Richard Dawkins

That's what I call the grinning idiot picture.

The British one has the Rupert Brooke picture, which is the sideways poetic look.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a point I often make, and I often join forces with bishops and other friends to combat the anti-scientific tendency of fundamentalist religion.

It's one of the great fallacies among fundamentalists that they think all religious people are like them, and they're not.

The astronomer royal, Martin Rees, and president of the Royal Society, gives humanity a 50% chance of surviving through the 21st century.

And... Wait, hold on.

I got to do some math.

Oh, fine.

And one of the reasons is he fears that the fruits of scientific advance, the bad fruits, things like dirty bombs, things like biological warfare, could get into the hands of religious fanatics who, unlike all other terrorists, actually want to die.

I mean, they want to go to paradise at a martyr's death.

And so the question you ask, the answer is probably both.

That science provides, in the form of technology, weapons which hitherto have been only available to reasonably responsible governments, are likely to become available to nutcases.

who believe that their God requires them to wreak havoc and destruction.

That is possible.

And it's something we have to worry about.

The precautionary principle, I think, is very important.

Science is the most powerful way to do whatever it is you want to do.

And if you want to do good, it's the most powerful way of doing good.

If you want to do evil, it's the most powerful way to do evil.