Joe Rogan Experience #1366 - Richard Dawkins

1. 0:00 – 1:48

   Dawkins returns with 'Outgrowing God' and re-framing his tone on religion

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      All right. Here we go. Mr. Dawkins, thank you very much for being here. I really appreciate it.

   2. RDRichard Dawkins0:03

      Thank you.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:04

      Uh, I'm a huge fan of your work and we have a new book out, Outgrowing God. When does it come out? Is it out now?

   4. RDRichard Dawkins0:09

      It is out now.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      It is now.

   6. RDRichard Dawkins0:10

      Yes.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:11

      Like this week, right?

   8. RDRichard Dawkins0:12

      Uh, last week I think, yes.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      I read The God Delusion in, in preparation for this. Could you pull that microphone right up to your face? Just get it about a fist away from your face. You don't have to move.

   10. RDRichard Dawkins0:20

       Okay.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:20

       Let the microphone move for you.

   12. RDRichard Dawkins0:22

       Okay.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:22

       Um, I'm a huge fan of your work and I, I always wanted to ask you, it... You, you go so hard against religion and you have for so long, has there ever been a time where you've gotten fatigued from this? Where you're like, "I just... Leave this to somebody else."?

   14. RDRichard Dawkins0:37

       Well, obviously not because I just produced another one.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:39

       (laughs)

   16. RDRichard Dawkins0:40

       Um, it, it's not so hard as you think. I mean, uh, you, you remember it as hard, but actually if you read it again, I think you'd find it was not as hard as you remember.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:48

       I didn't mean hard in, in a negative sense. I mean, you push. You're, you're-

   18. RDRichard Dawkins0:53

       Okay.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:53

       ... you're so enthusiastic about your atheism.

   20. RDRichard Dawkins0:55

       I am enthusiastic.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:56

       Yes.

   22. RDRichard Dawkins0:56

       Uh, I'm also humorous. I mean, I, I-

   23. JRJoe Rogan0:58

       Yes.

   24. RDRichard Dawkins0:58

       I like to think it's a funny book. Um, but a lot of people do think it's hard in the other sense, and, and they... Sometimes when they read it again, they realize actually, no, it's more humorous. It's not so h- not so edgy, not so hard-hitting as, as they think, as they originally thought it was.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:15

       Well, I think that's probably because you've had some interviews in the past where you have talked to some fiercely religious people and you've had some cantankerous interactions with them. I think maybe so they, they associate you with having this, uh, v- almost aggressively atheistic stance.

   26. RDRichard Dawkins1:31

       Yes. Well, p- perhaps you're thinking of Bill O'Reilly. I'm not sure.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:35

       (laughs)

   28. RDRichard Dawkins1:35

       Um, well, I mean, he's aggressive all right.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:37

       Yeah, in the-

   30. RDRichard Dawkins1:38

       A-
2. 1:48 – 4:23

   Confronting fundamentalism on camera: Hell Houses, Ted Haggard, and moral intimidation

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:48

      Now, what was that BBC documentary that you, you had done, where you'd, you had-

   2. RDRichard Dawkins1:52

      I've done several.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:53

      The, the one where you had gone and interviewed b- a bunch of different religious people.

   4. RDRichard Dawkins1:57

      Yes. That was not BBC, that was Channel 4, which is the-

   5. JRJoe Rogan2:00

      Oh, okay.

   6. RDRichard Dawkins2:00

      ... c- commercial, um, station. And, um, yes, I interviewed Ted Haggard.

   7. JRJoe Rogan2:05

      Yes.

   8. RDRichard Dawkins2:05

      Uh, and a guy who ran a thing called Hell... Not Hell Holes. Hell, Hell, Hell Houses, where they-

   9. JRJoe Rogan2:12

      Right. Yes.

   10. RDRichard Dawkins2:12

       ... they tried to terrify children.

   11. JRJoe Rogan2:15

       Mm-hmm.

   12. RDRichard Dawkins2:15

       I mean, freak them out with horrible little play, little playlets-

   13. JRJoe Rogan2:20

       Yes.

   14. RDRichard Dawkins2:21

       ... of The Devil coming on with horns and glowing eyes and, and...

   15. JRJoe Rogan2:25

       I actually participated in a reenactment of that play in Los Angeles back in the day, uh, a comedy reenactment. Um, w- Bill Maher was in it.

   16. RDRichard Dawkins2:35

       Yes.

   17. JRJoe Rogan2:35

       A bunch of other comedians were in it. And we read word for word the, the script, and we e- acted it out in front of a, a live audience.

   18. RDRichard Dawkins2:44

       Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan2:44

       So people would come through The Hell House-

   20. RDRichard Dawkins2:46

       Yes.

   21. JRJoe Rogan2:46

       ... this haunted house.

   22. RDRichard Dawkins2:47

       Yes.

   23. JRJoe Rogan2:47

       But instead it was people knew it was all comedians reading it, and they'd g- they're like, "Is this really the words that they said?"

   24. RDRichard Dawkins2:52

       Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan2:52

       It was so preposterous-

   26. RDRichard Dawkins2:54

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:54

       ... that it actually, without being a parody, it actually played out like a comedy.

   28. RDRichard Dawkins2:57

       Well, when we filmed it, we filmed them doing the play, and then we f- they filmed me interviewing h- the perpetrator, Michael somebody or other.

   29. JRJoe Rogan3:05

       Yeah.

   30. RDRichard Dawkins3:06

       And I said to him, "What's your target audience?" And he said, "12." And I said, "Really?"
3. 4:23 – 6:28

   Why humans invent so many religions: divergence, conflict with 'nearest neighbors,' and costly devotion

   1. JRJoe Rogan4:23

      Why is it that you think that there are so many religions, and that basically every single civilization, th- throughout human history has had some sort of deity, some sort of higher power?

   2. RDRichard Dawkins4:38

      It's amazing the way they split and diverge and diverge and diverge. It's as though they somehow can't get along with each other, and, uh, maybe new leaders arise who have a leadership complex or something and want to found their own sect. Time and time again you have breakaway religions-

   3. JRJoe Rogan4:56

      Mm-hmm.

   4. RDRichard Dawkins4:56

      ... breakaway faiths. Um, I don't know what the psychological reason for it is, uh, but they... Uh, what I have noticed is that they usually hate the religion which is the closest to their own more than they do more distant ones.

   5. JRJoe Rogan5:11

      Right.

   6. RDRichard Dawkins5:11

      And that has a certain biological ring to it too, uh, that just kind of makes sense to a, to a biologist looking at diverging species.

