The man behind the selfish gene, memes,and gerin oil*

Thirty years ago, Richard Dawkins had his first book The Selfish Gene published, and he continues to write one bestseller after the next. Balaji Ravichandran caught up with him in the lead up to the publication of his next book, boldly titled The God Delusion

You are primarily a scientist, an ethologist to be precise, who studies animal behaviour. Would you agree that in recent years it has been your opposition to religion that has kept you in the public eye, rather than your scientific work?

Well, I suppose it is true, to some extent. I'm quite passionate about scientific truth, and I see religion as a competitor to scientific truth. Religion, in my opinion, offers an alternative view of the cosmos and of life, and to that extent it is pernicious. In the United States, this is particularly bad, manifesting itself as an outright hostility to biology and evolution.

Is your fervent opposition to religion an integral part of your role as a professor of public understanding of science at Oxford University?

Yes, you could say that. But, even without the scientific dimension, I'm worried as a citizen of the world, seeing all the wars, the massacres, the killings, the mayhem, and the destruction that is done in the name of religion.

You once said, "The alleged marriage between religion and science is a shallow, empty, spin doctored sham." Do you think religion and science are fundamentally irreconcilable?

There is one kind of religion to which I don't absolutely object. I call it Einsteinian religion. Physicists often use the word "God" metaphorically to refer to something that has yet to be explained in scientific terms. Stephen Hawking is another physicist who uses God in an Einsteinian sense. But I think that this use is a bit unfortunate, as it is open to misunderstanding. If you're talking about a faith based supernatural God who answers prayers and pardons sinners, who instructs human beings to bomb people of other religion, then no, religion and science are fundamentally incompatible.

Recently on television you called religious people "delusional," and accused religion of being "the root of all evil." Are you worried that this directness will alienate your audience? Will this help you achieve what you want?

I admit, I'm not a very accomplished politician. And I would not want to alienate my audience wilfully, never. But, I'm more interested in advocating the truth than being tactically appropriate. And, by the way, I hated the title The Root of All Evil? The television company insisted on it and allowed me that one little question mark as a small concession to my misgivings.

Fellow biologist Stephen Gould accused you of being a Darwinian fundamentalist. How would you respond?

I vigorously repudiate any charge of fundamentalism levelled against me. I'm very passionate about science and about evolution. But, there is a big difference between being passionate and being a fundamentalist. My passion comes from belief in evidence and is not based on blind faith. A fundamentalist mind is resistant to change. If you produce evidence against evolution, and if I'm convinced by it, by all means I'll change my mind.

The Dawkins paradox - known better for views on religion

Do you think wiping out religion would make the world a better place?

I realise that wiping out religion would leave a gaping hole in the psychology of some people, and I would certainly regret causing any distress. But, in the longer term, yes, I think it would be very beneficial.

What are your views on the current debate surrounding intelligent design in the US?

Intelligent design is a political gambit to introduce creationism in schools. And to quite an extent, it is unfortunately proving successful. But, it doesn't take much time to work out that it has absolutely nothing going for it. It says you have two theories - A and B. Theory A is alleged to have gaps in evidence. So, theory B must be right. But, they don't even ask whether theory B has the same gaps let alone face up to the fact that it has absolutely no evidence to back it up.

So you see no reason why religion should have any say in moral and ethical questions in society?

I see absolutely no good reason.

Who then decides what is moral and what is immoral? In The Selfish Gene you wrote that it would be wrong to advocate a morality based on evolution. Can we expect science to provide the answers?

The onus is not on the atheist or even the scientist to answer this question. It is clear that religion can't answer it. We don't as a matter of fact base our morals on the bible or other scriptures. You can find moral verses in scripture and very immoral ones too. Religious people pick and choose which bits of scripture to follow and which to avoid. Whatever criterion we use to pick and choose is available to us anyway, without religion being involved at all. Rather, morality is built up from its evolutionary origins through debate and consensus, and is subject to change according to the times in which we live.

In The Selfish Gene you asked, "Are there any good reasons for supposing our own species to be unique? I believe the answer is yes." Is it right, then, to give a special moral status to human life?

All species are unique in their own sense; but, we are very different in the sense that we have language, arts, and culture, and a lot follows from our ability to communicate ideas and think about our future. But, just because we have arts and culture, there is no reason to believe that we feel any more pain than animals.

Pain doesn't discriminate. However, knowledge of the future certainly does. Imagine what would happen if cows in a slaughterhouse could talk to each other and had a good memory. As long as animals are treated humanely before being killed, there is a possible moral case for using them in ways that we cannot morally apply to humans.

Then what do you think about the stand taken by animal research activists - for example, threatening letters sent to the shareholders of drug companies?

Many animal research activists use the term vivisection - as in cutting open the animals without anaesthetising them. If that's happening, I'm passionately against it. I hope and believe that that is not happening in research laboratories. But the same thing happens in slaughter houses everyday without any anaesthesia, and nobody seems to complain about it. I find that puzzling. The activists target scientists and shareholders because they are an easy target. Why not target, say, slaughterhouses? Especially religious slaughterhouses in which the animals are not allowed even to be stunned before being killed.

What about the use of human embryos for stem cell research? Are the objections justified?

My position on animal research is quite ambiguous, subject to further research on animal suffering. However, my position on stem cell research using human embryos is totally unambiguous: I find the objections totally unjustified. Where the embryo has no nervous system, there is every reason to believe that it does not suffer. Certainly not more than any adult cow.

What do you hope to achieve as professor for the public understanding of science?

I want to inspire people with science, to see the poetry in it, the way the late astronomer Carl Sagan did.

How do you think the already overburdened medical student could integrate Darwinism into medical education?

Doctors, in my opinion, are a bit undereducated in Darwinism. Of course, you must have an awful lot of human anatomy to learn, and although I'm sure comparative anatomy is useful, you just won't have the time for much of it. But thinking of diseases in evolutionary perspectives can be particularly insightful. For example, lower back pain can be viewed as the result of a fundamentally four legged musculoskeletal system trying to cope with having recently become bipedal. Then again, many symptoms of disease might be explained as Darwinian adaptations. Is a raised temperature an adaptation to kill pathogens? In which case are doctors right to try to lower the temperature? Are coughing and sneezing Darwinian adaptations by viruses, say, to spread themselves to new hosts? David Haig beautifully explained all ailments of human pregnancy in an evolutionary light by thinking of them as a parent-offspring conflict in the womb. I would suggest that medical students read Evolution and Healing: the New Science of Darwinian Medicine, by Randolph Nesse and George Williams.

You are known as the father of memetics, the idea that ideas in our brains - memes - mimic genes by propagating through generations, via verbal communication, art, writing, and so on. What is the most dangerous meme in this world - God?

Well, blind faith in any form that is resistant to being convinced by rational arguments is dangerous.

How about the most positive meme?

Rationality. The ability to question everything.

Finally, what do you think is the biggest scientific challenge for humanity in the next century?

In my opinion, understanding the biological nature and evolution of consciousness.

*Gerin oil was first used by Richard Dawkins in an article for Free Inquiry magazine, later reprinted in Prospect. Also known as geriniol, Dawkins postulated it to be one of the most addictive substances to act on the human brain and one that had the potential to make the subject delusional.

Solve the anagram.

Competing interests: None declared.

This interview was first published in the BMJ (2006;332:1294).

Balaji Ravichandran, student editor, studentBMJ
Email: bravichandran@bmj.com


studentBMJ 2006;14:309-352 September ISSN 0966-6494