Richard Dawkins: biography and contributions of this British popularizer

In what percentage does genetics explain our behavior? Is evolution entirely supported by our genes? How important are the relationships with other individuals of the same species?

These questions have been asked since Darwin talk about evolutionary processes. Many ethologists and biologists have tried to address these questions.

Among them is Richard Dawkins, an English ethologist and evolutionary biologist who has formulated such controversial concepts as the selfish gene, as well as popularizing the word 'meme'.

• It may interest you: "The 65 best phrases of Richard Dawkins"

Richard Dawkins Biography

Let's take a closer look at the life of this great scientist, whose dissemination task is still active today.

Early years

Clinton Richard Dawkins was born in Nairobi, present-day Kenya, on March 26, 1941.. Son of a farmer stationed as a soldier in British colonial Africa. Richard Dawkins lived in a wealthy average family in which there was always a fascination for science.

At age eight he moved to England with his parents, where they got a farm to live with.

He embraced the Christian faith until adolescence, when he concluded that the theory of evolution offered a better explanation of the complexity of life than creationism, leaving aside bye.

Training

Between 1954 and 1959 Richard Dawkins attended college at Oundle in Northamptonshire, a public school with a preference for Anglican education. While attending this center, Dawkins read books on atheism and agnosticism.

Subsequently, he studied zoology at Balliol College, graduating in 1962. He was a student of the Nobel Prize-winning ethologist in medicine Nikolaas Tinbergen, as well as being part of his research group. Then in 1966 he obtained a doctorate in philosophy.

Working with Tinbergen was a great opportunity for Dawkins, as the Dutch biologist was one of the pioneers in studying animal behavior, especially learning, decision and instinct animals.

Career

Between 1967 and 1969 he was adjunct professor of zoology at the University of California at Berkeley.. During these years, the university students were against the Vietnam War and Dawkins himself participated in the protests. In 1970 he went to Oxford University as a lecturer.

In 1995 he began to hold the Charles Simonyi Chair in Diffusion of Science, a position he held until 2008.

He has had the opportunity to deliver several inaugural lectures, some of them being the Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture (1989), the Erasmus Darwin Memorial Lecture (1990), the Michael Faraday Lecture (1991), the Tinbergen Lecture (2000) and the Tanner Lecture (2003).

He has been the editor of four scientific journals and founder of the Episteme Journal in 2002. In addition, he has acted as an advisor for popular publications, such as the Encarta Encyclopedia.

He has chaired the life sciences science section of the British Society for Scientific Progress. He has also served as an editor and columnist for Free Inquiry magazine and has also contributed to Skeptic magazine.

In 2008 he retired from teaching, focusing on writing books whose purpose is to warn youth of the dangers of believing in pseudoscientific ideas. In 2011 he joined the New College of the Humanities in London as a professor.

Personal life

Richard Dawkins has been married three times. The first he did with Marian Stamp in 1967, from whom he divorced in 1984. Later, he married Eve Barham, with whom he had a daughter, but he also divorced her.

He subsequently married Lalla Ward in 1992, from whom he amicably parted ways in 2016.

In 2016 he suffered a stroke while at home. Fortunately, he was able to recover that same year.

Work, thought and criticism

Richard Dawkins' work covers different areas of knowledge. We are going to know what his contributions are and what criticisms he has received from other scientists and popularizers.

Evolutionary biology

Among his great contributions to knowledge, Dawkins' work is known for addressing the idea that genes are the main unit of selection in evolution. In his books The Selfish Gene (1976) and The extended phenotype (1982) suggests this.

In his books he deals with the idea that genes are not limited to the body of the organism that possesses them. The idea is that the survival of multiple organisms with the same genotype really guarantees that genes can be passed on to the next generation.

Dawkins has been skeptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution. He is also critical of the idea that group selection is the foundation of altruism in gregarious animals.

Altruism, that is, helping another individual even at the risk of endangering himself, is an evolutionary paradox.

Later, this concept was treated as a way to help beings that have the same genetics and that, after all, their survival guarantees that the genes are passed on to the next generation.

