I was christened Clinton Richard Dawkins. By a strange quirk, Charles Darwin also has the initials CRD. I often think how proud he would have been to share them with me…., I propose to start this memoir with my grandfather, Clinton Evelyn, the first Dawkins to go to Balliol College, Oxford. The eulogy I wrote for his funeral still brings tears to my eyes. … I frequently pretended to know less than I actually did. This, I now see, was early evidence of my peculiar empathy towards individuals who are much stupider than me. … I shall never forget the shame I felt on my first day as a fag, after ringing the five-minute bell five minutes too late. For Read More ›

Today marks a full year since I issued an open challenge to Darwinists to ground their theory and its OOL extension and root, in light of actually observed capabilities of blind watchmaker mechanisms of chance and necessity through an essay I would host here at UD. The pivot of the challenge is the modern version of the very first Icon of Evolution, Darwin’s Tree of Life (which in an incomplete form is the ONLY image in original editions of Origin of Species), here typified by a case from the Smithsonian:   I first did so in an exchange thread, specifically responding to Jerad, then headlined it some days later. In lieu of prompt serious replies, I set up Wikipedia articles Read More ›

There is a story about two men who were praying in the same place.  One, burdened by the weight of his own sinfulness, would not even look up as he prayed.  Instead, he fell to his knees and cried out in an anguished spirit, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!” The other man was very religious, and he prayed like this:  “Lord, I thank you that I am not sinful like other men, that guy over there for instance.  I give money to the church, I fast every week, I follow all the rules.  Amen.” The first man, we are told, walked away justified before God, but not the second. I understand this story.  If I have a good attribute it Read More ›