Professor Clinton Richard Dawkins , DSc, FRS,
FRSL is an English 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 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.
Dawkins is an atheist, a vice president of
the British Humanist Association, and a supporter
of the Brights movement. He 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.
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.
Background
Kenya
Dawkins was born in Nairobi, Kenya. He is
the son of Jean Mary Vyvyan and Clinton John
Dawkins, who was an agricultural civil servant
in the British Colonial Service in Nyasaland.
Dawkins has a younger sister. His father was
called up into the King's African Rifles during
World War II; he returned to England in 1949,
when Dawkins was eight. His father had inherited
a country estate, Over Norton Park in Oxfordshire,
which he turned into a commercial farm. Both
his parents were interested in natural sciences;
they answered Dawkins's questions in scientific
terms.
Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal
Anglican upbringing". He was a Christian until
halfway through his teenage years, at which
point he concluded that the theory of evolution
was a better explanation for life's complexity,
and ceased believing in a god. Dawkins states:
"the main residual reason why I was religious
was from being so impressed with the complexity
of life and feeling that it had to have a
designer, and I think it was when I realised
that Darwinism was a far superior explanation
that pulled the rug out from under the argument
of design. And that left me with nothing."
Education
Dawkins attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire,
an English public school with a distinct Church
of England flavour, from 1954 to 1959, where
he was in Laundimer house. He studied zoology
at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in
1962; while there, he was tutored by Nobel
Prize-winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen.
He continued as a research student under Tinbergen's
supervision, receiving his MA and DPhil degrees
by 1966, and remained a research assistant
for another year. Tinbergen was a pioneer
in the study of animal behaviour, particularly
in the areas of instinct, learning and choice;
Dawkins's research in this period concerned
models of animal decision-making.
Teaching
From 1967 to 1969, he was an assistant professor
of zoology at the University of California,
Berkeley. During this period, the students
and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed
to the ongoing Vietnam War, and Dawkins became
heavily involved in the anti-war demonstrations
and activities. He returned to the University
of Oxford in 1970, taking a position as a
lecturer. In 1990, he became a reader in zoology.
In 1995, he was appointed Simonyi Professor
for the Public Understanding of Science at
Oxford, a position that had been endowed by
Charles Simonyi with the express intention
that the holder "be expected to make important
contributions to the public understanding
of some scientific field", and that its first
holder should be Richard Dawkins.
Since 1970, he has been a fellow of New College,
Oxford. He has delivered a number of inaugural
and other lectures, including the Henry Sidgwick
Memorial Lecture, the first Erasmus Darwin
Memorial Lecture, the Michael Faraday Lecture,
the T. H. Huxley Memorial Lecture, the Irvine
Memorial Lecture, the Sheldon Doyle Lecture,
the Tinbergen Lecture and the Tanner Lectures.
In 1991, he gave the Royal Institution Christmas
Lectures for Children on Growing Up in the
Universe. He has also served as editor of
a number of journals, and has acted as editorial
advisor to the Encarta Encyclopedia and the
Encyclopedia of Evolution. He is a senior
editor of the Council for Secular Humanism's
Free Inquiry magazine, for which he also writes
a column. He has been a member of the editorial
board of Skeptic magazine since its foundation.
He has sat on judging panels for awards as
diverse as the Royal Society's Faraday Award
and the British Academy Television Awards,
and has been president of the Biological Sciences
section of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science. In 2004, Balliol College,
Oxford instituted the Dawkins Prize, awarded
for "outstanding research into the ecology
and behaviour of animals whose welfare and
survival may be endangered by human activities".
In September 2008, he retired from his professorship,
announcing plans to "write a book aimed at
youngsters in which he will warn them against
believing in 'anti-scientific' fairytales."
Personal life
Dawkins has been married three times, and
has one daughter. On 19 August 1967, Dawkins
married fellow ethologist Marian Stamp in
Annestown, County Waterford, Ireland; they
divorced in 1984. Later that same year, on
1 June, he married Eve Barham in Oxford. They
had a daughter, Juliet Emma Dawkins. Dawkins
and Barham also divorced. In 1992, he married
actress Lalla Ward in Kensington and Chelsea,
London. Dawkins met her through their mutual
friend Douglas Adams, who had worked with
her on the BBC's Doctor Who.
