EVOGENIO^® - Evolutionäre Kunst

- Richard Dawkins

Ein Click auf das Portrait führt zur Population der Evolutionären Portraitkunst erstellt von Dr. Günter Bachelier

Clinton Richard Dawkins (* 26. März 1941 in Nairobi, Kenia) ist ein britischer Zoologe, Theoretischer Biologe und Autor wissenschaftlicher und populärwissenschaftlicher Literatur.

Er wurde 1976 mit seinem Buch The Selfish Gene (Das egoistische Gen) bekannt, in dem er die Evolution auf der Ebene der Gene analysiert. Er führte den Begriff Mem für den Bereich Kultur als hypothetisches Analogon zum Gen in der biologischen Evolution ein (siehe auch Memetik). In den folgenden Jahren schrieb er mehrere Bestseller, unter anderem The Extended Phenotype (1982), The Blind Watchmaker (1987), River Out of Eden (1995) und Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), Der Gotteswahn (2006) sowie kritische Beiträge zu Religion und Kreationismus.

Dawkins ist bekennender Atheist, Humanist und eines der bekanntesten Mitglieder der Brights, über die er mehrere Artikel verfasste.^[1][2][3]

Leben 

Richard Dawkins wurde in Nairobi geboren, wohin sein Vater Clinton John Dawkins als Angehöriger der Alliierten Streitkräfte versetzt worden war. Seine Familie kehrte 1949 nach England zurück. Er studierte bei dem niederländischen Ethologen Nikolaas Tinbergen an der Universität Oxford Biologie. Im Jahr 1966 erlangte er seinen Doktorgrad in Zoologie (Ph.D.). 1967 heiratete er die Autorin Marian Stamp, von der er sich 1984 trennte.

In den Jahren 1967 bis 1969 war Dawkins Assistenzprofessor der Zoologie an der University of California, Berkeley, von 1970 bis 1995 Dozent für Zoologie am New College der Universität von Oxford. 1984 heiratete er Eve Barham, mit der er im selben Jahr eine Tochter (Juliet Emma Dawkins) hatte; die Ehe wurde ebenfalls geschieden. Seit 1992 ist er mit der Schauspielerin Lalla Ward verheiratet. Dawkins und Ward wurden einander von Douglas Adams auf einer Party vorgestellt.^[4] Seit 1997 ist er gewähltes Mitglied der Royal Society of Literature und seit 2001 auch gewähltes Mitglied der Royal Society.

Seit 1995 ist er Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science an der Oxford University. Charles Simonyi äußerte sich wiederholt als Anhänger des wissenschaftlichen Werks Dawkins. Für die Einrichtung spendete der Milliardär 1,5 Mio. Pfund an die Oxford University. 2008 wurde bekannt, dass die Professur neu ausgeschrieben wird und Dawkins von dieser Position aus Altersgründen zurücktritt. ^[5]

Arbeit

Biologie und biologische Evolution 

Dawkins erlangte Bekanntheit durch seine Theorie des egoistischen Gens, die er im gleichnamigen Buch beschreibt. Darin sieht er das Gen als die fundamentale Einheit der Selektion, das den Körper nur als „Überlebensmaschine“ benutzt.

Er tritt innerhalb der Evolutionsbiologie für die These ein, dass in evolutionären Prozessen Konkurrenzsituationen bzw. Fitnessunterschiede auf genetischer oder allenfalls individueller Ebene eine Rolle spielen, Gruppenselektion jedoch keine oder nur eine marginale Rolle spielt. In seinem ersten Buch Das egoistische Gen behandelt er diese Thematik und führt sie dann in The Extended Phenotype (1982) weiter aus, indem er die enge Definition des Phänotypen erweiterte und vermehrt das einzelne Gen ins Zentrum stellt. Diese Haltung war im letzten Viertel des 20. Jahrhunderts weitestgehend akzeptiert. In jüngster Zeit jedoch wurde diese Aussage durch theoretische Modelle und konkrete Beispiele relativiert. Hier sind insbesondere die Arbeiten des Biologen David Sloan Wilson sowie des Wissenschaftsphilosophen Elliott Sober zu nennen.

