160-500: The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins , in which the author presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection . He also presents arguments to refute certain criticisms made on his first book, The Selfish Gene . (Both books espouse the gene-centric view of evolution .) An unabridged audiobook edition
320-490: A Church of England ethos, where he was in Laundimer House. While at Oundle, Dawkins read Bertrand Russell 's Why I Am Not a Christian for the first time. 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. Dawkins continued as
480-458: A Guardian editorial in 2002 condemned antisemitism and defended the paper's right to criticise the policies and actions of the Israeli government, arguing that those who view such criticism as inherently anti-Jewish are mistaken. Harriet Sherwood, then The Guardian 's foreign editor, later its Jerusalem correspondent, has also denied that The Guardian has an anti-Israel bias, saying that
640-587: A Labour voter in the 1970s and voter for the Liberal Democrats since the party's creation. In 2009, he spoke at the party's conference in opposition to blasphemy laws, alternative medicine, and faith schools. In the UK general election of 2010 , Dawkins officially endorsed the Liberal Democrats, in support of their campaign for electoral reform and for their "refusal to pander to 'faith ' ". In
800-532: 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. Dawkins has published two volumes of memoirs , An Appetite for Wonder (2013) and Brief Candle in
960-684: A " cultural Christian " and a "cultural Anglican " in 2007 and 2013 and again in 2024. Dawkins explained, however, that this statement about his culture has "means absolutely nothing as far as religious belief is concerned." On his arrival in England from Nyasaland in 1949, at the age of eight, Dawkins joined Chafyn Grove School , in Wiltshire , where he says he was molested by a teacher. From 1954 to 1959, he attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire , an English public school with
1120-542: A "100x Signatory". He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Huddersfield , University of Westminster , Durham University , the University of Hull , the University of Antwerp , the University of Oslo , the University of Aberdeen , Open University , the Vrije Universiteit Brussel , and the University of Valencia . He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from
1280-421: A 27-year-old British Muslim and journalism trainee from Yorkshire . Aslam was a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir , an Islamist group, and had published a number of articles on their website. According to the newspaper, it did not know that Aslam was a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir when he applied to become a trainee, though several staff members were informed of this once he started at the paper. The Home Office said that
1440-412: 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
1600-561: A basis for understanding altruism . 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
1760-699: A book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in 'anti-scientific' fairytales". 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. Dawkins announced his final speaking tour would take place in the Fall of 2024. Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of
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#17327725521501920-730: 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). Echoing many critics, Dawkins holds that postmodernism uses obscurantist language to hide its lack of meaningful content. As an example he quotes
2080-674: A field from which Dawkins has distanced himself. Dawkins's meme refers to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator of a certain idea or 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
2240-460: A foreword in which he asserts that alternative medicine is harmful, if only because it distracts patients from more successful conventional treatments and gives people false hopes. Dawkins states that "There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work." In his 2007 Channel 4 TV film The Enemies of Reason , Dawkins concluded that Britain is gripped by "an epidemic of superstitious thinking". Continuing
2400-404: A framework for a hypothesis of cultural evolution based on memes, a notion that is analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes. Although Dawkins invented the term meme , he has not said that the idea was entirely novel, and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past. For instance, John Laurent has suggested that the term may have derived from the work of
2560-483: A god. 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". This understanding of atheism, combined with his western cultural background, influences Dawkins as he describes himself in several interviews as
2720-457: A growing fire. There is no knowing what kind of explosion will follow." On 24 August 1959, The Manchester Guardian changed its name to The Guardian . This change reflected the growing prominence of national and international affairs in the newspaper. In September 1961, The Guardian , which had previously only been published in Manchester , began to be printed in London. Nesta Roberts
2880-489: A healthy, independent mind. 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. Inspired by the gay rights movement , he endorsed the Out Campaign to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly. He supported a UK atheist advertising initiative,
3040-452: A humorous column by Charlie Brooker in its entertainment guide, the final sentence of which was viewed by some as a call for violence against U.S. President George W. Bush ; after a controversy, Brooker and the paper issued an apology, saying the "closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action". Following the 7 July 2005 London bombings , The Guardian published an article on its comment pages by Dilpazier Aslam ,
3200-437: 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
3360-459: 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. In 2014, he joined the global awareness movement Asteroid Day as
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#17327725521503520-518: 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. 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
3680-608: A member of the new organization's board of directors. 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, 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
3840-433: 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. Dawkins disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould 's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) and suggests that the existence of God should be treated as
