@ceclovitch I think by that he was refering to the larger question of why all animals and some (most?) plants are divided into two groups, one that actually produces offspring (female) and another that merely provides more genetic material (male). One hypothesis I remember is that it sped up evolution by augmenting mutation with recombination of genetic material, and thus helped us keep pace with fast-evolving viruses.
There should be a website where you can compare the foxp2 genes for lots of animals, like you enter two types of animal and it tells you how much of the code is different
This vile, and evil atheist name Richard Dawkins is a hypocrite when all those religious people writing hate comments keeps using a word the relates to fornication, as if they know from experience. Who are the hypocrites?
@Ravensteinzh hmmm, he's "vile and evil" for reading his hate mail from christians cursing him and wishing that he be tortured forever? yea, makes perfect sense to me. unless you're calling the christians themselves hypocrites, which would actually make an iota of sense? your comment is nonsensical. if you're learning english as a second language, don't skip any classes.
Disclaimer: I"m not religous or atheist. So, I would appreciate it if you defensive atheists would stay off m nuts for the comment I'm about to make. If I were atheist, I would write Richard Dawkins a letter pleading with him to stop acting like he represents me. He comes across as such a condescending, arrogant, pious (I now that seems like a contradiction) acting prick. I enjoyed South Park's take on Dawkns in the episode "Go God Go". Science Damn You Time Child!!!
@ActaNonVerba71 I don't think there was one time in this entire video he pretended to represent all atheists. If you are neither theist nor atheist, what are you?
@DarkPrince0fWGTN I believe that theists and atheists operate on faith. When I hear atheists smugly use evidence of the fossil record to suggest there is no God because the earth can't possibly be only 6,000 years old I cringe. What does religious people's teachings related to the age of the earth have to do with the concept of a God or higher beings??? Nothing.
@ActaNonVerba71 I understand what you are saying, but I think what you are referring to is most often an argument against a Judeo-Christian (monotheistic) deity in particular. Many atheists generalise in arguments on YT as we/they are most often arguing against a particular breed of believer, so God's characteristics are already assumed.
So it's kinda like saying that you operate on faith when you refuse that that stain on my coffee table was put there by a snobby ant eater who forgot to use a coaster - that is to say, there are some things that you would be sensible to reject, and which requires no faith (just like the Christian God when all philosophical and scientific attributes are examined).
@ActaNonVerba71 atheists cannot operate on faith because its a theist belief. Atheist believe in chance or probability not faith. So hence your whole argument is moot. And typically when numerical evidence in a book written "by god" through men is supposed to be fact, but obviously has MAJOR contradictions and obvious flaws. Well then you can imagine why there would be atheists calling the bullshit that is religious creationists.
@MrSumbody69 1) I agree that the word "faith" is often associated with religion. But, that's not the only meaning and not the way I am using it. For example, a young girl is about to perform in her recital and her father says, "You'll do fine. I have faith in you." That's how I mean it. 2) To me, the question of whether or not religions are veritable and the question of whether a God(s) exist are two completely separate questions.
@ActaNonVerba71 I know what you are saying, and can't blame you for feeling that way. However I tend to try and imagine it from his perspective - he has experienced science and philosophy on a level that most people never will, and is frustrated by the willful ignorance of people who refuse to examine nature in it's purest form simply because it wasn't mentioned in/conflicts with the bible.
I try to be humble, but doubt I could hold my tongue with such an education to support my views.
Awww, those Christians sure do pour on the love, don't they? Not a malicious bone in their bodies - after all, God said 'Love thy enemy!'. Hateful cunts and hypocrits to the last....
We're beat anyway. There's just too much poverty now. People need god and shit like that like. WE'RE BEAT. Human socieity BEAT US IN THE END. BASTARDS.
What a smart man. smart. If evolution is aware, Prof. Dawkins and his type, Sam Harris, C. Hitchens will look on at our wee tawdry way of going on. LONG LIVE SCIENCE AND TRUTH.
It's sad that he considers himself a scientist when his goal is not knowledge, but the abolishment of religion. He not only puts undue emphasis on evolution as the source of life, but without any evidence believes it to be the only way. We must FIRST prove empirically that life can even originate from amino acids and from there evolve into all life. And this is where problems arise because people take limited evidence and piece it into the picture they want to display and that's not science.
@Knarf009 Firstly, holy shit you're dumb.. His goal is the truth, the facts, that is why religion should be abolished.. Without any evidence? are you fucking kidding? You have no idea at all, we have evidence!
@Knarf009 I strongly suggest you read his book "The Greatest Show On Earth". That would answer all your complaints about him...and no doubt answer a lot of your misconceptions regarding evolution through natural selection as well.
@shiva369 There are no misconceptions in my comment. It is a fact that the proposed theory regarding the origin of life has yet to be supported with empirical evidence. Before anything else, we must first prove that life can begin by chance. You cannot ignore the scientific method simply because we lack the means to properly execute it in this case. This is what it means to be a skeptic, and it is a trait severely lacking among evolutionary biologists and crusaders against religion.
@Knarf009 So...evolutionary biology is wrong because nobody can duplicate the first amino acids becoming "life"...yet? Does it really matter that we haven't found that exact point of beginning? The results of it are all around us and well established, testable facts, aren't they?The Big Bang theory took off and was accepted because of the sheer weight of evidence pointing to it, well before the LHC fired up and started edging us to within miliseconds of the answer.
@shiva369 If you're going to preach using reason then maybe you should use it. I haven't said anything is right or wrong, because I don't know. I wasn't there at the formation of life and neither was anyone else, so I simply don't know. And your argument is just as meaningful as saying "well, we're here so obviously god did it!" We don't understand the breadth of evolution's affect on life, nor can we replicate, what we're proposing evolution accounts for, in a lab. That's just faith.