   7. JRJoe Rogan5:18

      Well, it almost seems like if you were studying human beings, if you were something that was completely alien to our civilization or culture, and you were looking at this, this strange tendency to believe in something that there's no proof of and, uh, devote a massive amount of energy into defending that, put it into your songs and put it into, you know, your Pledge of Allegiance and all these di-... Which of course was not until the 1950s, but all the different things that people have done in so many different cultures with, in re- in regards to religion, it almost seems like a natural aspect of being a human being.

   8. RDRichard Dawkins5:54

      You're right that they put an enormous amount of energy and effort and, and expense and time.... uh, and, and cost and share. I mean, some of the extreme sects which whip themselves-

   9. JRJoe Rogan6:06

      Hmm.

   10. RDRichard Dawkins6:06

       ... with, with, with horrible weapons, actually bleed-

   11. JRJoe Rogan6:09

       Yes.

   12. RDRichard Dawkins6:09

       ... uh, scar their own backs. Uh, it's a ... it's very, very surprising to a biologist. You, you would think, we would think that they would be more interested in surviving and reproducing, but no, there's something about religion that makes them go to extremes of costliness, and I don't get it, I must say.

4. 6:28 – 8:32

   Death anxiety, afterlife promises, and the 'eternal boredom' critique of heaven

   1. JRJoe Rogan6:28

      Do you ... I've, I've thought about this so many times. Uh, do you think that it is in some way a counter to the sort of existential angst that comes from being a finite life form, from being a finite ... a, a thinking, conscious, finite life form that's aware of its own demise, aware it's coming, so it has to formulate some purpose and some meaning?

   2. RDRichard Dawkins6:48

      And, and, uh, a hope of an afterlife as well-

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:51

      Yes.

   4. RDRichard Dawkins6:52

      ... uh, in, in particular.

   5. JRJoe Rogan6:52

      Yes, but that is the purpose and meaning, right?

   6. RDRichard Dawkins6:53

      Y- yes, I suppose that's right. Yes, I think that's, that's right. Um, I can understand why people might want to believe a priest who comes along and tells them, "You don't have to worry about death because you're going to survive it." I'm less understanding of people who make up stories, uh, to comfort either themselves or other people. I mean, a made-up story should not be comforting. I don't understand how a made-up story can be comforting. Of course, if you make it up and persuade somebody else, then they could find it comforting.

   7. JRJoe Rogan7:24

      Hmm.

   8. RDRichard Dawkins7:24

      On the other hand, is an afterlife really all that comforting when you think about half of them believe they're going to go to hell? So it's anything but comforting. Um, and also, even if you're not going to hell, if you're going to heaven, eternity in heaven, I mean, sitting up- sitting in, in heaven for not just billions of years but trillions of years, I mean, these are, these are time spans beyond our comprehension. How unbelievably boring it would be.

   9. JRJoe Rogan7:53

      (laughs) Would it though? I mean, I don't know. Uh, I, I enjoy life, but if I had to live my life over and over again-

   10. RDRichard Dawkins8:01

       (clears throat)

   11. JRJoe Rogan8:01

       ... infinitely, if, if I had an infinite number of this exact lives, I don't know how I'd approach that. In the moment, I can enjoy it.

   12. RDRichard Dawkins8:12

       I could do with maybe 200 years, but-

   13. JRJoe Rogan8:14

       (laughs)

   14. RDRichard Dawkins8:14

       ... but after that ... No, I mean, I think, I think that eternity is what's frightening about death, and eternity is best spent under a local- under a general anesthetic-

   15. JRJoe Rogan8:25

       Hmm.

   16. RDRichard Dawkins8:25

       ... which is what's gonna happen.

   17. JRJoe Rogan8:27

       Right. Gonzo, out go the lights, maybe.

   18. RDRichard Dawkins8:32

       Yeah.

5. 8:32 – 11:30

   Psychedelics, mystical experience, and whether consciousness can outlast the brain

   1. JRJoe Rogan8:32

      Or maybe not. Have you had any experience with psychedelics?

   2. RDRichard Dawkins8:36

      No.

   3. JRJoe Rogan8:36

      No? Do you have any interest in that?

   4. RDRichard Dawkins8:38

      I've been offered to be accompanied on a trip by a very nice woman friend.

   5. JRJoe Rogan8:42

      Yeah?

   6. RDRichard Dawkins8:43

      Uh, and I've never, so far, dared take her up on it.

   7. JRJoe Rogan8:46

      How come?

   8. RDRichard Dawkins8:48

      I asked advice of a cousin of my father, who's just recently died, who was a major expert on psychedelics and I think he was the one who introduced Aldous Huxley to, to, uh, m- mescaline, for example, and he judiciously advised against. Uh, he said that the, the horrors of a bad trip are so, so awful that, uh, he wouldn't, he wouldn't advise somebody to go into it. My friend, uh, who's offering me this, this trip says it would be a, a relatively low dose, and she would take another low dose so she could kind of accompany me-

   9. JRJoe Rogan9:22

      Yeah.

   10. RDRichard Dawkins9:23

       ... and stop me jumping out a window or anything.

   11. JRJoe Rogan9:25

       Well, there's so many stories in so many ancient religions that seem to originate with the consumption of some, some sort of a psychedelic.

   12. RDRichard Dawkins9:32

       Yes.

   13. JRJoe Rogan9:33

       And, you know, there's many, uh, including John Marco Allegro's, uh, The Sacred Mushroom of the Cross.

   14. RDRichard Dawkins9:39

       Jesus, Jesus was a mushroom.

   15. JRJoe Rogan9:40

       Yeah.

   16. RDRichard Dawkins9:40

       Yes.

   17. JRJoe Rogan9:40

       Yes. So, I mean, it, it ... I mean, you could see the connection if you were a primitive person with no access to science, and you found some mushroom growing under a tree and consumed it and had this unbelievable experience, you would assume that you've transcended this life and gone into this, uh, other realm where, where God exists.

   18. RDRichard Dawkins10:01

       I once thought that I would try a psychedelic when I was on my deathbed.

   19. JRJoe Rogan10:05

       That's it? But what if it was amazing, and you're like, "I could have gotten so much done-"

   20. RDRichard Dawkins10:09

       Yes, okay. (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan10:09

       "... with this if I had-"

   22. RDRichard Dawkins10:10

       Maybe you're right, yes.

   23. JRJoe Rogan10:10

       "... if I tried this out when I was 30." (laughs)

   24. RDRichard Dawkins10:12

       Yes, maybe you're right, yes.