The main criticism Dawkins receives regarding the selfish gene is that the gene itself does not have the ability to reproduce.. It should not be considered as the unit of natural selection.

Genes survive through the interaction and survival of various individuals in social animal species.

Dawkins is seen as proposing a too gene-centric perspective to explain evolutionary processes, and even goes as far as biological reductionism.

Memetics

The word meme has become popular in the last decade, especially due to the great development that social networks have had. The idea comes from Dawkins himself, who laid it out in The Selfish Gene.

Dawkins refers to meme as the behavioral equivalent of gene. The most precise definition of it is that of any cultural entity that, be it an idea, conduit or style, that passes from individual to individual.

Memes are not always exactly copied. They can undergo modifications while they are extended through the social group or the culture in which they have been generated. In turn, these alterations generate more memes.

This concept acquires great importance when it comes to approaching cultural evolution and comparing it with classical biological evolution.

It must be said that the word 'meme' or 'mneme' is not entirely Dawkins'. The idea had already been suggested since Darwin's time, only Richard Dawkins elaborated on it in greater depth in his popular science work.

Religion and creationism

Dawkins is an agnostic, although many people have defined him as an atheist.. In his work he shows a very critical vision of religions,

He has stated on several occasions that it is difficult for him to understand how people who hold a lot of power in countries of the first world and who have received a careful education, especially in science, have beliefs religious.

Dawkins believes that the existence of God should be treated like any other scientific hypothesis. He has also stated that religion is a source of conflict and justification without evidence.

Since he published his most remarkable work on this subject, The mirage of God (2006)He has participated in numerous debates on religion, both with believing scientists and influential figures within Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

He has been very against indoctrinating a religion in the school, especially the pseudoscientific belief of creation, as has already been done in several states of the United States.

Although he has debated with believers, he has preferred to avoid discussions with those who believe in the Creation myth, since He believes that these types of people, regardless of whether or not they are won in the argument, would be given the visibility that wish.

One of the arguments that he usually uses to bring down creationism is that biological evolution exists, what happens is that it has been observed while it happened.

Awards and honours

Richard Dawkins' life has been prolific and worthy of various decorations. He holds several honorary doctorates of science at multiple universities around the world, including the Universities of Westminster, Antwerp, Oslo, and Valencia. He also has letters at the Universities of Saint Andrews and the Australian National University.

Your book The Blind Watchmaker (1986) he won the Royal Society of Literature Award and the Los Angeles Times Literary Award in 1987.

Among his many other awards are the silver medal from the Zoological Society of London (1989), the Michael Faraday Award (1990) and the medal of the presidency of the President of the Italian Republic (2001). The Committee for Skeptical Research gave him the In Praise of Reason award in 1992. In 2012 he named himself Dawkinsia to a genus of fish from Sri Lanka.

Curiosities

In 2005, Discover magazine referred to Richard Dawkins as "Darwin's Rottweiler." This is a reference to the epithet used to refer to another great follower of Charles DarwinThomas Henry Huxley, called "Darwin's bulldog" and, with a humorous tone, that of "God's rottweiler," an epithet given to the then Cardinal Ratzinger, later Benedict XVI.

Bibliographic references:

• Dawkins, R. (1976). The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Dawkins, Richard (1986). The Blind Watchmaker. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. * * * Dawkins, R. (December 1992). "Is god a computer virus?". New Statesman. 5 (233): 42–45.
• Dawkins, R. (June 1993). "Meet my cousin, the chimpanzee". New Scientist. 138 (1876): 36–38.
• Dawkins, R. (January 2001). "What is science good for?" Harvard Business Review. 79 (1): 159–63, 178.
• Dawkins, Richard (2006): The God delusion (p. 406). Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
• Dawkins, R.; Dawkins, R; Noble, D; Yudkin, M (2007). "Genes still central". New Scientist. 196 (2634): 18.
• Dawkins, R. (2008). "The group delusion". New Scientist. 197 (2638): 17.
• Dawkins, R. (2008). "The evolution of altruism - what matters is gene selection". New Scientist. 197 (2638): 17.
• Dawkins, R. (2013). An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist. Bantam Press (United States and United Kingdom).