It's abnormal that the achievements of a relatively youthful Oxford professor named Richard Dawkins [well, six months younger than me] should be celebrated, while he's still a living crewman of Planet Earth [excuse my topical America's Cup language], through a book of praise such as this. Abnormal, but perfectly appropriate. Let me set aside my computerized pen [my Macintosh keyboard] and take a deep breath before pronouncing solemnly the following carefully-weighed words: The man named Richard Dawkins, born 66 years ago in Nairobi, is a 21st-century genius!Why? In his revolutionary book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins changed "the way we think". He dethroned forever us humans from any claim whatsoever to using our intelligence to reign over the Cosmos. We have never been, and will never be, the Masters of Creation, nor even the subsidiary Princes. Not even the Judeo-Christian Yahveh can assume that role. The Kingdom of Creation does not belong to us poor human beings. We are cerebral insects. Our gods are our genes.
The pill is bitter. But it will do us good. As for the pharmacist Dawkins, he's my eternal hero.
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