TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO RICHARD DAWKINS

1. Worst habit? Seizing any excuse to divert from the task at hand.

2. Greatest fear? That the world might cease to respect reason.

3. The line that stayed with you? The line between truth and falsehood.

4. Biggest regret? The loss of friends.

5. Favourite room? Room to manoeuvre.

6. The artwork/song you wish was yours? Here, There and Everywhere by Lennon and McCartney.

7. If you could solve one thing... The evolutionary significance of consciousness.

It is clear he is most happy talking about science. Science, he explains, is mostly collegiate; the arguments are passionate, but generally respectful. The same cannot be said for atheism, the subject which has made him both revered and reviled. On several occasions, he has given jocular public readings of his hate mail, much of it written by American evangelicals who accuse him of doing Satan’s work.

I ask him if the letters and emails ever make him fear for his safety? “No,” he says firmly.

Dawkins would be aware, surely, that hate mail has changed in recent years. High-profile people who express controversial opinions can be subjected to physical threats as well as insults. “I am aware of that, yes. I think of what J.K. Rowling has been subjected to [the author has been accused of transphobia and sent death threats] and I think it’s horrifying. I have a huge sympathy for her and I admire her bravery and the fact she’s willing to speak out.”

Dawkins, whose own social media posts in relation to Islam and transgender issues have occasionally landed him in hot water, has admitted he occasionally censors his public statements nowadays. But when I ask him about it, he falls silent. “Let’s talk about my books, shall we?”

The subject is closed, or so I thought. Later, we return to the topic when I ask him how he reacts to criticism. Did it hurt when the American Humanist Association withdrew its humanist of the year award in 2021 because it felt Dawkins had disparaged trans people in a tweet that said: “Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss.”

The short answer: yes. “I’m what Americans would call a liberal – I’m of the left politically and I tend to see myself as a feminist humanist. So, criticism from people who I think of as ‘my people’ hurts me in a way that criticism from religious people doesn’t – I don’t give a damn about that.”


Dawkins wearing a T-shirt from his Foundation for Reason and Science.

What about accusations of Islamophobia? Over the past decade his comments and tweets about Islam - suggesting the Muslim call to prayer is “aggressive sounding” compared to the “so much nicer” sound of church bells; holding Islamic doctrine responsible for the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting; calling Islam “the greatest force for evil in the world today” - have resulted in widespread criticism.

Dawkins doesn’t flinch. “I am not Islamophobic. What I am is phobic against throwing gay people off buildings, against cutting off the clitorises of young girls, of forbidding the enjoyment of music and dancing. And I’m phobic about making young children memorise the Koran in a language they don’t speak. I’m not phobic against Muslims because they are the biggest victims of Islam.”

There was a time – when the “New Atheism”, championed by big beasts of disbelief such as Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett, was adopted as a mantra by many on the left – when some of his more controversial statements, would pass mostly without comment. But in the “woke” era, the more inclusive instincts of the left sometimes butt up against the science-based rationalism of the atheists.

Dawkins knows times have changed. But he bridles at the idea of science making an accommodation with each generation’s shifting sensibilities. “I don’t really study trends,” says the man who coined the term “meme”. “I’m not one of those people who talks about generation this or generation that. Science is about more eternal things than that – things that have always been true and always will be true.”

Surprisingly, he does not consider himself particularly combative and insists he is not an evangelist for atheism. That may come as a surprise to some of his opponents. “I hope I’m always polite,” he says calmly. “If I talk nonsense, I expect someone to tell me so. One of the reasons people think [I’m combative] is that we’ve been brought up over the centuries to give religion a free pass; we don’t criticise it. So, when you hear someone using even fairly mild language – the sort of language that would be thought mild if it was applied to theatre or a restaurant – it sounds very aggressive.”

There is some evidence Dawkins’ view is prevailing. The results of the 2021 Australian census show 43.9 per cent identifying as Christian, down from 52.1 per cent in 2016. Meanwhile, the number of Australians reporting “no religion” has risen to 38.9 per cent, up from 30.1 per cent in 2016. Similar results have been seen in Europe and even the United States, where belief in God has fallen to a record low of 81 per cent, according to a recent Gallup poll.

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Neither do Buddhists, or the skilful ones.