@Knarf009 "If you're going to preach using reason..." - Who's preaching? "your argument is just as meaningful as saying "well we're here so obviously god did it"" - Preposterous. Nice try though "That's just faith" - And that's just trolling.
? It is a scientist's *job* to be sceptical. It's what he does for a living. So how do you justify your claim that evolutionary biologists "lack the trait" of scepticism?
@XGralgrathor Because their skepticism doesn't apply to their own beliefs. Dawkin's has himself stated that shared DNA proves that all species originated from a single source. That's not being skeptical, that's certainty in a mechanism we can't replicate or test, That's stopping at the hypothesis step and professing a conclusion with certainty. How is that skepticism? He's not skeptical of his own conclusions, rather he preaches them dogmatically as a weapon against religion.
So? I'm sure I wouldn't use the word "prove", but I might convey the same sentiment: what we find in DNA makes common ancestry virtually impossible to reject. And that's simply the truth: the multitude of converging phylogenies resulting from genetic assays *do* make it impossible to all but a handful of religiously motivated dissenters to reject common descent. All scepticism doesn't change that.
@XGralgrathor Do we have samples of DNA from our supposed ancestors? Can we test the idea? Can we trace our ancestry back to our supposed primate through DNA? No, because our ancestors are extinct and haven't left DNA for us to examine. We have some skeletons and we have similar DNA to modern apes, but proving takes much much more than that. Any scientist can tell you that conventional wisdom regularly comes up short when you put your hypothesis to the test.
We have. We know from comparative genomics, which supports morphological assay, that we are primates, and that we therefore must have had primate ancestors.
Apparently you have completely failed to pick up on the fact that we do not simply have "similar DNA", but that we have similarities and differences occurring in a *pattern* of nested hierarchies.
Conventional wisdom is that common descent produces nested hierarchies. Conventional wisdom is that if everything we have points in the direction of common descent, it is silly to claim the hypothesis to be invalid.
Then by your logic, accepting that the Earth is not the middle of the universe is not beying sceptical - hell, accepting that the Earth is not flat is not being sceptical.
Kid, accepting a well-supported idea does not mean not being sceptical. One can be sceptical and still accept things when they're well-substantiated. Capiche?
@XGralgrathor We can empirically prove both the earth is not flat nor is it the center of the universe. If you don't understand the issue I'm discussing then please do not comment on it.
But we can. We can replicate common ancestry, because we do it all the time. Every brother or sister out there has a common ancestor in their parents, and their DNA shows it, just like it shows it for their distant ancestors, including the non-human apes from which we descended. And testing a hypothesis is another matter altogether: it doesn't require direct observation of the thing itself, or we wouldn't have any of the physics we have today.
@MrGralgrathor We don't have our supposed non-human ape ancestors DNA to substantiate any of this. I could be raised by two people and look like them, but without having the parent and child's DNA then there is no way to substantiate the claim that the parents are blood relatives. Furthermore, Physics can be tested. Theoretical Physics is another story.
Note that scientists do not actually claim that life "began by chance", and that in fact the scientific pursuit is to establish the mechanisms by which life arose - which is tantamount to *excluding* chance as anything more than a factor in such mechanisms.
@Knarf009 You are not a skeptic, you are simply lazy and willfully ignorant. Whether life began by chance is irrelevant. Evolution deals with how organic life changes over time. I suggest you look up abiogenesis and other relevant explanations
Doesn't sex just vastly increase different variety, without losing the species survivability, ending up with a larger, more diverse population for evolution to act upon?
@wimscheers Yeah, I was suprised he considered "why do we have sex" as unanswered. It "reshuffles" the genome allowing for greater diversity and most fatal combinations self-abort early on (i.e. less energy used by the mother).
Maybe he meant to ask "why don't we have sex," to the female interviewer. lol
I think sex is supposed to be there as a way to develop our mollecular build. If you think about it, certain types of hair eye colour, or skins are dying out. Plus it could be a tool of sexuality and attraction to help develop a co dependant relationship, as well as social mechanisms to help the species grow stronger in the distribution of genetics, knowledge, and strength in numbers, giving humans a reason to be together. But im just 14, what do i know.
8:39 maybe I don't understand the question, but isn't the answer to "why we have sex" blatantly obvious to an evolutionary biologist? We have sex so that your genes can continue to exist, right? if I'm missing something, point it out to me
@chimneyface The question has a little bit more depth then that. When Dawkins asks 'Why do we have sex', he means why did our ancestors develop into depending on reproducing with a partner, instead of cloning ourselves naturally?
I think I have a pretty good idea of why we do, though. But, I'm no scientist.
@revjimbob Wait, how is secular neutral? Doesn't theist vs atheist present a fairly black white spectrum? I mean, you either believe there is a theistic deity or you don't... I didn't think there was a middle ground.
"A secular state is a concept of secularism, whereby a state or country purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion"
I'm from the US, and I was taught evolution in high school. I don't know how else we would have learned anything about biology seeing as that's what it's all based on. My teacher did tell us that she had had some students who challenged her (going as far as bringing a bible to class and arguing with her) and someone in my class actually asked her why they didn't teach a creationism class as well as biology. It doesn't make much sense to me, keep doing what you're doing Mr. Dawkins :)
@nomercyevolution That sounds nice, but generally speaking that would probably be far worse for the world - the remaining irrational people could take even longer to get with the times if we went somewhere else. In addition I see no reason to think that the net economic benefits would make it worth it, in fact that could be devastating. It's a nice fantasy but IRL would be terrible.
I thought over the course of this video "what makes his opinion better then mine or any other commenter on youtube" and it's this. His opinion is developed through education and enforced by his accomplishments. Him and other accomplished scientist are better equipped at debating the merits of life and god and everything. The rest of us should shut the fuck up about our "opinions" atheist or otherwise.
