins composed this foreword before completing his 2006 best-seller The God Delusion. Readers familiar with that work may recognize …

Culminating five years of development, Prometheus Books has released The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, edited by Free Inquiry editor Tom Flynn. Richard Dawkins provided the work’s foreword, reprinted in part below, which he composed before completing the manuscript of his 2006 best-seller The God Delusion. Readers familiar with that work may recognize earlier versions of …

In the first part of this essay (FI, August/September 2007), Richard Daw -kins offered responses to some of the criticisms of his “surprise best-seller,” The God Delusion, from reviewers. Here-with, his responses continue. — Eds. “You are just as much of a fundamentalist as those you criticize.” No, please, it is all too easy to …

In my previous column (Free Inquiry, June/July 2004), I raised the question of the Darwinian survival value of religion. Why, given that natural selection abhors waste and extravagance, is religious behavior a human universal? I discussed various suggestions of direct advantages to religion, all more or less unconvincing, and promised to return to something more …

For good or ill, the late Stephen Jay Gould had a huge influence on American scientific culture, and on balance the good came out on top. His powerful voice will echo on for a long time. Although he and I disagreed about much, we shared much, too, including a spellbound delight in the wonders of …

WAR IN IRAQ OP-ED On the Eve of War I write this on March 18, 2003, on the eve of war, haunted by my countryman W.H. Auden’s lines in “September 1, 1939.” I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire . . . I know …

Cloning already happens by accident; not particularly often, but often enough that we all know examples. Identical twins are true clones of each other, with the same genes. So the new discovery just announced from Edinburgh can’t be all that radical in its moral and ethical implications. Heaven’s foundations don’t quiver every time a pair …