03/02/2011
Der Spiegel
Interview with Scientist Richard Dawkins
'Religion? Reality Has a Grander Magic of its Own'
A sculpture by the British artist Damien Hirst. Is evolution a fact?
Evolution is fact. That, at least, is what evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins argues, making his case in his new book "The Greatest Show on Earth," which has just been published in German. SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke with Dawkins about the shortcomings of religion, the grandeur of reality and the God Gene.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Professor Dawkins, your book "The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution" has just been published in Germany. The German title, though, is "The Creation Lie: Why Darwin Is Right." Are you happy with that?
Dawkins: Not entirely, because it seems to be steering into the direction of negativity. The English title is a positive one. It's uplifting, it's supposed to be exulting, extolling the beauty of life and the beauty of understanding life, whereas the German title is critical and sort of attacking. This is in the book, you can find it there. But the title creates a different emphasis.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What emphasis did you have in mind for the book?
Dawkins: A positive, almost romantic view of life as something that is beautiful and explicable and beautiful because it is explicable. But there is the negative side, as well. It is an attempt to disabuse people, especially in America, but also in other parts of the world, who have become influenced by fundamentalist religion into thinking that life can be and should be explained as all designed. I regard that as a lazy and unhelpful explanation as well as an untrue one.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You never experienced a religious phase in your life?
Dawkins: Of course. I was a child, wasn't I?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You think religion is something we should move beyond as we enter adulthood?
Dawkins: You know what St. Paul said: When I was I child, I spoke as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The American geneticist Dean Hamer postulated the God Gene hypothesis, proposing that humans are genetically hardwired for religious faith.
Dawkins: I'd prefer to say that we have a lot of genetic predispositions for a lot of psychological attributes, which can under the right circumstances add up to religion. But I'm also thinking of things like a predisposition to be obedient towards authority, which might even be useful under certain circumstances. Or a predisposition to be afraid of death or, when frightened, to run to a parental figure. These are all separate psychological predispositions which under the right cultural circumstances end up pushing one into a religion, whichever the religion of one's cultural upbringing. I wouldn't call it a God Gene.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Has religion not been very successful in an evolutionary sense?
Dawkins: The thought that human societies gained strength from religious memes in their competition with others is true to a certain extent. But it is more like an ecological struggle: It reminds me of the replacement of the red by the gray squirrel in Britain. That is not a natural selection process at all, it is an ecological succession. So when a tribe has a war-like god, when the young men are brought up with the thought that their destiny is to go out and fight as warriors and that a martyr's death brings you straight to heaven, you see a set of powerful, mutually reinforcing memes at work. If the rival tribe has a peaceful god who believes in turning the other cheek, that might not prevail.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But following a religion that does not promote the chances for survival seems to contradict evolutionary logic…
Dawkins: Oh yes, clearly there is a conflict between meme and gene survival. We are familiar with such conflicts. They sometimes work out one way, sometimes the other.
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