Richard Dawkins has a new book. Well, a collection of old essays really. Jerry Coyne gives it a good review in Nature. Some of the quotes are delicious. For example, here's Dawkins on Sephen Jay Gould's idea that no new phyla — only lower level taxa — are currently evolving:
It is as though a gardener looked at an old oak tree and remarked wonderingly: "Isn't it strange that no major boughs have appeared on this tree recently. These days all the new growth appears to be at the twig level!".
And here he is in defence of atheism:
Modern theists might acknowledge that, when it comes to Baal and the Golden Calf, Thor and Wotan, Poseidon and Apollo, Mithras and Ammon Ra, they're actually atheists. We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
Finally, on religious xenophobia (shortly after 9/11):
To label people as death-deserving enemies because of disagreements about real-world politics is bad enough. To do the same for disagreements about a delusional world inhabited by by archangels, demons, and imaginary friends is ludicrously tragic.Posted by timo at April 26, 2003 01:57 PM | TrackBack