Few residing thinkers have been as influential—or controversial—as Richard Dawkins. An evolutionary biologist by coaching, Dawkins rose to prominence together with his 1976 ebook The Egocentric Gene, which revolutionized the general public understanding of evolution by shifting the main target from organisms to the genes that form them (in addition to surfacing the now-ubiquitous idea of the meme, which Dawkins outlined as items of cultural transmission or imitation). Within the many years since, he has change into nearly as well-known for his critiques of faith as for his scientific work, with 2006’s The God Delusion establishing him as one of many world’s most outspoken atheists. Dawkins’ work exhibits why free inquiry and the scientific methodology are important for human progress, particularly when they’re beneath menace from non secular dogma or new types of ideological orthodoxy.
On this wide-ranging dialog with Cause‘s Nick Gillespie, recorded reside in September 2024 in Milwaukee as a part of Dawkins’ Last Bow tour, the 2 focus on the central metaphor of Dawkins’ newest ebook, The Genetic Ebook of the Useless, which presents each organism as a type of residing archive of evolutionary historical past. He explains how cooperation amongst genes—not simply competitors—drives pure choice. The 2 additionally discover the function of atheism in a altering ethical panorama, whether or not science requires a particular cultural or political atmosphere to thrive, and what people would possibly gravitate towards subsequent as perception in conventional faith continues to say no.
Cause: I first encountered your work as an undergrad. I used to be a double main in psychology and English. When studying your work, I could not imagine that I used to be studying science as a result of I understood what you have been saying. However in The Genetic Ebook of the Useless, you utilize a time period—palimpsest—as a controlling metaphor. What’s a palimpsest, and why is it so vital to what you are doing on this ebook?
Dawkins: A palimpsest is a manuscript which is erased after which the parchment is used once more. Within the days when paper was not obtainable, individuals wrote on parchment. It was fairly scarce; they’d reuse it. The purpose of it within the ebook is that each animal bears in itself—in its genes and in its physique—an outline of the worlds wherein its ancestors survived. This, it appears to me, follows from pure choice. The animal has been put collectively by a complete lot of choice pressures over many hundreds of thousands of years.
Within the ebook, you speak about how that palimpsest is typically actually on the organism’s pores and skin or shell. What’s a great instance of that?
Any camouflaged animal that sits on the background that it resembles. I take advantage of the instance of a lizard within the Mojave Desert, which has, kind of, painted on its again an image of desert. The entire of its again is a portray of the desert. Any camouflaged animal is an apparent instance. My thesis is that that precept should apply to each cell, each biochemical course of, each element, each a part of the animal.
In The Egocentric Gene, you debunked the concept that we’re in management as people—you stated we’re being utilized by genes. On this ebook, you’ve got outdone your self by saying that we are literally a cooperative of viruses. I suppose my query is: What do you have got towards human beings?
Effectively, The Egocentric Gene had what you’d name a sting within the tail—the final chapter switched to a unique subject, which was memes. I assumed this ebook ought to have a sting within the tail as nicely, and so that is this concept that we’re a huge colony of cooperating viruses.
One in every of my books known as The Prolonged Phenotype. That is the concept that the genes in an animal work to outlive not simply by influencing the physique of the animal wherein they sit—they attain exterior the animal, and a part of the so-called phenotype of the genes is exterior the physique. An apparent instance is a chicken’s nest or a bowerbird’s bower, which isn’t part of the animal however which nonetheless is a Darwinian adaptation. It is formed by pure choice. And this should imply that there are genes for nest form, genes for bower form. This precept of the prolonged phenotype applies not simply to inanimate objects like nests and bowers. It applies to different people. A parasite can affect the habits of the host wherein it sits to be able to additional its designs as a parasite. That implies that the genes within the parasite are having phenotypic results on the physique and habits of the host.
Now, if you concentrate on a parasite in an animal—like a worm or a virus or a bacterium—its process is to get into the following host. There are two methods wherein it will probably do that.
It may be expelled from the host not directly, like sneezed out or coughed out of the host, after which breathed in by the following host. When a parasite exits the physique by some such route, it has no nice curiosity within the survival of the host wherein it sits. For all it cares, the host can die.
However what a couple of parasite which passes to the following host through the gametes, through the eggs or sperms of the current host? Effectively, a parasite whose hope for the longer term is to enter the progeny, into the offspring of the current host, if you concentrate on it, its prolonged phenotype, its goals, its wishes, its hopes for the longer term might be an identical to the genes of the host. It’s going to need the host to be a profitable survivor. It’s going to need the host to be a profitable reproducer. It’s going to need the host to be sexually engaging, to be a great mum or dad, as a result of every little thing about what the host regards as success, particularly having offspring, would be the similar as what the parasite regards as a hit, particularly, the host having offspring.
