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Richard Dawkins

Clinton Richard Dawkins(born 26 March 1941) is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and writer. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford,and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008.

Dawkins is a noted atheist, a patron of the British Humanist Association, and a supporter of the Brights movement and is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, he argues against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker. Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme. In 1982, he introduced into evolutionary biology the influential concept that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms. This concept is presented in his book The Extended Phenotype.

He has since written several popular science books, and makes regular television and radio appearances, predominantly discussing these topics. In his 2006 book The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief". As of January 2010, the English-language version had sold more than two million copies and had been translated into 31 languages. Dawkins founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science to promote the teaching of evolution and to counteract those who advocate classroom programmes against evolution. In 2014 he joined the global awareness movement Asteroid Day as a "100x Signatory".

Known For

Credits

Cast Credits

StarTalk (2015)
Guest starring as Richard Dawkins
Portrait Artist of the Year (2013)
Guest starring as Richard Dawkins
Sunday Morning Live (2010)
Guest starring as Richard Dawkins
Inside Nature's Giants (2009)
Starring as Biologist
The Genius of Charles Darwin (2008)
Starring as Presenter (3 episodes)
The Enemies of Reason (2007)
Starring as Presenter
The God Delusion (2006)
Starring as Himself
Doctor Who (2005)
Guest starring as Richard Dawkins
The Simpsons (1989)
Guest starring as Richard Dawkins
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