Richard Dawkins on Why We Should Believe in Science: “It Works … Bitches”

Appear­ing at Oxford’s Shel­don­ian The­ater in 2013, evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gist Richard Dawkins field­ed a ques­tion that’s now being asked unnerv­ing­ly often in our anti-Enlight­en­ment age.

Audi­ence mem­ber: “The ques­tion is about the nature of sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence. You both said, and I think most peo­ple here would agree with you, that we’re jus­ti­fied in hold­ing a belief if there is evi­dence for it, or there are log­i­cal argu­ments we can find that sup­port it. But it seems like this in itself is a belief, which would require some form of evi­dence. If so, I’m won­dering what you think would count as evi­dence in favour of that and, if not, how do we jus­ti­fy choos­ing that heuris­tic with­out appeal­ing to the same stan­dard that we are try­ing to jus­ti­fy?”

Dawkins: “How do we jus­ti­fy, as it were, that sci­ence would give us the truth? It works. Planes fly, cars dri­ve, com­put­ers com­pute. If you base med­i­cine on sci­ence, you cure peo­ple; if you base the design of planes on sci­ence, they fly; if you base the design of rock­ets on sci­ence, they reach the moon. It works … bitch­es.”

Now, some­one please send that memo to the folks who call the shots.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Richard Dawkins’ Famous “What If You’re Wrong” Speech Ani­mat­ed in the Style of South Park

Grow­ing Up in the Uni­verse: Richard Dawkins Presents Cap­ti­vat­ing Sci­ence Lec­tures for Kids (1991)

Richard Dawkins Explains Why There Was Nev­er a First Human Being

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