All our personal genes: The one cause they cooperate in constructing us—in constructing the physique, in constructing any animal—is that all of them have the identical pursuits at coronary heart. All of them get into the following era through the gametes of the host. In different phrases, they’ve the identical curiosity at coronary heart in precisely the identical method as a virus that will get handed on within the gametes, or a bacterium that will get handed on in gametes. In order that’s why I say that every one our personal genes may be thought to be equal to a huge colony of cooperating viruses.
Are you turning into a softy? While you printed The Egocentric Gene in 1976, evolution appeared to me extra about competitors and the survival of the fittest. Now you are talking extra about cooperation. What moved you away from competitors and towards cooperation?
I feel that is a misunderstanding. I am not turning into a softy, or moderately, I all the time was a softy, as a result of The Egocentric Gene isn’t actually about selfishness. It is about selfishness on the stage of the gene, however that interprets out into altruism on the ranges of the person, or it will probably. And that is largely what the ebook is about. Genes are egocentric within the sense that they’re striving to get into the following era. That is what they do. They’re, in a way, immortal. However they do it by cooperating. I’ve all the time stated that.
In The Egocentric Gene, there is a chapter wherein I’ve the analogy of a rowing race the place you have got eight males sitting in a row in a ship, and so they’re cooperating. That is what the genes are doing. The genes are cooperating in constructing a physique that may carry all of them to the following era through replica. So that they must cooperate.
We’re all the time in search of the gene that controls this or controls that. You say that is a misnomer. The place does that misunderstanding come from?
While you speak about a gene for something, it is tempting to suppose that there is a gene for this bit and a gene for this bit. It is not like that. Genes are extra just like the phrases of a recipe or a pc program, the place they work collectively to supply a complete embryo, after which a complete physique. Genes cooperate within the technique of embryology.
The rationale why you may, to some extent, speak about a gene for that’s that you simply give attention to the variations between people. Gregor Mendel, for instance, studied wrinkled peas and easy peas. Effectively, what he is actually speaking about there’s particular person variations. A genetic distinction controls a person distinction. Say, the Habsburg chin—the hereditary malformation of the chin which affected the royal households of Europe. There are tons and many genes that enter into the making of a chin, however what this specific gene does is to make the distinction between any individual who has the Habsburg chin and any individual who does not. So “gene for X” all the time means “gene for the distinction between any individual who has X and any individual who does not have X.”
You additionally speak about how a cultural change can have evolutionary penalties, such because the taming of fireplace and the shrinking of jaws and tooth.
There is a ebook by Richard Wrangham, who’s an anthropologist at Harvard, in regards to the significance of cooking on human evolution. One of many belongings you see as you have a look at the human fossil report is that our jaws have shrunk. Our ancestors had a lot larger, extra highly effective jaws than we now have. Wrangham thinks that that is due to the invention of fireplace, the invention of cooking, which enabled us to make meals much less robust. We did not want such highly effective jaws. And in order that’s an interplay between tradition, particularly the taming of fireplace and the event of cooking, and genetic evolution.
Over what time interval does that emerge?
Effectively, it appears to be like as if Homo erectus, which is our rapid ancestor species, which lived about one million years in the past, had fireplace. It is not completely particular, however there do look like archeological stays of hearths suggesting that that they had fireplace, and so they in all probability had cooking. No less than Wrangham thinks so. So perhaps one million years.
Final 12 months, you wrote an article in The Spectator known as “Why I am sticking up for science” in regards to the adoption of sure Māori origin myths being introduced as science in New Zealand faculties. What was happening there?
This can be a very unusual enterprise. I arrived in New Zealand and was instantly conscious that I used to be within the midst of an important controversy. The New Zealand authorities—which was then a socialist authorities; it is modified now, however the current authorities is doing the identical factor—is importing compulsorily into science courses in New Zealand faculties, Māori myths. And they’re being given equal standing to what they name “Western science.” Which is simply science. It is not “Western”; it is simply science.
So the kids in New Zealand are, I might have thought, being bewildered by, on the one hand, studying in regards to the massive bang and the origin of life and DNA and issues like that; however, they’re being informed it is all because of this sky father and the earth mom in all probability having it off collectively. It is pandering to, I feel, a type of guilt that white New Zealanders really feel towards the Māori indigenous inhabitants, and bending over backward to point out respect to the indigenous inhabitants. And I feel that is fantastic—it might be nice for New Zealand kids to find out about Māori tradition and myths in courses on anthropology and historical past. However to deliver them into science courses—that is simply not science.
I grew to become concerned as a result of quite a lot of distinguished scientists in New Zealand—fellows of the New Zealand Royal Society, which is the New Zealand equal of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences right here—had written a letter protesting about this to a New Zealand journal known as the Listener. As a consequence, that they had their lectures canceled, they have been threatened with expulsion, actually fairly disagreeable victimization of those distinguished scientists. And I had lunch with about half a dozen of them and heard all about it from them.
Broadly talking, how vital is it that you simply have been born at a time if you have been in a position to make the most of a liberal political period in order that you might do a number of the work that you simply did? In case you had been born 200 years earlier or 20 years later, perhaps not, proper?
