Transcript of Stephen Colbert's Interview with Richard Dawkins on his book, "The God Delusion"

 

0'01.962        My guest tonight is a scientist who argues that there is no god!

0'05.712        Well, you know what?

0'06.877        He'll have an eternity in hell to prove it

0'08.785        Please welcome Richard Dawkins

0'12.180        Oh Yeah

0'13.737        Come on

0'16.747        come on

0'17.981        now!

0'25.455        Thank you for coming on

0'26.452        mhm

0'27.226        I am so excited to have you

0'28.519        though I have to admit, I thought I was getting Darryl Dawkins

0'30.989        ha

0'31.452        argh

0'32.153        Chocolate Thunder, I am not sure if it's a term you are familiar with

0'34.227        mhm

0'35.186        No? ok

0'35.972        Um

0'37.622        Usually they say they were expecting a man in a wheelchair who can't talk

0'42.373        Oh

0'42.756        They confuse me with Stephen Hawking

0'45.220        Oh, stephen hawking

0'47.007        ok, is he going to hell, too?

0'49.223        I reckon so

0'50.129        Yeah, maybe so, maybe so

0'51.386        yeah, god doesn't like black holes

0'53.123        Alright

0'54.102        um

0'57.970        Your book

0'59.473        started off great

1'01.196        okay?

1'02.043        It's got a shiny silver cover and I can see my face in it

1'05.592        But after that I got pretty upset

1'07.605        okay

1'08.491        You say that god is...

1'11.345        it's called "The God Delusion"

1'13.205        alright

1'13.959        and you say that there is no god

1'16.412        that god is a myth

1'18.651        and that religion is corrosive

1'21.936        Well, I say that god is very very improbable

1'24.217        you can't actually disprove god

1'25.992        Right! 'cause he exists!

1'28.992        no matter how much you fight

1'30.786        there is still a little bit of him left

1'32.177        You can't disprove anything

1'33.412        You can't disprove the Flying Spaghetti Monster

1'35.377        You can't disprove Thor with his hammer

1'37.635        You can't disprove Zeus or Poseidon

1'40.555        Well, those are pagan gods

1'41.656        they don't exist

1'42.144        Yeah, that's right

1'43.638        They don't exist

1'46.147        You're an atheist about all those gods

1'48.855        Everybody here's an atheist about all those gods

1'51.122        some of us just go one god further

1'54.141        Wow, okay, bold

1'56.986        Alright, so let's hear it

1'59.107        There is no god, uh

2'01.862        our belief in him is a delusion

2'05.153        The world and the whole universe is created by a series of random acts...

2'08.499        oh, no, no

2'08.646        We're all just monkeys and we should fornicate and throw our feces

2'11.660        Marker 64

2'12.818        Those are your greatest hits, right?

2'13.496        You're right. That's up to you

2'14.368        I've encapsulated the book basically right there, right?

2'16.437        It's up to you

2'17.305        But, you mustn't say that it's all due to random chance

2'20.500        That's the one thing it isn't

2'22.228        because the Darwinian natural selection is the exact opposite

2'25.924        of random chance

2'27.932        It's a highly non-random process

2'30.195        The big thing that everybody misunderstand about Darwinism

2'32.955        is that they think it's chance

2'33.892        They think it's an accident

2'35.386        And, It's not an accident

2'36.379        Well, that's too complex for us to perceive

2'38.888        you know?

2'39.596        it's like

2'40.330        I know a Pachinko machine isn't an accident either

2'43.107        There is a reason why it bounces from nail to nail

2'45.409        but it looks random to me, right?

2'48.004        Nothing in nature looks random

2'50.112        nothing in nature looks random

2'51.200        I want you to address my Pachinko analogy

2'54.236        I've never even heard of it

2'55.346        What is that?

2'55.670        Never heard of Pachinko?

2'57.064        Oh, it's like Japanese Pinball

2'58.822        Okay

2'59.509        They're great

3'00.040        They make a..

3'00.554        They make, um, pornographic versions of it over there

3'03.883        We call it bagatelle

3'05.313        Bagatelle

3'06.575        Who, who is we?

3'07.496        Biologist or English people?