Mem 

In Analogie zu Gen führte Dawkins 1976 den Begriff Mem ein. Meme sind bei der kulturellen Entwicklung, was die Gene bei der biologischen Entwicklung sind. Meme (Melodien, Gedanken, Schlagworte, Moden) verbreiten sich durch Mutation und Selektion genauso wie Gene.

Der Spiegel bezeichnete Dawkins als einflussreichsten Biologen seiner Zeit.^[6]

Philosophie 

Dawkins ist Mitglied bei der britischen Skeptics Society, einer Gesellschaft zur Förderung von wissenschaftlichem und skeptischem Denken, sowie verschiedener anderer britischer Organisationen zur Förderung von humanistischem und atheistischem Gedankengut sowie einer stärkeren Säkularisierung des britischen Staates. Er gehört zu den Meinungsführern der Brights-Bewegung. Schon in früheren Werken verteidigte er seine Interpretation der Evolutionstheorie vehement gegen Konzepte, die in der Entstehung der Arten eine Zielgerichtetheit erkennen wollten.

In „Der blinde Uhrmacher“ bezieht er sich auf den Gottesbeweis des englischen Theologen William Paley, nach dem das Leben nicht durch Zufall entstanden sein kann, in Analogie zu einer Uhr, die nach dem präzisen Konstruktionsplan eines Uhrmachers entsteht. Dawkins vergleicht in diesem Buch den Aspekt, dass die natürliche Selektion ein unbewusster und ungesteuerter Prozess ist, mit der Analogie von Gott als demnach blindem Uhrmacher.

In den vergangenen Jahren hat er sein Streiten auf die Religion im Allgemeinen ausgeweitet. In seinem Essay „Viruses of the Mind“ stellt er Religion anhand der Mem-Theorie als gedankliches Virus dar. Gemeinsam mit anderen Wissenschaftlern wie dem neurobiologisch interessierten Autor Sam Harris wendet er sich nicht nur gegen den Glauben an einen Gott, sondern auch gegen den "Glauben an den Glauben". Damit meint er die Tendenz an und für sich nicht religiöser Menschen, der Religion eine positive Wirkung auf die Moral und die Ethik zuzuschreiben.

Die Atheist Alliance International (Internationaler Atheisten-Verband) vergibt seit 2003 den Richard-Dawkins-Preis an Atheisten, die der nontheistischen Sache öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit verschaffen. 2005 verlieh Dawkins den Preis persönlich an die Illusionskünstler Penn & Teller. ^[7]

2006 gründete er die Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS oder RDF)^[8], eine gemeinnützige Stiftung, welche sich in den Bereichen der humanistischen Forschung und Bildung engagieren will.

Auszeichnungen 

Dawkins erhielt Ehrendoktorwürden von der Universität Westminster, der University of Durham, der University of Kingston upon Hull, der Open University und der Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Er ist Vizepräsident der British Humanist Association.

2005 wurde er im Magazin Prospect ^[9] nach Noam Chomsky und Umberto Eco zum drittwichtigsten lebenden Intellektuellen weltweit gewählt,^[10] 2007 vom Magazin Time zu einem der 100 einflussreichsten Menschen der Welt.^[11]

Seine populärwissenschaftlichen Bücher wurden mit vielen Literaturpreisen ausgezeichnet, so erhielt er 1987 den Royal Society of Literature Award, im selben Jahr den Literaturpreis der Los Angeles Times. 1990 erhielt er den Michael Faraday Award der Royal Society und 1994 den Nakayama Preis sowie 1997 den International Cosmos Prize for Achievement in Human Science und 2001 den Kistler Prize.