@TheDefiantBadger A thousand years ago, I'd agree with you. Religion was strongest when scientific and technological development were at the bottom, simply because people didn't have the knowledge and tools to investigate and answer why this and this behaved likes this.
@TheDefiantBadger Why is faith important? Besides religion, what other part of your life is faith important? You only believe that faith is important because that's the only thing which sustains religion.
Now, why is religion important? Why is a belief in a supernatural sky daddy important? And don't give me that morality BS, because atheists all over the world have shown that you can have morals without religions.
Exactly. Every time an atheist asks a question that no theist can answer, you can always depend on the theist to either run or throw out a bunch of red herrings. You can't answer the question as to why faith is important, so you pretend to take the moral high ground that you refuse to get into such discussions. In reality, you have no answer and refuse to admit it, so you run. You can't even be honest with yourself.
Is that really the case in the US, that teachers are afraid to teach evolution? That's outrageous. I'd be furious with my kids' school if that happened here in Australia.
Yes, it's true. For two reasons: 1 - parents are retarded; 2 - teachers are retarded.
I used to teach high school. I gave up... not because I couldn't teach evolution, but because the kids and their parents were unbearable. They hold teachers in a very low regard.
@supowit It's unfortunate you gave up. Sorry to hear that. I think back to when I was in school. I could count the number of good teachers I had on one hand.
@shiva369 It varies from state to state, but yes. In many states (especially the Southern USA), it is law that equal weight must be given to Intelligent Design, or Creationism. Absolutely absurd.
@vonjedi420 .... always got to pick on us in the South
but it is true lol...... Most schools here won't even hire a teacher that believes in evolution. Total indoctrination....... thank Zenu for the internet so at least some of us can be enlightened...
@vonjedi420 That's very sad. Believe me, I would be the last to hold my own country up as an example of all that's good and wise, because it is far from that, but to see a nation with the power and influence (unprecedented in world history) of the US giving in to such nonsense is scary, frankly. I know there are a lot of motivated people there doing their best to change this state of affairs, and I wish them all the best.
@Surya112 I would hate to live under "In God We Trust" as well...I'm guessing the Founding Fathers would too. They wanted the US to be secular in all respects, didn't they? That's be something, a secular United States...a secular world, in fact. People keeping their religion at home and letting science do the teaching and governing.
@shiva369 The Founding Fathers were predominately deists. Furthermore science is not a governing force. Science is a method we employ in order to better understand the world around us. Pose a question, gather information, form a hypothesis, test the hypothesis with the goal to disprove it, analyze the data, and draw a conclusion. This is proper science, and all that science is. Science does not teach, it is a means for gathering knowledge that must be relayed through biased humans.
@Knarf009 Ok, I should've said reason or secularism or the like should do the teaching/ governing- whatever. My point was that superstition should be kept as far away as possible from government and places of education. As for "science does not teach"..ehhhh, yeah...
@shiva369 What is this superstition? The idea that a being or beings beyond our comprehension created our universe and seeded our planet is no more unlikely than the notion that matter came into existence from nothingness. To look at the vastness of space and feel any sense of certainty on our origin is nothing short of an exercise in faith. "Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld." Science should never be faith.
@Knarf009 If your actual gripe can be summed up as "science doesn't know the origin of life", then the obvious retort would be "yeah, and?". If you do as I suggested earlier and read Dawkins' book, you'll see neither he or anyone else in scientific circles is saying they "know". They have ideas on it, based on things they do know, but if nobody can replicate it in the lab just yet, then what of it? That neither proves or disproves anything.
@shiva369 Are you dim or are you just ignoring the glaring problem with that? If you do not know, then how can you tell others that they are wrong? How can you use ideas held in uncertainty as a blunt instrument to beat your way of thinking into others? I love science, but not when it's used as a tool to unjustly attack others and what they choose to believe. Too many liberties are taken with how the information is interpreted and to be a gnostic-atheist with what we know is dogma.
My teacher wasn't able to teach evolution outside of a dedicated Biology class in a Lutheran school in Brisbane.While our Religion teachers sprouted all sorts of wanton bullshit.
It's funny because you won't find a HINT of positive publicity for Dawkins in America. In America there are no religious debates on TV and no TV channel will air anything disagreeing with religion, we're shut in with the crazies over here.
@pkingsdead You tolerant, rational, americans should come to canada then and we could try to outnumber the idiots here. there's a better chance of us having a majority in a country with a smaller population.
@MrNicMachiavelli You watched the video, didn't you? @slexyottoman and @gl3110 were quoting the funny hate mail Richard was reading. Hence the quotation marks.
That hatemail is hilarious. And Christians wonder why we think they're blithering idiots...
ponchred 17 seconds ago
why is dawkins not the king of everything........
ChrisHayesArt 8 hours ago
He knows about us? I FRIGGIN LOVE YOU!
MrDavintsi 16 hours ago
"Your destiny is all fucked-up!!" XD
railstoruin 1 day ago
I find this mans voice therapeutic
ExNihiloJimmy 2 days ago
@ExNihiloJimmy I know, isn't his voice soothing?
baahhhFATALITY11 5 hours ago
hooray for hate mail!
maynard789 2 days ago
its pretty bad when they have fun reading hate mail from creationists lol
cavs608 3 days ago
"why we have sex" ? i thought that would be a quite straightforward biological solution for that, i would like to hear him talk more about that.
ceclovitch 3 days ago
@ceclovitch There's a good lecture on this from Yale on youtube at 5eRb4lNTXPE.
acr08807 3 days ago
@acr08807 hey, thanks for the link.
anundeniabledilemma 1 day ago
@ceclovitch I was thinking the same thing.
