Richard Dawkins: The Problem with God.

What do you wish people knew about evolution?

They need to understand what evolution is about. Many of them don’t. I was truly shocked to be told by two separate religious leaders in this country [the U.S.] a few weeks ago–they both said something to the effect that, “I’ll believe in evolution when I see a tailed monkey give birth to a human.”

That is staggering ignorance of what evolutionary science is about; if they think that’s what evolutionists believe, no wonder they’re skeptical of it. How can a civilized country have adult people in positions of leadership who know so stunningly little about the leading biological concept?

You said in a recent speech that design was not the only alternative to chance. A lot of people think that evolution is all about random chance.

That’s ludicrous. That’s ridiculous. Mutation is random in the sense that it’s not anticipatory of what’s needed. Natural selection is anything but random. Natural selection is a guided process, guided not by any higher power, but simply by which genes survive and which genes don’t survive. That’s a non-random process. The animals that are best at whatever they do—hunting, flying, fishing, swimming, digging—whatever the species does, the individuals that are best at it are the ones that pass on the genes. It’s because of this non-random process that lions are so good at hunting, antelopes so good at running away from lions, and fish are so good at swimming.

You criticize intelligent design, saying that “the theistic answer”–pointing to God as designer–”is deeply unsatisfying”–presumably you mean on a logical, scientific level.

Yes, because it doesn’t explain where the designer comes from. If they’re going to emphasize the statistical improbability of biological organs—”these are so complicated, how could they have evolved?”–well, if they’re so complicated, how could they possibly have been designed? Because the designer would have to be even more complicated.

I, of course, think that Dawkins is the man when it comes to explaining evolutionary thought to the ignorant. He is very good at cutting through the bullshit and getting to the true heart of the debate. The debate is really about whether or not to believe in the idea that you will never end, or that you are simply a biological creature no different then your cat or dog and that someday you will simply cease to exist.

Religion, working as a tranquilizer, keeps the fears of our own mortality in check allowing us to continue to function. This is the drawback of having developed a higher intellectual plateau then, say an elephant. The elephant does not sit around all day pondering its impending death. He simply continues doing what an elephant needs to do to survive the day.

Religion gives us a fantasy to cling to that keeps us from going mad. And there are still others who medicate themselves with drugs or alcohol. But then there are some of us who seem to be able to function without the opiate. I am not sure what makes us different.