His parents were interested innatural sciences, and they answered Dawkins's questions in scientific terms.[21] Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normalAnglican upbringing".[22] He embracedChristianity until halfway through his teenage years, at which point he concluded that thetheory of evolution alone was a better explanation for life's complexity, and ceased believing in theChristian God.[20] He 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 thatDarwinism was a far superior explanation that pulled the rug out from under the argument of design. And that left me with nothing".[20] This understanding of atheism, combined with hisWestern cultural background, influences Dawkins as he describes himself in several interviews as a "cultural Christian" and a "culturalAnglican" in 2007, 2013[23][24][25] and 2024.[26][27]
Dawkins continued as a research student under Tinbergen's supervision, receiving hisDoctor of Philosophy[33] degree by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year.[34][35] Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly in the areas ofinstinct, learning, and choice;[36] Dawkins's research in this period concerned models of animal decision-making.[37]
From 1967 to 1969 Dawkins was an assistant professor of zoology at theUniversity of California, Berkeley. During this period, the students and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed to the ongoingVietnam War, and Dawkins became involved in theanti-war demonstrations and activities.[38] He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 as a lecturer. In 1990, he became areader in zoology. In 1995, he was appointedSimonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position that had been endowed byCharles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field",[39] and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins.[40] He held that professorship from 1995 until 2008.[41]
Dawkins has sat on judging panels for awards such as theRoyal Society'sFaraday Award and theBritish Academy Television Awards,[34] and has been president of the Biological Sciences section of theBritish 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".[45] 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".[46] In 2011 Dawkins joined the professoriate of theNew College of the Humanities, aprivate university in London established by the philosopherA. C. Grayling, which opened in September 2012.[47]
Dawkins announced his final speaking tour would take place in the autumn of 2024.[48]
Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of thegene as the principalunit of selection inevolution; this view is most clearly set out in two of his books:[49][50]
The Selfish Gene (1976), in which he notes that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities".
The Extended Phenotype (1982), in which he describesnatural selection as "the process wherebyreplicators out-propagate each other". He introduces to a wider audience the influential concept he presented in 1977,[51] that thephenotypic 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. Dawkins regarded the extended phenotype as his single most important contribution to evolutionary biology and he consideredniche construction to be a special case of extended phenotype. The concept of extended phenotype helps explain evolution, but it does not help predict specific outcomes.[52]
Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such asspandrels, described byStephen Jay Gould andRichard Lewontin)[53] and about selection at levels "above" that of the gene.[54] He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance ofgroup selection as a basis for understandingaltruism.[55]
Altruism appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources and decreases one's own chances for survival, orfitness. Previously, many had interpreted altruism as an aspect of group selection, suggesting that individuals are doing what is best for the survival of the population or species as a whole. The British evolutionary biologistW. D. Hamilton used gene-frequency analysis in hisinclusive fitness theory to show how hereditary altruistic traits can evolve if there is sufficient genetic similarity between actors and recipients of such altruism, including close relatives.[56][a] Hamilton's inclusive fitness has since been successfully applied to a wide range of organisms, includinghumans. Similarly, the evolutionary biologistRobert Trivers, thinking in terms of the gene-centred model, developed the theory ofreciprocal altruism, whereby one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of future reciprocation.[57] Dawkins popularised these ideas inThe Selfish Gene, and developed them in his own work.[58]
Critics of Dawkins's biological approach suggest that taking thegene as the unit ofselection (a single event in which an individual either succeeds or fails to reproduce) is misleading. The gene could be better described, they say, as a unit ofevolution (the long-term changes inallele frequencies in a population).[64] InThe Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains that he is using the biologistGeorge C. Williams's definition of the gene as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency".[65] 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".[66] InThe 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 (such asRichard Lewontin,David Sloan Wilson andElliott Sober) suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The philosopherMary Midgley, with whom Dawkins clashed in print concerningThe Selfish Gene,[67][68] has criticised gene selection, memetics, and sociobiology as being excessivelyreductionist;[69] she has suggested that the popularity of Dawkins's work is due to factors in theZeitgeist such as the increased individualism of the Thatcher/Reagan decades.[70] Besides, other, more recent views and analysis on his popular science works also exist.[71]
In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (what has been called 'The Darwin Wars'),[72][73] one faction is often named after Dawkins, while the other faction is named after the American palaeontologistStephen Jay Gould, reflecting the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of the pertinent ideas.[74][75] In particular, Dawkins and Gould have been prominent commentators in the controversy oversociobiology andevolutionary psychology, with Dawkins generally approving and Gould generally being critical.[76] A typical example of Dawkins's position is his scathing review ofNot in Our Genes bySteven Rose,Leon J. Kamin and Richard C. Lewontin.[77] Two other thinkers who are often considered to be allied with Dawkins on the subject areSteven Pinker andDaniel Dennett; Dennett has promoted a gene-centred view of evolution and defendedreductionism in biology.[78] Despite their academic disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins dedicated a large portion of his 2003 bookA Devil's Chaplain posthumously to Gould, who had died the previous year.
