Richard Dawkins

Evolutionary Biologist

• Born: March 26, 1941
• Place of Birth: Nairobi, Kenya

Prominent evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins is recognized as one of the world’s leading theorists in neo-Darwinian theory and has become a leading science writer whose essays and books on various aspects of evolutionary theory introduce the core concepts of evolution by natural selection to popular audiences. Dawkins has also become a prominent proponent of atheist philosophy and a leading opponent of political attempts to teach creationism in academic environments.

Primary field: Biology

Specialty: Evolutionary biology

Early Life

Richard Dawkins was born in 1941 in Nairobi, Kenya, where his father, Clinton Dawkins, a forester and agriculturalist, worked in the British colonial service. Dawkins spent two years in Kenya and six years in Malawi, before his family returned to England to live on their farm in Oxfordshire.

Despite being only an average student in his early years, Dawkins was accepted into the prestigious Balliol College of the University of Oxford. One of Dawkins’s most influential teachers was prominent animal behaviorist Nikolaas Tinbergen, who was one of three pioneering behaviorists awarded the 1973 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his contributions to the field. When Dawkins graduated with his degree in zoology in 1962, he remained at Oxford as a graduate student of animal behavior under Tinbergen’s tutelage.

In 1963, Dawkins began researching the relationship between instinct and behavior by looking at how chicks distinguish between flat and solid objects in their visual field as they attempt to discern which items in their environment are potential sources of food. Dawkins received his MA under Tinbergen and remained to finish his PhD and to complete a year of postgraduate study. From 1967 to 1969, Dawkins worked as a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, teaching animal behavior and comparative anatomy. He returned to Oxford in 1970, taking a position as a lecturer in the zoology department and staying at Oxford for the remainder of his career.

Life’s Work

Dawkins’s early research followed closely in the footsteps of his mentor Tinbergen, investigating the relationship between instinct and behavior. Following the 1953 discovery of the double-helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and the subsequent expansion of the scientific understanding of how genetic material functions in the transmission of traits, Dawkins gradually began to see genetics as the key to understanding behavior and created a new approach to genetic behavior, based on a concept that applied ethological principles to the behavior of individual genes.

In 1976, Dawkins published The Selfish Gene, in which he proposed a theory of evolution based on the idea that biological and behavioral innovation were based on competition between genes. Dawkins envisioned organisms as “survival machines” that had been engineered through evolution to better aid in the replication of genes. The Selfish Gene stirred an academic debate about the nature of evolution and the role of altruism and sociality in animal and human behavior. Dawkins also advocated shifting the focus of evolutionary theory away from the organism and instead toward the gene as the primary unit of evolution.

One of the major innovations contained within The Selfish Gene was Dawkins’s idea of the meme, conceived as the theoretical unit of cultural transmission. Dawkins proposed memes as a way to conceptualize the evolution and mutation of cultural traits, mirroring the generation of biological innovation through genetic mutation. The Selfish Gene was also the beginning of Dawkins’s campaign against what he perceived as the intellectual failings of religious and spiritual thought, ideas that would make Dawkins infamous in religious circles and would ultimately make him one of the world’s leading proponents of atheism.

In his second book, The Extended Phenotype (1982), Dawkins further developed his selfish gene hypothesis, this time attempting to explain how genetic evolution has allowed for the evolution of the environment. Dawkins proposed that the phenotype, or physical expression of an organism’s genes, extends into the way in which an organism manipulates its environment based on both the transmission of instinctual predisposition and cultural traditions and methods transmitted through memes. Dawkins’s extended phenotype theory attempts to show how the manipulation of tools and the subsequent transformation of the environment are transmitted from generation to generation in a similar manner to the morphological information encoded in genes.

Dawkins had become the primary theorist of what some called neo-Darwinian theory, or the extension of Charles Darwin’s evolution by natural selection through the addition of modern data on genetic transmission and refinement. Dawkins’s theories met with some resistance from theorists with alternate theories about macroevolution, or the major evolutionary steps that lead to the emergence of new species. Harvard University’s Edward O. Wilson and the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Lynn Margulis were among the leading theorists that opposed Dawkins’s neo-Darwinian approach to evolutionary theory. The theories of paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould also often were presented in opposition to those of Dawkins, although the two scientists maintained good relations with each other.

