Militant atheism
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0:00 - 0:05That splendid music, the coming-in music --
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0:05 - 0:11"The Elephant March" from "Aida" -- is the music I've chosen for my funeral --
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0:11 - 0:12(Laughter)
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0:12 - 0:17-- and you can see why. It's triumphal.
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0:17 - 0:21I won't feel anything, but if I could,
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0:21 - 0:25I would feel triumphal at having lived at all,
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0:25 - 0:27and at having lived on this splendid planet,
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0:27 - 0:30and having been given the opportunity to understand
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0:30 - 0:37something about why I was here in the first place, before not being here.
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0:37 - 0:44Can you understand my quaint English accent?
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0:44 - 0:50Like everybody else, I was entranced yesterday by the animal session.
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0:50 - 0:55Robert Full and Frans Lanting and others --
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0:55 - 0:57the beauty of the things they showed.
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0:57 - 1:03The only slight jarring note was when Jeffrey Katzenberg said of the mustang,
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1:03 - 1:07"the most splendid creatures that God put on this earth."
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1:07 - 1:10Now of course, we know that he didn't really mean that,
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1:10 - 1:14but in this country at the moment, you can't be too careful.
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1:14 - 1:15(Laughter)
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1:15 - 1:22I'm a biologist, and the central theorem of our subject: the theory of design,
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1:22 - 1:27Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.
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1:27 - 1:31In professional circles everywhere, it's of course universally accepted.
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1:31 - 1:37In non-professional circles outside America, it's largely ignored.
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1:37 - 1:41But in non-professional circles within America,
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1:41 - 1:44it arouses so much hostility --
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1:44 - 1:45(Laughter)
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1:45 - 1:51-- that it's fair to say that American biologists are in a state of war.
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1:51 - 1:53The war is so worrying at present,
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1:53 - 1:55with court cases coming up in one state after another,
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1:55 - 1:58that I felt I had to say something about it.
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1:58 - 2:02If you want to know what I have to say about Darwinism itself,
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2:02 - 2:05I'm afraid you're going to have to look at my books,
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2:05 - 2:08which you won't find in the bookstore outside.
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2:08 - 2:11(Laughter)
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2:11 - 2:13Contemporary court cases
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2:13 - 2:17often concern an allegedly new version of creationism,
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2:17 - 2:21called "Intelligent Design," or ID.
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2:21 - 2:25Don't be fooled. There's nothing new about ID.
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2:25 - 2:28It's just creationism under another name,
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2:28 - 2:32rechristened -- I choose the word advisedly --
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2:32 - 2:33(Laughter)
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2:33 - 2:35-- for tactical, political reasons.
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2:35 - 2:37The arguments of so-called ID theorists
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2:37 - 2:40are the same old arguments that had been refuted again and again,
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2:40 - 2:44since Darwin down to the present day.
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2:44 - 2:47There is an effective evolution lobby
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2:47 - 2:49coordinating the fight on behalf of science,
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2:49 - 2:52and I try to do all I can to help them,
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2:52 - 2:56but they get quite upset when people like me dare to mention
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2:56 - 3:00that we happen to be atheists as well as evolutionists.
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3:00 - 3:05They see us as rocking the boat, and you can understand why.
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3:05 - 3:10Creationists, lacking any coherent scientific argument for their case,
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3:10 - 3:15fall back on the popular phobia against atheism.
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3:15 - 3:19Teach your children evolution in biology class,
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3:19 - 3:24and they'll soon move on to drugs, grand larceny and sexual pre-version.
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3:24 - 3:29(Laughter)
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3:29 - 3:32In fact, of course, educated theologians from the Pope down
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3:32 - 3:35are firm in their support of evolution.
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3:35 - 3:38This book, "Finding Darwin's God," by Kenneth Miller,
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3:38 - 3:40is one of the most effective attacks on Intelligent Design
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3:40 - 3:43that I know, and it's all the more effective
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3:43 - 3:46because it's written by a devout Christian.