When asked ifDarwinism influences his everyday apprehension of life, Dawkins says, "In one way it does. My eyes are constantly wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence. Not just human existence but the existence of life and how this breathtakingly powerful process, which is natural selection, has managed to take the very simple facts of physics and chemistry and build them up to redwood trees and humans. That's never far from my thoughts, that sense of amazement. On the other hand, I certainly don't allow Darwinism to influence my feelings about human social life", implying that he feels that individual human beings can opt out of the survival machine of Darwinism since they are freed by theconsciousness of self.[19]
In his bookThe Selfish Gene, Dawkinscoined the wordmeme (the behavioural equivalent of a gene) as a way to encourage readers to think about how Darwinian principles might be extended beyond the realm of genes.[79] 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 asDaniel Dennett andSusan Blackmore. These popularisations then led to the emergence ofmemetics, a field from which Dawkins has distanced himself.[80]
Dawkins'smeme refers to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator of a certain idea or set of ideas. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as capable of such replication, generally through communication and contact with humans, who have evolved as efficient (although not perfect) 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 ofcultural evolution based on memes, a notion that is analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.[81]
Although Dawkins invented the termmeme, he has not said that the idea was entirely novel,[82] 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 biologistRichard Semon.[83] Semon regarded "mneme" as the collective set of neural memory traces (conscious or subconscious) that were inherited, although such view would be considered asLamarckian by modern biologists.[84] Laurent also found the use of the termmneme inMaurice Maeterlinck'sThe Life of the White Ant (1926), and Maeterlinck himself stated that he obtained the phrase from Semon's work.[83] In his own work, Maeterlinck tried to explain memory in termites and ants by stating that neural memory traces were added "upon the individual mneme".[84] Nonetheless, the authorJames Gleick describes Dawkins's concept of the meme as "his most famous memorable invention, far more influential than hisselfish genes or his later proselytising against religiosity".[85]
In 2006, Dawkins founded theRichard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS), anon-profit organisation. RDFRS financed research on thepsychology of belief and religion, financed scientific education programs and materials, and publicised and supportedcharitable organisations that aresecular in nature.[86] In January 2016, it was announced that the foundation was merging with theCenter for Inquiry, with Dawkins becoming a member of the new organisation's board of directors.
Dawkins was confirmed into theChurch of England at the age of 13, but began to grow sceptical of the beliefs. He said that his understanding of science and evolutionary processes led him to question how adults in positions of leadership in a civilised world could still be so uneducated in biology,[87] and is puzzled by how belief in God could remain among individuals who are sophisticated in science. Dawkins says that some physicists use 'God' as a metaphor for the general awe-inspiring mysteries of the universe, which he says causes confusion and misunderstanding among people who incorrectly think they are talking about a mystical being who forgives sins, transubstantiates wine, or makes people live after they die.[88]
Dawkins has risen to prominence in public debates concerning science and religion since the publication of his most popular book,The God Delusion, in 2006, which became an international bestseller.[104] As of 2015, more than three million copies have been sold, and the book has been translated into more than 30 languages.[105] Its success has been seen by many as indicative of a change in the contemporary culturalzeitgeist and has also been identified with the rise ofNew Atheism.[106] In the book, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is adelusion—"a fixed false belief".[107] In his February 2002TED talk, titled "Militant atheism", Dawkins urged all atheists to openly state their position and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science.[108] On 30 September 2007 Dawkins,Christopher Hitchens,Sam Harris andDaniel Dennett met at Hitchens's residence inWashington, D.C. for a private, unmoderated discussion that lasted two hours. It was recorded and entitled "The Four Horsemen".[109]
Dawkins sees education andconsciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination.[38][110][111] These tools include the fight against certain stereotypes, and he has adopted the termbright as a way of associating positive public connotations with those who possess anaturalistic worldview.[111] He has given support to the idea of a free-thinking school,[112] which would not "indoctrinate children" but would instead teach children to ask for evidence and be skeptical, critical, and open-minded. Such a school, says Dawkins, should "teach comparative religion, and teach it properly without any bias towards particular religions, and including historically important but dead religions, such as those of ancient Greece and the Norse gods, if only because these, like the Abrahamic scriptures, are important for understanding English literature and European history".[113][114] Inspired by the consciousness-raising successes offeminists 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 the ideological or religious beliefs of their parents.[111]
