New Scientist - 21.09.2019

38 | New Scientist | 21 September 2019

“ I want to break

the cycle, not

indoctrinate”

Time hasn’t dimmed Richard Dawkins’s

passion for evolution and a godless world,

Graham Lawton discovers

F

EW scientists have acquired such a high

public profile as Richard Dawkins – and

maintained it amid such controversy.

His first book The Selfish Gene, published in

1976, launched him to fame as a populariser

of evolutionary biology. Eight books and

30 years later, he wrote The God Delusion,

which reinvented him as a ferocious

advocate for atheism.

He chose his subjects well: during his writing

career, evolution and religion have emerged

as fronts in an increasingly vicious culture war

between what he would characterise as the

forces of darkness and superstition and

those of enlightenment and reason.

Both lionised and demonised for his strident

views, he is once again stepping into the fray,

bringing his lifelong passions for evolution

and secularism together in his 15th book,

Outgrowing God: A beginner’s guide.

You’ve written another book about God.

Yes, Outgrowing God, which is for young

people. Teenagers, let’s say – and young

people up to about the age of 99 as well.

It covers a lot of familiar Dawkins territory,

not just God but also evolution. Why did you

feel that people need more on these topics?

I want to encourage people to think for

themselves. I’ve always felt rather passionate

about breaking the cycle as each generation

passes on its superstitions to the next. If you

ask people why they believe in the particular

religion that they do, it’s almost always because

that’s how they were brought up.

I’ve long wanted to try to break that cycle

while being keen not to indoctrinate, because

that’s of course what we criticise religious

people for doing.

My experience of children of that age –

admittedly, largely my own – is that they

are uninterested in religion and don’t

need persuading of the truth of evolution.

I’m glad to hear that. That cannot be true all

over the world, however. It’s certainly not true

in America, where unfortunately religion and

anti-evolution have a real hold, and in the

Islamic world.

Your new book spends a lot of time picking

factual holes in the Bible and pointing out logical

inconsistencies and absurdities. It’s good sport,

but isn’t it a futile exercise?

It’s not futile to people who believe. So many

people have a literalistic, Bible-based faith, and

so they’re actually quite shocked to learn how

little support there is for any Bible stories.

Many people in America are not aware that, JUDE EDGINTON/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES

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