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3:46 - 3:51People like Kenneth Miller could be called a "godsend" to the evolution lobby --
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3:51 - 3:52(Laughter)
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3:52 - 3:56-- because they expose the lie that evolutionism is, as a matter of fact,
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3:56 - 3:58tantamount to atheism.
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3:58 - 4:03People like me, on the other hand, rock the boat.
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4:03 - 4:06But here, I want to say something nice about creationists.
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4:06 - 4:09It's not a thing I often do, so listen carefully.
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4:09 - 4:10(Laughter)
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4:10 - 4:13I think they're right about one thing.
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4:13 - 4:15I think they're right that evolution
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4:15 - 4:18is fundamentally hostile to religion.
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4:18 - 4:22I've already said that many individual evolutionists, like the Pope,
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4:22 - 4:25are also religious, but I think they're deluding themselves.
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4:25 - 4:28I believe a true understanding of Darwinism
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4:28 - 4:33is deeply corrosive to religious faith.
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4:33 - 4:39Now, it may sound as though I'm about to preach atheism,
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4:39 - 4:42and I want to reassure you that that's not what I'm going to do.
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4:42 - 4:46In an audience as sophisticated as this one,
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4:46 - 4:49that would be preaching to the choir.
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4:49 - 4:53No, what I want to urge upon you --
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4:53 - 4:55(Laughter)
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4:55 - 5:00-- instead what I want to urge upon you is militant atheism.
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5:00 - 5:02(Laughter)
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5:02 - 5:05(Applause)
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5:05 - 5:08But that's putting it too negatively.
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5:08 - 5:13If I was a person who were interested in preserving religious faith,
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5:13 - 5:18I would be very afraid of the positive power of evolutionary science,
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5:18 - 5:20and indeed science generally, but evolution in particular,
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5:20 - 5:28to inspire and enthrall, precisely because it is atheistic.
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5:28 - 5:32Now, the difficult problem for any theory of biological design
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5:32 - 5:38is to explain the massive statistical improbability of living things.
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5:38 - 5:43Statistical improbability in the direction of good design --
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5:43 - 5:45"complexity" is another word for this.
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5:45 - 5:50The standard creationist argument -- there is only one; they all reduce to this one --
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5:50 - 5:52takes off from a statistical improbability.
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5:52 - 5:56Living creatures are too complex to have come about by chance;
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5:56 - 5:58therefore, they must have had a designer.
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5:58 - 6:00This argument of course, shoots itself in the foot.
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6:00 - 6:04Any designer capable of designing something really complex
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6:04 - 6:09has to be even more complex himself, and that's before we even start
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6:09 - 6:11on the other things he's expected to do,
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6:11 - 6:14like forgive sins, bless marriages, listen to prayers --
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6:14 - 6:17favor our side in a war --
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6:17 - 6:19(Laughter)
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6:19 - 6:22-- disapprove of our sex lives and so on.
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6:22 - 6:24(Laughter)
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6:24 - 6:29Complexity is the problem that any theory of biology has to solve,
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6:29 - 6:34and you can't solve it by postulating an agent that is even more complex,
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6:34 - 6:37thereby simply compounding the problem.
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6:37 - 6:41Darwinian natural selection is so stunningly elegant
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6:41 - 6:45because it solves the problem of explaining complexity
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6:45 - 6:49in terms of nothing but simplicity.
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6:49 - 6:52Essentially, it does it by providing a smooth ramp
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6:52 - 6:56of gradual step-by-step increment.
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6:56 - 6:58But here, I only want to make the point
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6:58 - 7:02that the elegance of Darwinism is corrosive to religion
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7:02 - 7:07precisely because it is so elegant, so parsimonious, so powerful,
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7:07 - 7:09so economically powerful.
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7:09 - 7:18It has the sinewy economy of a beautiful suspension bridge.
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7:18 - 7:20The God theory is not just a bad theory.
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7:20 - 7:26It turns out to be, in principle, incapable of doing the job required of it.
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7:26 - 7:29So, returning to tactics and the evolution lobby,
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7:29 - 7:38I want to argue that rocking the boat may be just the right thing to do.