4000-474: A nation having slavery as its basis". There was a comment that "an effort had been made in a leading article of the Manchester Guardian to deter the working men from assembling together for such a purpose". The newspaper reported all this and published their letter to President Lincoln while complaining that "the chief occupation, if not the chief object of the meeting, seems to have been to abuse
4160-444: A position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field", and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins. He held that professorship from 1995 until 2008. Since 1970, he has been a fellow of New College, Oxford , and he is now an emeritus fellow. He has delivered many lectures, including
4320-462: A program also called The Blind Watchmaker , which was sold separately as a teaching aid. The program displayed a two-dimensional shape (a "biomorph") made up of straight black lines, the length, position, and angle of which were defined by a simple set of rules and instructions (analogous to a genome). Adding new lines (or removing them) based on these rules offered a discrete set of possible new shapes (mutations), which were displayed on screen so that
4480-582: A religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler ", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley , who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog " for his advocacy of Charles Darwin 's evolutionary ideas. He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science , which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and whose work Dawkins has described as an "educational scandal". He plans to subsidise schools through
4640-428: A research student under Tinbergen's supervision, receiving his Doctor of Philosophy degree by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year. Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly in the areas of instinct , learning, and choice; Dawkins's research in this period concerned models of animal decision-making. From 1967 to 1969, Dawkins was an assistant professor of zoology at
4800-641: A role in the Balfour Declaration . In 1948 The Manchester Guardian was a supporter of the new State of Israel. Ownership of the paper passed in June 1936 to the Scott Trust (named after the last owner, John Russell Scott , who was the first chairman of the Trust). This move ensured the paper's independence. From 1930 to 1967, a special archival copy of all the daily newspapers was preserved in 700 zinc cases. These were found in 1988 whilst
4960-467: A scalpel over a dotted shape of the Gaza Strip on his stomach. The caption read: "Residents of Gaza, get out now." Due to what has been seen by some as a reference to Shakespeare's Shylock 's "pound of flesh", it prompted accusations that it was antisemitic. Bell said that he was inspired by the 1960s "Johnson's Scar" cartoon by David Levine of U.S. president Lyndon B Johnson within the context of
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5120-412: A scientific hypothesis like any other. 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. He considers faith—belief that is not based on evidence—as "one of the world's great evils". On his spectrum of theistic probability , which ranges from 1 (100% certainty that
5280-615: A series of acts abhorrent to every true notion of constitutional right and human liberty", adding: "it is doubtless to be regretted that he had not the opportunity of vindicating his good intentions". According to Martin Kettle , writing for The Guardian in February 2011: " The Guardian had always hated slavery. But it doubted the Union hated slavery to the same degree. It argued that the Union had always tacitly condoned slavery by shielding
5440-420: A speech "and the hate-gospellers of his entourage" that it encouraged readers to vote Conservative in the 1951 general election and remove Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government. The Manchester Guardian strongly opposed military intervention during the 1956 Suez Crisis : "The Anglo-French ultimatum to Egypt is an act of folly, without justification in any terms but brief expediency. It pours petrol on
5600-513: A wanton barrage of stones, steel bars, and other missiles. That still does not justify opening fire so freely." After the events of Bloody Sunday, John Widgery, Baron Widgery was appointed the head of a tribunal to investigate the killings. The resulting tribunal, known as the Widgery Tribunal , largely exonerated the actions of the soldiers involved in the incident. The Guardian published an article on 20 April 1972 which supported
5760-413: A younger sister, Sarah. His parents were interested in natural sciences , and they answered Dawkins's questions in scientific terms. Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal Anglican upbringing". 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
5920-401: Is " not content with rebutting creationists" but goes on to press home his arguments against alternative theories to neo-Darwinism . He thinks the book fills the need to know more about evolution that creationists "would conceal from them." He concludes that "Readers who are not outraged will be delighted." The American philosopher of religion Dallas Willard , reflecting on the book, denies
6080-425: Is a British evolutionary biologist , zoologist , science communicator and author. 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. Dawkins
6240-659: Is a British daily newspaper . It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian , and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister papers, The Observer and The Guardian Weekly , The Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group , owned by the Scott Trust Limited . The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard
6400-501: Is a prominent critic of creationism , a religious belief that humanity , life , and the universe were created by a deity without recourse to evolution. He has described the young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood". His 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker , contains a sustained critique of the argument from design , an important creationist argument. In
6560-547: Is a step to which there is no obvious alternative." In 1983, the paper was at the centre of a controversy surrounding documents regarding the stationing of cruise missiles in Britain that were leaked to The Guardian by civil servant Sarah Tisdall . The paper eventually complied with a court order to hand over the documents to the authorities, which resulted in a six-month prison sentence for Tisdall, though she served only four. "I still blame myself", said Peter Preston , who
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6720-664: Is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main newsprint sections have been published in tabloid format . As of July 2021 , its print edition had a daily circulation of 105,134. The newspaper is available online; it lists UK, US (founded in 2011), Australian (founded in 2013), European, and International editions, and its website has sections for World, Europe, US, Americas, Asia, Australia, Middle East, Africa, New Zealand , Inequality, and Global development. The paper's readership
