Richard Dawkins

so you don't actually shear those animals and there's also a hair type sheep so declining numbers but also declining numbers of sheep which are bred for wool so at some point that rationalisation has to occur.

I think farmers generally would like to see these returns stabilised for a couple of years.

Changing genetics isn't

and overnight endeavour.

It does take time, but sheep really need to be a dual-purpose animal to compete, which means you get a profit from meat and you get a profit from wool.

And look, the way things are at the moment, if you're not growing sheep for wool, you are missing out.

farmers respond to market signals pretty quickly.

So to your point, I think we will see a bit of a shift back, but probably just need a bit of stability for a year or two.

That's Richard Dawkins, Federated Farmers Meat and Wool Chair.

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.