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7:38 - 7:44My approach to attacking creationism is unlike the evolution lobby.
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7:44 - 7:49My approach to attacking creationism is to attack religion as a whole,
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7:49 - 7:53and at this point I need to acknowledge the remarkable taboo
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7:53 - 7:56against speaking ill of religion,
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7:56 - 7:59and I'm going to do so in the words of the late Douglas Adams,
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7:59 - 8:01a dear friend who, if he never came to TED,
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8:01 - 8:04certainly should have been invited.
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8:04 - 8:06(Richard Saul Wurman: He was.)
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8:06 - 8:08Richard Dawkins: He was. Good. I thought he must have been.
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8:08 - 8:11He begins this speech which was tape-recorded in Cambridge
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8:11 - 8:13shortly before he died.
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8:13 - 8:17He begins by explaining how science works through the testing of hypotheses
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8:17 - 8:21that are framed to be vulnerable to disproof, and then he goes on.
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8:21 - 8:25I quote, "Religion doesn't seem to work like that.
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8:25 - 8:29It has certain ideas at the heart of it, which we call 'sacred' or 'holy.'
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8:29 - 8:32What it means is: here is an idea or a notion
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8:32 - 8:36that you're not allowed to say anything bad about.
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8:36 - 8:40You're just not. Why not? Because you're not.
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8:40 - 8:44(Laughter)
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8:44 - 8:48Why should it be that it's perfectly legitimate to support the Republicans or Democrats,
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8:48 - 8:53this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows,
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8:53 - 8:56but to have an opinion about how the universe began,
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8:56 - 9:00about who created the universe -- no, that's holy.
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9:00 - 9:03So, we're used to not challenging religious ideas
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9:03 - 9:06and it's very interesting how much of a furor Richard creates
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9:06 - 9:10when he does it." He meant me, not that one.
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9:10 - 9:13"Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it,
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9:13 - 9:17because you're not allowed to say these things, yet when you look at it rationally,
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9:17 - 9:21there is no reason why those ideas shouldn't be as open to debate
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9:21 - 9:25as any other, except that we've agreed somehow between us
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9:25 - 9:32that they shouldn't be." And that's the end of the quote from Douglas.
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9:32 - 9:36In my view, not only is science corrosive to religion;
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9:36 - 9:40religion is corrosive to science.
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9:40 - 9:46It teaches people to be satisfied with trivial, supernatural non-explanations
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9:46 - 9:52and blinds them to the wonderful real explanations that we have within our grasp.
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9:52 - 9:59It teaches them to accept authority, revelation and faith
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9:59 - 10:04instead of always insisting on evidence.
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10:04 - 10:10There's Douglas Adams, magnificent picture from his book, "Last Chance to See."
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10:10 - 10:14Now, there's a typical scientific journal, the Quarterly Review of Biology.
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10:14 - 10:17And I'm going to put together, as guest editor,
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10:17 - 10:22a special issue on the question, "Did an asteroid kill the dinosaurs?"
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10:22 - 10:26And the first paper is a standard scientific paper
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10:26 - 10:30presenting evidence, "Iridium Layer at the K-T Boundary,
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10:30 - 10:32Potassium-Argon Dated Crater in Yucatan,
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10:32 - 10:35Indicate That an Asteroid Killed the Dinosaurs."
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10:35 - 10:38Perfectly ordinary scientific paper.
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10:38 - 10:42Now, the next one, "The President of The Royal Society
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10:42 - 10:46Has Been Vouchsafed a Strong Inner Conviction" -- (Laughter) --
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10:46 - 10:49"... That an Asteroid Killed the Dinosaurs."
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10:49 - 10:53(Laughter)
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10:53 - 10:59"It Has Been Privately Revealed to Professor Huxtane
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10:59 - 11:01That an Asteroid Killed the Dinosaurs."