ByBleeker 2 days ago
@ceclovitch I think by that he was refering to the larger question of why all animals and some (most?) plants are divided into two groups, one that actually produces offspring (female) and another that merely provides more genetic material (male). One hypothesis I remember is that it sped up evolution by augmenting mutation with recombination of genetic material, and thus helped us keep pace with fast-evolving viruses.
Hypertask 23 hours ago
Ahahaha, the "and I'm a Mormon" video is the sponsored video on the right.
ThwartedVillainy 3 days ago
and the creationists call atheists hateful :D
zangetsu2k8 3 days ago 2
@squarerootof2 yeah that's a legit idea
dillingersteelflex 4 days ago
14:32 "Oh Jesus" Appropriate. :P
slammusaran 4 days ago
Sex is fun!
tonmandude 4 days ago
Your destiny is all fucked up!!
I lol'd hard.
Cityundersands 4 days ago 5
There should be a website where you can compare the foxp2 genes for lots of animals, like you enter two types of animal and it tells you how much of the code is different
sqarerootof2 4 days ago
*looks at bucket list* "Hear Richard Dawkins say Fuck and Shit": [TICK] :D
Morffin92 5 days ago 3
This vile, and evil atheist name Richard Dawkins is a hypocrite when all those religious people writing hate comments keeps using a word the relates to fornication, as if they know from experience. Who are the hypocrites?
Ravensteinzh 6 days ago
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@Ravensteinzh hmmm, he's "vile and evil" for reading his hate mail from christians cursing him and wishing that he be tortured forever? yea, makes perfect sense to me. unless you're calling the christians themselves hypocrites, which would actually make an iota of sense? your comment is nonsensical. if you're learning english as a second language, don't skip any classes.
isaachaze1 4 days ago
this dude is as close as it gets to a god
mikesomething 6 days ago
even profanity sounds good in his voice D:
DizzyDisco93 6 days ago 2
Disclaimer: I"m not religous or atheist. So, I would appreciate it if you defensive atheists would stay off m nuts for the comment I'm about to make. If I were atheist, I would write Richard Dawkins a letter pleading with him to stop acting like he represents me. He comes across as such a condescending, arrogant, pious (I now that seems like a contradiction) acting prick. I enjoyed South Park's take on Dawkns in the episode "Go God Go". Science Damn You Time Child!!!
ActaNonVerba71 1 week ago
@ActaNonVerba71 I don't think there was one time in this entire video he pretended to represent all atheists. If you are neither theist nor atheist, what are you?
DarkPrince0fWGTN 6 days ago
@DarkPrince0fWGTN I believe that theists and atheists operate on faith. When I hear atheists smugly use evidence of the fossil record to suggest there is no God because the earth can't possibly be only 6,000 years old I cringe. What does religious people's teachings related to the age of the earth have to do with the concept of a God or higher beings??? Nothing.
ActaNonVerba71 6 days ago
@ActaNonVerba71 I understand what you are saying, but I think what you are referring to is most often an argument against a Judeo-Christian (monotheistic) deity in particular. Many atheists generalise in arguments on YT as we/they are most often arguing against a particular breed of believer, so God's characteristics are already assumed.
ulthea 5 days ago
@ActaNonVerba71
So it's kinda like saying that you operate on faith when you refuse that that stain on my coffee table was put there by a snobby ant eater who forgot to use a coaster - that is to say, there are some things that you would be sensible to reject, and which requires no faith (just like the Christian God when all philosophical and scientific attributes are examined).
ulthea 5 days ago
@ActaNonVerba71 atheists cannot operate on faith because its a theist belief. Atheist believe in chance or probability not faith. So hence your whole argument is moot. And typically when numerical evidence in a book written "by god" through men is supposed to be fact, but obviously has MAJOR contradictions and obvious flaws. Well then you can imagine why there would be atheists calling the bullshit that is religious creationists.
MrSumbody69 5 days ago
@MrSumbody69 1) I agree that the word "faith" is often associated with religion. But, that's not the only meaning and not the way I am using it. For example, a young girl is about to perform in her recital and her father says, "You'll do fine. I have faith in you." That's how I mean it. 2) To me, the question of whether or not religions are veritable and the question of whether a God(s) exist are two completely separate questions.
ActaNonVerba71 5 days ago
@ActaNonVerba71 I know what you are saying, and can't blame you for feeling that way. However I tend to try and imagine it from his perspective - he has experienced science and philosophy on a level that most people never will, and is frustrated by the willful ignorance of people who refuse to examine nature in it's purest form simply because it wasn't mentioned in/conflicts with the bible.
I try to be humble, but doubt I could hold my tongue with such an education to support my views.
ulthea 5 days ago
@ActaNonVerba71 And yeah, I love everything SP does, whether it agrees with my personal beliefs or not : )
ulthea 5 days ago
12:45 is the funnist part. always makes me laugh :D
HotShitGG 1 week ago
the only intelligible questions ever asked to Mr. Dawkins
prowdigy 1 week ago
More hate mail reading please.It's hilarious!
ByLuckySC2 1 week ago
11:50 ihihihi he has a fat cat :P
20BCeltics 1 week ago
propaganda lol
asseeninYOURDREAMS 1 week ago
This has been flagged as spam show
how does evolution answer 'why we exist' as RD said? he always repeats it but newer answers it ?
prskaloo1 1 week ago
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prskaloo1 1 week ago
I really enjoyed the hate mail. Some of them are true believers and talk just like their creator. It shows. hahaaha
FreeTibetChinaOUT 1 week ago
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nice one, cool...
charissemaelucero 1 week ago
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LOL Your destiny is all fucked up! You fucking atheist!
loayzc10 1 week ago
Comment removed
Tyrroi 1 week ago 3
@Tyrroi Wow are you kidding me? 14:26
For fucks sake
loayzc10 1 week ago
@loayzc10 Counter Troll is impressive.