Work
Evolutionary biology
In his scientific works, Dawkins is best known
for his popularisation of the gene as the
principal unit of selection in evolution;
this view is most clearly set out in his books:
The Selfish Gene, in which he notes that "all
life evolves by the differential survival
of replicating entities".
The Extended Phenotype, in which he describes
natural selection as "the process whereby
replicators out-propagate each other".
Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about
non-adaptive processes in evolution and about
selection at levels "above" that of the gene.
He is particularly sceptical about the practical
possibility or importance of group selection
as a basis for understanding altruism. This
behaviour appears at first to be an evolutionary
paradox, since helping others costs precious
resources and decreases one's own fitness.
Previously, many had interpreted this as an
aspect of group selection: Individuals are
doing what is best for the survival of the
population or species as a whole. British
evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton had
used the gene-centred view to explain altruism
in terms of inclusive fitness and kin selection—that
individuals behave altruistically toward their
close relatives, who share many of their own
genes. Similarly, Robert Trivers, thinking
in terms of the gene-centred model, developed
the theory of reciprocal altruism, whereby
one organism provides a benefit to another
in the expectation of future reciprocation.
Dawkins popularised these ideas in The Selfish
Gene, and developed them in his own work.
He has also been strongly critical of the
Gaia hypothesis of the independent scientist
James Lovelock.
In June 2012 Dawkins was highly critical of
fellow biologist E.O. Wilson's 2012 book The
Social Conquest of Earth.
Critics of Dawkins's approach suggest that
taking the gene as the unit of selection is
misleading; the gene could be better described,
they say, as a unit of evolution. In The Selfish
Gene, Dawkins explains that he is using George
C. Williams's definition of the gene as "that
which segregates and recombines with appreciable
frequency." Another common objection is that
a gene cannot survive alone, but must cooperate
with other genes to build an individual, and
therefore a gene cannot be an independent
"unit". In The Extended Phenotype, Dawkins
suggests that from an individual gene's viewpoint,
all other genes are part of the environment
to which it is adapted.
Advocates for higher levels of selection suggest
that there are many phenomena that gene-based
selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The
philosopher Mary Midgley, with whom Dawkins
clashed in print concerning The Selfish Gene,
has criticised gene selection, memetics, and
sociobiology as being excessively reductionist;
she has suggested that the popularity of Dawkins's
work is due to factors in the Zeitgeist such
as the increased individualism of the Thatcher/Reagan
decades.
In a set of controversies over the mechanisms
and interpretation of evolution, one faction
is often named after Dawkins, while the other
faction is named after the American palaeontologist
Stephen Jay Gould, reflecting the pre-eminence
of each as a populariser of the pertinent
ideas. In particular, Dawkins and Gould have
been prominent commentators in the controversy
over sociobiology and evolutionary psychology,
with Dawkins generally approving and Gould
generally being critical. A typical example
of Dawkins's position is his scathing review
of Not in Our Genes by Steven Rose, Leon J.
Kamin, and Richard C. Lewontin. Two other
thinkers who are often considered to be allied
with Dawkins on the subject are Steven Pinker
and Daniel Dennett; Dennett has promoted a
gene-centred view of evolution and defended
reductionism in biology. Despite their academic
disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have
a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins
dedicated a large portion of his 2003 book
A Devil's Chaplain posthumously to Gould,
who had died the previous year.
Dawkins's book The Greatest Show on Earth:
The Evidence for Evolution expounds the evidence
for biological evolution, and coincided with
Darwin's bicentennial year.
Meme
Dawkins coined the word meme as a way to encourage
readers to think about how Darwinian principles
might be extended beyond the realm of genes.
Indeed, it was intended as an extension of
his "replicators" argument, but it took on
a life of its own in the hands of other authors
such as Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore.
These popularisations then led to the emergence
of memetics, a field from which Dawkins has
distanced himself.
Dawkins's meme refers to any cultural entity
that an observer might consider a replicator
of a certain idea or complex of ideas. He
hypothesised that people could view many cultural
entities as capable of such replication, generally
through exposure to humans, who have evolved
as efficient copiers of information and behaviour.
Because memes are not always copied perfectly,
they might become refined, combined, or otherwise
modified with other ideas; this results in
new memes, which may themselves prove more
or less efficient replicators than their predecessors,
thus providing a framework for a hypothesis
of cultural evolution based on memes, a notion
that is analogous to the theory of biological
evolution based on genes.