   25. JRJoe Rogan10:14

       I, uh, I don't, you know, I don't think anybody should do anything. I mean, I, I, I used to. I used to encourage people to do things all the time. Now, my, my thought is do whatever compels you, whenever you feel like it. But I would think that a person like yourself, who has this sort of rigorous belief that the lights go out and then that's it, uh, I, I would think that that would be attractive to just at least dip your toes in.

   26. RDRichard Dawkins10:38

       Yes, yes. Well, don't you think the lights go out?

   27. JRJoe Rogan10:41

       I don't know.

   28. RDRichard Dawkins10:42

       Hmm.

   29. JRJoe Rogan10:42

       You know, I don't know. I've had some pretty profound psychedelic experiences that make me wonder what, um, what thoughts are and what, what consciousness is and w- whether or not there's some way that it transcends where we are now.

   30. RDRichard Dawkins10:53

       Well, I wonder what consciousness is, but it's pretty clear that it's to do with brains, and brains decay, and so I, I wouldn't hold out much hope if I were you.
6. 11:30 – 14:40

   Pushback and debates: hostile encounters vs 'sophisticated' theologians who still believe miracles

   1. JRJoe Rogan11:30

      Do you ... What is the, the fiercest opposition that you've ever had to, to your work?

   2. RDRichard Dawkins11:37

      Fiercest or most cogent?

   3. JRJoe Rogan11:39

      Um, well, let's try both. Fiercest meaning the most, uh, the, the ... who has become the most angry at your work? And most cogent-

   4. RDRichard Dawkins11:47

      Oh.

   5. JRJoe Rogan11:47

      ... meaning-

   6. RDRichard Dawkins11:49

      Mm. Ted Haggard maybe.

   7. JRJoe Rogan11:50

      That guy? Really?

   8. RDRichard Dawkins11:51

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan11:52

      Well, he's such a preposterous person. For folks who don't know, he was a guy who, uh, he was, uh, he was pretty anti-gay, right? And then it-

   10. RDRichard Dawkins12:00

       Yes.

   11. JRJoe Rogan12:00

       ... turned out he was smoking meth and having sex with gay prostitutes, and, you know-... the whole deal.

   12. RDRichard Dawkins12:07

       Yes.

   13. JRJoe Rogan12:07

       And, which is ... Whenever someone, to me, is ridiculously anti-gay, I always assume that they're gay. I always assume, "Well, this guy's, h- he's just trying to, like, divert, divert attention."

   14. RDRichard Dawkins12:18

       Yes. Well, he was very hostile, uh, and, uh, um, in a, in a very weird way. It's all, it's all on television. It's all in-

   15. JRJoe Rogan12:27

       That was before his scandal.

   16. RDRichard Dawkins12:30

       Oh, yes.

   17. JRJoe Rogan12:30

       You, you got a hold of him before the scandal.

   18. RDRichard Dawkins12:32

       Oh, yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan12:32

       Yeah.

   20. RDRichard Dawkins12:34

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan12:34

       Yeah, he was. He was very hostile with you, I remember that. He was aggressive, like angry.

   22. RDRichard Dawkins12:38

       He a- almost tried to run us over in the, in the carpark after- afterwards. I think he didn't know who I was when he interviewed me.

   23. JRJoe Rogan12:45

       Ah.

   24. RDRichard Dawkins12:45

       And then I think he went away afterwards and Googled me.

   25. JRJoe Rogan12:47

       (laughs)

   26. RDRichard Dawkins12:48

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan12:48

       Was there Google back then? I don't think there was.

   28. RDRichard Dawkins12:50

       I think there was, yes.

   29. JRJoe Rogan12:50

       Net s- Netscape Navigator, I think, maybe.

   30. RDRichard Dawkins12:52

       Well, may- maybe it was, yes.
7. 14:40 – 19:22

   Modern religions under the microscope: Mormonism, cargo cults, Scientology, and how belief spreads

   1. JRJoe Rogan14:40

      Well, what, what's fascinating to me is not just the old religions, but really, the young religions. The young religions, to m- as I've gotten older, are more interesting, things like Mormonism, and more particularly, Scientology, which is even more preposterous, probably the most preposterous one that we have. Tho- those are really interesting to me.

   2. RDRichard Dawkins14:58

      They are interesting, but because they're so young, that we can see how they grew up. You can see-

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:02

      Yes.

   4. RDRichard Dawkins15:02

      ... the actual process. Uh, M- Mormonism, I'm depressed by how successful it is, actually, Scientology as well, but Mormonism since ... I mean, we know Joseph Smith was a charlatan. Um, everything about him screams charlatan. Uh, and yet, plenty of respectable people, including presidential candidates, men in suits, um, appear to believe it. In the case of ... I mean, I discuss it in Outgrowing God, in addition to the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith purported to have translated another book called the Book of Abraham, which, uh, was in a different language, uh, some ancient Egyptian language. And he published his full translation of the Book of Abraham, which was, he said, was all about Abraham's j- journey to Egypt and lots of detail about Egypt and Abraham in Egypt and things. Um, the original manuscripts was, were destroyed in a fire in Chicago, and so he was safe from anybody, um, exposing his translation. Then it was discovered that actually some of these manuscripts had sur- had survived, and they had not been destroyed. And modern scholars who actually knew the language, uh, including some Mormon scholars, translated it again, a true translation, which had nothing whatever to do with Abraham or Egypt. This is absolute, cast-iron demonstration that Joseph Smith was a complete fake and charlatan, and this is fully documented, and yet they go on believing that he was a prophet.

   5. JRJoe Rogan16:45

      And he was 14, too, when he came up with it, which is even more bizarre.

   6. RDRichard Dawkins16:48

      Was he?

   7. JRJoe Rogan16:48

      Yeah. 1820, he was 14 years old.

   8. RDRichard Dawkins16:51

      I didn't know that.

   9. JRJoe Rogan16:52

      He was a little kid.

   10. RDRichard Dawkins16:52

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan16:53

       Just a, a boy with a fantastic imagination, and it sort of caught fire.

   12. RDRichard Dawkins16:59

       Yes, the Golden Plates, which disappeared.

   13. JRJoe Rogan17:01

       Yeah, and the-

   14. RDRichard Dawkins17:02

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan17:02

       ... seer stone, where he-

   16. RDRichard Dawkins17:03

       Yes, and he put it into a hat and ... Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan17:06

       (laughs) It's just so strange to me that it persists, but the people that practice the religion are so nice. They are some of the nicest cult members I've ever met in my life.

   18. RDRichard Dawkins17:18

       Yes, I suppose so (laughs) .

   19. JRJoe Rogan17:19

       Mormons are my fav- they're my favorite.

   20. RDRichard Dawkins17:21

       Yeah, okay.

   21. JRJoe Rogan17:21

       They're absolutely my favorite.

   22. RDRichard Dawkins17:22

       Yeah, even when they come on your doorstep and sort of-

   23. JRJoe Rogan17:24

       They haven't.

   24. RDRichard Dawkins17:25

       Okay.

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:25

       If they did, maybe I'd change my, my tune.

   26. RDRichard Dawkins17:27

       Yes.

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:27

       You all right over there, Jamie?

   28. RDRichard Dawkins17:28

       I was wrong. Sorry. Good? Okay.

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:30

       Okay.

   30. RDRichard Dawkins17:30

       I'm, I'm also very interested in the, perhaps the, uh, the even more recent things like the cargo cults of-
8. 19:22 – 22:05

   Tribalism beats evidence: why people join and defend belief systems

   1. JRJoe Rogan19:22

      It's just so crazy. It's so ... And it's so strange that to this day, people are clinging to it. And it makes you wonder, like, what is it about these systems of belief that are so intrinsically attractive to people, so uniquely a part of being a person, these- these belief systems?

   2. RDRichard Dawkins19:39

      I think I get it when there's childhood indoctrination involved, but in the case of Scientology, some of the celebrities who joined it, that's not childhood indoctrination.

   3. JRJoe Rogan19:48

      No.

   4. RDRichard Dawkins19:48

      That's just sheer rank stupidity.

   5. JRJoe Rogan19:50

      I think there's also an element of being a part of a tribe.

   6. RDRichard Dawkins19:54

      Yes.

   7. JRJoe Rogan19:54

      That ... Especially the celebrity thing, 'cause I've met quite a few of them out here, especially in the early days, the '90s before the internet came along and sort of exposed a lot of this stuff, and South Park, uh, before they came along and exposed it. There was quite a few people that thought that there was a career advantage to being a part of Scientology. There were so many successful actors that were a part of Scientology and they were ... They seemed to be disciplined and focused and they- they were avoiding drugs and all the pitfalls of ho- Hollywood fame and stardom. And they also seemed to be helping each other, that Hollywood directors who were also Scientologists would look towards hiring Scientologist producers and actors.

   8. RDRichard Dawkins20:36

      A kind of free masonry then, I guess.

   9. JRJoe Rogan20:38

      Yes. Yes.

   10. RDRichard Dawkins20:39

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan20:39

       There's some strange thing that we are all very attractive, attracted to being a part of a tribe and being a part of a ... Even if the belief system is ridiculous, if we are in a group that subscribes to this belief system, it's very attractive to people.

   12. RDRichard Dawkins20:55

       That's a very important point and tribalism is a- a very important part of human, human nature, a very e- a very bad part, I think.

   13. JRJoe Rogan21:02

       Yeah.

   14. RDRichard Dawkins21:03

       Uh, and, um-

   15. JRJoe Rogan21:04

       But rewarding part as well, right?

   16. RDRichard Dawkins21:05

       Well, I suppose so. Um, Steven Pinker, you've probably had him on at some point.

   17. JRJoe Rogan21:10

       Yes.

   18. RDRichard Dawkins21:10

       Um, he makes the point that so much of what we believe, we humans generally believe, is not about evidence but, uh, is about, "Is this part of my tribe?"

   19. JRJoe Rogan21:22

       Right.

   20. RDRichard Dawkins21:22

       And, "Would ... Does my tribe believe this?"

   21. JRJoe Rogan21:24

       Yes.

   22. RDRichard Dawkins21:24

       Uh, and, um, uh, Jonathan Haidt also makes the same point about Republicans and Democrats.

   23. JRJoe Rogan21:30

       Yes.

   24. RDRichard Dawkins21:31

       That there's a- there's a fierce tribalism going on and, uh, it- it's- it accounts for so much of what people believe as opposed to actually looking at the evidence. Uh, the Center for Inquiry, which my foundation has just merged with, is of course all about trying to get people off that sort of thing, that irrationality, and to instead evaluate claims on the basis of evidence, critically e- evaluated scientific evidence. But it's hard because people have other motives like-

   25. JRJoe Rogan22:02

       Yeah.

   26. RDRichard Dawkins22:02

       ... emotion, tribalism-

   27. JRJoe Rogan22:04

       Mm-hmm.

   28. RDRichard Dawkins22:04

       ... things like that.

9. 22:05 – 27:01

   Comfort, placebo effects, and pseudoscience: religion-like reassurance vs truth claims

   1. JRJoe Rogan22:05

      Well, people find great comfort in these belief systems. It gives them sort of a ... I- I've often said that it gives them some sort of like a scaffolding for their, uh, just their structure of the world, their ethics, their morals. They- they can use religion as some sort of a- a mechanism to help them get by, something that they can climb on to, uh, eh, er- uh, ease some of the confusion of the unknown.

   2. RDRichard Dawkins22:32

      I'm sure that's true, but I don't understand why anybody therefore thinks that therefore the religion is true. Why-

   3. JRJoe Rogan22:38

      Mm-hmm.

   4. RDRichard Dawkins22:38

      ... would you think that because it provides you with a scaffold you can climb on that makes it true? I could understand you erecting a scaffold that was, say, gymnastics or- or- or- or a certain diet or something like that, but a belief about the universe, that's either gotta be true or not.

   5. JRJoe Rogan22:56

      Mm-hmm.

   6. RDRichard Dawkins22:56

      And it doesn't make it true just because it's comforting or provides you with a scaffold to climb on.

   7. JRJoe Rogan23:01

      Well, it's almost like it's a spiritual system like a, uh, placebo effect, like a spiritual placebo effect. And by believing that this is true, it gives you this comfort and allows you to condense your thoughts into a- a- a better path.

   8. RDRichard Dawkins23:19

      The placebo effect, of course, is very real-

   9. JRJoe Rogan23:21

      Yes.

   10. RDRichard Dawkins23:21

       ... and- and doctors know about it. But did you know that the placebo effect works even if the patient is told it's a placebo?

   11. JRJoe Rogan23:28

       Yes.

   12. RDRichard Dawkins23:28

       I mean, that I don't get. I mean, that's-

   13. JRJoe Rogan23:30

       Incredible.

   14. RDRichard Dawkins23:30

       ... that's incredible, isn't it?

   15. JRJoe Rogan23:31

       Yeah, it's very strange. Well, it's sometimes people doing things and knowing that they're doing things gives them this sort of feeling of, uh, of momentum, of accomplishment, of- of progress. And I think, uh, so many people are just so adrift and don't have focus that even just telling them, "Hey, we're gonna ... You're gonna be a part of this program."

   16. RDRichard Dawkins23:52

       Yes.

   17. JRJoe Rogan23:52

       "This program-"

   18. RDRichard Dawkins23:53

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan23:53

       "... to treat X, Y disease," whatever it is.

   20. RDRichard Dawkins23:56

       Yes.

   21. JRJoe Rogan23:56

       "And here's this thing." Like, just- just focusing on it

   22. NANarrator23:58

       Yeah.

   23. RDRichard Dawkins23:58

       Well, I think the- the main reason why so many people believe in homeopathy, which- which not only doesn't work but cannot work, is the placebo effect-

   24. JRJoe Rogan24:07

       Mm-hmm.

   25. RDRichard Dawkins24:08

       ... that they, um, they ... Well, it's partly they're gonna get better anyway, of course, but it's also the placebo effect, that- that the homeopathic ... I wouldn't say doctor, homeopathic practitioner-

   26. JRJoe Rogan24:16

       Yeah.

   27. RDRichard Dawkins24:16

       ... gives them, uh-... nonsensical piece of medicine, and they believe it's going to work, and so it does. And, and so the placebo effect is important. Um, the CFI, Center for Inquiry, has actually got a, a lawsuit going on at the moment against pharmaceutical, um, shops selling homeopathic remedies alongside, uh, genuine ones.

   28. JRJoe Rogan24:41

       Mm-hmm.

   29. RDRichard Dawkins24:41

       We can't stop them actually selling homeopathic remedies, but we can try and do is stop them putting them on the same shelf as though there's no difference bet- be- between them. But my colleague Nick Humphrey, who's a psychologist, a very insightful one, thinks you could actually even justify homeopathy on the grounds that homeopathic practitioners are allowed to prescribe placebos. They call them homeopathic, but they are placebos. Whereas real doctors are not allowed to pr- to-

   30. JRJoe Rogan25:09

       (laughs)
10. 27:01 – 31:22

    Everyone is an atheist about most gods: 'Praise Odin,' comparative religion, and planting early doubt

    1. JRJoe Rogan27:01

       One of the things that I really enjoyed about your book was when you explained to people that everyone who, who practices a religion is an atheist. You're just an atheist in regards to Zeus or to Apollo.

    2. RDRichard Dawkins27:14

       Yeah, all the, all the 999 other gods.

    3. JRJoe Rogan27:16

       Yes.

    4. RDRichard Dawkins27:16

       Yes, that's right, yes.

    5. JRJoe Rogan27:16

       And that, that's a home run-

    6. RDRichard Dawkins27:19

       Yeah.

    7. JRJoe Rogan27:19

       ... with this argument.

    8. RDRichard Dawkins27:20

       Yes.

    9. JRJoe Rogan27:20

       Because-

    10. RDRichard Dawkins27:21

        Some of them just go one god further.

    11. JRJoe Rogan27:22

        Yes.

    12. RDRichard Dawkins27:23

        Yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan27:23

        But th- that, that really is a home run because this is, this concept of, you know, I, I, w- me and my friends jokingly w- would always say, "Praise Odin," when anything would happen-

    14. RDRichard Dawkins27:33

        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    15. JRJoe Rogan27:33

        ... that was pretty good or cool.

    16. RDRichard Dawkins27:35

        Yeah. Yes.

    17. JRJoe Rogan27:35

        We'd say, "Praise Odin," and I started doing it online, and people really got into saying, "Praise Odin," about certain things.

    18. RDRichard Dawkins27:40

        I rather like that, yes.

    19. JRJoe Rogan27:41

        And some people got mad at me. They actually got mad that I was... "You're mocking Christianity by saying praise Odin."

    20. RDRichard Dawkins27:47

        But of course you are. (laughs)

    21. JRJoe Rogan27:48

        (laughs)

    22. RDRichard Dawkins27:48

        Why not?

    23. JRJoe Rogan27:49

        I wasn't even really, I was just having fun.

    24. RDRichard Dawkins27:51

        Yes.

    25. JRJoe Rogan27:52

        I was having fun 'cause Odin seemed like a cool god, you know? I mean, it's, it's a old school god, you know? I mean, it's the god of the Vikings.

    26. RDRichard Dawkins28:00

        Uh, Douglas Adams wrote a lovely book called The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul which, uh, in which the Norse gods are part of it, and Odin in that, in that, um, book, has got old and senile, and he, he just lies in bed all the time, and, and asking for clean sheets every day.

    27. JRJoe Rogan28:16

        (laughs)

    28. RDRichard Dawkins28:16

        And, and Thor is out there doing mischief with his great hammer and, and things. And one, at one point, Odin sees, gets Thor superglued to the floor and things, and it's a wonderful story.

    29. JRJoe Rogan28:27

        The, uh, the n- vast number of different religions, the, I mean, the incredible number. I mean, how many, how many actual religions are there? There just-

    30. RDRichard Dawkins28:36

        Thousands.
11. 31:22 – 38:00

    A future with less religion: rising 'nones,' political stigma, and where morality really comes from

    1. JRJoe Rogan31:22

       When you look at human civilization and you, you go back to the origins of religion and you look towards the future, do you envision a time where humanity is free of what you would consider irrational belief systems, or belief systems that are not based on fact?

    2. RDRichard Dawkins31:37

       I do. Uh, I'm not sure that it'll come soon, uh, but I, I do, and I look forward to that time, of course. Um, I think we're moving in the right direction, and the figures bear that out, uh, in even in America, which is off the s- off the scale of, of, of Western civilizations. Um, even in, in America, the number of people who now subscribe to a religion, um, uh, is, is, is dropping dramatically, and the number who say they have no religion is now about 25%. That's a lot.

    3. JRJoe Rogan32:10

       That is a lot.

    4. RDRichard Dawkins32:10

       That's a great deal. And that compares to any one particular Christian denomination. And yet, politically, the, that group, the, the nons, the no, the no beliefs, have no lobby, they have no, no powerful, um, uh, pressure group. So politicians will go out there and suck up to, I don't know, the Irish lobby, the Polish lo- lobby, the Jewish lobby, the Catholic lobby, et cetera, but the atheist lobby hasn't got its act together, or is n- only just now beginning to get its act together.

    5. JRJoe Rogan32:41

       Well, politically, I think people are terrified of the concept because it's such a s- s- such a long branch to go out on. One of the things that you brought up in The God Delusion was the willingness of people to vote for a gay candidate for president, a Black candidate for president, a woman candidate for president, but then an atheist, which is, w- I believe 40%.

    6. RDRichard Dawkins33:03

       They think, they think that, um, you've got to have a belief in some kind of higher power in order to be moral. But the weird thing is that it doesn't have to be the same higher power as the one you believe in. Anyone will do-

    7. JRJoe Rogan33:16

       Right.