3'08.635        English people

3'09.339        Okay, alright

3'11.163        Um

3'13.183        Now, obviously I've already played my hand here

3'14.821        I believe in god

3'16.180        and you don't believe in god

3'18.488        so I've got that on you

3'20.092        so um...

3'21.153        this is kind of unfair, 'cause god's on my side in this argument

3'24.659        um

3'26.650        But 95 percent of Americans believe that there is a god

3'31.532        so, doesn't that disprove...

3'33.851        your argument

3'34.777        or else, ah, you don't believe in democracy

3'37.165        Well

3'39.556        Really? I mean, the people have spoken

3'41.149        Democracy is fine for policy

3'42.779        But democracy is no good for science

3'45.424        you would never

3'45.797        Oh, I disagree

3'46.740        I'll say that the President will disagree also

3'48.654        Well, you've got a point there

3'50.372        I have to give you that

3'52.783        You are right there

3'54.606        Now, you are not a big fan of Intelligent Design either, I am imagining

3'57.808        I am a very big fan of intelligent design for man-made things

4'00.609        But I am not a big fan of intelligent design for natural things

4'04.550        No, what do you mean?

4'05.482        What's the difference between those things?:

4'06.359        I mean, aren't we natural?

4'07.387        We are part of..

4'08.188        We are part of the natural order of things

4'08.932        that's right

4'09.950        There is no intelligent design in the natural order of things

4'12.174        There is plenty of intelligent design in computers and cars and telephones

4'16.151        They are all intelligently designed

4'17.635        And we are so stupid that we think

4'19.925        that just because telephones and computers and cars are intelligently design

4'23.927        that we are, too.

4'24.914        Well, we're not

4'26.358        and...

4'26.703        But I am more complex than my computer

4'28.633        You certainly are

4'29.808        Right, so how can I be here?

4'32.229        I mean...

4'33.090        It... it's either

4'34.266        it's either...

4'36.358        I am... lost...

4'37.406        Well, I'll tell you...

4'39.478        I'm lost

4'40.218        It hurts when I think.

4'41.484        See? If I just think that God just...

4'43.029        (clap)

4'43.166        dit it

4'43.744        that, I can understand

4'45.557        And who just did god, then?

4'51.621        God is outside of time

4'53.465        Ah, you see...

4'54.164        That's so easy. You get away with that

4'56.180        No, it's hard. It makes my brain sore.

4'59.969        You can get away with that. And then you can explain anything

5'02.608        I can't explain anything

5'03.692        Yeah, the point...

5'04.548        I can explain it

5'05.946        and the point...

5'06.458        And I can explain it by saying that

5'08.282        You get to complex things, like you

5'11.291        by slow, gradual drees.

5'13.438        and that is the only ultimate explanation that will work

5'17.126        You can't just suddenly magic complex things, like god, into existence

5'23.160        But, if this is intelligently designed,

5'25.733        like say, your book is intelligently designed,

5'27.729        It is, by the way

5'28.402        but the universe, but the universe is not intelligently designed,

5'32.891        then you're saying that the universe just

5'35.596        ah, just naturally came into existence

5'39.365        continues its existence through natural laws of nature

5'43.883        through physics, the thermodynamics, the laws of gravity and energy

5'48.782        produced you, eventually

5'51.005        and then through you, produced this book

5'53.467        that proves that it has no natural intelligent design

5'56.417        Okay, let's take that...

5'58.296        Let's take that step by step

6'00.118        Oh, I don't think we have time for step by step

6'01.160        You were right

6'02.935        You can either surrender or we can go

6'04.202        You were right as far when you got on to life

6'06.800        Life's a very special thing

6'08.608        Life starts naturally

6'10.626        and it then increases in complexity

6'12.676        by slow, gradual degrees

6'14.400        That's Darwinian natural selection

6'15.542        That's because God breathed into it

6'17.010        Oh, no.

6'19.297        That's at best, a superfluous hypothesis

6'22.048        and at worst, a highly unparsimonious one

6'24.576        Do both of those mean that you surrender?

6'28.255        We've got to go, I'm sorry

6'29.654        Richard Dawkins, thank you so much for being my guest

6'32.699        The book is, The God Delusion

6'35.980        We'll be right back