•I2 M438/P215/PF3853/S31 (16638804 A->G)
 • •I2a L460/PF3647/S238 (7879415 A->C)
 • • •I2a1 P37.2/PF4004 (14491684 T->C)
 • • • •I2a1a CTS595 (6874115 C->T)
 • • • • •I2a1a1 M26/PF4056 (21865821 G->A)
 • • • • • •I2a1a1a CTS8968/PF4036 (18584762 T->C)
 • • • • • • •I2a1a1a1 L672/S327 (22228628 T->A)
 • • • • • • • •I2a1a1a1a L160/PF4013/S184
 • • • • • • •I2a1a1a2 CTS6027 (16620529 C->G)                        w. Europeans
 • • • • • • •I2a1a1a3 Z27395 (16681589 A->G)
 • • • • • • • •I2a1a1a3a Z27410 (18891640 T->G)
 • • • • • • • • •I2a1a1a3a1 Z27430 (15383072 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a1a1a3a1a Z27446 (14420039 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a1a1a3a1a1 Z27447 (17445510 A->G)
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a1a1a3a1a1a Z27452 (7346620 C->T)                                 Sardinians
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a1a1a3a1a1b Z27453 (22045753 C->A)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a1a1a3a1a1b1 Z27456 (13885862 T->C)                          Sardinians
 • • • • • •I2a1a1b Z27354 (7132292 T->C)
 • • • • • • •I2a1a1b1 Z27400 (2833818 C->T)                                                         Sardinians
 • • • • •I2a1a2 S21825 (19126655 G->A)
 • • • • • •I2a1a2a L1286 (21778662 G->A)
 • • • • • • •I2a1a2a1 L1287 (21970862 G->T)
 • • • • • • • •I2a1a2a1a L233/S183 (14487362 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • •I2a1a2a1a1 A417 (8846964 T->C)                                                    Brits
 • • • • • • •I2a1a2a2 L880 (3436270 C->T)                                                       central Europeans
 • • • • • •I2a1a2b L1294 (2887401 T->C)                                                                 French
 • • • • •I2a1a3 S2699 (14434372 C->T)
 • • • •I2a1b M423 (19096091 G->A)
 • • • • •I2a1b1 L161.1/S185.1 (22513718 C->T)
 • • • • • •I2a1b1a L1498/Y4008 (18668472 C->T)
 • • • • • • •I2a1b1a1 FGC7218/Y5280 (21354226 G->A)                 Irish
 • • • • • • •I2a1b1a2 FGC14448/Y5450 (7158983 A->G)                   Irish
 • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3 FGC7108/S2640 (14107847 G->A)
 • • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3a FGC7197/S7703 (17494645 G->C)
 • • • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3a1 S7714 (21345894 T->A)
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3a1a S8889 (4310132 A->G)
 • • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3b S2742 (19440521 A->G)
 • • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3c FGC7173/Y3729 (8472670 A->T)
 • • • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3c1 FGC7156/Y4665 (2685333 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3c1a FGC7218/Y5280 (21354226 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3c2 FGC14453/Y5456 (16637771 A->G)
 • • • • • • •I2a1b1a4 A1150 (15543414 A->T)
 • • • • • •I2a1b1b PF4135 (18981938 G->A)                                                               Brits
 • • • • • •I2a1b1c CTS8849.2 (18236845 A->G)
 • • • • • •I2a1b1d PF6316.2 (18181850 T->G)
 • • • • •I2a1b2 L621/S392 (18760081 G->A)
 • • • • • •I2a1b2a CTS4002 (15328797 C->A)
 • • • • • • •I2a1b2a1 CTS10228 (9334357 A->C)
 • • • • • • • •I2a1b2a1a S17250/YP204 (15531354 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • •I2a1b2a1a1 Z16971 (6676628 G->C)                          Slovenians, Germans, Ukrainians
 • • • • • • • • •I2a1b2a1a2 Y3548 (14856842 A->G)                                    Sardinians
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a1b2a1a2a Y4882 (21135222 G->A)                                           Poles
 • • • • • • • • •I2a1b2a1a3 A356/Z16983 (17558968 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a1b2a1a3a Y6651 (23792119 A->G)                               Czechs
 • • • • • • • •I2a1b2a1b Y4460 (9028830 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • •I2a1b2a1b1 Y3118 (23548545 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a1b2a1b1a CTS5579/S5054 (16378157 G->T)          Finns
 • • • • • • • •I2a1b2a1b V19.2 (2189,200 T->C)
 • • • • • • • •I2a1b2a1c P61.2 (14482194 G->A)
 • • •I2a2 M436/P214/PF3856/S33 (18747493 G->C)
 • • • •I2a2a M223 (21717307 G->A)
 • • • • •I2a2a1 CTS616 (6906332 G->C)
 • • • • • •I2a2a1a Y3721 (7982615 C->T)
 • • • • • • •I2a2a1a1 M284 (22750461..22750464 ACAA->del)
 • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a1a L1195 (18865320 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a1a1 L126/S165 (14901633 C->T)
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a1a1a FGC20048/S7753/Y4171 (17603051 G->T)
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a1a1a1 FGC20065/Y4751 (18635722 A->G)
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a1a1a1a Y4750 (23059262 C->G)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a1a1a1a1 FGC20062/Y4753 (16910733 G->T)   Irish, Scots
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a1a1a1a2 Y8599                      Irish
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a1a1b Y7190 (7987909 C->T)                                           Scots
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a1a1c F3878.2 (8752246 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a1a2 L1193 (9448484 C->A)
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a1a2a CTS4922 (15903939 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a1a2a1 FGC14237/Y5996 (8292320 G->T)          Irish
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a1a2b CTS3792/S2380  (15183633 C->T)
 • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2 Z2057 (4770006 T->C)
 • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a L1229 (14937828 C->A)
 • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a1 Y3681 (22519059 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a1a Z2058 (5317533 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a1a1 Z2054 (2980725 C->T)
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a1a1a BY524/Y9443 (6371561 A->G)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a1a1a1 L812/S391 (14850035 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a1a1a1a Y5308 (16820196 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a1a1a2 Y10648 (8267867 C->G)
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a1a1b Y7244 (8271590 C->T)                                                Germans
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a1a1b1 P53.3 (14491649 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a1a1b2 Y7243 (2911078 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a1a1c FGC15106/Y4334 (7845669 G->T)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a1a1c1 FGC15128/Y4714 (15945966 G->C)                   Irish
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a1a1c2 Y4760 (15025945 A->T)                                                Brits, Germans
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a1a1d BY138 (2809424 A->T)                                               Mexicans, English
 • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a2 S18331 (16449714 C->T)                                                              Brits
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2a2a L1230 (3436442 G->A)                                                     Brits
 • • • • • • • •I2a2a1a2b Y7240 (2688254 T->G)                                                                           English
 • • • • • •I2a2a1b CTS10057 (19232160 C->T)
 • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1 L702 (7629205 C->T)
 • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1a P78 (6740387 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1a1 S25733 (23595728 C->T)
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1a1a A427 (23281929 G->T)
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1a1a1 S23612 (21826246 C->T)                                      Brits, Italians, Germans
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1a1a1a Y5360 (23185624 G->T)
