Western Skies - Richard Dawkins Interview - September 27, 2005

Richard Dawkins in Colorado Springs

An excerpt:

RAHER: So what will you tell people when you go home and they ask you "How was Colorado Springs?"

DAWKINS: I think I would say that Colorado Springs, like other parts of America, is divided between two different Americas. There's the intelligent, educated, open-minded America, which is prepared to listen to evidence, prepared to listen to argument, prepared to change its mind. And there are close-minded, fundamentalist people who don't want to know, don't want to learn, don't want to listen. They know what's true, it's in the holy book. They've been told what's true, they feel passionately that they know what's true, and no argument, no argument whatsoever can ever sway them. And therefore, when they hear an argument that does sway them, they simply shut their eyes, shut their ears. And it's almost as though there's a kind of partition in America between the educated thoughtful half of the country, and the closed-minded thoughtless part of the country.