2005 wurde er von der deutschen Alfred Toepfer Stiftung mit dem Shakespeare-Preis ausgezeichnet. Im Oktober 2007 erhielt Dawkins als erster Preisträger den mit 10.000 Euro dotierten und nach Karlheinz Deschner benannten Deschner-Preis der Giordano Bruno Stiftung.^[12]

Zu Ehren Dawkins' wird der seit 2003 verliehene Preis der Atheist Alliance International Richard Dawkins Award genannt.

Kritik 

Einige Naturwissenschaftler, die prinzipiell mit Dawkins' Haltung gegenüber religiösem Fundamentalismus sympathisieren, kritisieren seine ihrer Meinung nach polemischen Attacken gegen jegliche Religiosität als kontraproduktiv, da sie bei Dritten den Eindruck entstehen ließen, auch die Naturwissenschaft agiere dogmatisch und intolerant.

Kritik an seinen biologischen Thesen wird u.a. von David Wilson und Scott Atran vorgebracht. Letzterer kritisiert vor allem den Begriff des Mems im Kontext der Religion. Fehlendes Wissen in den Bereichen Gehirnfunktion und Gehirnstruktur stellt seiner Meinung nach die Analogie des Mems mit einem Gen in Frage.^[13]

Außerdem wird ihm von einigen Theologen und Philosophen (besonders von den Oxforder Theologen Keith Ward und Alister McGrath sowie von dem Philosophen John N. Gray) vorgeworfen, ernstzunehmende Theologie zu ignorieren und seine Autorität als renommierter Wissenschaftler für seine Religionskritik zu missbrauchen ^[14], bzw. dass er das Weltbild religiöser Fundamentalisten auf alle Gläubigen übertrage und damit die breite Palette von Weltbildern religiöser Menschen ignoriere.^[15]

Anfang Dezember 2007 wurde bekannt, dass die Staatsanwaltschaft in Istanbul Ermittlungen gegen den türkischen Verleger von Dawkins wegen des Verdachts der Verletzung bzw. ‚Beleidigung religiöser Werte‘ in „Der Gotteswahn“ aufgenommen hat.^[16]

Sonstiges 

Richard Dawkins war für den Autor Douglas Adams ein besonderes Vorbild. Adams beschrieb sich mehrmals als „Dawkinsist“. Von Dawkins-Anhängern wird mitunter auch die Bezeichnung „Dawkinist“ verwendet. Beide spielen auf den Terminus „Darwinist“ an. Angelehnt an Thomas Huxleys Rolle als „Darwins Bulldog" wird Dawkins vielfach als „Darwins Rottweiler" bezeichnet ^[17].

Werke (Auswahl) 

Bücher

• 1976: Das egoistische Gen (The Selfish Gene) ISBN 3-499-19609-3
• 1982: The Extended Phenotype (Neuauflage 1999) ISBN 0-19-288051-9
• 1986: Der blinde Uhrmacher (The Blind Watchmaker), ISBN 3-423-11261-1 bzw. englisch ISBN 3-423-30558-4, W. W. Norton & Company 1996 ISBN 0-393-31570-3, Penguin Books 1990 ISBN 0-14-014481-1 (Taschenbuch)
• 1995: River out of Eden A Darwinian View of Life – deutscher Titel: Und es entsprang ein Fluß in Eden (auf Deutsch 1996) ISBN 3-570-12006-6
• 1996: Climbing Mount Improbable. – deutscher Titel: Gipfel des Unwahrscheinlichen. Wunder der Evolution (auf Deutsch 1999) ISBN 978-3-499-60932-9
• 1998: Der entzauberte Regenbogen (Unweaving the Rainbow. Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder) (auf Deutsch 2002) ISBN 3-499-61337-9
• 2003: A Devil's Chaplain Selected Writings, Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love ISBN 0-7538-1750-0
• 2004: The Ancestor's Tale A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution ISBN 0-618-00583-8
• 2006: Der Gotteswahn (The God Delusion) (auf Deutsch 2007) ISBN 978-3-550-08688-5