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1a1a1b S10702 (7822881 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1a1a2 Y5369 (23185624 G->T)                                 Brits
 • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1a2 Y7219 (8447173 C->A)
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1a2a Y7214 (4901002 C->A)                                           Dutch
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1a2b Y8945 (4567154 G->A)
 • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1b L699 (2663920 A->G)
 • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1b1 L704 (17595966 C->A)
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1b1a S12195 (9105096 C->T)
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1b1a1 Y6973 (8430276 A->G)
 • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1b2 Z26416 (18851267 G->A)                                                    Sardinians
 • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1b3 PF6901 (17558585 C->G)                                                    Sardinians
 • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b1c PF6896 (8904322 C->T)                                             Brits, French
 • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2 Z161 (2696497 C->G)
 • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a L801/S390 (21763755 A->C)
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1 CTS1977 (14140273 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1a Y5282 (7982615 C->T)
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1a1 S8522 (3162610 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1a1a P95 (14869706 G->T)                                        Poles, n.w. Europeans
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1a2 CTS1858 (14098206 G->T)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1a2a CTS10148 (19291083 A->T)                            African Americans
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b Y7152 (5852771 C->T)
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1c BY526 or Y8935
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a2 CTS6433 (16889964 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a2a S2364 (23052606 A->G)
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a2a1 FGC3618/S2361 (17355245 A->G)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a2a1a Z78 (9154908 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a2a1a1 CTS8584
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a2a1a1a Z185 (22929384 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1a1a1 Z180 (22065434 A->G)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1a1a1a L1198 (18405788 C->T))
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1a1a1a1 Z190 (17473966 G->T)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1a1a1a1a S434/Z79 (17147721 G->A)          English
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1a1a1a1a1 Y5729 (14394460 C->T)           English
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1a1a1a1a2 Y7682 (not yet reported)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1a1a1a1b Y7280 (17305030 T->G)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1a1a1a2 FGC3617/S2368/Z166 (14010863 G->T)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1a1a1a3 P195.2 (22665262 A->G)                  Brits
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1a1a1b Y5748 (14106278 C->T)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1a1a1b1 Y7272 (19264274 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1a1a1c Y7273 (16449864 A>G)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1a2 Y9161 (9154908 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1b Y4925/ZS20 (23977120 A->C)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1b1 CTS661/L1272 (6931960 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1b1a Y5717 (6931960 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1b2 FGC17399/Y4926 (23549293 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1b2a S8104 (7432604 A->G)
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1c Y4955 (15362162 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1c1 Y5695 (14574229 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1c1a Y7263 (7900806 C->A)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1c1a1 Y7265 (9147689 T->C)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1c1b FGC20004/Y5692 (18993826 A->T)
 • • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b1c2 Y10659 (4616653 A->G)
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b2 L1425 (14491835 C->T)
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b2a CTS5332.2/PF7472.2 (16212441 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b2b Y4769 (18201094 A->G)                                                     Germans
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b3 Y7426 (18830768 A->G)                                                      English
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b4 S243/Z63 (14401486 C->T)
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b5 M3268.2/PF3292.2 (8519704 G->A)    Germans
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b6 DF5.2/S191.2 (18393814 A->G)               Brits
 • • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a1b7 F3406.2 (23119516 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a2 L1290 (14623983 T->C)                                                       n. Europeans
 • • • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2a3 Y7202 (2913976 G->A)                                    Germans
 • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2b L623 (16202490 A->T)
 • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2c CTS11871/S3673 (23326304 C->T)                                          Brits, Germans
 • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b2d Y5188 (7838639 G->A)                                           Maltese
 • • • • • • •I2a2a1b3 S12606 (9879942 T->G)
 • • • • • • • •I2a2a1b3a CTS12640/S4904/ZS21 (28652639 C->T)
 • • • • •I2a2a2 S9403/SK1254 (6742730 T->C)
 • • • • • •I2a2a2a L1228 (15446045 G->C)                                                                      w. Europeans
 • • • • • •I2a2a2b Y6099 (7527993 G->A)
 • • • •I2a2b L38/S154 (15668070 A->G)
 • • • • •I2a2b1 L533/S295 (2887198 G->C)                                                                     n.w. Europeans
 • • • • •I2a2b2 S2606 (22527402 C->A)
 • • • • • •I2a2b2a S2523 (14951410 C->T)
 • • • • • • •I2a2b2a1 S24121 (22201497 C->A)
 • • • • • • • •I2a2b2a1a S11558 (8491250 G->A)
 • • • • • • • •I2a2b2a1b F780.2 (6384078 G->A)
 • • • • •I2a2b3 M8990/S3846 (7534645 A->C)
 • • • • • •I2a2b3a S2488 (12733783 T->A)                                                                      English
 • • • • • •I2a2b3b S4556 (14124389 A->G)
 • • • • •I2a2b4 P15.2/PF3112.2 (3244026 C->T)
 • •I2b L415/S435 (2888663 C->T) or L417/S332 (8426321 T->C)                                Germans, Italians
 • •I2c L596/PF6907/S292 (14197631 G->A) or L597/S333 (18887888 T->A)
 • • •I2c1 PF3892 (8487200 T->C)
 • • • •I2c1a L1251 (2888598 C->T)                                                                                Germans
 • • • •I2c1b CTS4092 (15391894 G->A)
 • • • • •I2c1b1 CTS7767.1 (17651573 C->A)
 • • • • • •I2c1b1a PF6328 (21797244 C->A)
 • • • • • • •I2c1b1a1 F2044 (15944600 T->A)                                                                Brits
 • • • •I2c1c S6685 (14185048 G->C)
 • • • • •I2c1c1 S6648 (14459289 T->A)
 • • • • • •I2c1c1a FGC18548 (7380574 A->G)                                                            Sardinians
 • • • • • •I2c1c1b S6716 (16173282 G->C)
 • • • • • • •I2c1c1b1 S6622 (14264992 A->G)
 • • • • • • • •I2c1c1b1a S6595 (21430083 G->A)
 • • • • • • • • •I2c1c1b1a1 S6656 (17410728 G->C)
 • • • • • •I2c1c1c S9234 (6512608 A->G)
 • • •I2c2 PF3827 (22444389 T->A)
 • • •I2c3 S6800 (16180130 G->A)