    8. RDRichard Dawkins33:16

       ... as long as there, as long as there is one. But if you don't believe in a higher power, you must be, uh, immoral. Uh, you, you... And, and that, uh, is totally ridiculous when you think about the horrible immorality of, for example, the, both the Bible and the Quran, which a- which are horrific in the sense that if you beli- if you actually got your morals, if you got your moral values from the Old Testament or the Quran, and they've, they share them, uh, great deal, of course, you would be stoning adulterers to death, and stoning people to death for breaking the Sabbath, and doing sacrifices, human sacrifices, and animal sacrifices, all sorts of horrible things, which of course do go on now, uh, in Islamic countries especially. Gay people getting thrown off high buildings and women being beheaded for the crime of being seen with a man not their husband, and that kind of thing. Um, so that, that... We, we can see what you get when you get your morality from an Abrahamic scripture. And yet there are still people in this country who say you cannot be moral unless you believe in a higher power.

    9. JRJoe Rogan34:27

       What do you think... Uh, let's extract this, this concept of a higher power. Let's, let's get rid of it. Let's, let's get rid of... Where, where do you think people get their morals and their ethics from then?

    10. RDRichard Dawkins34:38

        That's a profoundly difficult question. Uh, we clearly don't get them from religion. Uh, and yet we get them from somewhere, and you can demonstrate that by the fact that, uh, the moral values of any particular century are markedly different from those of other centuries, uh, even decades. So in the 21st century, he- we here now have moral values which are really significantly different from 100 years ago or 200 years ago, or 300 years ago. And, um, within any one of those centuries you could take people who are in the vanguard of moral progress. For example, in the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, T.H. Huxley would have been on the liberal, uh, progressive end of the spectrum, and other people would have been on the opposite end. But even Abraham Lincoln, for example, made a speech that I quoted in Outgrowing God in which he said, "Of course, no- nobody would seriously think that Black people are the equal of white people. Nobody would seriously say that Black people should be allowed to vote, or should be, uh, um, uh, allowed to marry white people." Um, this is Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves-

    11. JRJoe Rogan35:57

        Right.

    12. RDRichard Dawkins35:57

        ... and was, uh, as I say, in the forefront of progressive thought. Charles Darwin, again, was in favor of freeing the slaves. He was passionately anti-slavery. But he too, uh, thought that there was no question about Black people being equal of white people. They obviously weren't. And, and, and, and Huxley, Thomas Huxley, again Darwin's bulldog, thought the same way. Now, those people were at the fr- at the forefront, as I say-... today, they would still be in the forefront, and they would be horrified to look back on what they said-

    13. JRJoe Rogan36:32

        Mm-hmm.

    14. RDRichard Dawkins36:32

        ... in the 19th century. Well, something is changing as the centuries go by. I, in Outgrowing God, I call it something in the air, which of course doesn't explain anything. But what I mean by that is that it's, it's not literally hovering in the air, but it's a con- col- it's a con- collection of, oh, um, conversations between people, dinner party conversations, um, parliamentary decisions, Congressional debates, uh, judicial decisions by judges, juries, um, newspaper articles, journalism. All these things together conspire together to produce something in the air, something that d- that defines a, a given century or maybe even a given decade, uh, with the moral values of that, of that decade.

    15. JRJoe Rogan37:26

        The, the knowledge base, which is just so superior today in, in terms of like what the general public has access to, in terms of what we understand about human beings, it's just different than it was back then.

    16. RDRichard Dawkins37:39

        Right.

    17. JRJoe Rogan37:39

        And it continues to be different. And now with the internet, we have so much more access to these conversations, that it's not just about being at a dinner table with the right people. You can watch YouTube videos of yourself-

    18. RDRichard Dawkins37:51

        That's right. That's right.

    19. JRJoe Rogan37:51

        ... debating religious scholars or-

    20. RDRichard Dawkins37:53

        So the, so the, that, that progress of something in the air has, will, uh, as it were, take on an accelerated pace because of the internet.

    21. JRJoe Rogan38:00

        Yeah.

12. 38:00 – 39:20

    Internet as an accelerant: translation projects, Muslim-world atheism, and cultural religion

    1. RDRichard Dawkins38:00

       And I think that's a very hopeful sign. Of course, the internet also can be used for the opposite purpose. But there, I think there's a kind of asymmetry there because especially if you look at benighted areas of the world like Afghanistan and Pakistan, uh, where until recently the idea of being an atheist was simply inconceivable, it was off the radar, they didn't even consider it, it wasn't something that they thought was possible, uh, now they do because they, they got the internet. Um, we've got a project with, in CFI of downloading, free of charge, as PDFs, several of my books, including The God Delusion and will be Outgrowing God as well, and these are being downloaded by large numbers of people. Uh, the first PDF download of the Arabic edition of The God Delusion was downloaded 13 million times, Arabic edition-

    2. JRJoe Rogan38:54

       Wow.

    3. RDRichard Dawkins38:54

       ... 13 million times. So now, they are being exposed to the possibility of atheism, which w- wasn't a possi- of course, there's still be, the internet is also exposing them to Islamic propaganda, but they've had that all along from imams, mullahs, uh, and, and their mad- madrasa schools. But now they've got, they've got it coming the other way as well, and I have great hope that the internet will mark a turning point.

13. 39:20 – 48:23

    Replacing religious community, cult dynamics, and whether Jesus existed

    1. JRJoe Rogan39:20

       Do you think that people need a structure? And is it possible to give them a secular structure tha- that mimics religion? There's certainly some sort of a community aspect-

    2. RDRichard Dawkins39:29

       Yes, possibly.

    3. JRJoe Rogan39:31

       ... to religious worship.

    4. RDRichard Dawkins39:31

       I, I, I don't feel that very strongly myself, but I'm aware that, uh, many other people do and there are people who are, uh, interested in starting up sort of atheistic or secular meetup groups on Sundays and, I don't know, lectures, book-

    5. JRJoe Rogan39:45

       Yeah, my worry is that that will become a sex cult. It always-

    6. RDRichard Dawkins39:48

       Yeah, I never thought of that.

    7. JRJoe Rogan39:49

       (laughs)

    8. RDRichard Dawkins39:49

       Never thought of that.

    9. JRJoe Rogan39:50

       It seems, always seems to have someone who gets in control, who winds up having a-

    10. RDRichard Dawkins39:54

        Well, as, as religious cults usually do.

    11. JRJoe Rogan39:57

        Yes, they do.

