Dawkins' verdeeldheid

"A foreign publisher of my first book [The Selfish Gene (1976)] confessed that he could not sleep for three nights after reading it, so troubled was he by what he saw as its cold, bleak message. Others have asked me how I can bear to get up in the mornings. A teacher from a distant country wrote to me reproachfully that a pupil had come to him in tears after reading the same book, because it had persuaded her that life was empty and purposeless. He advised her not to show the book to any of her friends, for fear of contaminating them with the same nihilistic pessimism. Similar accusations of barren desolation, of promoting an arid and joyless message, are frequently flung at science in general, and it is easy for scientists to play up to them. My colleague Peter Atkins begins his book The Second Law (1984) in this vein:

We are the children of chaos, and the deep structure of change is decay. At root, there is only corruption, and the unstemmable tide of chaos. Gone is purpose; all that is left is direction. this is the bleakness we have to accept as we peer deeply and dispassionately into the heart of the Universe. 

But such very proper purging of saccharine false purpose; such laudable tough-mindedness in the debunking of cosmic sentimentality must not be confused with a loss of personal hope. Presumably there is indeed no purpose in the ultimate fate of the cosmos, but do any of us really tie our life's hopes to the ultimate fate of the cosmos anyway? Of course we don't; not if we are sane. Our lives are ruled by all sorts of closer, warmer, human ambitions and perceptions." (Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow, p. 9)

Exit groupselection

"Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense." (Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, p. 2)

"Unless they are manipulated by a parasite, the only group that animals ever favour over the individual is the family." (Ridley, The Origins of Virtue, p. 176)

Like an unplugged toaster

"The individual body, so familiar to us on our planet, dit not have to exist. The only kind of entity that has to exist in order for life to arise, anywhere in the universe, is the immortal replicator." (Dawkins 2006, The Selfish Gene, p. 266)

"Despite the term selfish genes, genes do not have selves: true selves are cells; without proteins and metabolic networks of recursive amino acids and intermediary molecules genes are impotent, no more "selfish" than an unplugged toaster." (Schneider & Sagan 2005, Into the Cool, p. 111)

Genes as social viruses

"Our genes are like a colony of viruses — socialized viruses, as opposed to anarchic viruses. They're socialized in the sense that they all work together to produce the body and make the body do what's good for all of them. The only reason they do that is that they all are destined to leave the present body and enter the next generation by the same route, sperms or eggs. If they could break out of that route and get to the next generation by being sneezed out and breathed in by the next victim, that's what they would do.

Those are what we call anarchic viruses. Anarchic viruses, the ones that make us sneeze, are the ones that don't agree with each other. They don't care if we die. All they want to do is make us sneeze, or, in the case of the rabies virus, make the dog salivate and bite. But most of our genes are socialized viruses, socialized replicators. They're disciplined and cooperative precisely because they have only one way out of the present body: by sperm or egg." (Dawkins in Brockman 1996, The Third Culture)

De weg van de minste weerstand

"Telkens weer zeggen mensen diepzinnige of cute dingen en noemen dat filosofisch. Zij willen hun gedachten graag uitzaaien en geven ze prijs aan de wind. Wat jammer nu, de zaden waaien over en schieten geen wortel. Ze komen op de aarde niet aan omdat ze te ijl zijn om beproefd te worden. Zo ijl zijn ze dat niemand dat hoeft te merken.

Nederland beschikt sinds enkele jaren over denkers des vaderlands. De eerste, Achterhuis, vindt dat filosofie tegendenken is. De volgende, zelfbenoemde denker des vaderlands, Gude, zegt: aha, ik ga tegendenken tegen het tegendenken, dus ik doe aan meedenken.