Richard Dawkins  (born 26 March 1941) [ 3 ]  is a British  evolutionary biologist ,  zoologist ,  science communicator , and author, born in Africa. [ 4 ]  He is an  emeritus fellow  of  New College, Oxford , and was  Professor for Public Understanding of Science  in the  University of Oxford  from 1995 to 2008. His book  The Selfish Gene  (1976) popularised the  gene-centred view of evolution  and coined the word  meme . Dawkins has won several academic and writing awards. [ 5 ]


Dawkins is well known for his criticism of  creationism  and  intelligent design  as well as for being a vocal  atheist . [ 6 ]  Some fellow academics have described Dawkins as a secular or atheist  fundamentalist . [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ]  Dawkins wrote  The Blind Watchmaker  in 1986, arguing 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, in that  reproduction ,  mutation , and  selection  are unguided by any sentient designer. In 2006, Dawkins published  The God Delusion , writing that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a  delusion . He founded the  Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science  in 2006. [ 10 ] [ 11 ]  Dawkins has published two volumes of  memoirs ,  An Appetite for Wonder  (2013) and  Brief Candle in the Dark  (2015).


Dawkins was born  Clinton Richard Dawkins  on 26 March 1941 in  Nairobi , the capital of  Kenya during British colonial rule . [ 12 ]  He later dropped  Clinton  from his name by  deed poll  because of confusion in America over using his middle name as his first name. [ 13 ] [ 3 ]  He is the son of Jean Mary Vyvyan ( née  Ladner; 1916–2019) [ 14 ] [ 15 ]  and Clinton John Dawkins (1915–2010), an agricultural civil servant in the British  Colonial Service  in  Nyasaland  (present-day  Malawi ), of an Oxfordshire  landed gentry  family. [ 12 ] [ 16 ] [ 17 ]  His father was called up into the  King's African Rifles  during the  Second World War [ 18 ] [ 19 ]  and returned to England in 1949, when Dawkins was eight. His father had inherited a country estate,  Over Norton Park  in  Oxfordshire , which he farmed commercially. [ 17 ]  Dawkins lives in  Oxford , England. [ 20 ]  He has a younger sister, Sarah. [ 21 ]


His parents were interested in  natural sciences , and they answered Dawkins's questions in scientific terms. [ 22 ]  Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal  Anglican  upbringing". [ 23 ]  He embraced  Christianity  until halfway through his teenage years, at which point he concluded that the  theory of evolution  alone was a better explanation for life's complexity, and ceased believing in a god. [ 21 ]  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 that Darwinism was a far superior explanation that pulled the rug out from under the argument of design. And that left me with nothing". [ 21 ]  This understanding of atheism, combined with his western cultural background, influences Dawkins as he describes himself in several interviews as a " cultural Christian " and a "cultural  Anglican " in 2007 and 2013 [ 24 ] [ 25 ] [ 26 ]  and again in 2024. [ 27 ] [ 28 ]  Dawkins explained, however, that this statement about his culture "means absolutely nothing as far as religious belief is concerned." [ 13 ]


On his arrival in England from Nyasaland in 1949, at the age of eight, Dawkins joined  Chafyn Grove School , in  Wiltshire , [ 29 ]  where he says he was molested by a teacher. [ 30 ]  From 1954 to 1959, he attended  Oundle School  in  Northamptonshire , an English  public school  with a  Church of England  ethos, [ 21 ]  where he was in Laundimer House. [ 31 ]  While at Oundle, Dawkins read  Bertrand Russell 's  Why I Am Not a Christian  for the first time. [ 32 ]  He studied  zoology  at  Balliol College, Oxford  (the same college his father attended), graduating in 1962; while there, he was tutored by  Nobel Prize -winning ethologist  Nikolaas Tinbergen . He graduated with a second-class degree. [ 33 ]


Dawkins continued as a research student under Tinbergen's supervision, receiving his  Doctor of Philosophy [ 34 ]  degree by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year. [ 35 ] [ 36 ]  Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly in the areas of  instinct , learning, and choice; [ 37 ]  Dawkins's research in this period concerned models of animal decision-making. [ 38 ]


From 1967 to 1969, Dawkins 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 involved in the  anti-war  demonstrations and activities. [ 39 ]  He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 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", [ 40 ]  and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins. [ 41 ]  He held that professorship from 1995 until 2008. [ 42 ]


Since 1970, he has been a  fellow  of  New College, Oxford , and he is now an  emeritus  fellow. [ 43 ] [ 44 ]  He has delivered many lectures, including the  Henry Sidgwick  Memorial Lecture (1989), the first  Erasmus Darwin  Memorial Lecture (1990), the  Michael Faraday  Lecture (1991), the  T. H. Huxley  Memorial Lecture (1992), the  Irvine  Memorial Lecture (1997), the Sheldon Doyle Lecture (1999), the Tinbergen Lecture (2004), and the  Tanner Lectures  (2003). [ 35 ]  In 1991, he gave the  Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children  on  Growing Up in the Universe . He also has edited several journals and has acted as an editorial advisor to the  Encarta Encyclopedia  and the  Encyclopedia of Evolution . He is listed as a senior editor and a columnist of the  Council for Secular Humanism 's  Free Inquiry  magazine and has been a member of the editorial board of  Skeptic  magazine since its foundation. [ 45 ]


