My mistake was to post this here. I haven't thought about it, just shared what I found interesting. I just found that quote thought-provoking. I was never going to consider his musings as factual or truth-claims. As far as I can tell, he doesn't either. It's metaphysics. It is appealing on an poetic level.
On a side note, I'm not sure what Dawkins believes, but I know that he does indeed extent the concept of biological evolution to encompass other systems like culture and thought. If I remember right, he actually thinks it is an universal phenomena that even applies to physics.
http://www.universaldarwinism.com/Dawkins%20Richard.htm
Richard Dawkins - Applying Darwinian Evolution to Physics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRTfgQG5Yn8
I don't think it was so bad to post something that spurred such a discussion. It wasn't off-topic, just wrong (or Not Even Wrong) in an argument-worthy way.
Normally, I think karma is a reasonably good guide to writing here, but in this case I find myself both approving of the fact that you posted this, and approving of the massive downvoting (which I added to). Odd.
A monthly thread for posting rationality-related quotes you've seen recently (or had stored in your quotesfile for ages).
ETA: It would seem that rationality quotes are no longer desired. After several days this thread stands voted into the negatives. Wolud whoever chose to to downvote this below 0 would care to express their disapproval of the regular quotes tradition more explicitly? Or perhaps they may like to browse around for some alternative posts that they could downvote instead of this one? Or, since we're in the business of quotation, they could "come on if they think they're hard enough!"