"Watson retorted: 'Well I don't think we're for anything. We're just products of evolution. You can say, "Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you … - Richard Dawkins

If we ever talk to aliens, their civilisation will be far more advanced than ours (because of distances involved). They won't be religious!

You've just said a very revealing thing. Are you telling me that the only reason you don't steal and rape and murder is that you're frightened of God? (Part 2, 00:13:55)

Natural selection is like artificial selection, but without the human chooser. Instead of a human deciding which offspring shall die in which shall reproduce, nature ‘decides’. The quotation marks are vital because nature doesn’t consciously decide. This might seem too obvious to emphasize, but you’d be surprised by the number of people who think natural selection implies some kind of personal choice. They couldn’t be more wrong. It just is the case that some offspring are more likely to die while others have what it takes to survive and reproduce. Therefore, as the generations go by, the average, typical creature in the population becomes ever better at the arts of surviving and reproducing. Ever better, I should specify, when, when measured against some absolute standard.