Dawkins' Delusion

"As an academic scientist I am a passionate Darwinian, believing that natural selection is, if not the only driving force in evolution, certainly the only known force capable of producing the illusion of purpose which so strikes all who contemplate nature.” (Richard Dawkins, A Devils Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love)

"Darwinian natural selection can produce an uncanny illusion of design. An engineer would be hard put to decide whether a bird or a plane was the more aerodynamically elegant. So powerful is the illusion of design, it took humanity until the mid-19th century to realize that it is an illusion.” (Richard Dawkins, New Scientist 9/17/05)

“Natural selection.… has lifted life from primeval simplicity to the dizzy heights of complexity, beauty, and apparent design that puzzle us today. After Darwin, we all should feel, deep in our bones, suspicious of the very idea of design. The illusion of design is a trap that has caught us before, and Darwin should have immunized us by raising our consciousness.” (Richard Dawkins, The Theory of Evolution by John Maynard Smith, Forward)

“It is almost as if the human brain were specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinism, and to find it hard to believe.” (Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, Preface)

VS

“That consciousness is ruled by the laws of physics and chemistry is as preposterous as the suggestion that a nation could be ruled by laws like the laws of grammar. In human affairs [law] means a rule.… which may be kept or broken. In science it means a rule which is never broken…. Thus in the physical world what a body does and what a body ought to do are equivalent; but we are well aware of another domain where they are anything but equivalent. We cannot get away from this distinction…. The laws of logic do not prescribe the way our minds think; they prescribe the way our minds ought to think…. However closely we may associate thought with the physical machinery of the brain, the connection is dropped as irrelevant as soon as we consider the fundamental property of thought—that it may be correct or incorrect…. [Truth] involves recognizing a domain…. of laws which ought to be kept but may be broken. Dismiss the idea that natural law may swallow up religion; it can’t even tackle the multiplication table single-handed.” (Sir Arthur Eddington, Science and the Unseen World)