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11:01 - 11:04(Laughter)
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11:04 - 11:07"Professor Hordley Was Brought Up
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11:07 - 11:10to Have Total and Unquestioning Faith" --
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11:10 - 11:11(Laughter) --
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11:11 - 11:18"... That an Asteroid Killed the Dinosaurs."
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11:18 - 11:23"Professor Hawkins Has Promulgated an Official Dogma
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11:23 - 11:26Binding on All Loyal Hawkinsians
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11:26 - 11:29That an Asteroid Killed the Dinosaurs."
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11:29 - 11:32(Laughter)
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11:32 - 11:36That's inconceivable, of course.
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11:36 - 11:38But suppose --
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11:38 - 11:48(Applause)
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11:48 - 11:51-- in 1987, a reporter asked George Bush, Sr.
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11:51 - 11:54whether he recognized the equal citizenship and patriotism
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11:54 - 11:57of Americans who are atheists.
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11:57 - 12:00Mr. Bush's reply has become infamous.
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12:00 - 12:04"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens,
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12:04 - 12:06nor should they be considered patriots.
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12:06 - 12:09This is one nation under God."
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12:09 - 12:12Bush's bigotry was not an isolated mistake,
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12:12 - 12:15blurted out in the heat of the moment and later retracted.
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12:15 - 12:20He stood by it in the face of repeated calls for clarification or withdrawal.
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12:20 - 12:21He really meant it.
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12:21 - 12:27More to the point, he knew it posed no threat to his election, quite the contrary.
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12:27 - 12:31Democrats as well as Republicans parade their religiousness
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12:31 - 12:37if they want to get elected. Both parties invoke "one nation under God."
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12:37 - 12:42What would Thomas Jefferson have said?
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12:42 - 12:47Incidentally, I'm not usually very proud of being British,
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12:47 - 12:51but you can't help making the comparison.
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12:51 - 12:59(Applause)
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12:59 - 13:02In practice, what is an atheist?
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13:02 - 13:06An atheist is just somebody who feels about Yahweh
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13:06 - 13:13the way any decent Christian feels about Thor or Baal or the golden calf.
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13:13 - 13:17As has been said before, we are all atheists about most of the gods
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13:17 - 13:22that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
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13:22 - 13:25(Laughter)
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13:25 - 13:32(Applause)
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13:32 - 13:35And however we define atheism, it's surely the kind of academic belief
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13:35 - 13:39that a person is entitled to hold without being vilified
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13:39 - 13:44as an unpatriotic, unelectable non-citizen.
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13:44 - 13:47Nevertheless, it's an undeniable fact that to own up to being an atheist
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13:47 - 13:53is tantamount to introducing yourself as Mr. Hitler or Miss Beelzebub.
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13:53 - 13:56And that all stems from the perception of atheists
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13:56 - 14:01as some kind of weird, way-out minority.
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14:01 - 14:04Natalie Angier wrote a rather sad piece in the New Yorker,
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14:04 - 14:06saying how lonely she felt as an atheist.
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14:06 - 14:09She clearly feels in a beleaguered minority,
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14:09 - 14:15but actually, how do American atheists stack up numerically?
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14:15 - 14:18The latest survey makes surprisingly encouraging reading.
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14:18 - 14:20Christianity, of course, takes a massive lion's share
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14:20 - 14:24of the population, with nearly 160 million.
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14:24 - 14:27But what would you think was the second largest group,
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14:27 - 14:33convincingly outnumbering Jews with 2.8 million, Muslims at 1.1 million,
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14:33 - 14:36and Hindus, Buddhists and all other religions put together?
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14:36 - 14:39The second largest group, of nearly 30 million,
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14:39 - 14:44is the one described as non-religious or secular.
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14:44 - 14:47You can't help wondering why vote-seeking politicians
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14:47 - 14:52are so proverbially overawed by the power of, for example, the Jewish lobby.
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14:52 - 14:54The state of Israel seems to owe its very existence
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14:54 - 14:58to the American Jewish vote, while at the same time
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14:58 - 15:03consigning the non-religious to political oblivion.
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15:03 - 15:07This secular non-religious vote, if properly mobilized,
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15:07 - 15:11is nine times as numerous as the Jewish vote.