6880-505: Is generally on the mainstream left of British political opinion, and the term " Guardian reader" is used to imply a stereotype of a person with modern liberal , left-wing or " politically correct " views. Frequent typographical errors during the age of manual typesetting led Private Eye magazine to dub the paper the "Grauniad" in the 1970s, a nickname still occasionally used by the editors for self-mockery. In an Ipsos MORI research poll in September 2018 designed to interrogate
7040-510: Is his scathing review of Not in Our Genes by Steven Rose , Leon J. Kamin , and Richard C. Lewontin. Two other thinkers who are often considered to be allied with Dawkins on the subject are Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett ; Dennett has promoted a gene-centred view of evolution and defended reductionism in biology. Despite their academic disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins dedicated
7200-557: Is not a fundamentalist, as he is willing to change his mind in the face of new evidence. 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." In 2016, Dawkins' invitation to speak at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism
7360-570: Is not a less one; and we would not seek the abolition even of the former through the imminent hazard of the latter". It suggested that the United States should compensate slave-owners for freeing slaves and called on President Franklin Pierce to resolve the 1856 "civil war", the Sacking of Lawrence due to pro-slavery laws imposed by Congress. In 1860, The Observer quoted a report that
7520-411: Is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English." Dawkins has opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but
7680-400: Is sufficient genetic similarity between actors and recipients of such altruism, including close relatives. 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
7840-465: Is that Mr Lloyd George is fighting to enfranchise seven million women and the militants are smashing unoffending people's windows and breaking up benevolent societies' meetings in a desperate effort to prevent him." Scott thought the Suffragettes' "courage and devotion" was "worthy of a better cause and saner leadership". It has been argued that Scott's criticism reflected a widespread disdain, at
8000-757: Is that a gene cannot survive alone, but must cooperate with other genes to build an individual, and therefore a gene cannot be an independent "unit". In The Extended Phenotype , Dawkins suggests that from an individual gene's viewpoint, all other genes are part of the environment to which it is adapted. Advocates for higher levels of selection (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 , has criticised gene selection, memetics, and sociobiology as being excessively reductionist ; she has suggested that
8160-450: Is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public." In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers , Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know". When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory , Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it
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#17327725521508320-462: Is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design as well as for being a vocal atheist . Some fellow academics have described Dawkins as a secular or atheist fundamentalist . 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
8480-436: Is wrong to state that Tel Aviv – the country's financial and diplomatic centre – is the capital. The style guide has been amended accordingly." On 11 August 2014 the print edition of The Guardian published a pro-Israeli advocacy advert during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict featuring Elie Wiesel , headed by the words "Jews rejected child sacrifice 3,500 years ago. Now it's Hamas' turn." The Times had decided against running
8640-469: The Strandbeest , capable of walking when impelled by the wind. The journalist Dick Pountain described Sean B. Carroll 's 2005 account of evolutionary developmental biology , Endless Forms Most Beautiful , as the most important popular science book since The Blind Watchmaker , "and in effect a sequel [to it]." Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins FRS FRSL (born 26 March 1941)
8800-561: The Sunday Times , so phone-hacking will surely be to The Guardian : a defining moment in its history. In recent decades, The Guardian has been accused of biased criticism of Israeli government policy and of bias against the Palestinians. In December 2003, columnist Julie Burchill cited "striking bias against the state of Israel" as one of the reasons she left the paper for The Times . Responding to these accusations,
8960-487: The 2003 invasion of Iraq , the British nuclear deterrent , the actions of then-US President George W. Bush , and the ethics of designer babies . Several such articles were included in A Devil's Chaplain , an anthology of writings about science, religion, and politics. He is also a supporter of Republic 's campaign to replace the British monarchy with a type of democratic republic . Dawkins has described himself as
9120-528: The Atheist Bus Campaign in 2008 and 2009, which aimed to raise funds to place atheist advertisements on buses in the London area. Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth of the human population and about the matter of overpopulation . In The Selfish Gene , he briefly mentions population growth, giving the example of Latin America , whose population, at the time the book was written,
9280-504: The Biblical Creation Society ). 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
9440-638: The FTSE 100 companies. Internal documents relating to Barclays Bank 's tax avoidance were removed from The Guardian website after Barclays obtained a gagging order . The newspaper played a pivotal role in exposing the depth of the News of the World phone hacking affair . The Economist 's Intelligent Life magazine opined that: As Watergate is to the Washington Post , and thalidomide to
9600-1007: 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). In 1991, he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children on Growing Up in
9760-521: The Hôtel Ritz in Paris, which would have amounted to accepting a bribe on Aitken's part. Aitken publicly stated that he would fight with "the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play". The court case proceeded, and in 1997 The Guardian produced evidence that Aitken's claim of his wife paying for the hotel stay was untrue. In 1999, Aitken was jailed for perjury and perverting
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#17327725521509920-574: The Kosovo War in 1998–1999. The Guardian stated that "the only honourable course for Europe and America is to use military force". Mary Kaldor 's piece was headlined "Bombs away! But to save civilians, we must get in some soldiers too." In the early 2000s, The Guardian challenged the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Treason Felony Act 1848 . In October 2004, The Guardian published