While some critics, such as his friend the writerChristopher Hitchens, the psychologistSteven Pinker and theNobel Prize laureates SirHarold Kroto,James D. Watson andSteven Weinberg have defended Dawkins's stance on religion and praised his work,[115] others, including theNobel Prize-winning theoretical physicistPeter Higgs, the astrophysicistMartin Rees, the philosopher of scienceMichael Ruse, the literary criticTerry Eagleton, the philosopherRoger Scruton, the academic and social criticCamille Paglia, the atheist philosopher Daniel Came and the theologianAlister McGrath,[122] have criticised Dawkins on various grounds, including the assertion that his work simply serves as an atheist counterpart to religious fundamentalism rather than a productive critique of it, and that he has fundamentally misapprehended the foundations of thetheological positions he claims to refute. Rees and Higgs, in particular, have both rejected Dawkins's confrontational stance toward religion as narrow and "embarrassing", with Higgs equating Dawkins with the religious fundamentalists he criticises.[123][124][125][126] The atheist philosopherJohn Gray has denounced Dawkins as an "anti-religious missionary", whose assertions are "in no sense novel or original", suggesting that "transfixed in wonderment at the workings of his own mind, Dawkins misses much that is of importance in human beings". Gray has also criticised Dawkins's perceived allegiance to Darwin, stating that if "science, for Darwin, was a method of inquiry that enabled him to edge tentatively and humbly toward the truth, for Dawkins, science is an unquestioned view of the world".[127] A 2016 study found that many British scientists held an unfavourable view of Dawkins and his attitude towards religion.[128] In response to his critics, Dawkins maintains that theologians are no better than scientists in addressing deepcosmological questions and that he is not a fundamentalist, as he is willing to change his mind in the face of new evidence.[129][130][131]
Dawkins has faced backlash over some of his public comments about Islam. In 2013 Dawkinstweeted that "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes thanTrinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in theMiddle Ages, though."[132] In 2016 Dawkins's invitation to speak at theNortheast Conference on Science and Skepticism was withdrawn over his sharing of what was characterised as a "highly offensive video" satirically showing cartoon feminist and Islamist characters singing about the things they hold in common. In issuing the tweet Dawkins stated that it "Obviously doesn't apply to [sic] vast majority of feminists, among whom I count myself. But the minority are pernicious."[133]
Dawkins is a prominent critic ofcreationism, a religious belief thathumanity,life, and theuniverse were created by adeity[134] without recourse to evolution.[135] He has described theyoung Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood".[136] His 1986 book,The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of theargument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argues against thewatchmaker analogy made famous by the eighteenth-century EnglishtheologianWilliam Paley via his bookNatural 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, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent,blind watchmaker.[137]
In 1986 Dawkins and the biologistJohn Maynard Smith participated in anOxford Union debate againstA. E. Wilder-Smith (aYoung Earth creationist) andEdgar Andrews (president of theBiblical Creation Society).[b] In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleagueStephen 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 ofengaging 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".[138] In a December 2004 interview with the American journalistBill 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 theuse of the wordtheory, 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".[139]
Dawkins has opposed the inclusion ofintelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one".[140] He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin'sRottweiler",[141][142] a reference to the English biologistThomas Henry Huxley, who was known as "Darwin'sBulldog" for his advocacy ofCharles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. He has been a strong critic of the British organisationTruth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through theRichard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work.[143]