Dawkins has sat on judging panels for awards such as the  Royal Society 's  Faraday Award  and the  British Academy Television Awards , [ 35 ]  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". [ 46 ]  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". [ 47 ]  In 2011, Dawkins joined the professoriate of the  New College of the Humanities , a  private university  in London established by  A. C. Grayling , which opened in September 2012. [ 48 ]


Dawkins announced his final speaking tour would take place in the Fall of 2024. [ 49 ]


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 two of his books: [ 50 ] [ 51 ]


Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such as  spandrels , described by  Gould  and  Lewontin ) [ 54 ]  and about selection at levels "above" that of the gene. [ 55 ]  He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance of  group selection  as a basis for understanding  altruism . [ 56 ]


Altruism appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources and decreases one's own chances for survival, or  "fitness" . 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. British evolutionary biologist  W. D. Hamilton  used gene-frequency analysis in his  inclusive 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. [ 57 ] [a]  Hamilton's inclusive fitness has since been successfully applied to a wide range of organisms, including  humans . 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. [ 58 ]  Dawkins popularised these ideas in  The Selfish Gene , and developed them in his own work. [ 59 ]


In June 2012, Dawkins was highly critical of fellow biologist  E. O. Wilson 's 2012 book  The Social Conquest of Earth  as misunderstanding Hamilton's theory of kin selection. [ 60 ] [ 61 ]  Dawkins has also been strongly critical of the  Gaia hypothesis  of the independent scientist  James Lovelock . [ 62 ] [ 63 ] [ 64 ]


Critics of Dawkins's biological approach suggest that taking the  gene  as the unit of  selection  (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 of  evolution  (the long-term changes in  allele  frequencies in a population). [ 65 ]  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". [ 66 ]  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". [ 67 ]  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 (such as  Richard Lewontin ,  David Sloan Wilson , and  Elliott Sober ) suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The philosopher  Mary Midgley , with whom Dawkins clashed in print concerning  The Selfish Gene , [ 68 ] [ 69 ]  has criticised gene selection, memetics, and sociobiology as being excessively  reductionist ; [ 70 ]  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. [ 71 ]  Besides, other, more recent views and analysis on his popular science works also exist. [ 72 ]


In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (what has been called 'The Darwin Wars'), [ 73 ] [ 74 ]  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. [ 75 ] [ 76 ]  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. [ 77 ]  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. [ 78 ]  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. [ 79 ]  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.


When asked if  Darwinism  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 the  consciousness  of self. [ 20 ]


In his book  The Selfish Gene , Dawkins  coined  the word  meme  (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. [ 80 ]  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. [ 81 ]


Dawkins's  meme  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 of  cultural evolution  based on memes, a notion that is analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes. [ 82 ]


Although Dawkins invented the term  meme , he has not said that the idea was entirely novel, [ 83 ]  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 . [ 84 ]  Semon regarded "mneme" as the collective set of neural memory traces (conscious or subconscious) that were inherited, although such view would be considered as  Lamarckian  by modern biologists. [ 85 ]  Laurent also found the use of the term  mneme  in  Maurice Maeterlinck 's  The Life of the White Ant  (1926), and Maeterlinck himself stated that he obtained the phrase from Semon's work. [ 84 ]  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". [ 85 ]  Nonetheless,  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 proselytising against religiosity". [ 86 ]


In 2006, Dawkins founded the  Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science  ( RDFRS ), a  non-profit organisation . RDFRS financed research on the  psychology of belief and religion , financed scientific education programs and materials, and publicised and supported  charitable organisations  that are  secular  in nature. [ 87 ]  In January 2016, it was announced that the foundation was merging with the  Center for Inquiry , with Dawkins becoming a member of the new organization's board of directors. [ 88 ]


Dawkins was confirmed into the Church 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, [ 89 ]  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. [ 90 ]


Dawkins disagrees with  Stephen Jay Gould 's principle of  nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) [ 91 ]  and suggests that the  existence of God  should be treated as a scientific hypothesis like any other. [ 92 ]  Dawkins became a prominent  critic of religion  and has stated his  opposition to religion  as twofold: religion is both a source of conflict and a justification for belief without evidence. [ 93 ]  He considers faith—belief that is not based on evidence—as "one of the world's great evils". [ 94 ]


On his  spectrum of theistic probability , which ranges from 1 (100% certainty that a God or gods exist) to 7 (100% certainty that a God or gods do not exist), Dawkins has said he is a 6.9, which represents a "de facto atheist" who thinks "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there". When asked about his slight uncertainty, Dawkins quips, "I am agnostic to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden". [ 95 ] [ 96 ]  In May 2014, at the  Hay Festival  in Wales, Dawkins explained that while he does not believe in the supernatural elements of the Christian faith, he still has nostalgia for the ceremonial side of religion. [ 97 ]  In addition to beliefs in deities, Dawkins has criticised religious beliefs as irrational, such as that  Jesus turned water into wine , that an embryo starts as a blob, that  magic underwear  will protect you, that  Jesus was resurrected , that  semen  comes from the spine, that  Jesus walked on water , that the sun sets in a marsh, that the  Garden of Eden  existed in  Adam-ondi-Ahman , Missouri, that  Jesus' mother was a virgin , that  Muhammad split the Moon , and that  Lazarus was raised from the dead . [ 105 ]


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. [ 106 ]  As of 2015, more than three million copies have been sold, and the book has been translated into more than 30 languages. [ 107 ]  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 . [ 108 ]  In the book, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a  delusion —"a fixed false belief". [ 109 ]  In his February 2002  TED  talk entitled "Militant atheism", Dawkins urged all atheists to openly state their position and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science. [ 110 ]  On 30 September 2007, Dawkins,  Christopher Hitchens ,  Sam Harris , and  Daniel Dennett  met at Hitchens's residence for a private, unmoderated discussion that lasted two hours. The event was videotaped and entitled "The Four Horsemen". [ 111 ]