10080-500: The Manchester Guardian ". Lincoln replied to the letter thanking the workers for their "sublime Christian heroism" and American ships delivered relief supplies to Britain. The newspaper reported the shock to the community of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, concluding that "[t]he parting of his family with the dying President is too sad for description", but in what from today's perspective looks an ill-judged editorial wrote that "[o]f his rule we can never speak except as
10240-475: 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. In January 2016, it was announced that the foundation was merging with the Center for Inquiry , with Dawkins becoming
10400-460: The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science with the delivery of books, DVDs, and pamphlets that counteract their work. Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a supporter of various atheist, secular, and humanist organisations , including Humanists UK and the Brights movement . Dawkins suggests that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, stressing that atheism is evidence of
10560-907: The Royal Society 's Faraday Award and the British Academy Television Awards , and has been president of the Biological Sciences section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science . In 2004, Balliol College, Oxford , instituted the Dawkins Prize, awarded for "outstanding research into the ecology and behaviour of animals whose welfare and survival may be endangered by human activities". In September 2008, he retired from his professorship, announcing plans to "write
10720-665: The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), The Guardian called for the British Armed Forces to be deployed to the region, arguing that their deployment would "present a more disinterested face of law and order" than the RUC." On 30 January 1972, troops from the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment opened fire on a Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association march, killing fourteen people in an event that would come to be known as Bloody Sunday . In response to
10880-596: The Union blockade was causing suffering in British towns . Some including Liverpool supported the Confederacy as did "current opinion in all classes" in London. On 31 December 1862, cotton workers held a meeting at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester which resolved "its detestation of negro slavery in America, and of the attempt of the rebellious Southern slave-holders to organise on the great American continent
11040-563: 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. 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,
11200-670: 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 . 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
11360-576: The Vietnam War . In August 2004, for the US presidential election , the daily G2 supplement launched an experimental letter-writing campaign in Clark County , Ohio, an average-sized county in a swing state . Editor Ian Katz bought a voter list from the county for $ 25 and asked readers to write to people listed as undecided in the election, giving them an impression of the international view and
11520-1158: 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),
11680-420: The gene as the principal unit of selection in evolution ; this view is most clearly set out in two of his books: Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such as spandrels , described by Gould and Lewontin ) and about selection at levels "above" that of the gene. He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance of group selection as
11840-466: 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). In The Selfish Gene , Dawkins explains that he is using George C. Williams 's definition of the gene as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency". Another common objection
12000-417: The rainbow , Isaac Newton diminished its beauty; Dawkins argues for the opposite conclusion. He suggests that deep space, the billions of years of life's evolution, and the microscopic workings of biology and heredity contain more beauty and wonder than do " myths " and " pseudoscience ". For John Diamond 's posthumously published Snake Oil , a book devoted to debunking alternative medicine , Dawkins wrote
12160-456: The Act would encourage emancipation in other slave-owning nations to avoid "imminent risk of a violent and bloody termination." However, the newspaper argued against restricting trade with countries that had not yet abolished slavery. Complex tensions developed in the United States. When the abolitionist George Thompson toured, the newspaper said that "[s]lavery is a monstrous evil, but civil war
12320-776: The British Colonial Service in Nyasaland (present-day Malawi ), of an Oxfordshire landed gentry family. His father was called up into the King's African Rifles during the Second World War 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. Dawkins lives in Oxford , England. He has
12480-423: The Confederacy to self-determination. It criticised Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation for not freeing all American slaves. On 10 October 1862, it wrote: "It is impossible to cast any reflections upon a man so evidently sincere and well-intentioned as Mr Lincoln but it is also impossible not to feel that it was an evil day both for America and the world, when he was chosen President of the United States". By then,
12640-522: The Dark (2015). Dawkins was born Clinton Richard Dawkins on 26 March 1941 in Nairobi , the capital of Kenya during British colonial rule . He later dropped Clinton from his name by deed poll because of confusion in America over using his middle name as his first name. He is the son of Jean Mary Vyvyan ( née Ladner; 1916–2019) and Clinton John Dawkins (1915–2010), an agricultural civil servant in
12800-729: The Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (2006), and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009). He was awarded the Deschner Award , named after German anti-clerical author Karlheinz Deschner . The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSICOP) has awarded Dawkins their highest award In Praise of Reason (1992). The Guardian The Guardian
12960-521: The Holy City of Jerusalem" and calling on all member states with diplomatic missions in the city to withdraw. The UN has reaffirmed this position on several occasions, and almost every country now has its embassy in Tel Aviv. While it was therefore right to issue a correction to make clear Israel's designation of Jerusalem as its capital is not recognised by the international community, we accept that it
