Quote by: Richard Dawkins

Natural selection is not only a parsimonious, plausible and elegant solution; it is the only workable alternative to chance that has ever been suggested. Intelligent design suffers from exactly the same objection as chance. It is simply not a plausible solution to the riddle of statistical improbability. And the higher the improbability, the more implausible intelligent design becomes. Seen clearly, intelligent design will turn out to be a redoubling of the problem. Once again, this is because the designer himself (/herself/itself) immediately raises the bigger problem of his own origin. Any entity capable of intelligently designing something as improbable as a Dutchman's Pipe (or a universe) would have to be even more improbable than a Dutchman's Pipe. Far from terminating the vicious regress, God aggravates it with a vengeance.


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Author Bio


  • NameRichard Dawkins
  • DescriptionEnglish ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author
  • AliasesClinton Richard Dawkins
  • BornMarch 26, 1941
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionEvolutionary Biologist; Ethologist; Science Writer; Popularizer Of Science; Essayist; Theoretical Biologist; Epistemologist; Sociobiologist
  • WorksThe Selfish Gene
  • AwardsFellow Of The Royal Society; Kistler Prize; Michael Faraday Prize; International Cosmos Prize; Lewis Thomas Prize; Shakespeare Prize; Humanist Of The Year