Dawkins’s theories were more vehemently opposed by those who favored the theories of creation science or intelligent design—a nonscientific, philosophical school seeking to develop the idea that evidence from the fossil record and the overall complexity of biological life indicates the role of an intelligent creator in evolution. With the publication of The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design (1986), Dawkins began utilizing his scientific theories to argue directly against the central concepts utilized by proponents of creationist theories.

From the late 1980s to the twenty-first century, Dawkins continued to write essays and books expanding on his ideas regarding evolutionary principles but gained more fame as an opponent of creationism and a supporter of atheism as a social and intellectual movement. His 1995 book River Out of Eden and his 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow address the popular conception that a full naturalistic understanding of the world lacks certain aesthetic qualities that are present in spiritual philosophies. Dawkins interspersed books focusing on evolution versus spirituality with publications such as Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), in which he expands on issues regarding the relationship between probability and evolution and furthers the idea that the expanse of geologic time is commensurable with the time needed for organic evolution alone to explain the origin of life on Earth.

In 1992, Dawkins was awarded the newly established Simonyi Professorship Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University’s New College, where he remained until 2008. In 2006 he formed the nonprofit Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS), a group aimed at supporting research and education in a variety of humanist and scientific fields with secular affiliation. Dawkins continued publishing on evolutionary theory and atheist philosophy, releasing numerous books including The God Delusion (2006), The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (2009), and The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True (2011). His harsh criticism of religion and intense support of atheism proved controversial even among fellow scientists and atheists, with some suggesting that his often antagonistic stance did little to convince others of the merits of a scientific viewpoint. He also presented various critiques of topics such as alternative medicine, pseudoscience, nuclear weapons, and the Iraq War. As a prominent cultural critic he was often outspoken on political subjects, for example, supporting a movement to end the British monarchy and opposing the independence of Scotland.

In 2013, Dawkins released the first volume of his memoir, entitled An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist. This was followed in 2015 with Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science. In 2016, Dawkins suffered a stroke but recovered after a few months. He continued to tour on speaking engagements into the 2020s.

Impact

Dawkins’s impact extends far beyond his personal contributions to biological research and instead hinges on the facility with which he has been able to translate evolutionary theory for the general audience. The selfish genes model is now considered a major stepping-stone in the development of modern evolutionary theory. The accuracy of Dawkins’s theories regarding the specifics of evolutionary mechanisms is therefore far less important than the scientific and academic debate he helped to foster.

A large part of Dawkins’s impact lies in his arguments for the philosophy of atheism and for his condemnation of spirituality as a historical and modern hindrance to rational exploration. In becoming one of the most vocal critics of creationism, Dawkins drew attention to his own works on genetic evolution and thereby helped to engender the gene-centered view of evolution that now dominates scientific discourse. Dawkins has been criticized for his unwavering view of the detrimental nature of spiritual thought and his perceived unwillingness to show respect for the spiritual beliefs of others. He has also argued that atheists are an underrepresented minority desiring a more complete separation of theology and political development. His arguments have helped to further the debate regarding separation of church and state in the intellectual community.

While Dawkins’s overall impact can be viewed as twofold, both his effect on evolutionary theory and his advocacy for atheism stem from the same root: his understanding of the mechanisms controlling genetic evolution and their implications for a naturalistic understanding of life. Dawkins has established research grants and other programs to fund and further research refuting creationist theory and to study the relationship between atheism and intellectual capacity. Further, Dawkins has used his fame and influence to inspire atheist-based advertising and academic campaigns designed to further acceptance of atheism as a legitimate alternative to the spiritual beliefs held by most humans.

Bibliography

Dawkins, Richard. An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist. New York: Ecco, 2013. Print.

Dawkins, Richard. Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science. New York: HarperCollins, 2015. Print.

Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. London: Oxford UP, 1976. Print.

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion.New York: Houghton, 2006. Print.

Grafen, Alan, and Mark Ridley. Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think. London: Oxford UP, 2007. Print.

“Professor Richard Dawkins FRS." The Royal Society, 2024, royalsociety.org/people/richard-dawkins-11316/.  Accessed 11 Oct. 2024.

Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science. Dawkins Foundation, 2024, richarddawkins.net/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2024.