Essays 

• Viren im Kopf (1993; Originaltitel: Viruses of the Mind)
• The real romance in the stars (1995)

Filme 

The root of all evil?^[18] ist ein religionskritischer Dokumentarfilm. Er zeigt Dawkins beim Besuch von religiösen Stätten und Veranstaltungen in verschiedenen Ländern der Welt. Der gesamte Film wird durch Dawkins' voice-over kommentiert. Es kommt dabei zu Treffen und Auseinandersetzungen mit mehr oder weniger radikalen Vertretern der Weltreligionen. Der Film ist als Dokumentation des englischen Privatsenders Channel 4 gedreht worden und als Google-Video offiziell anzusehen bzw. herunterzuladen. Kritiker warfen den Filmemachern vor, speziell besonders radikale und unaufgeklärte Gläubige besucht zu haben. Dawkins selbst sagte dazu, ausgesucht liberalen Gläubigen werde in den Medien sowieso schon ausreichend Raum geboten.

Gleichsam als Fortsetzung erschien 2007 die Serie The enemies of reason^[19], in der Dawkins auf Esoterik und Alternativmedizin eingeht.

Weblinks

• Literatur von und über Richard Dawkins im Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek
• Richard Dawkins in der Internet Movie Database (englisch)
• Offizielle Webseite (englisch)
• Inoffizielle Website (englisch)
• Bild- und Tondateien von und über Richard Dawkins (englisch)
• Übersichtliche Sammlung von Bild- und Tondateien über Richard Dawkins (englisch)

Literatur 

• Alister McGrath: Der Atheismus-Wahn: Eine Antwort auf Richard Dawkins und den atheistischen Fundamentalismus, 2007, ISBN 978-3-86591-289-3

Quellenangaben

1. ↑ The future looks bright
2. ↑ „Let There Be Brights“ (dt. Übersetzung) „Let there be brights“ (Original)
3. ↑ Now Here's a Bright Idea
4. ↑ Wired: Revolutionary Evolutionist von Michael Schrage (en) vom Juli 2005
5. ↑ Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science University of Oxfort (en) vom Februar 2008
6. ↑ KULTURKAMPF: Glücklicher ohne Gott DER SPIEGEL (43/2006) vom 23. Oktober 2006
7. ↑ Bericht und Interview mit Richard Dawkins von Gordy Slack (PDF)
8. ↑ Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
9. ↑ Offizielle Homepage des britischen Magazins Prospect (en)
10. ↑ Kreuzzug gegen Gott von Klaus Taschwer vom 19. Januar 2007
11. ↑ Time Top 100, 2007
12. ↑ Deschner-Preis an Richard Dawkins hpd, 28. Mai 2007
13. ↑ Stellungnahme zu Beyond Belief von Scott Atran vom 12. März 2006 (en)
14. ↑ K. Ward, God, Chance and Necessity, Oxford 1996, S.11f
15. ↑ Review von Fanatical Unbelief von November 2004 (en)
16. ↑ „Buch von Richard Dawkins soll religiöse Werte verletzen“, Spiegel Online, 1. Dezember 2007
17. ↑ http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Media/seattle.shtml
18. ↑ The root of all evil? zugehörige Webseite von Channel 4
19. ↑ The enemies of reason zugehörige Webseite von Channel 4

Quelle (05.2008): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins

Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born March 26, 1941) is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science writer. He holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.^[1][2]

Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Dawkins moved to England with his parents at the age of eight and later completed his education at the University of Oxford. He came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the term meme. In 1982, he made a widely cited contribution to evolutionary biology with the theory, presented in his book The Extended Phenotype, that phenotypic effects are not limited to an organism's body but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms.

In addition to his biological work, Dawkins is well-known for his views on atheism, evolution, creationism, intelligent design, and religion. He is a prominent critic of creationism and intelligent design. In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, he argued against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the observed complexity of living organisms, and instead described evolutionary processes as being analogous to a blind watchmaker. He has since written several popular science books, and made regular appearances on television and radio programmes, predominantly discussing the aforementioned topics.

