FEATURE INTERVIEWGET T YIMAGESX2,ALAMY“ e real reason why I’m
opposed to religion is that it
stunts the understanding of the
wonderful world, the wonderful
Universe in which we live”
2 With the anti-vaxxers ... there is widespread
hostility to big pharmaceutical companies, and with
some good reason actually. It would be easy enough,
if you are heavily committed to criticising Big
Pharma, to think that being an anti-vaxxer is a part of
that. What we want is for people to think critically
and clearly about each individual case and not lump
things together if they’re not really lumpable.THE COMMUNITY THAT YOU TALK ABOUT, THE
SORT THAT FLAT-EARTHERS FORM. IT’S ALMOST
SIMILAR TO RELIGION...
I think it is. Not in every respect. It’s not
supernatural. So, once again, we mustn’t lump
things together too much, but there’s a certain
amount in common where it’s worth making
the comparison.
FOR THAT REASON – BECAUSE IT’S SUCH A
COMMUNITY – COULD WE NEVER LIVE IN A
WORLD WITHOUT RELIGION?
If it’s really true that people need the sort of
fellowship that religion gives them, then it should
be possible to find it in different ways, and I think a
love of science goes a long way; you can join other
people with that.
Or you can just say, well, truth actually matters.
And truth is more important than fellowship, than
belonging to a community of like-minded people.
I think a lot of people immediately jump into a
feeling of ‘how does that square with my group? My
people? My club?’ If we’re left-wing, we think that
everything’s got to fit in with that; if we’re right-
wing, everything’s got to fit in with that.
I would hope that people could learn to judge
each truth-claim on its merits and not judge it
whether it somehow fits in with their prior
prejudices.
YOU HAVE ONE OF THE BIGGEST FOLLOWINGS OF
ANY SCIENTIST ON TWITTER. WOULD YOU SAY
YOU’RE A FAN OF SOCIAL MEDIA?
I’m not sure about social media. I’m a great fan of
being able to look things up on the internet. I’m just
bowled over with admiration for the vision of people
who put it together, Tim Berners-Lee [the English
scientist who invented the World Wide Web] and so
on. I think it’s probably outstretched even what they
imagined would happen.
As for social media, I’ve been impressed by the
negative things, like [investigative journalist] Carole
Cadwalladr’s uncovering of the truly shocking way
in which Facebook was used to manipulate both
Brexit and the Trump election. It’s absolutely clear
that Cambridge Analytica, and probably various
other companies, shamelessly used masses and
masses of personal information – about all of us,
you, me and everybody – and sold that to the Trump
campaign and the Brexit campaign, enabling them to
target individual voters with particular propaganda
tailor-made for them. They know what your likes
are, your preferences are – probably more than you
know yourself.
That’s a highly pernicious effect of, above all,
Facebook. I don’t do Facebook myself – I do Twitter,- Richard Dawkins at the Bluedot
Festival in 2018 - From le to right: chemist and
Nobel Laureate Harold Kroto,
retired cosmonaut Alexi Leonov,
evolutionary biologist Richard
Dawkins, former Queen guitarist
Brian May, theoretical physicist
Stephen Hawking and
astrophysicist Garik Israelian on
stage for the announcement of
Hawking’s Starmus medal for
science communication in
December 2015 - A younger Richard Dawkins
1