Dawkins is an outspokenatheist[144] and a supporter of various atheist, secular,[145][146] andhumanist organisations,[147][148][149][150] includingHumanists UK and theBrights movement.[108] Dawkins suggests that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, stressing that atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind.[151] He hopes that the more atheists identify themselves, the more the public will become aware of just how many people are nonbelievers, thereby reducing the negative opinion of atheism among the religious majority.[152] Inspired by thegay rights movement, he endorsed theOut Campaign to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly.[153] He supported a UK atheist advertising initiative, theAtheist Bus Campaign in 2008 and 2009, which aimed to raise funds to place atheist advertisements on buses in the London area.[154]
Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth of the human population and about the matter ofoverpopulation.[155] InThe Selfish Gene, he briefly mentions population growth, giving the example ofLatin America, whose population, at the time the book was written, was doubling every 40 years. He is critical ofRoman Catholic attitudes tofamily planning andpopulation control, stating that leaders who forbidcontraception and "express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation" will get just such a method in the form ofstarvation.[156]
As a supporter of theGreat Ape Project—a movement to extend certain moral and legalrights to allgreat apes—Dawkins contributed the article 'Gaps in the Mind' to theGreat Ape Project book edited byPaola Cavalieri andPeter Singer. In this essay, he criticises contemporary society's moral attitudes as being based on a "discontinuous,speciesist imperative".[157]
Discussing free speech and Islam(ism) at the 2017 Conference on Free Expression and Conscience
In April 2021, Dawkins said on Twitter that "In 2015,Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black. Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss". After receiving criticism for this tweet, Dawkins responded by saying that "I do not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic 'Discuss' question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this. It was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in the U.S. now exploiting this issue".[165] In a 2021 interview, Dawkins stated regarding trans people that he does not "deny their existence nor does he in any way oppress them". He objects to the statement that a "trans woman is a woman", because it "is a distortion of language and a distortion of science".[166][167] TheAmerican Humanist Association retracted Dawkins's 1996 Humanist of the Year Award in response to these comments.[168]Robby Soave ofReason magazine criticised the retraction, saying that "The drive to punish dissenters from various orthodoxies is itself illiberal".[169]
Dawkins identifies as a feminist.[171] He has said that feminism is "enormously important".[172] Dawkins has been accused by writers such asAmanda Marcotte, Caitlin Dickson and Adam Lee ofmisogyny, criticising those who speak about sexual harassment and abuse while ignoringsexism within theNew Atheism movement.[173][174][175]
Echoing many critics, Dawkins holds that postmodernism usesobscurantist language to hide its lack of meaningful content. As an example he quotes the psychoanalystFélix Guattari: "We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis." This is explained, Dawkins maintains, by certain intellectuals' academic ambitions. Figures like Guattari orJacques Lacan, according to Dawkins, have nothing to say but want to reap the benefits of reputation and fame that derive from a successful academic career: "Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content".[176]
The Welsh musicianJayce Lewis at Dawkins's home in 2018 while working onMillion (Part 2)
In his role as professor for public understanding of science, Dawkins has been a critic ofpseudoscience andalternative medicine. His 1998 bookUnweaving the Rainbow considersJohn Keats's accusation that by explaining therainbow,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".[178] ForJohn Diamond's posthumously publishedSnake Oil, a book devoted to debunkingalternative 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.[179] Dawkins states that "There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work."[180] In his 2007Channel 4 filmThe Enemies of Reason, Dawkins concluded that Britain is gripped by "an epidemic of superstitious thinking".[181]
Continuing a long-standing partnership with Channel 4, Dawkins participated in a five-part television series,Genius of Britain, along with his fellow-scientistsStephen Hawking,James Dyson,Paul Nurse andJim Al-Khalili. The series was first broadcast in June 2010, and focuses on major British scientific achievements throughout history.[182] In 2014 he joined the global awareness movementAsteroid Day as a "100x Signatory".[183]
In 1987, Dawkins received aRoyal Society of Literature award and aLos Angeles Times Literary Prize for his bookThe 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'sHorizon episodeThe Blind Watchmaker.[34]
In 1996, theAmerican Humanist Association gave him their Humanist of the Year Award, but the award was withdrawn in 2021, with the statement that he "demean[ed] marginalized groups", includingtransgender people, using "the guise of scientific discourse".[187][165]
Dawkins toppedProspect 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.[192][193] He was shortlisted as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll.[194] In a poll held byProspect in 2013, Dawkins was voted the world's top thinker based on 65 names chosen by a largely US and UK-based expert panel.[195]