Dawkins is an atheist;^[3][4][5] a freethinker, secular humanist, sceptic, scientific rationalist,^[6] and supporter of the Brights movement.^[7] He has widely been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler",^[8][9] by analogy with English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of natural selection. In his 2006 book The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith qualifies as a delusion—as a fixed false belief.^[10] As of November 2007, the English language version had sold more than 1.5 million copies and had been translated into 31 other languages,^[11] making it his most popular book to date.

Biography

Early life

Richard Dawkins was born on March 26, 1941, in Nairobi, Kenya.^[12] His father, Clinton John Dawkins, was a farmer and former wartime soldier called up from colonial service in Nyasaland (now Malawi).^[13] Dawkins' parents came from an affluent upper-middle-class background—the Dawkins name was described in Burke's Landed Gentry as "Dawkins of Over Norton". His father is a descendant of the Clinton family, which held the Earldom of Lincoln, and his mother is Jean Mary Vyvyan Dawkins, née Ladner. Both were interested in natural sciences, and answered the young Dawkins' questions in scientific terms.^[14]

Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal Anglican upbringing", but reveals that he began doubting the existence of God when he was about nine years old. He later reconverted because he was persuaded by the argument from design, an argument for the existence of God or a creator based on perceived evidence of order, purpose, design or direction—or some combination of these—in nature. However, he began to feel that the customs of the Church of England were absurd, and had more to do with dictating morals than with God. Later, when he better understood the process of evolution, his religious position again changed, because he felt that natural selection could account for the complexity of life in purely material terms, rendering a supernatural designer unnecessary.^[15]

Education and academic career

Dawkins moved to England with his parents at age eight, and attended Oundle School from 1954 to 1959.^[16] He then studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was tutored by Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen, graduating in 1962. He continued as a research student under Tinbergen's supervision at the University of Oxford, receiving his M.A. and D.Phil. degrees in 1966, while staying as a research assistant for another year.^[12] Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly the questions of instinct, learning and choice.^[17] Dawkins' research in this period concerned models of animal decision making. In one of his first papers, "A threshold model of choice behaviour", he devised a model to explain the following question:

Among the problems raised by choice behaviour is that of the mechanism of decisionmaking. Given that a chick pecks more often at a red spot than at a green one, but nevertheless sometimes pecks at the green one, what mechanism determines each individual choice?^[18]

While working on these questions, and inspired by Tinbergen, he gradually developed the ideas that culminated in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene.^[17]

From 1967 to 1969, Dawkins was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. This was a period of great unrest in America due to the ongoing Vietnam War. Sentiments among the students and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed to the war and Dawkins became heavily involved in the anti-war demonstrations and activities.^[19] He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 taking a position as a lecturer, and—in 1990—a reader, in zoology. In 1995, he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, 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".^[20] Since 1970, he has been a fellow of New College, Oxford.^[21]

Dawkins has delivered a number of inaugural and other notable lectures, including the Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture (1989), first Erasmus Darwin Memorial Lecture (1990), Michael Faraday Lecture (1991), T.H. Huxley Memorial Lecture (1992), Irvine Memorial Lecture (1997), Sheldon Doyle Lecture (1999), Tinbergen Lecture (2004), and Tanner Lectures (2003).^[12] In 1991, he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children (released on DVD in 2007 as Growing Up in the Universe^[22]). He has also served as editor of a number of prominent journals, and has acted as editorial advisor to Encarta Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Evolution. He is a senior editor of the Council for Secular Humanism's Free Inquiry magazine, for which he also writes a column. He is also a member of the editorial board of Skeptic magazine.^[23]

He has sat on numerous judging panels for awards as diverse as the Royal Society's Faraday Award and the British Academy Television Awards,^[12] 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".^[24]

In September 2008, Dawkins is due to retire from his post as Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, due to reaching the university's mandatory retirement age.^[25][26]