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15:11 - 15:14Why does this far more substantial minority
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15:14 - 15:18not make a move to exercise its political muscle?
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15:18 - 15:22Well, so much for quantity. How about quality?
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15:22 - 15:25Is there any correlation, positive or negative,
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15:25 - 15:28between intelligence and tendency to be religious?
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15:28 - 15:36(Laughter)
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15:36 - 15:39The survey that I quoted, which is the ARIS survey,
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15:39 - 15:42didn't break down its data by socio-economic class or education,
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15:42 - 15:44IQ or anything else.
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15:44 - 15:48But a recent article by Paul G. Bell in the Mensa magazine
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15:48 - 15:50provides some straws in the wind.
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15:50 - 15:52Mensa, as you know, is an international organization
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15:52 - 15:56for people with very high IQ.
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15:56 - 16:00And from a meta-analysis of the literature,
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16:00 - 16:06Bell concludes that, I quote, "Of 43 studies carried out since 1927
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16:06 - 16:10on the relationship between religious belief and one's intelligence or educational level,
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16:10 - 16:15all but four found an inverse connection.
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16:15 - 16:18That is, the higher one's intelligence or educational level,
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16:18 - 16:21the less one is likely to be religious."
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16:21 - 16:26Well, I haven't seen the original 42 studies and I can't comment on that meta-analysis
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16:26 - 16:30but I would like to see more studies done along those lines.
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16:30 - 16:32And I know that there are, if I could put a little plug here,
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16:32 - 16:34there are people in this audience
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16:34 - 16:40easily capable of financing a massive research survey to settle the question,
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16:40 - 16:42and I put the suggestion up -- for what it's worth.
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16:42 - 16:44But let me know show you some data
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16:44 - 16:46that have been properly published and analyzed
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16:46 - 16:51on one special group, namely, top scientists.
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16:51 - 16:54In 1998, Larson and Witham
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16:54 - 16:57polled the cream of American scientists,
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16:57 - 17:01those who'd been honored by election to the National Academy of Sciences,
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17:01 - 17:03and among this select group,
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17:03 - 17:10belief in a personal God dropped to a shattering seven percent.
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17:10 - 17:15About 20 percent are agnostic, and the rest could fairly be called atheists.
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17:15 - 17:18Similar figures obtained for belief in personal immortality.
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17:18 - 17:21Among biological scientists, the figures are even lower:
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17:21 - 17:285.5 percent, only, believe in God. Physical scientists: it's 7.5 percent.
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17:28 - 17:31I've not seen corresponding figures for elite scholars
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17:31 - 17:34in other fields, such history or philosophy,
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17:34 - 17:37but I'd be surprised if they were different.
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17:37 - 17:41So, we've reached a truly remarkable situation,
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17:41 - 17:46a grotesque mismatch between the American intelligentsia
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17:46 - 17:48and the American electorate.
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17:48 - 17:52A philosophical opinion about the nature of the universe,
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17:52 - 17:56which is held by the vast majority of top American scientists
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17:56 - 18:00and probably the majority of the intelligentsia generally,
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18:00 - 18:02is so abhorrent to the American electorate
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18:02 - 18:08that no candidate for popular election dare affirm it in public.
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18:08 - 18:11If I'm right, this means that high office
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18:11 - 18:13in the greatest country in the world
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18:13 - 18:19is barred to the very people best qualified to hold it -- the intelligentsia --
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18:19 - 18:22unless they are prepared to lie about their beliefs.
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18:22 - 18:25To put it bluntly, American political opportunities
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18:25 - 18:28are heavily loaded against those
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18:28 - 18:31who are simultaneously intelligent and honest.
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18:31 - 18:38(Applause)
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18:38 - 18:42I'm not a citizen of this country, so I hope it won't be thought unbecoming
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18:42 - 18:45if I suggest that something needs to be done.
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18:45 - 18:47(Laughter)
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18:47 - 18:50And I've already hinted what that something is.
