My guess is he got sick of having to explain the same basic scientific facts over and over to religious fundamentalists only to get back "Yeh, but evolution's just a theory!" and the like.
I once read an article warning scientists about getting into debates with creationists over evolution. What tends to happen is this:
1. Creationist raises point that would take over an hour to answer properly (eg. "The eye is too complex to have evolved naturally!").
2. Scientist starts to answer it, but partway through...
3. Go to #1. Repeat.
The end result is that people walk away with the impression that the scientist couldn't really answer the questions that the creationist raised, whereas they could - just not in that format of debate.
Similarly, Dawkins probably got sick of his field being critiqued by people with minimal scientific background and decided to go on the offence for once.
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