On Faith

Richard Dawkins is an eminent British ethologist, evolutionary theorist, and popular science writer who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.

Richard Dawkins is an eminent British ethologist, evolutionary theorist and popular science writer who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, which popularized the gene-centric view of evolution and introduced the terms meme and memetics into the lexicon. He is well-known for his Darwinian view of religion.

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The Arrogance of Faith

To Richard Dawkins, faith means belief in the absence of evidence. And he's more than a little miffed that our society has a hands-off policy when it comes to criticizing and debating religion. We debate a lot about different things: politics, law, ethics and sports.

Dawkins jokes that faith can sometimes be caught like a virus from a charismatic preacher. This is his elusion to how more times than not religious faith is hereditary, passed on from parents to children. It runs deep and is rarely questioned.

Science is most often accused of arrogance, so it's ironic that Dawkins' biggest issue seems to be with faith's arrogance. He points to its "I know the truth and have no doubt" attitude and the belief that faith should somehow be above criticism, while other topics and beliefs are fair game doesn't seem fair. "It's about time we started criticizing faith," says Dawkins. And he believes faith will not be able to withstand being criticized, adding that there are no arguments in its favor.

He believes science's ability to admit its ignorance is one of its greatest strengths. "Science has the humility to realize that there is a lot that we don't and maybe won't understand."

Dawkins closes by using the evolution theory as an example of the non-arrogance of science. "Evolution is only a theory. It's one of the crosses we bear." (Pun intended)