Of course, we would love to know more about the exact moment of Big Bang, but interposing an outside intelligence does nothing to add to that knowledge, as we still know nothing about the creation of that intelligence.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the limitation of attributing the origins of the universe to an external intelligence, emphasizing the need for empirical understanding.
Richard Dawkins critiques the idea of explaining the Big Bang through an external intelligence or deity, suggesting that doing so doesn't actually enhance our understanding. Instead, it merely replaces one mystery with another, as we still remain clueless about the origins of that supposed intelligence. This perspective encourages an emphasis on scientific inquiry and understanding of the universe based on evidence rather than reliance on supernatural explanations.
In practice
During a philosophy discussion on the origin of the universe, this quote might illustrate skepticism towards supernatural explanations.
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.
Let me lay my cards on the table. If I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone ever had, I'd give it to Darwin, ahead of even Newton or Einstein and everyone else. In a single stroke, the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law. It is not just a wonderful idea. It is a dangerous idea.
The game I play is a very interesting one. It's imagination, in a tight straightjacket.
The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds.
It is an error to imagine that evolution signifies a constant tendency to increased perfection. That process undoubtedly involves a constant remodeling of the organism in adaptation to new conditions; but it depends on the nature of those conditions whether the direction of the modifications effected shall be upward or downward.
Understanding science and pushing the boundaries of science is what makes me immensely satisfied.
Life ... is a relationship between molecules.
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