Although Dawkins invented the specific term
meme independently, he has not claimed that
the idea itself was entirely novel, and there
have been other expressions for similar ideas
in the past. For instance, John Laurent has
suggested that the term may have derived from
the work of the little-known German biologist
Richard Semon. In 1904, Semon published Die
Mneme. This book discusses the cultural transmission
of experiences, with insights parallel to
those of Dawkins. Laurent also found the term
mneme used in Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life
of the White Ant, and has highlighted the
similarities to Dawkins's concept. Author
James Gleick describes Dawkins's concept of
the meme as "his most famous memorable invention,
far more influential than his selfish genes
or his later proselytizing against religiosity".
Criticism of creationism
Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism.
He has described the Young Earth creationist
view that the Earth is only a few thousand
years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking
falsehood", and his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker,
contains a sustained critique of the argument
from design, an important creationist argument.
In the book, Dawkins argues against the watchmaker
analogy made famous by the 18th-century English
theologian William Paley via his book Natural
Theology, in which Paley argues that just
as a watch is too complicated and too functional
to have sprung into existence merely by accident,
so too must all living things—with their
far greater complexity—be purposefully designed.
Dawkins shares the view generally held by
scientists that natural selection is sufficient
to explain the apparent functionality and
non-random complexity of the biological world,
and can be said to play the role of watchmaker
in nature, albeit as an automatic, nonintelligent,
blind watchmaker.
In 1986, Dawkins and biologist John Maynard
Smith participated in an Oxford Union debate
against A. E. Wilder-Smith and Edgar Andrews.
In general, however, Dawkins has followed
the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay
Gould and refused to participate in formal
debates with creationists because "what they
seek is the oxygen of respectability", and
doing so would "give them this oxygen by the
mere act of engaging with them at all". He
suggests that creationists "don't mind being
beaten in an argument. What matters is that
we give them recognition by bothering to argue
with them in public."
In a December 2004 interview with American
journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that
"among the things that science does know,
evolution is about as certain as anything
we know." When Moyers questioned him on the
use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that
"evolution has been observed. It's just that
it hasn't been observed while it's happening."
He added that "it is rather like a detective
coming on a murder after the scene... the
detective hasn't actually seen the murder
take place, of course. But what you do see
is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial
evidence. It might as well be spelled out
in words of English."
Dawkins has ardently opposed the inclusion
of intelligent design in science education,
describing it as "not a scientific argument
at all, but a religious one". He has been
referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler",
a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley,
who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his
advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary
ideas. He has been a strong critic of the
British organisation Truth in Science, which
promotes the teaching of creationism in state
schools, and he plans through the Richard
Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
to subsidise schools with the delivery of
books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract
their work, which Dawkins has described as
an "educational scandal".
Advocacy of atheism
Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a supporter
of various atheist, secular, and humanistic
organisations. Although he was confirmed into
the Church of England at the age of thirteen,
he started to lose his religious faith when
he discovered Darwin. He revealed that his
understanding of evolution led him to atheism
and is puzzled by belief in God among individuals
who are sophisticated in science. He disagrees
with Stephen Jay Gould's principle of nonoverlapping
magisteria and considers the existence of
God to be a scientific hypothesis like any
other.
Dawkins became a prominent critic of religion
and has stated his opposition to religion
is twofold: Religion is both a source of conflict
and a justification for belief without evidence.
He considers faith—belief that is not based
on evidence—as "one of the world's great
evils". He rose to prominence in public debates
relating science and religion since the publication
of his book The God Delusion in 2006, which
became an international best seller. Its success
has been seen by many as indicative of a change
in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist and
has also been identified with the rise of
New Atheism.
Dawkins sees education and consciousness-raising
as the primary tools in opposing what he considers
to be religious dogma and indoctrination.
These tools include the fight against certain
stereotypes, and he has adopted the term bright
as a way of associating positive public connotations
with those who possess a naturalistic worldview.
He has given support to the idea of a free
thinking school, which would not indoctrinate
children in atheism or in any religion but
would instead teach children to be critical
and open-minded. Inspired by the consciousness-raising
successes of feminists in arousing widespread
embarrassment at the routine use of "he" instead
of "she", Dawkins similarly suggests that
phrases such as "Catholic child" and "Muslim
child" should be considered as socially absurd
as, for instance, "Marxist child", as he believes
that children should not be classified based
on their parents' ideological or religious
beliefs.