    12. RDRichard Dawkins39:57

        I mean, there's extraordinary stories. That awful man, what was he called? Um, uh, who, who ended up taking his followers to a South American jungle and-

    13. JRJoe Rogan40:05

        Jim Jones.

    14. RDRichard Dawkins40:05

        ... Jim, Jim Jones.

    15. JRJoe Rogan40:06

        In Guyana.

    16. RDRichard Dawkins40:06

        And, um, I mean, he, he had this gigantic harem of, of all-

    17. JRJoe Rogan40:11

        Mm-hmm.

    18. RDRichard Dawkins40:11

        ... the young women in-

    19. JRJoe Rogan40:12

        They always do.

    20. RDRichard Dawkins40:13

        Yes.

    21. JRJoe Rogan40:13

        Waco, he had one.

    22. RDRichard Dawkins40:15

        Waco. Exactly the same.

    23. JRJoe Rogan40:15

        They all do.

    24. RDRichard Dawkins40:16

        Uh, yes.

    25. JRJoe Rogan40:16

        Yeah.

    26. RDRichard Dawkins40:17

        Um, well, okay, I mean, I don't think that's happening so far with the secular-

    27. JRJoe Rogan40:22

        (laughs) I hope not.

    28. RDRichard Dawkins40:23

        ... ones.

    29. JRJoe Rogan40:23

        The worry is that once someone gets into a position of being the person who gets to speak, the alpha, the, the one who's on the, you know, on the stage addressing people and giving them the doctrine, that, uh, he becomes far too attractive for his own good.

    30. RDRichard Dawkins40:38

        Well, that, that would not surprise any naive Darwinian who would say, "What on earth do you think do you become an- the, the, the dominant chimpanzee becomes dominant for?"
14. 48:23 – 55:27

    How 'Outgrowing God' is built: debunking scripture, then explaining science and evolution

    1. JRJoe Rogan48:23

       (laughs) Well, now, when you set out to write this book and write it for young people, how did you structure it in your mind? Did you use... Did you, uh, address... Did you think of it as addressing young people-

    2. RDRichard Dawkins48:36

       Yeah.

    3. JRJoe Rogan48:36

       ... with questions that are trying to find-

    4. RDRichard Dawkins48:37

       Sort of, yes. It's in two halves. Uh, the, the first half is debunking God. It begins with what we were talking about earlier, this sheer number of different gods, and then moves on to...... the Bible and how unreliable a source of information it is. A- and both the Old Testament and the New Testament, they get a chapter each. And then there's a couple of chapters on morality and why you don't need, um, f- or not only do you not need religion to be moral, you better not have religion if you want to be moral. And then the second half of the book is about science be- because I think that one of the, possibly the major reason people still cling to religion is a, uh, belief that the world is so complicated, especially the living world is so complicated, that it cannot be explained by purely scientific means. And so, I've set out to disabuse them of that and to show how even the most radically, complicated, and beautiful, and elegant pieces of animal design can be, and are explained by science. So that's most of the second half.

    5. JRJoe Rogan49:50

       That's a weird one, right? The argument that it's too complicated for it to not be of a divine ...

    6. RDRichard Dawkins49:55

       Well, it's, I'm not sure it's weird. It's, it's kind of understandable until you've thought about it for a bit, because, um, complicated things don't just happen. Complicated things, like these cameras and this computer and things like that, they ... We all, we all know they had to have an engineer design them and, and factories to build them, and they're very, very improbable things, statistically improbable. The components of a computer or a camera, if you jumbled them up at random, they wouldn't work, obviously. So, um, it, it's kind of pardonable that people should think there must have been a designer. But then you think a bit further and you realize that the designer himself would need just the same kind of explanation, and therefore the designer is not an explanation that flies. And, I mean, philosophers before Darwin, philo- philosophers like Hume realized that, but didn't have anything to put in its place. Darwin came along and gave them that which you would need to put in its place. And, um, I mean, Hume would've loved Darwin if only he'd lived long enough to, to meet him, to, to, to meet his ideas. So I think we have to have sympathy for people who think that complexity must mean design, um, but nowadays, we know better, and that's what the second half of Outgrowing God is about.

    7. JRJoe Rogan51:22

       Who designed the designer? That is the, that's the big conundrum for people who believe in God.

    8. RDRichard Dawkins51:26

       Yes, it is, and they, they, they shrug it off. They say, "Oh, well he didn't need a designer. He was always there," or, but-

    9. JRJoe Rogan51:32

       Well, my favorite one is then why did he wait until 6,000 years ago-

    10. RDRichard Dawkins51:35

        I know, yes.

    11. JRJoe Rogan51:35

        ... to make the world?

    12. RDRichard Dawkins51:36

        I know exactly. Yes, that, that's-

    13. JRJoe Rogan51:37

        Seems like he was around forever.

    14. RDRichard Dawkins51:39

        That, that, that was Christopher Hitchens' favorite-

    15. JRJoe Rogan51:40

        Oh, okay.

    16. RDRichard Dawkins51:40

        ... favorite one.

    17. JRJoe Rogan51:41

        Yeah.

    18. RDRichard Dawkins51:41

        Um, we, we have in, in the Center for Inquiry a, a, a program, it actually, I think, came over from-

    19. JRJoe Rogan51:48

        Mm-hmm.

    20. RDRichard Dawkins51:48

        ... the Richard Dawkins Foundation when we merged, called TIES, the Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science, which is teaching teachers how to teach evolution, because middle school teachers in this country apparently are not, um, don't have science degrees and they don't really know how to counter, how to combat the pushback that they get from children and parents and school boards and things, specifically against evolution. And so we, we are teaching teachers how to teach evolution. I mean, we run workshops, we now run one in every state of the union. Uh, and that, I think, is one of the, that's one of the projects of CFI which is closest to my heart.

    21. JRJoe Rogan52:31

        The, um ... So back to this book. Sorry folks, we had a little bit of technical difficulty. Um, what, what was your motivation for this? You were just trying to figure out a way to sort of cut off these, uh, uh, these notions a- at the root and explain to young people-

    22. RDRichard Dawkins52:45

        Y- yes. I mean, I'm worried about childhood indoctrination-

    23. JRJoe Rogan52:47

        Yes.

    24. RDRichard Dawkins52:47

        ... and, and the fact that, um, people who are religious almost certainly adopt the religion of their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. Uh, and so we've got a kind of pseudo-genetic inheritance going on, and I, I, I really hate that. I mean, that, that's wicked, that's, that's indoctrination of children. So I've always wanted to try to break that chain going down the generations. So I've always wanted to write a book for young people. Um, and of course, it's highly necessary when you see the enormous and pernicious influence of fundamentalist religion, especially in this country, actually.