Completely. Very, crucial.
What do you suppose accounts for that type of social and ethical progress that makes us extra open as a society?
I’m fascinated by this. In certainly one of my books, The God Delusion, I speak in regards to the shifting ethical zeitgeist. One thing modifications because the centuries go by. You’ve got solely acquired to return to, say, the mid–nineteenth century, the place individuals like Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Henry Huxley—who have been within the vanguard of enlightened liberal thought—by immediately’s commonplace have been essentially the most horrible racists. So the shifting ethical zeitgeist is one thing that modifications not simply over the centuries however over many years.
I’m genuinely inquisitive about what it’s within the air that modifications. It appears to me to be a bit like Moore’s regulation in computing, which is a particular mathematical straight line on an extended scale in pc energy. It is not because of anybody factor; it is a composite of issues that I feel the shifting ethical zeitgeist is identical, it’s a composite of conversations at dinner events, journalism, parliamentary/congress selections, technological innovation, books. The whole lot strikes on.
What do you suppose the function of atheism—or a problem to the supremacy of faith—has been, if not as a type of scientific concept of order, then a social or cultural concept of order?
Effectively, I feel atheism is simply wise. In case you have a look at polls in America and in Western Europe, the quantity of people that profess faith is steadily taking place. There are extra non secular individuals in America than there are in the remainder of Western Europe. However it’s coming down. In order that’s a part of the shifting zeitgeist.
A part of that has to do with books that you simply—or the colony of micro organism which are you—wrote. What do you see as essentially the most convincing arguments that you simply superior?
If you wish to imagine one thing, you have to have cause to take action. It is moderately higher to say, “What are essentially the most convincing arguments for theism?” And I am unsure there are any. However, clearly, there are loads that seem convincing to many individuals. The argument from design might be essentially the most highly effective one.
In a method, you type of advance a godless design with evolution, do not you? The whole lot is designed?
Sure, sure. Completely. It is an astonishingly highly effective phantasm of design. And it breaks down in sure locations the place there’s unhealthy design, just like the vertebrate retina being backward, that type of factor. However one of many issues that I attempt to do in most of my books, really, is to point out how superbly excellent the animals are. They actually, actually do look designed. I feel that is in all probability why it took so lengthy for a [Charles] Darwin to return on the scene. Folks simply could not fathom the concept that it may come about via unconscious legal guidelines of physics.
Do you are feeling good that atheism, or perhaps a greater time period is godlessness, is ascendant?
Sure, I do.
Regardless of not believing in God, you have got known as your self a cultural Christian for at the least a decade. What do you imply by that?
Nothing greater than the truth that I used to be educated in Christian faculties and a Christian society. It does not imply I am sympathetic towards it, does not imply I imagine it.
You may have stated that should you needed to reside in a Christian nation or an Islamic nation, you’d decide the Christian nation each time.
Sure, I might not want to reside in a rustic the place the penalty for apostasy is dying, and homosexual individuals are thrown off excessive buildings, and ladies are stoned to dying for the crime of being raped.
There may be an argument that liberal political philosophy, which permits for restricted authorities, free speech, and open inquiry, has its roots in Christianity and the English Civil Struggle. A part of the argument there was that the king didn’t have dominion over different males as a result of we’re all equal in entrance of God. I learn a critique of you saying that you’ve got been within the tree of Christianity and you have been sawing the department off your entire time, and now by calling your self a cultural Christian, you are in a method free using on one thing. How do you reply?
Effectively, I am moderately sorry I stated that factor about being a cultural Christian, as a result of individuals have taken it to imply I am type of sympathetic towards the idea.
Now that factor in regards to the society which lets science be free to do what it does being a Christian society, that is a matter for historians. And so they may be proper. It’s attainable that Christendom was the best breeding floor for science to come up within the seventeenth, 18th, nineteenth centuries. And your level in regards to the English Civil Struggle may very well be legitimate as nicely.
Analysis suggests, with apparent exceptions, that religiosity is declining. Faith has been part of human historical past and civilization. Is there a problem that replaces it?
G.Okay. Chesterton is presumably wrongly thought to have stated, “When males cease believing in faith, they imagine in something.” It is moderately a pessimistic view. I want to suppose you imagine in proof. And I feel it is moderately demeaning to human nature to counsel that giving up one type of nonsense, you’ve got instantly acquired to go and seize on another type of nonsense.
What do you hope you can be remembered for? You’re a palimpsest—you might be writing over the work of earlier scientists and thinkers. What’s the message that sticks round lengthy sufficient to affect individuals after you?
I suppose the message of The Egocentric Gene: that pure choice chooses amongst immortal replicators, which occur to be genes on this planet. It is going to be the identical precept, the Darwinian precept of the nonrandom survival of randomly various, doubtlessly immortal replicators.
This interview has been condensed and edited for type and readability.
