Richard Dawkins

Date of Birth: March 26, 1941

Zodiac Sign: Aries

Biography

Richard Dawkins, born Clinton Richard Dawkins on March 26, 1941, in Nairobi, Kenya, is a renowned British evolutionary biologist, ethologist, and author. He is most famous for his work in evolutionary biology and for his advocacy of atheism and scientific skepticism. Dawkins moved to England with his family when he was eight years old. He attended Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied zoology under Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1966. Dawkins gained fame with his 1976 book “The Selfish Gene,” which popularized the gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the concept of the “meme” as a unit of cultural evolution. He continued to contribute to the public understanding of science through his books, including “The Extended Phenotype,” “The Blind Watchmaker,” and “Climbing Mount Improbable.” Throughout his career, Dawkins has been a vocal critic of creationism and intelligent design, advocating for rational thought and empirical evidence. He founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science in 2006 to promote scientific literacy and secularism. Dawkins has been a prominent figure in the “New Atheism” movement, along with other intellectuals like Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett.

5 Interesting Facts about Richard Dawkins

1. Richard Dawkins introduced the concept of the “meme” in his book “The Selfish Gene,” coining a term that has become widely used in cultural and social studies.

2. He was awarded the Royal Society of Literature Award in 1987 for his book “The Blind Watchmaker.”

3. Dawkins has been an outspoken critic of religion and has engaged in numerous high-profile debates with religious leaders and scholars.

4. He served as the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University from 1995 until his retirement in 2008.

5. Dawkins is a fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society.

5 Most Interesting Quotes from Richard Dawkins

1. “We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”

2. “Science is the poetry of reality.”

3. “By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.”

4. “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”

5. “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence.”