Richard Dawkins is one of the world’s most eminent writers and thinkers, and a major contributor to the public understanding of the science of evolution. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Society of Literature.
Dawkins was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. His 1976 book The Selfish Gene popularized the gene-centred view of evolution, as well as coining the term meme. He has won several academic and writing awards.
Dawkins is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design as well as for being a vocal atheist. He 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, contending 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. Dawkins has published two volumes of memoirs, An Appetite for Wonder and Brief Candle in the Dark.