13120-621: The Norse gods, if only because these, like the Abrahamic scriptures, are important for understanding English literature and European history". 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
13280-570: The PCC retracted its original ruling, leading to the newspaper's acknowledgement that it was wrong to call Tel Aviv Israel's capital. The Guardian later clarified: "In 1980, the Israeli Knesset enacted a law designating the city of Jerusalem, including East Jerusalem, as the country's capital. In response, the UN security council issued resolution 478, censuring the "change in character and status of
13440-726: The Soviet Embassy and had taken benefits from the KGB on overseas visits. Gott resigned from his post. Gordievsky commented on the newspaper: "The KGB loved The Guardian . It was deemed highly susceptible to penetration." In 1995, both the Granada Television programme World in Action and The Guardian were sued for libel by the then cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken , for their allegation that Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed had paid for Aitken and his wife to stay at
13600-657: 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. Dawkins has sat on judging panels for awards such as
13760-641: The Year Award in response to these comments. Robby Soave of Reason magazine criticised the retraction, saying that "The drive to punish dissenters from various orthodoxies is itself illiberal." 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
13920-464: The ad, although it had already appeared in major American newspapers. One week later, Chris Elliott expressed the opinion that the newspaper should have rejected the language used in the advert and should have negotiated with the advertiser on this matter. In October 2023, The Guardian stated it would not renew the contract of cartoonist Steve Bell after he submitted a cartoon featuring Netanyahu, with his shirt open, wearing boxing gloves and holding
14080-499: The argument from personal incredulity. He denies that Dawkins's computer "exercises" and arguments from gradual change show that complex forms of life could have evolved. Willard concludes by arguing that in writing this book, Dawkins is not functioning as a scientist "in the line of Darwin", but as "just a naturalist metaphysician". The engineer Theo Jansen read the book in 1986 and became fascinated by evolution and natural selection. Since 1990 he has been building kinetic sculptures ,
14240-582: The article 'Gaps in the Mind' to the Great Ape Project book edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer . In this essay, he criticises contemporary society's moral attitudes as being based on a "discontinuous, speciesist imperative". Dawkins also regularly comments in newspapers and blogs on contemporary political questions and is a frequent contributor to the online science and culture digest 3 Quarks Daily . His opinions include opposition to
14400-411: 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
14560-604: 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." In 2024, Dawkins co-authored an op-ed in The Boston Globe with Sokal criticizing
14720-509: The book has been translated into more than 30 languages. 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 . 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". In his February 2002 TED talk entitled "Militant atheism", Dawkins urged all atheists to openly state their position and to fight
14880-401: 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
15040-517: The company. In subsequent years, however, The Guardian has hired various commentators on US affairs including Ana Marie Cox , Michael Wolff , Naomi Wolf , Glenn Greenwald and George W. Bush's former speechwriter Josh Treviño . Treviño's first blog post was an apology for a controversial tweet posted in June 2011 over the second Gaza flotilla, the controversy which had been revived by the appointment. Guardian US launched in September 2011, led by editor-in-chief Janine Gibson , which replaced
15200-435: The complex adaptations of organisms, Dawkins' first concern is to illustrate the difference between the potential for the development of complexity as a result of pure randomness, as opposed to that of randomness coupled with cumulative selection. He demonstrates this by the example of the weasel program . Dawkins then describes his experiences with a more sophisticated computer simulation of artificial selection implemented in
15360-457: The connection of evolution to the validity of arguments from design to God: whereas, he asserts, Dawkins seems to consider the arguments to rest entirely on that basis. Willard argues that Chapter 6, "Origins and Miracles", attempts the "hard task" of making not just a blind watchmaker but "a blind watchmaker watchmaker", which he comments would have made an "honest" title for the book. He notes that Dawkins demolishes several "weak" arguments, such as
15520-634: The continuing "cruelty and injustice" to slaves in the West Indies long after the abolition of the slave trade with the Slave Trade Act 1807 wanted fairness to the interests and claims both of the planters and of their oppressed slaves. It welcomed the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 and accepted the "increased compensation" to the planters as the "guilt of slavery attaches far more to the nation" rather than individuals. Success of
15680-497: The course of justice . In May 1998, a series of Guardian investigations exposed the wholesale fabrication of a much-garlanded ITV documentary The Connection , produced by Carlton Television. The documentary purported to film an undiscovered route by which heroin was smuggled into the United Kingdom from Colombia. An internal inquiry at Carlton found that The Guardian ' s allegations were in large part correct and
15840-516: The creation of a more accountable international political system. Dawkins identifies as a feminist. He has said that feminism is "enormously important". 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 . In 1998, in
16000-490: The diffusion of just principles of Political Economy and ... support, without reference to the party from which they emanate, all serviceable measures". In 1825, the paper merged with the British Volunteer and was known as The Manchester Guardian and British Volunteer until 1828. The working-class Manchester and Salford Advertiser called The Manchester Guardian "the foul prostitute and dirty parasite of
16160-415: The existence of a divine creator by drawing a parallel with the way in which the existence of a watch compels belief in an intelligent watchmaker. Dawkins, in contrasting the differences between human design and its potential for planning with the workings of natural selection, therefore dubbed evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker. To dispel the idea that complexity cannot arise without