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18:50 - 18:54From what I've seen of TED, I think this may be the ideal place to launch it.
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18:54 - 18:57Again, I fear it will cost money.
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18:57 - 18:59We need a consciousness-raising,
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18:59 - 19:03coming-out campaign for American atheists.
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19:03 - 19:05(Laughter)
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19:05 - 19:08This could be similar to the campaign organized by homosexuals
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19:08 - 19:10a few years ago,
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19:10 - 19:13although heaven forbid that we should stoop to public outing
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19:13 - 19:15of people against their will.
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19:15 - 19:18In most cases, people who out themselves
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19:18 - 19:22will help to destroy the myth that there is something wrong with atheists.
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19:22 - 19:24On the contrary,
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19:24 - 19:26they'll demonstrate that atheists are often the kinds of people
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19:26 - 19:29that could serve as decent role models for your children,
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19:29 - 19:34the kinds of people an advertising agent could use to recommend a product,
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19:34 - 19:38the kinds of people who are sitting in this room.
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19:38 - 19:41There should be a snowball effect, a positive feedback,
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19:41 - 19:44such that the more names we have, the more we get.
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19:44 - 19:47There could be non-linearities, threshold effects.
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19:47 - 19:49When a critical mass has been attained,
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19:49 - 19:52there's an abrupt acceleration in recruitment.
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19:52 - 19:55And again, it will need money.
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19:55 - 19:59I suspect that the word "atheist" itself
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19:59 - 20:02contains or remains a stumbling block
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20:02 - 20:06far out of proportion to what it actually means, and a stumbling block to people
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20:06 - 20:09who otherwise might be happy to out themselves.
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20:09 - 20:12So, what other words might be used to smooth the path,
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20:12 - 20:19oil the wheels, sugar the pill? Darwin himself preferred "agnostic" --
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20:19 - 20:25and not only out of loyalty to his friend Huxley, who coined the term.
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20:25 - 20:27Darwin said, "I have never been an atheist
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20:27 - 20:31in the same sense of denying the existence of a God.
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20:31 - 20:33I think that generally an 'agnostic'
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20:33 - 20:37would be the most correct description of my state of mind."
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20:37 - 20:42He even became uncharacteristically tetchy with Edward Aveling.
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20:42 - 20:44Aveling was a militant atheist
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20:44 - 20:46who failed to persuade Darwin
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20:46 - 20:49to accept the dedication of his book on atheism --
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20:49 - 20:52incidentally, giving rise to a fascinating myth
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20:52 - 20:55that Karl Marx tried to dedicate "Das Kapital" to Darwin,
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20:55 - 20:57which he didn't. It was actually Edward Aveling.
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20:57 - 21:02What happened was that Aveling's mistress was Marx's daughter,
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21:02 - 21:05and when both Darwin and Marx were dead,
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21:05 - 21:09Marx's papers became muddled up with Aveling's papers
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21:09 - 21:14and a letter from Darwin saying, "My dear sir, thank you very much
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21:14 - 21:16but I don't want you to dedicate your book to me,"
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21:16 - 21:19was mistakenly supposed to be addressed to Marx,
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21:19 - 21:22and that gave rise to this whole myth, which you've probably heard.
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21:22 - 21:24It's a sort of urban myth,
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21:24 - 21:27that Marx tried to dedicate "Kapital" to Darwin.
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21:27 - 21:35Anyway, it was Aveling, and when they met, Darwin challenged Aveling,
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21:35 - 21:42"Why do you call yourselves atheists?"
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21:42 - 21:46"'Agnostic,'" retorted Aveling, "was simply 'atheist' writ respectable,
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21:46 - 21:50and 'atheist' was simply 'agnostic' writ aggressive."
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21:50 - 21:54Darwin complained, "But why should you be so aggressive?"
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21:54 - 21:57Darwin thought that atheism might be well and good for the intelligentsia,
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21:57 - 22:02but that ordinary people were not, quote, "ripe for it."
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22:02 - 22:06Which is, of course, our old friend, the "don't rock the boat" argument.