Tyrroi 1 week ago
@loayzc10 doh ho ho ho ho.
Hillarious dude.
DeMause 1 week ago
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BORING.
aemptypage2 1 week ago
@aemptypage2 UNNECESSARY.
16min5k 1 week ago
@16min5k EXACTLY. UNECESSARY BECAUSE IT IS BORING.
aemptypage2 1 week ago
To the hate mail I must say; welcome to the south.
ardillomaan 1 week ago
i like the way he says 'fucking' hahaha
njin72 1 week ago
Awww, those Christians sure do pour on the love, don't they? Not a malicious bone in their bodies - after all, God said 'Love thy enemy!'. Hateful cunts and hypocrits to the last....
Relbl 1 week ago
I laughed at the hate mail until I realised that those people actually think those things...
moltencheese123 1 week ago 50
OMG the hate mail was hilarious!
MasterRC 1 week ago 34
If you belive in 'god' go bother someone else. lol This is a message to all of my friends. 'Keep the faith'. Please.
101truthhurts 1 week ago
We're beat anyway. There's just too much poverty now. People need god and shit like that like. WE'RE BEAT. Human socieity BEAT US IN THE END. BASTARDS.
101truthhurts 1 week ago
What a smart man. smart. If evolution is aware, Prof. Dawkins and his type, Sam Harris, C. Hitchens will look on at our wee tawdry way of going on. LONG LIVE SCIENCE AND TRUTH.
101truthhurts 1 week ago
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What a smart man. smart. If evolution is aware, Prof. Dawkins and his type, Sam Harris, C. Hitchens live et al
101truthhurts 1 week ago
What a smart man. smart. If evolution is aware, Prof. Dawkins and his type, Sam Harris, C. Hitchens live et al
101truthhurts 1 week ago
"You're destiny is all FUCKED UP"
lololol
xAirwave182 2 weeks ago
@xAirwave182 I cracked up laughing too.
rawrnerozero 1 week ago
Came here to see if Dawkins would issue forth a string of expletives in his gorgeous accent. I came away disappointed.
Antiks72 2 weeks ago
'Why do we have sex'
Does Dawkins mean for pleasure ?
supernoodlerage 2 weeks ago
@supernoodlerage your kidding right ? he means why is sex the means of reproduction, why has evolution chosen that path for mixing genes...
maioca17 1 week ago
It's sad that he considers himself a scientist when his goal is not knowledge, but the abolishment of religion. He not only puts undue emphasis on evolution as the source of life, but without any evidence believes it to be the only way. We must FIRST prove empirically that life can even originate from amino acids and from there evolve into all life. And this is where problems arise because people take limited evidence and piece it into the picture they want to display and that's not science.
Knarf009 2 weeks ago
@Knarf009 Firstly, holy shit you're dumb.. His goal is the truth, the facts, that is why religion should be abolished.. Without any evidence? are you fucking kidding? You have no idea at all, we have evidence!
LoluskPoo 2 weeks ago
@Knarf009 I strongly suggest you read his book "The Greatest Show On Earth". That would answer all your complaints about him...and no doubt answer a lot of your misconceptions regarding evolution through natural selection as well.
shiva369 2 weeks ago
@shiva369 There are no misconceptions in my comment. It is a fact that the proposed theory regarding the origin of life has yet to be supported with empirical evidence. Before anything else, we must first prove that life can begin by chance. You cannot ignore the scientific method simply because we lack the means to properly execute it in this case. This is what it means to be a skeptic, and it is a trait severely lacking among evolutionary biologists and crusaders against religion.
Knarf009 1 week ago
@Knarf009 So...evolutionary biology is wrong because nobody can duplicate the first amino acids becoming "life"...yet? Does it really matter that we haven't found that exact point of beginning? The results of it are all around us and well established, testable facts, aren't they?The Big Bang theory took off and was accepted because of the sheer weight of evidence pointing to it, well before the LHC fired up and started edging us to within miliseconds of the answer.
shiva369 1 week ago
@shiva369 If you're going to preach using reason then maybe you should use it. I haven't said anything is right or wrong, because I don't know. I wasn't there at the formation of life and neither was anyone else, so I simply don't know. And your argument is just as meaningful as saying "well, we're here so obviously god did it!" We don't understand the breadth of evolution's affect on life, nor can we replicate, what we're proposing evolution accounts for, in a lab. That's just faith.
Knarf009 1 week ago
@Knarf009 "If you're going to preach using reason..." - Who's preaching? "your argument is just as meaningful as saying "well we're here so obviously god did it"" - Preposterous. Nice try though "That's just faith" - And that's just trolling.
shiva369 1 week ago
@shiva369 Nice rebuttal.
Knarf009 1 week ago
@Knarf009
"trait severely lacking"
? It is a scientist's *job* to be sceptical. It's what he does for a living. So how do you justify your claim that evolutionary biologists "lack the trait" of scepticism?
XGralgrathor 1 week ago
@XGralgrathor Because their skepticism doesn't apply to their own beliefs. Dawkin's has himself stated that shared DNA proves that all species originated from a single source. That's not being skeptical, that's certainty in a mechanism we can't replicate or test, That's stopping at the hypothesis step and professing a conclusion with certainty. How is that skepticism? He's not skeptical of his own conclusions, rather he preaches them dogmatically as a weapon against religion.
Knarf009 1 week ago
@Knarf009
"doesn't apply"
It does.
"himself stated that"
So? I'm sure I wouldn't use the word "prove", but I might convey the same sentiment: what we find in DNA makes common ancestry virtually impossible to reject. And that's simply the truth: the multitude of converging phylogenies resulting from genetic assays *do* make it impossible to all but a handful of religiously motivated dissenters to reject common descent. All scepticism doesn't change that.