Dawkins suggests that atheists should be proud,
not apologetic, stressing that atheism is
evidence of a healthy, independent mind. He
hopes that the more atheists identify themselves,
the more the public will become aware of just
how many people actually hold these views,
thereby reducing the negative opinion of atheism
among the religious majority. Inspired by
the gay rights movement, he founded the Out
Campaign to encourage atheists worldwide to
declare their stance publicly and proudly.
He supported the UK's first atheist advertising
initiative, the Atheist Bus Campaign in 2008,
which aimed to raise funds to place atheist
advertisements on buses in the London area.
Dawkins's advocacy of atheism has been controversial.
Writer Christopher Hitchens defended the perceived
stridency of Dawkins's stance towards religion
while Nobel laureates Sir Harold Kroto and
James D. Watson and psychologist Steven Pinker
lavished praise on his book The God Delusion.
In contrast, literary critic Terry Eagleton,
theologian Alister McGrath, and science philosopher
Michael Ruse have accused Dawkins of having
fundamentally misapprehended the theological
arguments he claimed to refute, while scientists
Martin Rees and Peter Higgs have criticised
Dawkins's confrontational stance towards religion
as unhelpful, with Higgs going as far as to
label him a fundamentalist. In response to
his critics, Dawkins maintains that theologians
are no better than scientists in addressing
deep cosmological questions and that he himself
is not a fundamentalist as he is willing to
change his mind in the face of new evidence.
Recently, in May 2014, at the Hay Festival
in Wales, Dawkins was quoted as saying, "I
would describe myself as a secular Christian
in the same sense as secular Jews have a feeling
for nostalgia and ceremonies."
Foundation
In 2006, Dawkins founded the Richard Dawkins
Foundation for Reason and Science, a non-profit
organisation. The foundation is in a developmental
phase. It has been granted charitable status
in the United Kingdom and the United States.
RDFRS plans to finance research on the psychology
of belief and religion, finance scientific
education programs and materials, and publicise
and support charitable organisations that
are secular in nature. The foundation also
offers humanist, rationalist, and scientific
materials through its website.
Dawkins has said the "trend toward theocratic
thinking in the United States is a danger
not only for America but for the entire world."
Connected to this concern, Dawkins invited
Sean Faircloth to serve as opening speaker
on Dawkins's 2011 US book tour. Faircloth
is author of the book Attack of the Theocrats,
How the Religious Right Harms Us All and What
We Can Do About It. The Richard Dawkins Foundation
later hired Faircloth, who has ten years experience
as a state legislator, as Director of Strategy
and Policy.
Other fields
In his role as professor for public understanding
of science, Dawkins has been a critic of pseudoscience
and alternative medicine. His 1998 book Unweaving
the Rainbow considers John Keats's accusation
that by explaining the rainbow, Isaac Newton
diminished its beauty; Dawkins argues for
the opposite conclusion. He suggests that
deep space, the billions of years of life's
evolution, and the microscopic workings of
biology and heredity contain more beauty and
wonder than do "myths" and "pseudoscience".
For John Diamond's posthumously published
Snake Oil, a book devoted to debunking alternative
medicine, Dawkins wrote a foreword in which
he asserts that alternative medicine is harmful,
if only because it distracts patients from
more successful conventional treatments and
gives people false hopes. Dawkins states that
"there is no alternative medicine. There is
only medicine that works and medicine that
doesn't work."
Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth
of the planet's human population and about
the matter of overpopulation. In The Selfish
Gene, he briefly mentions population growth,
giving the example of Latin America, whose
population, at the time the book was written,
was doubling every 40 years. He is critical
of Roman Catholic attitudes to family planning
and population control, stating that leaders
who forbid contraception and "express a preference
for 'natural' methods of population limitation"
will get just such a method in the form of
starvation.
As a supporter of the Great Ape Project—a
movement to extend certain moral and legal
rights to all great apes—Dawkins contributed
the article "Gaps in the Mind" to the Great
Ape Project book edited by Paola Cavalieri
and Peter Singer. In this essay, he criticises
contemporary society's moral attitudes as
being based on a "discontinuous, speciesist
imperative".