Since 2003, theAtheist 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 theRichard Dawkins Award, in honour of Dawkins's own efforts.[199]
In February 2010, Dawkins was named to theFreedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.[200] In December 2024, Dawkins resigned from the board, along withSteven Pinker andJerry Coyne, after the Foundation took down the article "Biology is not Bigotry" by Coyne which supported a biological, rather than a psychological, view of sex.[201]
Dawkins has been married four times and has a daughter. On 19 August 1967 Dawkins married the ethologistMarian Stamp in the Protestant church inAnnestown,County Waterford, Ireland;[203] they divorced in 1984. On 1 June 1984 he married Eve Barham (1951–1999) in Oxford. They had one daughter prior to their divorce.[204] In 1992 he married the actressLalla Ward[204] inKensington and Chelsea. Dawkins met her through their mutual friendDouglas Adams,[205] who had worked with her on theBBC television seriesDoctor Who. Dawkins and Ward separated in 2016 and they later described the separation as "entirely amicable".[206] Dawkins is currently married to illustrator Jana Lenzová.[207]
On 6 February 2016 Dawkins suffered a minor haemorrhagicstroke while at home.[208][209] He reported later that year that he had almost completely recovered.[210][211]
Dawkins has made many television appearances on news shows providing his political opinions and especially his views as an atheist. He has been interviewed on the radio, often as part of his book tours. He has debated many religious figures. He has made many university speaking appearances, again often in coordination with his book tours. As of 2016, he has more than 60 credits in theInternet Movie Database where he appeared as himself:
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) – as himself, presented as a leading scientific opponent of intelligent design in a film that contends that the mainstream science establishment suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature and who criticise evidence supporting Darwinian evolution
a.^W. D. Hamilton influenced Dawkins and the influence can be seen throughout Dawkins's bookThe Selfish Gene.[38] They became friends at Oxford and following Hamilton's death in 2000, Dawkins wrote his obituary and organised asecular memorial service.[223]
b.^ The debate ended with the motion "That the doctrine of creation is more valid than the theory of evolution" being defeated by 198 votes to 115.[224][225]
^Midgley, Mary (2010).The solitary self: Darwin and the selfish gene. McGill-Queen's University Press.ISBN978-1-84465-253-2.
^Gross, Alan G. (2018).The Scientific Sublime: Popular Science Unravels the Mysteries of the Universe (Chapter 11: Richard Dawkins: The Mathematical Sublime). Oxford University Press.ASINB07C8L2CZY.
^Shalizi, Cosma Rohilla."Memes".Center for the Study of Complex Systems. University of Michigan.Archived from the original on 22 April 2009. Retrieved14 August 2009.
^Powell, Michael (19 September 2011)."A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy".The New York Times.Archived from the original on 27 December 2012. Retrieved31 December 2012.
^Dawkins, Richard (1 October 2013)."The Four Horsemen DVD".Richard Dawkins Foundation.Archived from the original on 11 June 2017. Retrieved13 April 2016. See alsoVideo onYouTube
^abcDawkins, Richard (21 June 2003)."The future looks bright".The Guardian. London.Archived from the original on 6 June 2008. Retrieved13 March 2008.
^Powell, Michael (19 September 2011)."A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy".The New York Times. p. 4.Archived from the original on 17 March 2019. Retrieved20 September 2011.
^Ruse, Michael."Creationism".Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Laboratory,Stanford University.Archived from the original on 9 June 2007. Retrieved9 September 2009.a Creationist is someone who believes in a god who is absolute creator of heaven and earth.
^Scott, Eugenie C (2009). "Creationism".Evolution vs. creationism: an introduction. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 51.ISBN978-0-520-26187-7.The term 'creationism' to many people connotes the theological doctrine of special creationism: that God created the universe essentially as we see it today, and that this universe has not changed appreciably since that creation event. Special creationism includes the idea that God created living things in their present forms...
^Moyers, Bill (3 December 2004)."'Now' with Bill Moyers". Public Broadcasting Service. Archived fromthe original on 16 May 2006. Retrieved29 January 2006.
^Dawkins, Richard & Coyne, Jerry (1 September 2005)."One side can be wrong".The Guardian. London.Archived from the original on 26 December 2013. Retrieved21 December 2006.
^Stiftung, Giordano Bruno (28 May 2007)."Deschner-Preis an Richard Dawkins". Humanistischer Pressedienst. Archived fromthe original on 19 July 2011. Retrieved4 April 2008. Note: Web page in German.
^Schleutermann, Marcus (27 February 2015)."Nightwish – Food for Thought".EMP Rockinvasion (in English and German).Köln.Archived from the original on 3 May 2015. Retrieved10 March 2015.
^Critical-Historical Perspective on the Argument about Evolution and Creation, John Durant, in "From Evolution to Creation: A European Perspective (Eds. Sven Anderson, Arthus Peacocke), Aarhus Univ. Press, Aarhus, Denmark