    25. JRJoe Rogan53:27

        Yes. Now the science aspect of it, th- this is, uh, I mean, obviously when you're talking about the science of evolutionary biology and natural selection and random mutations and all these different things that lead to a thing becoming a human being over the course of billions of years, it's such a complex idea for people to grasp. Um, how is it ... How do you, uh, condense it and sort of simplify the path-

    26. RDRichard Dawkins53:53

        Right.

    27. JRJoe Rogan53:53

        ... and t- introduce them to the works of these great scientists that have sort of established these-

    28. RDRichard Dawkins53:59

        Yeah.

    29. JRJoe Rogan53:59

        ... these ideas for them?

    30. RDRichard Dawkins54:00

        It's actually a very simple idea, but it plays out in very complex ways.
15. 55:27 – 1:01:37

    Making evolution intuitive: artificial selection, peppered moths, and the challenge of deep time

    1. JRJoe Rogan55:27

       Is there any, are there any, um, w- w- um, examples that you point to in nature where observable evolution has occurred 'cause there have been some where we've seen observable evolution over the course of, you know, the last-

    2. RDRichard Dawkins55:41

       Yes.

    3. JRJoe Rogan55:42

       ... X amount of years.

    4. RDRichard Dawkins55:42

       I mean, Da- Darwin himself, uh, made great play of domestication, uh, which is very fast and which has occurred in historical times. So we, we, we could see how wolves have been changed into Pekineses and poodles and Labradors and spaniels, and, and that's a very, very major change to have occurred in only a couple of thousand, a few thousand years. Um, and we see the same with cabbages and with roses and with, um, horses and all sorts of other things. Um, that's artificial selection, not natural selection. Everybody knew about artificial selection, of course, farmers and gardeners, w- pigeon fanciers all knew about it. Darwin's great insight was to sh- say you don't need a human selector. You don't need a human breeder to do the transformation from wolf to Pomeranian. Um, na- nature does it for you. Non-random survival is the equivalent of a human breeder doing the breeding. Um, so that's what Da- what Darwin did, and, and, um, as for examples of natural selection, we do have some, uh, the famous peppered moths in Britain is one of them, um, mosquitoes I think is another one.

    5. JRJoe Rogan57:04

       Could you explain the peppered moths to people?

    6. RDRichard Dawkins57:05

       Yes, the pep-

    7. JRJoe Rogan57:05

       It's really interesting.

    8. RDRichard Dawkins57:06

       Peppered moths is the ... This is a moth called Biston betularia which, uh, is ... Lives on tree bark. It, it sits on, on tree bark and it's perfectly camouflaged, it looks like tree bark so it's, it's light-colored. Uh, and then the industrial revolution in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries caused the woods around industrial areas like Manchester and Birmingham to become blackened. And so the moths stood out, they became conspicuous and they were picked off by birds but mutant moths were black and the mutant black moths were not picked off by birds and so what happened was that the pre- the pre- percentage of black moths in the populations around industrial centers like Birmingham and Manchester, they became much more numerous and the light-colored ones became almost extinct in those areas. But at the same time, the light-colored moths in rural areas far from industrial pollution like Devon and Somerset, uh, stayed with their, their original, original color. And this was worked out beautifully by a, by a man in Oxford actually called Bernard Kettlewell, um, and, and he showed, he actually went and sampled in these different areas, uh, and also did experiments showing birds actually picking off, um, light-colored moths in dark areas and, and, uh, vice versa.

    9. JRJoe Rogan58:39

       That's one that we can trace, that we can trace, uh-

    10. RDRichard Dawkins58:42

        Yes because the industrial revolution was only a couple of hundred years ago.

    11. JRJoe Rogan58:45

        Yeah. So that, that's an excellent example for people to see like this happens, look at this over 500,000 years, look at this over 10,000 years. I mean this is, this is what happens, this is how random selection-

    12. RDRichard Dawkins58:57

        Well, thi- this one happened o- over only 100 years-

    13. JRJoe Rogan59:00

        Right, yeah.

    14. RDRichard Dawkins59:00

        ... or, or 200 years.

    15. JRJoe Rogan59:02

        But that this is how a human being came to be, that this same process-

    16. RDRichard Dawkins59:06

        The same, yeah that's r- that's right and, and, um, the, the creationists don't like the peppered moth story. They say, "Oh, well that's just r- one, one gene." They, when they, they try to say that, that, that the same process will not give rise to major changes like from, um, reptiles to birds or, uh, ver- or mammals or so. But it, it just is the same process over a much, much longer period and what can be achieved in a couple of hundred years is small, what can be achieved in a couple of thousand years is wolf to Pekingese, what can be achieved in a couple of million years is, um, uh, Australopithecus to Homo sapiens, what can be achieved in 100 million years is shrew to human and, uh, uh, and 1,000 million years would be bacterium to, to human. Well, maybe not, maybe two, two, 2,000 million years.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:00:01

        But it's just a, it ... When you're living in the present and you're, you're, you're thinking of yourself and you're thinking of biological life, it's, it's hard for a person to see things on those scales which is one of the reasons why I think for many people that aren't educated in these, these sort of subjects to, to buy into this concept of, of a, an ... Some sort of intelligent design.

    18. RDRichard Dawkins1:00:25

        Yes. Well, um, time scales are, um, we, we have no concept of millions of years. We can, we can just about cope with ... I mean even thousands of years, even going back to the ancient Egyptians, we get a kind of frisson of, of, of awe at, at you know, wondering what it was like, what the Epic of Gilgamesh, what, what was it like then. That's nothing compared to evolutionary time, that's just-

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:00:48

        Right.

    20. RDRichard Dawkins1:00:49

        ... it's not even yesterday, it's, it's a couple of minutes ago, it's, it's ridiculously short time.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:00:54

        Well, you have a hard out at 4:00 and that time has come so, uh, I wanna thank you for being here and I wanna thank you for your commitment over the years to educating people and this ... You, you have an, an amazing amount of endurance for this stuff and, uh, because of that a lot of people have, you know, shifted their ideas and, and, and gravitated towards science.

    22. RDRichard Dawkins1:01:12

        It's been a pleasure, thank you very much indeed.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:01:13

        Thank you very much. Richard Dawkins, ladies and gentlemen.

    24. RDRichard Dawkins1:01:15

        Bye-bye. (upbeat music)

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:01:18

        That was great.

    26. RDRichard Dawkins1:01:19

        Good, thank you, and I have to sign this.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:01:25

        Yeah. (laughs)

Episode duration: 1:01:38