Personal life

In 1967, Dawkins married fellow ethologist Marian Stamp, and they divorced in 1984. Later that year, Dawkins married Eve Barham—with whom he had a daughter, Juliet Emma Dawkins—but they too divorced, and Barham died of cancer in early 1999.^[27] In 1992, he married actress Lalla Ward.^[28] Dawkins had met her through their mutual friend Douglas Adams, who worked with Ward on the BBC science-fiction television programme Doctor Who. Ward has illustrated over half of Dawkins' books and co-narrated the audio versions of two of his books, The Ancestor's Tale and The God Delusion. In April 2008, it was announced that Dawkins will appear as a guest star in the fourth series of the revived Doctor Who.^[29]

Work

Evolutionary biology

In his scientific works, Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of the gene-centered view of evolution. This view is most clearly set out in his books The Selfish Gene (1976), where he notes that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities", and The Extended Phenotype (1982), in which he describes natural selection as "the process whereby replicators out-propagate each other". In his role as an ethologist, interested in animal behaviour and its relation to natural selection, he advocates the idea that the gene is the principal unit of selection in evolution.

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.^[30] The gene-centred view also provides a basis for understanding altruism. Altruism appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources, thus reducing one's own fitness. Previously, many had interpreted this as an aspect of group selection: individuals were doing what was best for the survival of the population or species as a whole, and not specifically for themselves. W. D. Hamilton had used the gene-centred view to explain altruism in terms of inclusive fitness and kin selection—that individuals behave altruistically toward their close relatives, who share many of their own genes.^[31][a] 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 the expectation of future reciprocation.^[32]

Critics of Dawkins' approach suggest that taking the gene as the unit of selection—of a single event in which an individual either succeeds or fails to reproduce—is misleading, but that the gene could be better described as a unit of evolution—of the long-term changes in allele frequencies in a population.^[33] In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains that he is using George C. Williams' definition of the gene as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency".^[34] Another common objection is that genes cannot survive alone, but must cooperate to build an individual, and therefore cannot be an independent "unit".^[35] In The Extended Phenotype, Dawkins suggests that because of genetic recombination and sexual reproduction, from an individual gene's viewpoint all other genes are part of the environment to which it is adapted. Recombination is a process during meiosis when pairs of chromosomes cross over to exchange segments of DNA. These sections are the "genes" to which Dawkins and Williams refer.

Advocates for higher levels of selection such as Richard Lewontin, David Sloan Wilson and Elliot Sober suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain.

In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (the so-called "Darwin Wars"),^[36] one faction was often named after Dawkins and its rival after American biologist Stephen Jay Gould, reflecting the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of 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 critical.^[37] A typical example of Dawkins' position was his scathing review of Not in Our Genes by Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin and Richard C. Lewontin.^[38] Two other thinkers on the subject often considered to be in the same camp as Dawkins are Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett; Dennett has promoted a gene-centric view of evolution and defended reductionism in biology.^[39] Despite their academic disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins dedicated a large portion of his 2003 book A Devil's Chaplain to Gould (who had died in the previous year).

Meme

Main articles: Meme and Memetics

Dawkins coined the term meme (the cultural equivalent of a 'gene') to describe how Darwinian principles might be extended to explain the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena.^[40] This has spawned the field of memetics. Dawkins used the word meme to refer to any cultural entity which an observer might consider a replicator. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as capable of such replication, generally through exposure to humans, who have evolved as efficient (although not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour. Memes are not always copied perfectly, and might indeed become refined, combined or otherwise modified with other ideas, resulting in new memes, which may themselves prove more, or less, efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for a hypothesis of cultural evolution, analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.^[41]

Though Dawkins originally floated the idea in his book The Selfish Gene, he has largely left the task of expanding upon it to other authors such as Susan Blackmore.^[42] Philosopher Mary Midgley, whom Dawkins has debated since the late 1970s, criticises memetics, gene selection and sociobiology as being excessively reductionist.^[43] Midgley wrote in 1979 that she had previously "not attended to Dawkins", thinking it unnecessary to "break a butterfly upon a wheel"^[44]—a comment that Dawkins described as being "hard to match, in reputable journals, for its patronising condescension toward a fellow academic".^[45][46]