XGralgrathor 1 week ago
@XGralgrathor Do we have samples of DNA from our supposed ancestors? Can we test the idea? Can we trace our ancestry back to our supposed primate through DNA? No, because our ancestors are extinct and haven't left DNA for us to examine. We have some skeletons and we have similar DNA to modern apes, but proving takes much much more than that. Any scientist can tell you that conventional wisdom regularly comes up short when you put your hypothesis to the test.
Knarf009 1 week ago
@Knarf009
"samples from our supposed ancestors?"
You know very well on what basis it is established that modern life shares common ancestors. Don't pretend to be dumber than you are.
XGralgrathor 1 week ago
@Knarf009
"ancestry back to our supposed primate"
We have. We know from comparative genomics, which supports morphological assay, that we are primates, and that we therefore must have had primate ancestors.
XGralgrathor 1 week ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@Knarf009
"similar DNA"
Apparently you have completely failed to pick up on the fact that we do not simply have "similar DNA", but that we have similarities and differences occurring in a *pattern* of nested hierarchies.
XGralgrathor 1 week ago
@Knarf009
"conventional wisdom"
Conventional wisdom is that common descent produces nested hierarchies. Conventional wisdom is that if everything we have points in the direction of common descent, it is silly to claim the hypothesis to be invalid.
XGralgrathor 1 week ago
@XGralgrathor wait, what is conventional wisdom again? I don't get it....um....BORING.
aemptypage2 1 week ago
@Knarf009
"not being skeptical"
Then by your logic, accepting that the Earth is not the middle of the universe is not beying sceptical - hell, accepting that the Earth is not flat is not being sceptical.
Kid, accepting a well-supported idea does not mean not being sceptical. One can be sceptical and still accept things when they're well-substantiated. Capiche?
XGralgrathor 1 week ago
@XGralgrathor We can empirically prove both the earth is not flat nor is it the center of the universe. If you don't understand the issue I'm discussing then please do not comment on it.
Knarf009 1 week ago
@Knarf009
"can't replicate or test"
But we can. We can replicate common ancestry, because we do it all the time. Every brother or sister out there has a common ancestor in their parents, and their DNA shows it, just like it shows it for their distant ancestors, including the non-human apes from which we descended. And testing a hypothesis is another matter altogether: it doesn't require direct observation of the thing itself, or we wouldn't have any of the physics we have today.
MrGralgrathor 1 week ago
@MrGralgrathor We don't have our supposed non-human ape ancestors DNA to substantiate any of this. I could be raised by two people and look like them, but without having the parent and child's DNA then there is no way to substantiate the claim that the parents are blood relatives. Furthermore, Physics can be tested. Theoretical Physics is another story.
Knarf009 1 week ago
@Knarf009
"the parent and child's DNA"
False. We don't need the parent's DNA to establish how closely related two human individuals are.
XGralgrathor 1 week ago
@Knarf009
"begin by chance"
Note that scientists do not actually claim that life "began by chance", and that in fact the scientific pursuit is to establish the mechanisms by which life arose - which is tantamount to *excluding* chance as anything more than a factor in such mechanisms.
XGralgrathor 1 week ago
@Knarf009 You are not a skeptic, you are simply lazy and willfully ignorant. Whether life began by chance is irrelevant. Evolution deals with how organic life changes over time. I suggest you look up abiogenesis and other relevant explanations
DarkPrince0fWGTN 6 days ago
Doesn't sex just vastly increase different variety, without losing the species survivability, ending up with a larger, more diverse population for evolution to act upon?
wimscheers 2 weeks ago
@wimscheers Yeah, I was suprised he considered "why do we have sex" as unanswered. It "reshuffles" the genome allowing for greater diversity and most fatal combinations self-abort early on (i.e. less energy used by the mother).
Maybe he meant to ask "why don't we have sex," to the female interviewer. lol
rusman74x 1 week ago
the third one........
firehand1011 2 weeks ago
richard dawkins is such a beast
theonlyartist1992 2 weeks ago
I think sex is supposed to be there as a way to develop our mollecular build. If you think about it, certain types of hair eye colour, or skins are dying out. Plus it could be a tool of sexuality and attraction to help develop a co dependant relationship, as well as social mechanisms to help the species grow stronger in the distribution of genetics, knowledge, and strength in numbers, giving humans a reason to be together. But im just 14, what do i know.
biofinget 2 weeks ago
@biofinget I'd say that's a very good answer
Cal8881 2 weeks ago
@biofinget For a 14 year old, I dare say you're way ahead of most 41 year olds in regards to the facts about sex.
shiva369 2 weeks ago
8:39 maybe I don't understand the question, but isn't the answer to "why we have sex" blatantly obvious to an evolutionary biologist? We have sex so that your genes can continue to exist, right? if I'm missing something, point it out to me
chimneyface 2 weeks ago
@chimneyface I'm guessing he's asking why it takes two people to reproduce instead of one.
Excalibur0551 2 weeks ago
@Excalibur0551 yes but biologists also have a good understanding of sexual vs asexual reproduction too
chimneyface 2 weeks ago
@chimneyface The question has a little bit more depth then that. When Dawkins asks 'Why do we have sex', he means why did our ancestors develop into depending on reproducing with a partner, instead of cloning ourselves naturally?
I think I have a pretty good idea of why we do, though. But, I'm no scientist.
nazi8per 2 weeks ago
Comment removed
maioca17 1 week ago
@chimneyface Honestly, I think he's joking.
thirtysilver 1 week ago
13:26 Co-religionists.
beetmatchfail 2 weeks ago
I have to take issue with the question at 6:30
"What can atheists do... to move toward a more secular atheist society?"
