The sentence is credited to Dawkins’s 1992 Edinburgh International Science Festival remarks and an April 1992 Independent article. The exact words are reproduced by Wikiquote and a scholarly review, but the original newspaper page or recording was not inspected in this check.
“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence” Attributed to Richard Dawkins, Edinburgh International Science Festival remarks (1992), reported in The Independent; original recording/page not independently inspected.
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Evoking the world of Richard Dawkins — Evolutionary biologist and author. Theme: "Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
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Provenance
The source
Reported occasion
Edinburgh International Science Festival, 15 April 1992
Reported publication
A scientist’s case against God, The Independent, 20 April 1992
Verification limit
Original newspaper page/recording not inspected
Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence.
The identified English remarks and newspaper publication are from 1992, so the excerpt is treated as in copyright. The brief passage identifies Dawkins’s position for attribution and critical discussion.
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Fact-check
A later book is not the cited source
The quotation is older than the book title often attached to it.
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Source comparison: The God Delusion
Wikiquote ↗ identifies this as a frequent source misattribution and cites the 1992 remarks instead.
✓Use the 1992 speech/newspaper reference, with the primary-inspection limit stated.
Context
Why it mattered
The sentence expresses Dawkins’s polemical distinction between evidence-based inquiry and the kind of belief he calls faith. Its circulation in debates about religion does not make it a quotation from The God Delusion: the documentary references point to 1992, before that book’s publication.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Richard Dawkins brought gene-centered accounts of evolution to a broad readership through books such as The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker. His public writing also attacks religious belief and creationism, a different role from presenting biological research.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
The primary source (Chicago)
Dawkins, Richard. Remarks at the Edinburgh International Science Festival, April 15, 1992; reported as “A scientist’s case against God,” The Independent, April 20, 1992, 17. Citation supplied by Wikiquote; original page not independently inspected.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence’?” Last verified 9 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/faith-is-the-great-cop-out-the-great-excuse-to-evade-the/