Although Dawkins coined the term meme independently, he has never claimed that the idea itself was entirely a new one—there had been similar expressions for similar ideas in the past. John Laurent, in The Journal of Memetics, has suggested that the term may have derived from the work of the little-known German biologist Richard Semon.^[47] In 1904, Semon published Die Mneme (which appeared in English in 1924 as The Mneme). Semon's book discussed the cultural transmission of experiences, with insights parallel to Dawkins'. Laurent also found the term mneme used in Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life of the White Ant (1926), and highlighted the similarities to Dawkins' concept.^[47]

Criticism of creationism

Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism, describing it as a "preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood".^[48] His 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a critique of the argument from design, and his other popular-science works often touch on the topic. In the book, Dawkins argued against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the 18th-century English theologian William Paley in his book Natural Theology. Paley argued 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. According to Dawkins, however, 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, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker.^[49]

In 1986, Dawkins participated in the Oxford Union's Huxley Memorial Debate, in which he and English biologist John Maynard Smith debated Young Earth creationist A. E. Wilder-Smith and Edgar Andrews, president of the Biblical Creation Society.^[b] 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 doing so would give them the "oxygen of respectability" they crave. He suggests 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."^[50]

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 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."^[51]

Dawkins has ardently opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one".^[52] He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and he plans—through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science—to subsidise the delivering of books, DVDs, and pamphlets to schools, in order to counteract what he has described as an "educational scandal".^[53]

Atheism, humanism and rationalism

Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a prominent critic of religion. He is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society,^[54] a vice-president of the British Humanist Association (since 1996),^[12] a Distinguished Supporter of the Humanist Society of Scotland,^[55] a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism,^[56] and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.^[57] In 2003, he signed Humanism and Its Aspirations, published by the American Humanist Association.^[58]

Dawkins believes that atheism is the logical extension of understanding evolution^[59] and that religion is incompatible with science.^[60] In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins wrote:

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: "I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one." I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.^[61]

In his 1991 essay "Viruses of the Mind" (from which the term faith-sufferer originated), he suggested that memetic theory might analyse and explain the phenomenon of religious belief and some of the common characteristics of religions, such as the belief that punishment awaits non-believers. According to Dawkins, faith—belief that is not based on evidence—is one of the world's great evils. He claims it to be analogous to the smallpox virus, though more difficult to eradicate.^[62] Dawkins is well-known for his contempt for religious extremism, from Islamist terrorism^[63] to Christian fundamentalism; but he has also argued with liberal believers and religious scientists, from biologists Kenneth Miller^[64] and Francis Collins^[65] to theologians Alister McGrath and Richard Harries.^[66] Dawkins has stated that his opposition to religion is twofold, claiming it to be both a source of conflict and a justification for belief without evidence.^[67] However, he describes himself as a "cultural Christian" and, in relation to Christmas traditions in the UK, says: "I'm not one of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history. If there's any threat [to] these sorts of things, I think you will find it comes from rival religions and not from atheists."^[68] He suggests that "we owe Jesus the honour of separating his genuinely original and radical ethics from the supernatural nonsense", and proposes the slogan "Atheists for Jesus".^[69]

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, when asked how the world might have 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!^[70]