Secular is not synonymous with atheist - secular means neutral.
revjimbob 2 weeks ago
@revjimbob Wait, how is secular neutral? Doesn't theist vs atheist present a fairly black white spectrum? I mean, you either believe there is a theistic deity or you don't... I didn't think there was a middle ground.
Redezem 2 weeks ago
@Redezem Secularism has literally nothing to do with religion.
lamerizzle 2 weeks ago 2
@Redezem
Wikipedia:
"Secularity is the state of being separate from religion, or not being exclusively allied to any particular religion."
Check a dictionary before arguing mate.
revjimbob 2 weeks ago
@Redezem
Secular State from Wikipedia:
"A secular state is a concept of secularism, whereby a state or country purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion"
revjimbob 2 weeks ago
@revjimbob Right-o. Third point argument. Gotcha.
Did not know that xD
Redezem 2 weeks ago
I just borrowed Darwin's Origins of species in my library. Going to be fascinating to read it! :D
warmsteel 2 weeks ago
Anyone else notice when he was reading the hate mail that one said 3 words from god to you "You are a fool"... Apparently god can't count to 4
jdh100000 2 weeks ago
hahaha oh my god the reading of the hatemail is the best part
000MidnightSun 2 weeks ago 3
I'm from the US, and I was taught evolution in high school. I don't know how else we would have learned anything about biology seeing as that's what it's all based on. My teacher did tell us that she had had some students who challenged her (going as far as bringing a bible to class and arguing with her) and someone in my class actually asked her why they didn't teach a creationism class as well as biology. It doesn't make much sense to me, keep doing what you're doing Mr. Dawkins :)
Fishtastic0303 2 weeks ago 6
Is there a place where all rational people could go on earth and we could start our own country?
nomercyevolution 2 weeks ago 81
@nomercyevolution sweden. all atheists go to sweden.
TheStylishUndead 2 weeks ago 3
@nomercyevolution That sounds nice, but generally speaking that would probably be far worse for the world - the remaining irrational people could take even longer to get with the times if we went somewhere else. In addition I see no reason to think that the net economic benefits would make it worth it, in fact that could be devastating. It's a nice fantasy but IRL would be terrible.
Jotto999 2 weeks ago
@nomercyevolution Don't you worry, just come to Norway.
nazi8per 2 weeks ago
@nomercyevolution Sweden's almost there... 85% Atheists.
jackhwo1 2 weeks ago
@jackhwo1 Actually yeah! I love Sweden!
TurtlesinParadise 2 weeks ago
@nomercyevolution Lets claim British Columbia in Canada. It is awesome there.
TurtlesinParadise 2 weeks ago
@nomercyevolution north america + australia. just ship the junk back to europe.
amad0c 2 weeks ago
@nomercyevolution Sweden is the closest I can think of.
lucymango123 2 weeks ago
@nomercyevolution it is called sweden
judicum 2 weeks ago
@nomercyevolution Lets try moon. : )
Rosvosektori 2 weeks ago
He should read his hate mail more often. that was entertaining.
nomercyevolution 2 weeks ago 2
MY OWN COMMENT RENDERS MY COMMENT MOOT. FUCK! I should stoop commenting when i'm high.
nomercyevolution 2 weeks ago
I thought over the course of this video "what makes his opinion better then mine or any other commenter on youtube" and it's this. His opinion is developed through education and enforced by his accomplishments. Him and other accomplished scientist are better equipped at debating the merits of life and god and everything. The rest of us should shut the fuck up about our "opinions" atheist or otherwise.
nomercyevolution 2 weeks ago
i wish i could meet this man
NewMangosOntheBlock 2 weeks ago 2
reddit = big circle jerk
You're too good to be answering questions from reddit Mr. Dawkins.
ShadowstepSH 2 weeks ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
For such an intelligent man, it seems a great shame for him not to be able to understand the importance for faith and religion for humans.
TheDefiantBadger 3 weeks ago
@TheDefiantBadger A thousand years ago, I'd agree with you. Religion was strongest when scientific and technological development were at the bottom, simply because people didn't have the knowledge and tools to investigate and answer why this and this behaved likes this.
Ohnoezhumenz 3 weeks ago
@TheDefiantBadger Why is faith important? Besides religion, what other part of your life is faith important? You only believe that faith is important because that's the only thing which sustains religion.
Now, why is religion important? Why is a belief in a supernatural sky daddy important? And don't give me that morality BS, because atheists all over the world have shown that you can have morals without religions.
sleazybtd 3 weeks ago
@sleazybtd I'm not getting into this rubbish.
TheDefiantBadger 2 weeks ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@TheDefiantBadger [I'm not getting into this rubbish.]
Exactly. Every time an atheist asks a question that no theist can answer, you can always depend on the theist to either run or throw out a bunch of red herrings. You can't answer the question as to why faith is important, so you pretend to take the moral high ground that you refuse to get into such discussions. In reality, you have no answer and refuse to admit it, so you run. You can't even be honest with yourself.
sleazybtd 2 weeks ago
Is that really the case in the US, that teachers are afraid to teach evolution? That's outrageous. I'd be furious with my kids' school if that happened here in Australia.
shiva369 3 weeks ago 56
@shiva369
Yes, it's true. For two reasons: 1 - parents are retarded; 2 - teachers are retarded.
I used to teach high school. I gave up... not because I couldn't teach evolution, but because the kids and their parents were unbearable. They hold teachers in a very low regard.
supowit 3 weeks ago
@supowit It's unfortunate you gave up. Sorry to hear that. I think back to when I was in school. I could count the number of good teachers I had on one hand.
nomercyevolution 2 weeks ago
@shiva369 It varies from state to state, but yes. In many states (especially the Southern USA), it is law that equal weight must be given to Intelligent Design, or Creationism. Absolutely absurd.
vonjedi420 2 weeks ago
@vonjedi420 .... always got to pick on us in the South
but it is true lol...... Most schools here won't even hire a teacher that believes in evolution. Total indoctrination....... thank Zenu for the internet so at least some of us can be enlightened...