Of je nu meedenkt of tegendenkt, het maakt niet uit, je kunt rustig van filosofie blijven spreken. Dat wil zeggen: je kunt zeggen wat je wilt, er is qua filosofie niets uitgesloten. Dat betekent weer dat het informatiegehalte van filosofie gelijk is aan nul. Informatie is namelijk verschil dat verschil maakt. En dat doet filosofie niet. Wat er gezegd wordt kan vervangen worden door het tegendeel ervan zonder dat er in de wereld iets verandert. Filosofie is indifferent." (Oudemans 2014, Inleiding tot het oratieproject)

"The selfish DNA hypothesis is based on this assumption: phenotypic characters are there because they help DNA to replicate itself, and if DNA can find quicker and easier ways to replicate itself, perhaps bypassing conventional phenotypic expression, it will be selected to do so." (Dawkins 1982, The Extended Phenotype, p. 158)

Historie als museumstuk

"When you are actually challenged to think of pre-Darwinian answers to the questions 'What is man?' 'Is there a meaning to life?' 'What are we for?', can you, as a matter of fact, think of any that are not now worthless except for their (considerable) historic interest? There is such a thing as being just plain wrong, and that is what, before 1859, all answers to those questions were." (Dawkins 2009, The Selfish Gene, p. 267)

"Locke's a priori proof of the inconceivability of Design without Mind [...] is now as obsolete as the quill pen with which it was written, a fascinating museum piece, a curiosity that can do no real work in the intellectual world today." (Dennett 1995, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, p. 83)

Een zich verhullend aspect

"When you are actually challenged to think of pre-Darwinian answers to the questions 'What is man?' 'Is there a meaning to life?' 'What are we for?', can you, as  a matter of fact, think of any that are not now worthless except for their (considerable) historic interest? There is such a thing as being just plain wrong, and that is what, before 1859, all answers to those questions were." (Dawkins 2006, The Selfish Gene, p. 267)

"Het darwinisme is één grote aspectwisseling. Wat mij interesseert is: Dat aspect wordt zo alles overheersend, dat de mogelijkheid om nog te zien dat het een aspect is wegvalt. Eigenlijk vinden wij alles wat vroeger over het leven is gezegd onzin. Maar dan is de vraag: is het een aspect? Kun je dat nog zeggen?" (Oudemans 2001, Humanisme en Biotechnologie, p. 146)

A cybernetic machine

“It is very hard to give a non-supernatural account of the human brain and human emotions, feelings and apparent free will, without regarding the brain as, in some sense, the equivalent of a programmed cybernetic machine.” (Dawkins 2008, The Extended Phenotype, p. 17)

't Hart over Dawkins

"Honderdvijftig jaar na de verschijning van The Origin of Species staat de theorie nog als een huis. Al wat er sindsdien aan kennis is bij gekomen, primair natuurlijk vanuit de hoek van de genetica en de biomathematica (Fisher), maar ook vanuit alle andere deeldisciplines van de biologie, heeft de theorie alleen maar geschraagd, verstevigd, verder onderbouwd, aangevuld, verrijkt, verdiept. Er is eenvoudig geen enkele alternatieve theorie die ook maar bij benadering een vergelijkbaar imponerende en sluitende verklaring levert voor het ontstaan der soorten. Creationisme is geen wetenschap, en Intelligent Design is een lachertje. Als je in Intelligent Design gelooft, verklaar dan maar eens waarom zo'n uitzonderlijk fraai ontwerp als het inktvissenoog bij de vertebraten vervangen is voor een veel knulliger, (bij mensen) vaak bij- of verziend gezichtszintuig.
    Wat niet wegneemt dat ik, als ik van die echt dogmatische evolutionisten lees als Ernst Mayr of Richard Dawkins, toch geërgerd raak. Het is dan alsof je weer met de ‘onwrikbare zekerheid des geloofs’ wordt geconfronteerd van de dominees en ouderlingen uit je jeugd. Waar nog bij komt dat ik in 1971 bij het Ethologencongres in Edinburgh 's morgens aan het ontbijt tegenover het echtpaar Dawkins kwam te zitten en door Richard zo uitzonderlijk hautain werd bejegend dat ik toen een huizenhoge afkeer van deze collega heb opgedaan. En die is nog groter geworden toen ik vernam dat zijn buitengewoon aardige vrouw Ann, die het bij dat breakfast voor mij opnam, door Richard aan de kant is geschoven voor een jonger & mooier exemplaar van het vrouwelijk geslacht. Maar ja, wat een onzin om je door zulke toevallige gebeurtenissen te laten beïnvloeden in je oordeel over een vakgenoot. Mij bevalt de toon van zijn boeken echter volstrekt niet. Hij is veel te zeker van zijn zaak." (Maarten 't Hart)

Zowel God als de mens zijn dood

Nietzsche

"God is dood."

