Richard Dokinz

Clinton Richard Dawkins is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and author of popular science books. From 1995 to 2008, he worked as Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, a position whose task is to acquaint the general public with the achievements of science; he is also a Fellow of New College, Oxford.

Dawkins became widely known in 1976 with the publication of his book The Selfish Gene, which presented in popular form an evolutionary view from the standpoint of genetics, introduced the term “meme” into the lexicon, and proposed a new scientific field — “memetics.” In 1982, he made a significant contribution to the concept of evolution with the book The Extended Phenotype, in which he set out the idea that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not limited to the individual organism and can extend to the environment, including the organisms of other individuals.

In addition to his work in biology, Dawkins is known for his views on atheism, evolution, creationism, and religion. He criticizes creationism and the idea of an intelligent designer. In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, he argues against the so-called “watchmaker theory,” the proposition that the existence of a supernatural creator is based on observations of the complexity of living organisms. Dawkins counters this with an account of evolutionary processes, comparing them to the actions of a blind watchmaker. He later wrote a series of popular science books and frequently appeared on television and radio, taking part in discussions on the above-mentioned topics.

Dawkins is an atheist, anti-clerical humanist, skeptic, and rationalist who embraces Enlightenment ideas. In the media, he is often called “Darwin’s Rottweiler,” by analogy with the English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was nicknamed “Darwin’s Bulldog” for his speeches in defense of natural selection. In his 2006 book The God Delusion, Dawkins argues for the absence of a supernatural creator and characterizes religious belief as an illusion — a customary false belief. By November 2007, more than one and a half million copies of the English-language edition had been sold. It has been translated into 31 languages