Richard Dawkins: Biography And Contributions Of This British Popularizer
To what percentage does genetics explain our behavior? Is evolution entirely supported by our genes? How important are relationships with other individuals of the same species?
These questions have been asked since Darwin spoke about evolutionary processes. There are many ethologists and biologists who 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, in addition to having popularized the word ‘meme’.
Let’s take a closer look at the life of this great scientist whose informative work continues to be active today.
Early years
Clinton Richard Dawkins was born in Nairobi, present-day Kenya, on March 26, 1941 Son of a farmer destined as a soldier in British colonial Africa. Richard Dawkins lived in a medium-well-off family in which there was always a fascination with science.
At the age of eight he moved to England with his parents, where they got a farm on which they could live.
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 God.
Training
Between 1954 and 1959 Richard Dawkins attended school at Oundle in Northamptonshire, a public school with a preference for Anglican education. While attending this center, Dawkins read books on atheism and agnosticism.
Later, he studied zoology at Balliol College, graduating in 1962. He was a student of the Nobel Prize-winning ethologist in medicine Nikolaas Tinbergen, in addition to 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 animal learning, decision, and instinct.
Career
Between 1967 and 1969 he was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California at Berkeley During these years, the students of the university were against the Vietnam War and Dawkins himself participated in the protest actions. In 1970 he went to Oxford University as a lecturer.
In 1995 he began to hold the Charles Simonyi Chair in Science Diffusion, 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 informative publications, such as the Encarta Encyclopedia.
He has chaired the life sciences science section of the British Society for Scientific Progress. He has also been 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 lecturer.
Personal life
Richard Dawkins has been married three times. He did the first with Marian Stamp in 1967 whom he divorced in 1984. He then married Eve Barham, with whom he had a daughter, but he also divorced her.
He later married Lalla Ward in 1992, from whom he separated amicably in 2016.
In 2016 he suffered a stroke while at home. Fortunately, she was able to recover that same year.
Work, thought and criticism
Richard Dawkins’ work covers different areas of knowledge. Let’s find out what his contributions are and what criticism 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) he suggests so.
In his books he discusses the idea that genes are not limited to the body of the organism that possesses them. The idea is that the survival of several organisms with the same genotype actually guarantees that the 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 putting themselves in danger, 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 multiple individuals in social animal species.
It is considered that Dawkins proposes a perspective that is too gene-centered to explain evolutionary processes, and even reaches 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 presented it 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, whether an idea, conduit or style, that passes from individual to individual.
Memes are not always copied exactly. They may undergo modifications as they are spread through the social group or culture in which they were generated. In turn, these alterations generate more memes.
This concept acquires great importance when approaching cultural evolution and comparing it with classical biological evolution.
It should be said that the word ‘meme’ or ‘mneme’ is not entirely Dawkins’s. The idea had already been suggested since Darwin’s time, only Richard Dawkins explained 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 first world countries and who have received a careful education, especially in science, have religious beliefs.
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 notable work on this topic, The God Delusion (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 opposed to religion being indoctrinated in school, especially the pseudoscientific belief in creation, as has already been done in several states in 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 they desire.
One of the arguments that is usually used to demolish creationism is that biological evolution exists, what happens is that it has been observed while it occurred.
Awards and honours
Richard Dawkins’ life has been prolific and worthy of several decorations. He holds several honorary doctorates in science from multiple universities around the world, including the universities of Westminster, Antwerp, Oslo and Valencia. He also has degrees in literature at the universities of Saint Andrews and the Australian National University.
His book The Blind Watchmaker (1986) won the Royal Society of Literature Prize and the Los Angeles Times Literary Prize in 1987.
Among his many other awards are the silver medal of the Zoological Society of London (1989), the Michael Faraday Award (1990) and the presidential medal of the President of the Italian Republic (2001). The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry gave him the In Praise of Reason award in 1992. In 2012 he named a genus of Sri Lankan fish Dawkinsia.
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 Darwin Thomas Henry Huxley, called ‘Darwin’s bulldog’ and, in a joking tone, ‘God’s Rottweiler’, an epithet given to the then Cardinal Ratzinger, later Benedict XVI.