Dawkins sees education and  consciousness-raising  as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination. [ 39 ] [ 112 ] [ 113 ]  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. [ 113 ]  He has given support to the idea of a free-thinking school, [ 114 ]  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". [ 115 ] [ 116 ]  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 the ideological or religious beliefs of their parents. [ 113 ]


While some critics, such as writer  Christopher Hitchens , psychologist  Steven Pinker  and  Nobel laureates  Sir  Harold Kroto ,  James D. Watson , and  Steven Weinberg  have defended Dawkins's stance on religion and praised his work, [ 117 ]  others, including  Nobel Prize -winning  theoretical physicist   Peter Higgs ,  astrophysicist   Martin Rees , philosopher of science  Michael Ruse , literary critic  Terry Eagleton , philosopher  Roger Scruton , academic and social critic  Camille Paglia , atheist philosopher Daniel Came and theologian  Alister McGrath , [ 124 ]  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 the  theological  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. [ 125 ] [ 126 ] [ 127 ] [ 128 ]  Atheist philosopher  John 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". [ 129 ]  A 2016 study found that many British scientists held an unfavourable view of Dawkins and his attitude towards religion. [ 130 ]  In response to his critics, Dawkins maintains that theologians are no better than scientists in addressing deep  cosmological  questions and that he is not a fundamentalist, as he is willing to change his mind in the face of new evidence. [ 131 ] [ 132 ] [ 133 ]


Dawkins has faced backlash over some of his public comments about Islam. In 2013, Dawkins  tweeted  that "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though." [ 134 ]  In 2016, Dawkins' invitation to speak at the  Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism  was withdrawn over his sharing of what was characterized 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 vast majority of feminists, among whom I count myself. But the minority are pernicious." [ 135 ]


Dawkins also does not believe in an afterlife. [ 13 ]


Dawkins is a prominent critic of  creationism , a religious belief that  humanity ,  life , and the  universe  were created by a  deity [ 136 ]  without recourse to evolution. [ 137 ]  He has described the  young Earth creationist  view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood". [ 138 ]  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 eighteenth-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, unguided by any designer, nonintelligent,  blind  watchmaker. [ 139 ]


In 1986, Dawkins and biologist  John Maynard Smith  participated in an  Oxford Union  debate against  A. E. Wilder-Smith  (a Young Earth creationist) and  Edgar Andrews  (president of the  Biblical Creation Society ). [b]  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." [ 140 ]  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." [ 141 ]


Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of  intelligent design  in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". [ 142 ]  He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's  Rottweiler ", [ 143 ] [ 144 ]  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 whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through the  Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science  with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work. [ 145 ]


Dawkins is an outspoken  atheist [ 146 ]  and a supporter of various atheist, secular, [ 147 ] [ 148 ]  and  humanist organisations , [ 149 ] [ 150 ] [ 151 ] [ 152 ]  including  Humanists UK  and the  Brights movement . [ 110 ]  Dawkins suggests that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, stressing that atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind. [ 153 ]  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. [ 154 ]  Inspired by the  gay rights movement , he endorsed the  Out Campaign  to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly. [ 155 ]  He supported a UK atheist advertising initiative, the  Atheist Bus Campaign  in 2008 and 2009, which aimed to raise funds to place atheist advertisements on buses in the London area. [ 156 ]


Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth of the human population and about the matter of  overpopulation . [ 157 ]  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 . [ 158 ]


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". [ 159 ]


Dawkins also regularly comments in newspapers and  blogs  on contemporary political questions and is a frequent contributor to the online science and culture digest  3 Quarks Daily . [ 160 ]  His opinions include opposition to the  2003 invasion of Iraq , [ 161 ]  the  British nuclear deterrent , the actions of then-US President  George W. Bush , [ 162 ]  and the ethics of  designer babies . [ 163 ]  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  Republic 's campaign to replace the  British monarchy  with a type of democratic  republic . [ 164 ]  Dawkins has described himself as a  Labour  voter in the 1970s [ 165 ]  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 ' ". [ 166 ]  In the run up to the  2017 general election , Dawkins once again endorsed the Liberal Democrats and urged voters to join the party.


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 US now exploiting this issue." [ 167 ]  In a recent interview Dawkins stated regarding trans people that he does not "deny their existence nor does he in anyway oppress them". He objects to the statement that a "trans woman is a woman because that is a distortion of language and a distortion of science". [ 168 ]  The  American Humanist Association  retracted Dawkins' 1996 Humanist of the Year Award in response to these comments. [ 169 ]   Robby Soave  of  Reason  magazine  criticised the retraction, saying that "The drive to punish dissenters from various orthodoxies is itself illiberal." [ 170 ]


Dawkins has voiced his support for the  Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly , an organisation that campaigns for democratic reform in the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system. [ 171 ]


Dawkins identifies as a feminist. [ 172 ]  He has said that feminism is "enormously important". [ 173 ]  Dawkins has been accused by writers such as  Amanda Marcotte , Caitlin Dickson, and Adam Lee of  misogyny , criticizing those who speak about sexual harassment and abuse while ignoring sexism within the  New Atheist movement . [ 174 ] [ 175 ] [ 176 ]


In 1998, in a book review published in  Nature , Dawkins expressed his appreciation for two books connected with the  Sokal affair :  Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science  by  Paul R. Gross  and  Norman Levitt  and  Intellectual Impostures  by  Alan Sokal  and  Jean Bricmont . These books are famous for their criticism of  postmodernism  in U.S. universities (namely in the departments of literary studies, anthropology, and other cultural studies). [ 177 ]


Echoing many critics, Dawkins holds that postmodernism uses  obscurantist  language to hide its lack of meaningful content. As an example he quotes the psychoanalyst  Félix 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 or  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." [ 177 ]