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22:06 - 22:11It's not recorded whether Aveling told Darwin to come down off his high horse.
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22:11 - 22:13(Laughter)
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22:13 - 22:15But in any case, that was more than 100 years ago.
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22:15 - 22:18You think we might have grown up since then.
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22:18 - 22:23Now, a friend, an intelligent lapsed Jew,
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22:23 - 22:25who incidentally observed the Sabbath
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22:25 - 22:27for reasons of cultural solidarity,
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22:27 - 22:31describes himself as a "tooth fairy agnostic."
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22:31 - 22:33He won't call himself an atheist
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22:33 - 22:37because it's, in principle, impossible to prove a negative,
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22:37 - 22:40but agnostic on its own might suggest that God's existence
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22:40 - 22:44was therefore on equal terms of likelihood as his non-existence.
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22:44 - 22:49So, my friend is strictly agnostic about the tooth fairy,
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22:49 - 22:54but it isn't very likely, is it? Like God.
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22:54 - 22:56Hence the phrase, "tooth fairy agnostic."
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22:56 - 22:58Bertrand Russell made the same point
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22:58 - 23:02using a hypothetical teapot in orbit about Mars.
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23:02 - 23:04You would strictly have to be agnostic
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23:04 - 23:06about whether there is a teapot in orbit about Mars,
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23:06 - 23:09but that doesn't mean you treat the likelihood of its existence
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23:09 - 23:12as on all fours with its non-existence.
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23:12 - 23:15The list of things which we strictly have to be agnostic about
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23:15 - 23:19doesn't stop at tooth fairies and teapots. It's infinite.
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23:19 - 23:21If you want to believe one particular one of them --
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23:21 - 23:26unicorns or tooth fairies or teapots or Yahweh --
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23:26 - 23:28the onus is on you to say why.
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23:28 - 23:32The onus is not on the rest of us to say why not.
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23:32 - 23:37We, who are atheists, are also a-fairiests and a-teapotists.
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23:37 - 23:39(Laughter)
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23:39 - 23:42But we don't bother to say so,
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23:42 - 23:45and this is why my friend uses "tooth fairy agnostic"
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23:45 - 23:48as a label for what most people would call atheist.
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23:48 - 23:54Nonetheless, if we want to attract deep down atheists to come out publicly,
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23:54 - 23:56we're going to have find something better
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23:56 - 24:01to stick on our banner than "tooth fairy" or "teapot agnostic."
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24:01 - 24:04So, how about "humanist"?
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24:04 - 24:09This has the advantage of a worldwide network of well-organized associations
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24:09 - 24:11and journals and things already in place.
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24:11 - 24:14My problem with it only is its apparent anthropocentrism.
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24:14 - 24:16One of the things we've learned from Darwin
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24:16 - 24:18is that the human species is only one
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24:18 - 24:22among millions of cousins, some close, some distant.
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24:22 - 24:25And there are other possibilities like "naturalist,"
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24:25 - 24:27but that also has problems of confusion,
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24:27 - 24:29because Darwin would have thought naturalist --
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24:29 - 24:32"naturalist" means, of course, as opposed to "supernaturalist" --
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24:32 - 24:34and it is used sometimes --
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24:34 - 24:37Darwin would have been confused by the other sense of "naturalist,"
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24:37 - 24:41which he was, of course, and I suppose there might be others
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24:41 - 24:43who would confuse it with nudism.
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24:43 - 24:45(Laughter)
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24:45 - 24:52Such people might be those belonging to the British lynch mob
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24:52 - 24:57which last year attacked a pediatrician in mistake for a pedophile.
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24:57 - 25:02(Laughter)
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25:02 - 25:07I think the best of the available alternatives for "atheist" is simply "non-theist."
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25:07 - 25:10It lacks the strong connotation that there's definitely no God,
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25:10 - 25:16and it could therefore easily be embraced by teapot or tooth fairy agnostics.
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25:16 - 25:20It's completely compatible with the God of the physicists.