Dawkins also regularly comments in newspapers
and weblogs on contemporary political questions;
his opinions include opposition to the 2003
invasion of Iraq, the British nuclear deterrent,
the actions of US President, George W. Bush.
and the ethics of designer babies. Several
such articles were included in A Devil's Chaplain,
an anthology of writings about science, religion,
and politics. He is also a supporter of the
Republic's campaign to replace the British
monarchy with a democratically elected president.
Dawkins has described himself as a Labour
voter in the 1970s and voter for the Liberal
Democrats since the party's creation. In 2009,
he spoke at the party's conference in opposition
to blasphemy laws, alternative medicine, and
faith schools. In the UK general election
of 2010, Dawkins officially endorsed the Liberal
Democrats, in support of their campaign for
electoral reform and for their "refusal to
pander to 'faith'."
In the 2007 TV documentary The Enemies of
Reason, Dawkins discusses what he sees as
the dangers of abandoning critical thought
and rationale based upon scientific evidence.
He specifically cites astrology, spiritualism,
dowsing, alternative faiths, alternative medicine,
and homoeopathy. He also discusses how the
Internet can be used to spread religious hatred
and conspiracy theories with scant attention
to evidence-based reasoning.
Continuing a long-standing partnership with
Channel 4, Dawkins participated in a five-part
television series Genius of Britain, along
with fellow scientists Stephen Hawking, James
Dyson, Paul Nurse, and Jim Al-Khalili. The
five-episode series was broadcast in June
2010. The series focuses on major British
scientific achievements throughout history.
In a More4 documentary entitled Faith School
Menace? and presented by Dawkins, he argues
"for us to reconsider the consequences of
faith education, which... bamboozles parents,
and indoctrinates and divides children."
In 1998, Dawkins expressed his appreciation
for two books connected with the Sokal affair:
Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and
Its Quarrels with Science by Gross and Levitt.
Intellectual Impostures by Sokal and Bricmont.
These books are famous for their criticism
of postmodernism in US universities. In the
same occasion, Dawkins also criticised Cambridge
University for awarding philosopher Jacques
Derrida an honorary doctorate.
In 2011, Dawkins joined the professoriate
of the New College of the Humanities, a new
private university in London established by
A. C. Grayling, which opened in September
2012.
Awards and recognition
Dawkins was awarded a Doctor of Science by
the University of Oxford in 1989. He holds
honorary doctorates in science from the University
of Huddersfield, University of Westminster,
Durham University, the University of Hull,
the University of Antwerp, and the University
of Oslo, and honorary doctorates from the
University of Aberdeen, Open University, the
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the University
of Valencia. He also holds honorary doctorates
of letters from the University of St Andrews
and the Australian National University, and
was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature in 1997 and the Royal Society in
2001. He is one of the patrons of the Oxford
University Scientific Society.
In 1987, Dawkins received a Royal Society
of Literature award and a Los Angeles Times
Literary Prize for his book The Blind Watchmaker.
In the same year, he received a Sci. Tech
Prize for Best Television Documentary Science
Programme of the Year for his work on the
BBC's Horizon episode The Blind Watchmaker.
His other awards include the Zoological Society
of London's Silver Medal, the Finlay Innovation
Award, the Michael Faraday Award, the Nakayama
Prize, the American Humanist Association's
Humanist of the Year Award, the fifth International
Cosmos Prize, the Kistler Prize, the Medal
of the Presidency of the Italian Republic,
the 2001 and 2012 Emperor Has No Clothes Award
from the Freedom From Religion Foundation,
the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal
Philosophical Society of Glasgow, and the
Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public
Interest.
Dawkins topped Prospect magazine's 2004 list
of the top 100 public British intellectuals,
as decided by the readers, receiving twice
as many votes as the runner-up. He was short-listed
as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll.
In 2005, the Hamburg-based Alfred Toepfer
Foundation awarded him its Shakespeare Prize
in recognition of his "concise and accessible
presentation of scientific knowledge". He
won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about
Science for 2006, as well as the Galaxy British
Book Awards's Author of the Year Award for
2007. In the same year, he was listed by Time
magazine as one of the 100 most influential
people in the world in 2007, and he was ranked
20th in The Daily Telegraph's 2007 list of
100 greatest living geniuses. He was awarded
the Deschner Award, named after German anti-clerical
author Karlheinz Deschner.
Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International
has awarded a prize during its annual conference,
honouring an outstanding atheist whose work
has done the most to raise public awareness
of atheism during that year; it is known as
the Richard Dawkins Award, in honour of Dawkins's
own efforts.
In February 2010, Dawkins was named to the
Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary
Board of distinguished achievers.
In 2012, ichthyologists in Sri Lanka honored
Dawkins by creating Dawkinsia as a new genus
name. Explaining the reasoning behind the
genus name, lead researcher Rohan Pethiyagoda
was quoted as stating that "Richard Dawkins
has, through his writings, helped us understand
that the universe is far more beautiful and
awe-inspiring than any religion has imagined
[...] We hope that Dawkinsia will serve as
a reminder of the elegance and simplicity
of evolution, the only rational explanation
there is for the unimaginable diversity of
life on Earth.".
In a poll held by Prospect magazine in 2013,
Dawkins was voted the world's top thinker
based on 65 names chosen by a largely US-
and UK-based expert panel.
Media
Selected publications
Richard Dawkins. The Selfish Gene. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-286092-5. 
Richard Dawkins. The Extended Phenotype. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-288051-9. 
Richard Dawkins. The Blind Watchmaker. New
York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31570-3. 
Richard Dawkins. River Out of Eden. New York:
Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-06990-8. 
Richard Dawkins. Climbing Mount Improbable.
New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31682-3. 
Richard Dawkins. Unweaving the Rainbow. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-05673-4. 
Richard Dawkins. A 
Devil's Chaplain. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
ISBN 0-618-33540-4. 
Richard Dawkins. The Ancestor's Tale. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-00583-8. 
Richard Dawkins. The God Delusion. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-68000-4. 
Richard Dawkins. The Greatest Show on Earth:
The Evidence for Evolution. Free Press, Transworld.
ISBN 0-593-06173-X. 
Richard Dawkins. The Magic of Reality: How
We Know What's Really True. Free Press, Bantam
Press. ISBN 978-1-4391-9281-8. OCLC 709673132. 
Richard Dawkins. An Appetite for Wonder: The
Making of a Scientist. Ecco Press. ISBN 978-0-06-228715-1. 
Documentary films
Nice Guys Finish First
The Blind Watchmaker
Growing Up in the Universe
Break the Science Barrier
The Big Question - Part 3 of the TV series,
titled "Why Are We Here?"
The Root of All Evil?
The Enemies of Reason
The Genius of Charles Darwin
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed – as himself
The Purpose of Purpose – Lecture tour among
American universities
Faith School Menace?
Beautiful Minds – BBC4 documentary
Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life
The Unbelievers
Other appearances
Doctor Who: "The Stolen Earth" – as himself
The Simpsons: "Black Eyed, Please" – appears
in Ned Flanders' dream of Hell; provided voice
as a demon version of himself
Notes
References
External links
General
Official website
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason
and Science
Richard Dawkins at the Internet Movie Database
Works by or about Richard Dawkins in libraries
Richard Dawkins collected news and commentary
at The Guardian
Richard Dawkins collected news and commentary
at The New York Times
Collection of Richard Dawkins Quotes
Video
National Geographic Interviews – A series
of video interviews with National Geographic
Channel with Richard Dawkins on Darwin, Evolution
and God.
Appearances on C-SPAN
Richard Dawkins at TED
Video interview with Riz Khan for Al Jazeera
English
Video interview at Big Think
An Appetite for Wonder: Richard Dawkins in
Conversation at the Royal Institution
Selected writings
Viruses of the Mind – Religion as a mental
virus.
The Real Romance in the Stars – A critical
view of astrology.
The Emptiness of Theology at RDFRS.(1998) –
A critical view of theology.
Snake Oil and Holy Water – suggests that
there is no convergence occurring between
science and theism.
What Use is Religion? – suggests that religion
may have no survival value other than to itself.
Race and Creation – On race, its usage
and a theory of how it evolved.
The giant tortoise's tale, The turtle's tale
and The lava lizard's tale – A series of
three articles written after a visit to the
Galápagos Islands.
Dawkins's Huffington Post articles
Audio
Richard Dawkins on RadioLIVE's Weekend Variety
Wireless – Richard Dawkins appears live
on New Zealand's Radio Live, taking calls
from the audience.