In 2024, Dawkins co-authored an op-ed in  The Boston Globe  with Sokal criticizing the use of the terminology "sex assigned at birth" instead of "sex" by the  American Medical Association , the  American Psychological Association , the  American Academy of Pediatrics , and the  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . Dawkins and Sokal argued that  sex  is an "objective biological reality" that "is determined at conception and is then  observed  at birth," rather than  assigned  by a medical professional. Calling this " social constructionism  gone amok," Dawkins and Sokal argued further that "distort[ing] the scientific facts in the service of a social cause" risks undermining trust in medical institutions. [ 178 ]


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 ". [ 179 ]  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. [ 180 ]  Dawkins states that "There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work." [ 181 ]  In his 2007 Channel 4 TV film  The Enemies of Reason , Dawkins concluded that Britain is gripped by "an epidemic of superstitious thinking". [ 182 ]


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 series was first broadcast in June 2010, and focuses on major British scientific achievements throughout history. [ 183 ]  In 2014, he joined the global awareness movement  Asteroid Day  as a "100x Signatory". [ 184 ]


He holds  honorary doctorates  in science from the  University of Huddersfield ,  University of Westminster ,  Durham University , [ 185 ]  the  University of Hull , the  University of Antwerp , the  University of Oslo , the  University of Aberdeen , [ 186 ]   Open University , the  Vrije Universiteit Brussel , [ 35 ]  and the  University of Valencia . [ 187 ]  He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from the  University of St Andrews  and the  Australian National University  (HonLittD, 1996), and was elected Fellow of the  Royal Society of Literature  in 1997 and a  Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2001 . [ 1 ] [ 35 ]  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 . [ 35 ]


In 1996, the  American 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", including  transgender  people, using "the guise of scientific discourse". [ 188 ] [ 167 ]


Other awards include the  Zoological Society of London 's  Silver Medal  (1989), the Finlay Innovation Award (1990), the  Michael Faraday Award  (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the fifth  International Cosmos Prize  (1997), the  Kistler Prize  (2001), the  Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic  (2001), 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  (2002), [ 35 ]  the Golden Plate Award of the  American Academy of Achievement  (2006), [ 189 ]  and the  Nierenberg Prize  for Science in the Public Interest (2009). [ 190 ]  He was awarded the  Deschner Award , named after German anti-clerical author  Karlheinz Deschner . [ 191 ]  The  Committee for Skeptical Inquiry  (CSICOP) has awarded Dawkins their highest award  In Praise of Reason  (1992). [ 192 ]


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. [ 193 ] [ 194 ]  He was shortlisted as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll. [ 195 ]  In a poll held by  Prospect  in 2013, Dawkins was voted the world's top thinker based on 65 names chosen by a largely US and UK-based expert panel. [ 196 ]


In 2005, the  Hamburg -based  Alfred Toepfer Foundation  awarded him its annual  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. [ 197 ]  In the same year, he was listed by  Time  magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007, [ 198 ]  and was ranked 20th in  The Daily Telegraph 's  2007 list of 100 greatest living geniuses. [ 199 ]


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. [ 200 ]


In February 2010, Dawkins was named to the  Freedom From Religion Foundation 's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers. [ 201 ]  In December 2024, Dawkins resigned from the board, along with  Steven Pinker  and  Jerry Coyne , after the Foundation took down an article "Biology is not Bigotry" by Coyne which supported a biological, rather than a psychological, view of sex. [ 202 ]


In 2012, a  Sri Lankan  team of  ichthyologists  headed by  Rohan Pethiyagoda  named a new  genus  of freshwater fish  Dawkinsia  in Dawkins's honor. (Members of this genus were formerly members of the genus  Puntius ). [ 203 ]


Dawkins has been married three times and has a daughter. On 19 August 1967, Dawkins married ethologist  Marian Stamp  in the Protestant church in  Annestown ,  County Waterford , Ireland; [ 204 ]  they divorced in 1984. On 1 June 1984, he married Eve Barham (1951–1999) in Oxford. They had a daughter. Dawkins and Barham divorced. [ 205 ]  In 1992, he married actress  Lalla Ward [ 205 ]  in  Kensington and Chelsea , London. Dawkins met her through their mutual friend  Douglas Adams , [ 206 ]  who had worked with her on the BBC's  Doctor Who . Dawkins and Ward separated in 2016 and they later described the separation as "entirely amicable". [ 207 ]


On 6 February 2016, Dawkins suffered a minor haemorrhagic  stroke  while at home. [ 208 ] [ 209 ]  Dawkins reported later that same year that he had almost completely recovered. [ 210 ] [ 211 ]


Dawkins owns a first edition of  On the Origin of Species . [ 13 ]


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 the  Internet Movie Database  where he appeared as himself:


a.   ^   W. D. Hamilton  influenced Dawkins and the influence can be seen throughout Dawkins's book  The Selfish Gene . [ 39 ]  They became friends at Oxford and following Hamilton's death in 2000, Dawkins wrote his obituary and organised a  secular  memorial service. [ 222 ]


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. [ 223 ] [ 224 ]


The  Department of Genetics  is a department of the  University of Cambridge  that conducts  research  and  teaching  in  genetics . [ 1 ]


As of 2017 [update] , the department has 83 researchers over 27 research groups, studying functional  genomics ,  systems biology ,  developmental biology ,  cell biology ,  epigenetic  inheritance,  microbial genetics  and  evolution  and  population genetics . [ 2 ]


As of 2017 [update] , the department also has 50-65  graduate students  and about 30 Part II  Tripos  undergraduate students. [ 6 ]


Notable alumni of the department include:


The  DNA Learning Center  (DNALC) is a  genetics  learning center affiliated with the  Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory , in  Cold Spring Harbor, New York .  It is the world's first science center devoted entirely to genetics education and offers  online education , class field trips, student summer day camps, and teacher training. The DNALC's family of  internet  sites cover broad topics including basic  heredity ,  genetic disorders ,  eugenics , the discovery of the structure of  DNA ,  DNA sequencing ,  cancer ,  neuroscience , and plant genetics.


The center developed a website called DNA Subway for the  iPlant Collaborative . [ 1 ]


John Stephen Jones   DSc  FLSW   FRS [ 3 ]  (born 24 March 1944) [ 2 ]  is a  British   geneticist  and, from 1995 to 1999 as well as from 2008 to June 2010, was Head of the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at  University College London . [ 4 ] [ 5 ]  His studies are conducted in the  Galton Laboratory .


He is also a television presenter and a prize-winning author on the subject of  biology , especially  evolution . He is a popular contemporary writer on evolution. In 1996 his work won him the  Michael Faraday Prize  "for his numerous, wide ranging contributions to the  public understanding of science  in areas such as human evolution and variation, race, sex, inherited disease and genetic manipulation through his many broadcasts on radio and television, his lectures,  popular science  books, and his once-regular science column in  The Daily Telegraph  and contributions to other newspaper media".


Jones was born in  Aberystwyth , Wales, to Lydia Anne and Thomas Gwilym Jones. His parents met as students at the  University of Aberystwyth . Until he was about ten years old the family lived alternately at his paternal grandparents' house in  New Quay ,  Ceredigion , and his maternal grandparents' house near Aberystwyth. Later the family moved to the  Wirral , returning to Wales for their holidays. [ 6 ]


Jones's paternal grandfather and great grandfather were both sea captains. Jones's father, a PhD chemist, worked on detergents such as  Jif . [ 7 ]   Dylan Thomas  was an acquaintance of his father. As a child Jones often stayed at his paternal grandparents' home and spent a lot of his time in the attic which contained some seafaring equipment, and boxes of books covering a wide variety of topics, many of which Jones read. [ 6 ]  He also went to libraries and by the age of 14 years had read all the works of  Charles Dickens . [ 8 ]


As a child in Ceredigion Jones spoke a lot of Welsh until he was 6 or 7 years old, and as a keen observer of local wildlife was particularly interested in birds. [ 6 ] [ 9 ]  Jones was a pupil at  Wirral Grammar School for Boys . [ 10 ]  At the age of 13 to 14 years old Jones was inspired to study biology by a school teacher. [ 8 ]


Jones was rejected by all the  Welsh universities , so he applied to the  University of Edinburgh  for an undergraduate degree, which had a closing date seven days later, and he was accepted onto a  zoology  course. [ 8 ]  In 1967 he won the Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize in Zoology for his essay, “Area effects and the structure of peripheral populations of Cepaea nemoralis”. [ 11 ]  He stayed on in Edinburgh to do research for a Doctor of Philosophy degree on the  ecological genetics  of  Cepaea , a  snail  whose shell is  polymorphic  in colour pattern, making it a  model organism  for evolutionary biologists. [ 1 ] [ 12 ]  He developed an interest in snails from  Bryan Clarke  his PhD supervisor. [ 1 ] [ 8 ]


After his PhD, Jones also completed  post-doctoral research  into the genetics of  Drosophila  at the  University of Chicago  to widen his experience. [ 8 ]  Much of Jones's research has been concerned with snails and the light their study can shed on  biodiversity  and genetics. [ 13 ] [ 14 ] [ 15 ] [ 16 ] [ 17 ] [ 18 ] [ 19 ]


Jones was the 1991  Reith Lecturer  on BBC Radio, with a series entitled  The Language of the Genes , the basis of his 1993 book of the same name. [ 20 ]


He presented  In the Blood , a six-part TV series on  human genetics  first broadcast in 1996, see book of same name in bibliography. In July 2011, Jones produced a report dealing with science reporting issues at the  BBC . He was critical of the BBC for giving too much space and credence to maverick views on science, [ 21 ]  including  deniers of anthropogenic global warming . [ 22 ]


Jones was commissioned by the  BBC Trust  to write a report on the organisation's science reporting, which was published in July 2011. [ citation needed ]  This was broadly supportive of the BBC's accuracy, impartiality and science coverage although it also made some suggestions. These included better interaction of staff across the organisation on science topics and in particular an end to " false balance ". Jones describes " [a]ttempts to give a place to anyone, however unqualified, who claims interest can make for false balance: to free publicity to marginal opinions and not to impartiality, but its opposite ". The BBC's response to the recommendations was generally positive, several of which it immediately implemented.


Jones was elected a  Fellow of the Royal Society  (FRS) in 2012. [ 3 ]  He won their  Michael Faraday Prize  in 1996 [ 23 ]  and delivered the  Reith Lectures  in 1991. He was elected to the  American Philosophical Society  in 2011. [ 24 ]  In 2011, he was elected a  Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales . [ 25 ]


Jones's life partner since 1977 has been American documentary maker  Norma Percy ; they married in 2004. [ 2 ] [ 26 ]


Jones is a patron of  Humanists UK  and an honorary associate of the  National Secular Society . [ 27 ]  He was awarded the second Irwin Prize for  Secularist of the Year  by the  National Secular Society  on 7 October 2006. On 1 January 2011 he became President of  The Association for Science Education . [ 28 ]


In an interview on the  BBC Radio 5  show '5 Live Breakfast' hosted by  Nicky Campbell  and  Shelagh Fogarty  on 13 January 2009, Jones described private schools as a "cancer on the education system". [ 29 ]
Jones cites private schools as one of the reasons that Britain remains as socially stratified as it is. Among the advantages in private schools compared to state schools, Jones listed smaller class sizes, highly trained teachers, better facilities, and coaching through university interviews. [ 29 ]


Jones, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter published on 15 September 2010 in  The Guardian , stating their opposition to  Pope Benedict XVI 's  state visit  to the UK. [ 30 ]  Jones has also stated that  creationism  is "anti-science" and criticised creationists such as  Ken Ham . Jones suggested in a BBC  Radio Ulster  interview in 2006 that Creationists should be forbidden from being medical doctors because "all of its (Creationism's) claims fly in the face of the whole of science" and he further claimed that no serious biologist can believe in biblical creation. For Jones, 'evolution is the grammar of biology'. [ 31 ]  Jones elaborated on his full position on creationism in a public lecture entitled 'Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right'. [ 32 ]


National Life Stories  conducted an oral history interview (C1672/12) with Steve Jones in 2015 for its Science and Religion collection held by the British Library. [ 33 ]


Jones's view that in humans "Natural selection has to some extent been repealed" [ 34 ]
dates back at least to 1991 and has been the focus of newspaper reports and radio interviews. [ 35 ] [ 36 ] [ 37 ]  Referring to the title of a public lecture entitled "Is human Evolution Over?" he stated " For those of you who have a train to catch, the answer is  "yes",  so you can leave now ". [ 38 ]