LogantheLibertarian 2 weeks ago
@vonjedi420 That's very sad. Believe me, I would be the last to hold my own country up as an example of all that's good and wise, because it is far from that, but to see a nation with the power and influence (unprecedented in world history) of the US giving in to such nonsense is scary, frankly. I know there are a lot of motivated people there doing their best to change this state of affairs, and I wish them all the best.
shiva369 2 weeks ago
@shiva369 Thanks. As a frequent visitor to both the UK and Oz, we folks of reason in the US are trying to change the state of affairs.
newchris1 2 weeks ago 2
@shiva369 Depends where in the US. Bible belt is notorious for this kind of shit, while other areas laugh at creationists.
cooltiger4 2 weeks ago
@shiva369 Sadly 85% of Americans are theists (mostly Christian). And around 40% of Americans are creationists.
jackhwo1 2 weeks ago
@shiva369
In certain parts of the South and rural North, yes.
I hate being forced to live under the banner "In God We Trust."
Surya112 2 weeks ago
@Surya112 I would hate to live under "In God We Trust" as well...I'm guessing the Founding Fathers would too. They wanted the US to be secular in all respects, didn't they? That's be something, a secular United States...a secular world, in fact. People keeping their religion at home and letting science do the teaching and governing.
shiva369 2 weeks ago
@shiva369
Yes the Founding Fathers wanted a secular government. Almost all of them have been documented as saying they're against religion.
And I agree, I truly think a secular world would be a better world.
Surya112 2 weeks ago
@shiva369 The Founding Fathers were predominately deists. Furthermore science is not a governing force. Science is a method we employ in order to better understand the world around us. Pose a question, gather information, form a hypothesis, test the hypothesis with the goal to disprove it, analyze the data, and draw a conclusion. This is proper science, and all that science is. Science does not teach, it is a means for gathering knowledge that must be relayed through biased humans.
Knarf009 1 week ago
@Knarf009 Ok, I should've said reason or secularism or the like should do the teaching/ governing- whatever. My point was that superstition should be kept as far away as possible from government and places of education. As for "science does not teach"..ehhhh, yeah...
shiva369 1 week ago
@shiva369 What is this superstition? The idea that a being or beings beyond our comprehension created our universe and seeded our planet is no more unlikely than the notion that matter came into existence from nothingness. To look at the vastness of space and feel any sense of certainty on our origin is nothing short of an exercise in faith. "Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld." Science should never be faith.
Knarf009 1 week ago
@Knarf009 If your actual gripe can be summed up as "science doesn't know the origin of life", then the obvious retort would be "yeah, and?". If you do as I suggested earlier and read Dawkins' book, you'll see neither he or anyone else in scientific circles is saying they "know". They have ideas on it, based on things they do know, but if nobody can replicate it in the lab just yet, then what of it? That neither proves or disproves anything.
shiva369 1 week ago
@shiva369 Are you dim or are you just ignoring the glaring problem with that? If you do not know, then how can you tell others that they are wrong? How can you use ideas held in uncertainty as a blunt instrument to beat your way of thinking into others? I love science, but not when it's used as a tool to unjustly attack others and what they choose to believe. Too many liberties are taken with how the information is interpreted and to be a gnostic-atheist with what we know is dogma.
Knarf009 1 week ago
@shiva369
My teacher wasn't able to teach evolution outside of a dedicated Biology class in a Lutheran school in Brisbane.While our Religion teachers sprouted all sorts of wanton bullshit.
WrecklessLAW 2 weeks ago
It's funny because you won't find a HINT of positive publicity for Dawkins in America. In America there are no religious debates on TV and no TV channel will air anything disagreeing with religion, we're shut in with the crazies over here.
pkingsdead 3 weeks ago
@pkingsdead You tolerant, rational, americans should come to canada then and we could try to outnumber the idiots here. there's a better chance of us having a majority in a country with a smaller population.
nomercyevolution 2 weeks ago
@pkingsdead The atheist experience is one such show, but it's on public access. No matter because we have the interwebs.
Antiks72 2 weeks ago
He looks an awful lot like James May from this perspective. Weird.
primzahl13 3 weeks ago
They should have a series where they do readings of hate mail of public figures.
MrNicMachiavelli 3 weeks ago
I'm pissing myself at the thought that Christians are sending such disgusting messages..!! Dawkins hate mail, I think he should do a whole series..!!
cazkelly 3 weeks ago
"i read your book about the bible, it is totally sucks ass!!!" is probably the funniest thing ive ever heard..
gl3110 3 weeks ago
@gl3110 you read Dawkin's book and are saying it sucks ass?
MrNicMachiavelli 3 weeks ago
@MrNicMachiavelli what?....did you watch the video?...i was saying one of his hate mails was particularly hilarious...
gl3110 3 weeks ago
@gl3110 yeah, I wrote that before he reached the hate mail.
MrNicMachiavelli 3 weeks ago
"and right now, your destiny IS ALL FUCKED UP you fucking Atheist!!!"
slexyottoman 3 weeks ago
@slexyottoman why are our destinies fucked up?
MrNicMachiavelli 3 weeks ago
@MrNicMachiavelli ... I was quoting his hate mail at 14:21
slexyottoman 3 weeks ago
@MrNicMachiavelli You watched the video, didn't you? @slexyottoman and @gl3110 were quoting the funny hate mail Richard was reading. Hence the quotation marks.
SeveredFootLoki 3 weeks ago