16320-589: The existence of the surveillance program PRISM after knowledge of it was leaked to the paper by the whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden . In 2016, The Guardian led an investigation into the Panama Papers , exposing then–Prime Minister David Cameron 's links to offshore bank accounts . It has been named "newspaper of the year" four times at the annual British Press Awards : most recently in 2014, for its reporting on government surveillance. The Manchester Guardian
16480-609: The expectation of future reciprocation. Dawkins popularised these ideas in The Selfish Gene , and developed them in his own work. 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. Dawkins has also been strongly critical of the Gaia hypothesis of the independent scientist James Lovelock . Critics of Dawkins's biological approach suggest that taking
16640-608: The fight against certain stereotypes, and he has adopted the term bright as a way of associating positive public connotations with those who possess a naturalistic worldview. He has given support to the idea of a free-thinking school, which would not "indoctrinate children" 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
16800-613: The garden". 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. 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
16960-402: The group's "ultimate aim is the establishment of an Islamic state (Caliphate), according to Hizb ut-Tahrir via non-violent means". The Guardian asked Aslam to resign his membership of the group and, when he did not do so, terminated his employment. In early 2009, The Guardian started a tax investigation into a number of major UK companies, including publishing a database of the tax paid by
17120-724: The ideological or religious beliefs of their parents. 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, 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 , have criticised Dawkins on various grounds, including
17280-425: The importance of voting against President George W. Bush. Katz admitted later that he did not believe Democrats who warned that the campaign would benefit Bush and not opponent John Kerry . The newspaper scrapped "Operation Clark County" on 21 October 2004 after first publishing a column of responses—nearly all of them outraged—to the campaign under the headline "Dear Limey assholes". Some commentators suggested that
17440-460: The incident, The Guardian argued that "Neither side can escape condemnation... The organizers of the demonstration, Miss Bernadette Devlin among them, deliberately challenged the ban on marches. They knew that stone throwing and sniping could not be prevented, and that the IRA might use the crowd as a shield ." The Guardian further stated that "It is certainly true that the army cordons had endured
17600-463: The incursion of the church into politics and science. 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". Dawkins sees education and consciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination. These tools include
17760-566: The intervention of a "creator", Dawkins uses the example of the eye. Beginning with a simple organism, capable only of distinguishing between light and dark, in only the crudest fashion, he takes the reader through a series of minor modifications, which build in sophistication until we arrive at the elegant and complex mammalian eye. In making this journey, he points to several creatures whose various seeing apparatus are, whilst still useful, living examples of intermediate levels of complexity. In developing his argument that natural selection can explain
17920-482: The journalistic freedom and liberal values of The Guardian free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for The Guardian the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in its journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders . It
18080-488: The language and footnoting this change. The Guardian ' s style guide section referred to Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel in 2012. In 2012, media watchdog HonestReporting filed a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) after The Guardian ran a correction apologizing for "wrongly" having called Jerusalem as Israel's capital. After an initial ruling supporting The Guardian ,
18240-560: The library. Traditionally affiliated with the centrist to centre-left Liberal Party , and with a northern, non-conformist circulation base, the paper earned a national reputation and the respect of the left during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). George Orwell wrote in Homage to Catalonia (1938): "Of our larger papers, the Manchester Guardian is the only one that leaves me with an increased respect for its honesty". With
18400-532: The little-known German biologist Richard Semon . 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. 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
18560-478: The mill-owners' champions had the upper hand. The influential journalist Jeremiah Garnett joined Taylor during the establishment of the paper, and all of the Little Circle wrote articles for the new paper. The prospectus announcing the new publication proclaimed that it would "zealously enforce the principles of civil and religious Liberty ... warmly advocate the cause of Reform ... endeavour to assist in
18720-430: The most-read of the UK's "quality newsbrands", including digital editions; other "quality" brands included The Times , The Daily Telegraph , The Independent , and the i . While The Guardian ' s print circulation is in decline, the report indicated that news from The Guardian , including that reported online, reaches more than 23 million UK adults each month. Chief among the notable " scoops " obtained by
18880-1026: The mystery of our existence". Tim Radford, writing in The Guardian , noted that despite Dawkins's "combative secular humanism", he had written "a patient, often beautiful book... that begins in a generous mood and sustains its generosity to the end." 30 years on, people still read the book, Radford argues, because it is "one of the best books ever to address, patiently and persuasively, the question that has baffled bishops and disconcerted dissenters alike: how did nature achieve its astonishing complexity and variety?" Philosopher and historian of biology Michael T. Ghiselin , writing in The New York Times , comments that Dawkins "succeeds admirably in showing how natural selection allows biologists to dispense with such notions as purpose and design". He notes that analogies with computer programs have their limitations, but are still useful. Ghiselin observes that Dawkins
19040-676: The newly elected president Abraham Lincoln was opposed to abolition of slavery. On 13 May 1861, shortly after the start of the American Civil War , the Manchester Guardian portrayed the Northern states as primarily imposing a burdensome trade monopoly on the Confederate States , arguing that if the South was freed to have direct trade with Europe, "the day would not be distant when slavery itself would cease". Therefore,
19200-514: The newspaper asked "Why should the South be prevented from freeing itself from slavery?" This hopeful view was also held by the Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone . There was division in Britain over the Civil War, even within political parties. The Manchester Guardian had also been conflicted. It had supported other independence movements and felt it should also support the rights of
19360-583: The newspaper's archives were deposited at the University of Manchester 's John Rylands University Library , on the Oxford Road campus. The first case was opened and found to contain the newspapers issued in August 1930 in pristine condition. The zinc cases had been made each month by the newspaper's plumber and stored for posterity. The other 699 cases were not opened and were all returned to storage at The Guardian ' s garage, owing to shortage of space at
19520-455: The occupation of the agents of the Union is gone. They live on strife ... ." In March 2023, an academic review commissioned by the Scott Trust determined that John Edward Taylor and nine of his eleven backers had links to the Atlantic slave trade through their interests in Manchester's textile industry. The newspaper opposed slavery and supported free trade . An 1823 leading article on
19680-503: The organized complexity in the world, either instantaneously or by guiding evolution ... must already have been vastly complex in the first place ..." He calls this "postulating organized complexity without offering an explanation". In the preface, Dawkins states that he wrote the book "to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could , in principle, solve
19840-463: The other faction is named after the American palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould , reflecting the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of the pertinent ideas. In particular, Dawkins and Gould have been prominent commentators in the controversy over sociobiology and evolutionary psychology , with Dawkins generally approving and Gould generally being critical. A typical example of Dawkins's position
20000-610: The paper aims to cover all viewpoints in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict . On 6 November 2011, Chris Elliott, The Guardian ' s readers' editor, wrote that " Guardian reporters, writers and editors must be more vigilant about the language they use when writing about Jews or Israel", citing recent cases where The Guardian received complaints regarding language chosen to describe Jews or Israel. Elliott noted that, over nine months, he upheld complaints regarding language in certain articles that were seen as anti-Semitic, revising
20160-535: The paper from the estate of Taylor's son in 1907. Under Scott, the paper's moderate editorial line became more radical, supporting William Gladstone when the Liberals split in 1886, and opposing the Second Boer War against popular opinion. Scott supported the movement for women's suffrage , but was critical of any tactics by the suffragettes that involved direct action : "The really ludicrous position
20320-523: The paper was the 2011 News International phone-hacking scandal —and in particular the hacking of the murdered English teenager Milly Dowler 's phone. The investigation led to the closure of the News of the World , the UK's best-selling Sunday newspaper and one of the highest-circulation newspapers in history. In June 2013, The Guardian broke news of the secret collection by the Obama administration of Verizon telephone records, and subsequently revealed
20480-414: The phrase from Semon's work. 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". 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". In 2006, Dawkins founded
20640-571: The popularity of Dawkins's work is due to factors in the Zeitgeist such as the increased individualism of the Thatcher/Reagan decades. Besides, other, more recent views and analysis on his popular science works also exist. In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (what has been called 'The Darwin Wars'), one faction is often named after Dawkins, while
20800-646: The pro-Liberal News Chronicle , the Labour -supporting Daily Herald , the Communist Party 's Daily Worker and several Sunday and weekly papers, it supported the Republican government against General Francisco Franco 's insurgent nationalists. The paper's then editor, A. P. Wadsworth , so loathed Labour's left-wing champion Aneurin Bevan , who had made a reference to getting rid of "Tory Vermin" in
20960-484: The project and hire a staff of American reporters and web editors. The site featured news from The Guardian that was relevant to an American audience: coverage of US news and the Middle East, for example. Tomasky stepped down from his position as editor of Guardian America in February 2009, ceding editing and planning duties to other US and London staff. He retained his position as a columnist and blogger, taking
21120-417: 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
21280-476: The public's dislike of the campaign contributed to Bush's victory in Clark County. In 2007, the paper launched Guardian America , an attempt to capitalise on its large online readership in the United States, which at the time stood at more than 5.9 million. The company hired former American Prospect editor, New York magazine columnist and New York Review of Books writer Michael Tomasky to head
21440-508: The public's trust of specific titles online, The Guardian scored highest for digital-content news, with 84% of readers agreeing that they "trust what [they] see in it". A December 2018 report of a poll by the Publishers Audience Measurement Company stated that the paper's print edition was found to be the most trusted in the UK in the period from October 2017 to September 2018. It was also reported to be
21600-477: The radical reformers, writing: "They have appealed not to the reason but the passions and the suffering of their abused and credulous fellow-countrymen, from whose ill-requited industry they extort for themselves the means of a plentiful and comfortable existence. They do not toil, neither do they spin, but they live better than those that do." When the government closed down the Manchester Observer ,
21760-431: The religious fundamentalists he criticises. 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,
21920-661: 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
22080-648: 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 . 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". Other awards include
22240-502: The southern slave states from the condemnation they deserved. It was critical of Lincoln's emancipation proclamation for stopping short of a full repudiation of slavery throughout the US. And it chastised the president for being so willing to negotiate with the south, with slavery one of the issues still on the table." C. P. Scott made the newspaper nationally recognised. He was editor for 57 years from 1872, and became its owner when he bought
22400-414: The success of a related group of species in filling varied ecological niches, though he emphasised that this should not be confused with group selection . He dubbed this insight the evolution of evolvability . After arguing that evolution is capable of explaining the origin of complexity, near the end of the book Dawkins uses this to argue against the existence of God: "a deity capable of engineering all
22560-407: The then industry regulator, the ITC, punished Carlton with a record £2 million fine for multiple breaches of the UK's broadcasting codes. The scandal led to an impassioned debate about the accuracy of documentary production. Later in June 1998, The Guardian revealed further fabrications in another Carlton documentary from the same director. The paper supported NATO 's military intervention in
22720-400: The time, for those women who "transgressed the gender expectations of Edwardian society ". Scott commissioned J. M. Synge and his friend Jack Yeats to produce articles and drawings documenting the social conditions of the west of Ireland; these pieces were published in 1911 in the collection Travels in Wicklow, West Kerry and Connemara . Scott's friendship with Chaim Weizmann played
22880-432: The title editor-at-large. In October 2009, the company abandoned the Guardian America homepage, instead directing users to a US news index page on the main Guardian website. The following month, the company laid off six American employees, including a reporter, a multimedia producer and four web editors. The move came as Guardian News and Media opted to reconsider its US strategy amid a huge effort to cut costs across
23040-410: The tribunal and its findings, arguing that "Widgery's report is not one-sided". In response to the introduction of internment without trial in Northern Ireland, The Guardian argued that "Internment without trial is hateful, repressive and undemocratic. In the existing Irish situation, most regrettably, it is also inevitable... To remove the ringleaders, in the hope that the atmosphere might calm down,
23200-407: 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
23360-405: The user could choose between them. The chosen mutation would then be the basis for another generation of biomorph mutants to be chosen from, and so on. Thus, the user, by selection, could steer the evolution of biomorphs. This process often produced images which were reminiscent of real organisms for instance beetles , bats , or trees . Dawkins speculated that the unnatural selection role played by
23520-505: The user in this program could be replaced by a more natural agent if, for example, colourful biomorphs could be selected by butterflies or other insects, via a touch-sensitive display set up in a garden. In an appendix to the 1996 edition of the book, Dawkins explains how his experiences with computer models led him to a greater appreciation of the role of embryological constraints on natural selection. In particular, he recognised that certain patterns of embryological development could lead to
23680-462: 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. In his book The Selfish Gene , Dawkins coined
23840-494: 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. 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
24000-408: 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. 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 ,
24160-474: The worst portion of the mill-owners". The Manchester Guardian was generally hostile to labour's claims. Of the 1832 Ten Hours Bill, the paper doubted whether in view of the foreign competition "the passing of a law positively enacting a gradual destruction of the cotton manufacture in this kingdom would be a much less rational procedure." The Manchester Guardian dismissed strikes as the work of outside agitators, stating that "if an accommodation can be effected,
24320-420: 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". A 2016 study found that many British scientists held an unfavourable view of Dawkins and his attitude towards religion. In response to his critics, Dawkins maintains that theologians are no better than scientists in addressing deep cosmological questions and that he
24480-438: Was also not my intent to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue." 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". The American Humanist Association retracted Dawkins' 1996 Humanist of
24640-408: Was appointed as the newspaper's first news editor there, becoming the first woman to hold such a position on a British national newspaper. During the early period of the Troubles , The Guardian supported British state intervention to quell disturbances between Irish Catholics and Ulster loyalists in Northern Ireland . After the Battle of the Bogside between Catholic residents of Derry and
24800-443: Was doubling every 40 years. He is critical of Roman Catholic attitudes to family planning and population control , stating that leaders who forbid contraception and "express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation" will get just such a method in the form of starvation . As a supporter of the Great Ape Project —a movement to extend certain moral and legal rights to all great apes —Dawkins contributed
24960-419: Was founded in Manchester in 1821 by cotton merchant John Edward Taylor with backing from the Little Circle , a group of non-conformist businessmen. They launched the paper, on 5 May 1821 (by chance the very day of Napoleon's death) after the police closure of the more radical Manchester Observer , a paper that had championed the cause of the Peterloo Massacre protesters. Taylor had been hostile to
25120-407: Was released in 2011, narrated by Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward . The title of the book refers to the watchmaker analogy made famous by William Paley in his 1802 book Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity . Paley, writing long before Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, held that the complexity of living organisms was evidence of
25280-560: 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 . 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. As of 2015, more than three million copies have been sold, and
25440-593: Was the editor of The Guardian at the time, but he went on to argue that the paper had no choice because it "believed in the rule of law". In a 2019 article discussing Julian Assange and the protection of sources by journalists, John Pilger criticised the editor of The Guardian for betraying Tisdall by choosing not to go to prison "on a fundamental principle of protecting a source". In 1994, KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky identified Guardian literary editor Richard Gott as "an agent of influence". While Gott denied that he received cash, he admitted he had had lunch at
25600-416: 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." Dawkins also does not believe in an afterlife. Dawkins
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