His views are largely based on his claim that reduced juvenile mortality, decreasing age of fathers, and decreased geographical isolation of populations in Western societies reduce evolution. Both the data supporting these assertions and his views of the way these factors influence evolution in populations have been extensively criticised by other academics. [ 39 ] [ 40 ] [ 41 ] [ 42 ] [ 43 ]


The  Mendel Lectures  is a series of lectures [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]  given by the world's top scientists in  genetics ,  molecular biology ,  biochemistry ,  microbiology ,  medicine  and related areas which has been held in the  refectory  of the  Augustian Abbey of St. Thomas  in  Brno ,  Czech Republic  since May 2003. The lectures were established to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA ) by  James Watson  (1928) and  Francis Crick  (1916-2004). The Mendel Lectures are named in honour of  Gregor Johann Mendel  (1822-1884), the founder of  genetics , who lived and worked in the  Augustinian Abbey  in  Brno  1843-1884. Based on his experiments conducted in the abbey between 1856 and 1863, Mendel established the basic rules of  heredity , now referred to as the laws of  Mendelian inheritance . The Mendel Lectures are organized by the  Masaryk University , the  Mendel Museum , and the St. Anne's University Hospital Brno. The twentieth season of the Mendel Lectures is running at present. More than 130 top scientists, including many  Nobel Prize  winners, have visited  Brno  to give a Mendel Lecture, for example  Tim Hunt ,  Jack W. Szostak ,  John Gurdon ,  Elizabeth Blackburn ,  Paul Nurse ,  Venkatraman Ramakrishnan ,  Günter Blobel ,  Kurt Wüthrich ,  Jules A. Hoffmann ,  Aaron Ciechanover ,  Ada Yonath ,  Paul Modrich ,  Eric F. Wieschaus ,  Fraser Stoddart ,  Ben Feringa ,  Brian K. Kobilka  and others.


The first idea of the Mendel Lectures occurred during the international conference ´ EMBO  Workshop: Genetics after the Genome´ organised by  Dieter Schweizer  and  Kim Nasmyth  in 2002. Kim Nasmyth, at the time director of the  Research Institute of Molecular Pathology , and his wife Anna Nasmyth, Imma Mautner Markhof from Austria, Jan Motlík of the  Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic  and Jiřina Relichová of the  Masaryk University  prepared and organized the very first series of Mendel Lectures. They named the series „The Road to the DNA“ and focused the lectures on the historical context of  genetics . The two first speakers, Sir  Walter Bodmer  from Oxford and  Charles Weissmann  from London, gave their talks in the  Augustinian Abbey  in Old Brno on May 13, 2003. Subsequent series have addressed more topical scientific findings. Since 2003, more than 130 top scientists, including many  Nobel Prize  winners, have visited  Brno  to give a Mendel Lecture.


The Mendel Lectures are also connected with the establishment of the  Mendel Museum  and revitalization of scientific activities in the  Augustinian Abbey  in Old Brno in 2003 in the event of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA ). The  British Council  donated a copy of the original photograph of  James Watson  and  Francis Crick  and a copy of their model of DNA from 1953 is on loan from  Gustav Ammerer  to the  Mendel Museum .


Initially, the Mendel Lectures were financially supported by the geneticist Gustav Ammerer from Vienna through his charity  Vereinigung zur Förderung der Genomforschung , by the  Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic  and by the  British Council . Realization of the Mendel Lectures have been also supported by the  Masaryk University , Authority of the  South Moravian Region , the City of  Brno , and the  IMP Vienna . Between 2012 and 2014 the lectures were funded by the grant of the  Czech Ministry of Education  and the European Union (project Pluricell). Since 2015, the Mendel Lectures are supported by the International Clinical Research Center of St. Anne's University Hospital Brno and its project ICRC. From 2016 Masaryk University established  Seminar Series  and contributes with an essential financial funding.


The Mendel Lectures are now mainly focused on combining cutting-edge interdisciplinary approaches, technologies and methods of  biochemistry ,  biophysics ,  molecular biology ,  computational modelling , imaging,  microbiology ,  cell biology ,  physiology ,  genetics ,  toxicology ,  developmental biology ,  evolutionary biology  and  medicine .


The program of the Mendel Lectures is prepared by a scientific committee composed of  Aaron Ciechanover ,  Simon Boulton ,  Kim Nasmyth ,  Lumír Krejčí  and Vít Bryja. The Mendel Lectures are now organized by  Lumír Krejčí , Kamil Paruch and Gabriela Pavlíková from the  Masaryk University .


The  National Centre for Biotechnology Education  (NCBE) is a national resource centre at the  University of Reading  to teach pre-university  biotechnology  in schools in the UK. It was founded in 1990.


It began as the National Centre for School Biotechnology (NCSB) in 1985 in the Department of Microbiology. It became the NCBE in 1990. For many years it was the only centre in Europe that was devoted to the teaching of biotechnology in schools. The  Dolan DNA Learning Center  had been set up in the USA. [ citation needed ]


It was set up as an education project by the Society for General Microbiology, now the  Microbiology Society . Money from the  Laboratory of the Government Chemist  set up the National Centre for School Biotechnology (NCSB). Money also came from the  Gatsby Charitable Foundation . For the first five years, the UK government's  DTI  was involved, but from 1990 onwards wanted the organization to become self-supporting as it had to cut back on budgets. By 1992 the government provided no money for the centre. [ 1 ]


The site was set up in former buildings of the University of Reading's Department of Microbiology. In 2001, the NCBE moved to new purpose-built premises in the University’s School of Food Biosciences, however the creation of a new School of Pharmacy at the University forced the NCBE to move to new premises elsewhere on the campus in 2005. [ 2 ]


It reaches out to schools to give up-to-date information on biotechnology. Biotechnology is a rapidly evolving subject, and schools cannot keep up-to-date with all that they would be required to know. It produces educational resources. [ 3 ]  It runs the Microbiology in Schools Advisory Committee (MISAC). [ 4 ]