"With Darwin's natural selection at the helm, no one needed to consider what Life did next, or what it had done, or even what it was doing. Consideration was not a consideration. The mindless, ceaseless engine of natural selection would take care of the flight plan - such as it was, beacause, according to Darwin, it was making it all up as it went along, and there was no real purpose to the flight anyway, no confirmed destination. Life was flying just because it could fly. And God, the universe's former pilot, was out of a job." (Hughes 2011, On the Origin of Tepees, p. 104)

Foucault

"De mens [het subject] is dood." 

"If hats and barns and every other artifact of humanity can self-design, if everything we hold dear can come about mindlessly, just as species do in nature, then we could be out of a job: cultural Life could evolve quite happily without any conscious participation on our part." (Ibid.) 

De implosie van Plato's grot

"In mijn Journaal heb ik geschreven dat, staande te midden van de indrukwekkende pracht van een Braziliaans woud, 'het niet mogelijk is een gepast beeld te geven van de hogere gevoelens van verwondering, eerbied en devotie die de geest doen volstromen en verheffen'. Ik weet nog goed hoe ik ervan overtuigd was dat er meer in de mens is dan alleen zijn adem. Maar nu kan het indrukwekkendste landschap dergelijke overtuigingen  en gevoelens niet meer opwekken in mijn geest. Men zou werkelijk kunnen zeggen dat ik lijk op een man die kleurenblind is geworden, en het universele geloof van mensen in het bestaan van de kleur rood heeft tot gevolg dat mij tegenwoordige gebrek aan waarneming geen enkele bewijskracht heeft." (Darwin 2009, Autobiografie, p. 83)

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
(Dawkins 2006, The God Delusion)

Meme-users?

"...too many of us cannot grasp that words are only tools for our use..."
(Dawkins 1976, The Selfish Gene, p. 18)

"We meme-users..."
(Dennett 1995, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, p. 469)

"...we use memes so much..."
(Blackmore 1999, The Meme Machine, p. 15)

Humans aren't meme-users! Memes are human-users.

Thanks to the virus

“When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a
vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic
mechanism of a host cell.” (Dawkins 1976, The Selfish Gene, p. 192)

"This book owes its existence to an illness. In September 1995 I caught a nasty virus, and struggled to keep working until I was finally forced to give up and take to my bed. [...] Some two years after I first became ill I was well enough to work again [...] and to write this book. [...] I would like to thank the illness for making it possible." (Blackmore 1999, The Meme Machine, p. ix)

Genes as monads

1. My topic here will be the monad, which is just a simple substance. By calling it ‘simple’ I mean that it has no parts, though it can be a part of something composite.

2. There must be simple substances, because there are composites. A composite thing is just a collection of simple ones that happen to have come together.

3. Something that has no parts can’t be extended, can’t have a shape, and can’t be split up. So monads are the true atoms of Nature—the elements out of which everything is made.

14. [...] within the simple substance is nothing but what we call perception. This must be carefully distinguished from awareness or consciousness.

56. [...] each simple substance has relational properties that express all the others, so that each monad is a perpetual living mirror of the universe.

 (Leibniz 1714, Monadology)

Talk to the hand (of nature)

 "Genes will spread by reason of pure parasitic effectiveness, as in a virus.
We may think this spreading for the sake of spreading rather futile, but
nature is not interested in our judgements, of futility or of anything else."
(Dawkins 1999, Unweaving the Rainbow, p. 276)

Collectively trolling Dawkins

"A meme is anything that replicates itself from brain to brain, via any available means of copying. It is a matter of dispute whether the resemblance between gene and meme is good scientific poetry or bad. On balance, I still think it is good, although if you look the word up on the worldwide web you'll find plenty of examples of enthusiasts getting carried away and going too far. There even seems to be some kind of religion of the meme starting up - I find it hard to decide whether it is a joke or not." (Dawkins 1999, Unweaving the Rainbow, p. 274)

1976

Wees mutant!

"Das eigentliche Selbstsein beruht nicht auf einem vom Man abgelösten Ausnahmezustand des Subjekts, sondern ist eine existenzielle Modifikation des Man als eines wesenhaften Existenzials." (Heidegger 1927, Sein und Zeit, p. 130)

We who are about to die salute you

Manipulation

"'Communication' is a means by which one animal makes use of another animal's muscle power." (Dawkins 2008, The Extended Phenotype, p. 61)