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25:20 - 25:24When atheists
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25:24 - 25:28like Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein use the word "God,"
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25:28 - 25:31they use it of course as a metaphorical shorthand
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25:31 - 25:36for that deep, mysterious part of physics which we don't yet understand.
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25:36 - 25:42"Non-theist" will do for all that, yet unlike "atheist,"
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25:42 - 25:49it doesn't have the same phobic, hysterical responses.
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25:49 - 25:51But I think, actually, the alternative
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25:51 - 25:54is to grasp the nettle of the word "atheism" itself,
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25:54 - 25:57precisely because it is a taboo word
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25:57 - 26:01carrying frissons of hysterical phobia.
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26:01 - 26:05Critical mass may be harder to achieve with the word "atheist"
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26:05 - 26:06than with the word "non-theist,"
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26:06 - 26:08or some other non-confrontational word.
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26:08 - 26:12But if we did achieve it with that dread word -- "atheist" itself --
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26:12 - 26:16the political impact would be even greater.
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26:16 - 26:20Now, I said that if I were religious, I'd be very afraid of evolution. I'd go further.
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26:20 - 26:23I would fear science in general if properly understood.
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26:23 - 26:27And this is because the scientific worldview
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26:27 - 26:30is so much more exciting, more poetic,
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26:30 - 26:33more filled with sheer wonder than anything
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26:33 - 26:39in the poverty-stricken arsenals of the religious imagination.
-
26:39 - 26:44As Carl Sagan, another recently dead hero, put it,
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26:44 - 26:48"How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science
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26:48 - 26:53and concluded, 'This is better than we thought!
-
26:53 - 26:55The universe is much bigger than our prophet said,
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26:55 - 27:01grander, more subtle, more elegant?' Instead they say, 'No, no, no!
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27:01 - 27:06My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.'
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27:06 - 27:08A religion, old or new,
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27:08 - 27:11that stressed the magnificence of the universe
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27:11 - 27:13as revealed by modern science
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27:13 - 27:16might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe
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27:16 - 27:21hardly tapped by the conventional faiths."
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27:21 - 27:24Now, this is an elite audience,
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27:24 - 27:31and I would therefore expect about 10 percent of you to be religious.
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27:31 - 27:38Many of you probably subscribe to our polite cultural belief that we should respect religion,
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27:38 - 27:42but I also suspect that a fair number of those
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27:42 - 27:46secretly despise religion as much as I do.
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27:46 - 27:47(Laughter)
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27:47 - 27:50If you're one of them, and of course many of you may not be,
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27:50 - 27:53but if you are one of them, I'm asking you to stop being polite,
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27:53 - 27:57come out and say so, and if you happen to be rich,
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27:57 - 28:02give some thought to ways in which you might make a difference.
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28:02 - 28:05The religious lobby in this country
-
28:05 - 28:10is massively financed by foundations -- to say nothing of all the tax benefits --
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28:10 - 28:15by foundations such as the Templeton Foundation and the Discovery Institute.
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28:15 - 28:21We need an anti-Templeton to step forward.
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28:21 - 28:24If my books sold as well as Stephen Hawking's books,
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28:24 - 28:30instead of only as well as Richard Dawkins' books, I'd do it myself.
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28:30 - 28:39People are always going on about, "How did September the 11th change you?"
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28:39 - 28:41Well, here's how it changed me.
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28:41 - 28:46Let's all stop being so damned respectful.
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28:46 - 28:48Thank you very much.
-
28:48 - 28:53(Applause)
- Title:
- Militant atheism
- Speaker:
- Richard Dawkins
- Description:
-
Richard Dawkins urges all atheists to openly state their position -- and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science. A fiery, funny, powerful talk.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 28:53
Camille Martínez edited English subtitles for Militant atheism | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Militant atheism | ||
Krystian Aparta commented on English subtitles for Militant atheism | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Militant atheism | ||
Dimitra Papageorgiou edited English subtitles for Militant atheism | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for Militant atheism | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for Militant atheism | ||
TED added a translation |
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 5/22/2015.