Richard Dawkins: Encyclopedia II - Richard Dawkins - Work

Richard Dawkins - Work

He is probably best known for his popularisation of the concept of the selfish gene (gene-centric view of evolution), described in his book, The Selfish Gene. As an ethologist, interested in animal behaviour and its relation to natural selection, he popularised the idea that the gene is the principal unit of selection in evolution. This gene point of view also provides a basis for understanding kin selection which was formulated by his friend, Bill Hamilton.

He has been one of the major proponents of sociobiological theory and coined the term meme, which spawned the theory of memetics. This has been criticised as being overly-reductionist, for example by the philosopher Mary Midgley with whom Dawkins has debated since the late 1970s.

Although Dawkins coined the term independently, he has never claimed that the idea of the meme was new; there had been similar terms for similar ideas in the past. John Laurent, in The Journal of Memetics, has suggested that the term 'meme' itself may have derived from the work of the little-known German biologist Richard Semon. In 1904, Semon published Die Mneme (which was published in English, as The Mneme, in 1924). His book discussed the cultural transmission of experiences with insights parallel to those of Dawkins. Laurent also found the use of the term "mneme" in The Soul of the White Ant (1927), by Maurice Maeterlinck, and highlighted its similarities to Dawkins' concept. The key distinction of Dawkins' formulation, ironically paralleling the insights provided by memetics, is that it caught on and thus became dominant.

Dawkins topped Prospect magazine's 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, as decided by the readers, receiving twice as many votes as the runner-up.

He writes a column for the Council for Secular Humanism's Free Inquiry magazine and serves as a Senior Editor. Since May 2005, Dawkins has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.

Richard Dawkins - Debates: theory of evolution sociobiology and religion

In the controversy over interpretations of evolution (the so-called Darwin Wars), one faction is often named for Dawkins and its rival for Stephen Jay Gould. This reflects the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of contesting viewpoints, rather than because either is the more substantial or extreme champion of these positions. A typical example of Dawkins' position is his scathing review (published in January 1985) of Not in Our Genes by Rose, Kamin and Lewontin. Two other thinkers often considered to be in the same camp as Dawkins are Pinker and Dennett.

In a December 2004 interview with Bill Moyers (transcript), Dawkins stated, "But, among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers later asked, "Is evolution a theory, not a fact?", Dawkins replied, "Evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening."

Dawkins is an ardent and outspoken atheist, an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and vice-president of the British Humanist Association. In his essay "Viruses of the Mind," he uses memetics theory to explain the phenomenon of religious belief and the various characteristics of organised religions, such as the common belief in punishments awaiting non-believers. The Atheist Alliance instituted the Richard Dawkins Award in 2003 in his honour.

Dawkins continues to be a prominent figure in contemporary public debate on issues related to science and religion. He sees education and consciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers religious dogma. These tools include the fight against certain stereotypes. Dawkins notes that feminists have succeeded in making us feel embarrassed when we use "he" when it could be "she." Similarly, he suggests, a phrase like "Catholic child" or "Muslim child" should be seen just as improper as "Marxist child" or "Neo-Libertarian child." Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, when asked if the world had changed, and if it had, how had it changed, Dawkins responded:

Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful!

Dawkins is known for his outspoken manner, which some would call blunt or even abrasive, and this carries over to his statements on social issues and religion. This has offended some people who would otherwise generally agree with him.

On the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould, Dawkins refuses to participate in debates with creationists because doing so would give them the "oxygen of respectability" that they want with the public; Dawkins argued 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." (A Devil's Chaplain, p. 256)

As a supporter of the Great Ape Project, a movement to extend human rights to all Great Apes (gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans), he contributed an article to a book of the same name entitled "Gaps In The Mind." In this article, he criticised contemporary society's moral attitudes which are based on a "discontinous, speciesist imperative."

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Work", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki