It is almost as if the human brain were specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinism, and to find it hard to believe
Interpretation
The quote suggests that humans inherently struggle to grasp the principles of Darwinism.
In this quote, Richard Dawkins posits that the complexities of Darwinian evolution may exceed the innate capabilities of the human brain, leading to widespread misunderstandings about its principles and implications. This reflects a broader theme of how certain truths in science can be counterintuitive or difficult for many to fully accept, illustrating a potential clash between human cognition and scientific reasoning.
In practice
During a lecture on evolutionary biology, you could quote Dawkins to emphasize the common misconceptions students may have about Darwinism.
No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children...I would want to argue that the truth of evolution is more interesting and more poetic
If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity.
The population of the U.S. is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the U.S. leads the world by miles.
When you make machines that are capable of obeying instructions slavishly, and among those instructions are 'duplicate me' instructions, then of course the system is wide open to exploitation by parasites.
Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.
The bitter hatreds that now poison Middle Eastern politics are rooted in the real or perceived wrong of the setting up of a Jewish State in an Islamic region. In view of all that the Jews had been through, it must have seemed a fair and humane solution. Probably deep familiarity with the Old Testament had given the European and American decision-makers some sort of idea that this really was the historic homeland of the Jews.
It was too much. The comfortable people made comfortable jokes about weather and things but I sat mostly silent saying a word or so when necessary a word or so trying to hide from them the fact that I was a fool and feeling terrible And I was numb, numb again, numb again again and again, numbness and pain swelling in me.
NVC suggests behind every action, however ineffective, tragic, violent, or abhorrent to us, is an attempt to meet a need.
Walks. The body advances, while the mind flutters around it like a bird.
Suffering pulls us farther away from other human beings. It builds a wall made of cries and contempt to separate us.
Our civilization is still in a middle stage, scarcely beast, in that it is no longer wholly guided by instinct; scarcely human, in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason.
The sense of an entailed disadvantage - the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centered, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite.
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