In 2003, Atheist Alliance International instituted the Richard Dawkins Award in Dawkins' honour. Dawkins continues to be a prominent figure in contemporary public debate on issues relating to science and religion, especially since his 2006 book The God Delusion, which has achieved greater sales figures worldwide than any of his other works to date. Its success has been seen by many as indicative of a change in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist, central to a recent rise in the popularity of atheistic literature.^[71][72] The God Delusion was praised by many intellectuals including the chemist Sir Harold Kroto, psychologist Steven Pinker, and the biologist James D. Watson.^[73] In the book, Dawkins argues that being an atheist is nothing to be ashamed about; it is, rather, something to be proud of, "standing tall to face the far horizon". He states that it indicates a "healthy" independence of mind.^[74] He sees education and consciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination.^[19][75][3] These tools include 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.^[75] Dawkins notes that feminists have succeeded in arousing widespread embarrassment at the routine use of "he" instead of "she". Similarly, he suggests, a phrase such as "Catholic child" or "Muslim child" should be considered just as socially absurd as, for instance, "Marxist child": children should not be classified based on their parents' ideological beliefs.^[75] According to Dawkins, there is no such thing as a Christian child or a Muslim child.^[74]

In January 2006, Dawkins presented a two-part television documentary entitled The Root of All Evil?, addressing what he sees as the malignant influence of religion on society. The title itself is one with which Dawkins has repeatedly expressed his dissatisfaction.^[76] Critics have said that the programme gave too much time to marginal figures and extremists, and that Dawkins' confrontational style did not help his cause;^[77][78] Dawkins rejected these claims, citing the number of moderate religious broadcasts in everyday media as providing a suitable balance to the extremists in the programmes. He further remarked that someone who is deemed an "extremist" in a religiously moderate country may well be considered "mainstream" in a religiously conservative one.^[79] The unedited recordings of Dawkins' conversations with Alister McGrath and Richard Harries, including material unused in the broadcast version, have been made available online by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.^[80]

Oxford theologian Alister McGrath maintains that Dawkins is "ignorant" of Christian theology, and therefore unable to engage religion and faith intelligently.^[81] In reply, Dawkins asks "do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in leprechauns?",^[82] and—in the paperback edition of The God Delusion—he refers to the American biologist PZ Myers, who has satirized this line of argument as "The Courtier's Reply".^[83] Dawkins avers that Christian theology is vacuous, and that the only area of theology that might command his attention would be arguments to demonstrate God's existence. Dawkins also criticised McGrath for providing no argument to support his own beliefs, other than that they cannot be disproved.^[84] Dawkins had an extended debate with McGrath at the 2007 Sunday Times Literary Festival.^[85]

Another Christian philosopher, Keith Ward, explores similar themes in his 2006 book Is Religion Dangerous?, arguing against the view of Dawkins and others that religion is socially dangerous. Criticism of The God Delusion has come from philosophers such as Professor John Cottingham of the University of Reading.^[86] Other commentators, including ethicist Margaret Somerville,^[87] have suggested that Dawkins "overstates the case against religion",^[88] particularly its role in human conflict. Many of Dawkins' defenders, however, claim that critics generally misunderstand his real point. During a debate on Radio 3 Hong Kong, David Nicholls, writer and president of the Atheist Foundation of Australia, reiterated Dawkins' sentiments that religion is an "unnecessary" aspect of global problems.^[89]

Dawkins argues that "the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other".^[90] He disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) and with similar ideas proposed by English astrophysicist Martin Rees regarding the coexistence of science and religion without conflict, calling the former "a purely political ploy to win middle-of-the-road religious people to the science camp".^[91]

Rees has suggested that Dawkins' attack on mainstream religion is unhelpful.^[92] Regarding Rees' claim in his book Our Cosmic Habitat that "such questions lie beyond science", Dawkins asks "what expertise can theologians bring to deep cosmological questions that scientists cannot?"^[93][94] Elsewhere, Dawkins has written that "there's all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic, and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority or revelation."^[62] As examples of "good scientists who are sincerely religious", Dawkins names Arthur Peacocke, Russell Stannard, John Polkinghorne and Francis Collins, but says "I remain baffled ... by their belief in the details of the Christian religion."^{[95][96][97][98][99]} He has said that the publication of The God Delusion is "probably the culmination" of his campaign against religion.^[100]

Richard Dawkins Foundation

Main article: Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

In 2006, Dawkins created the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS), which seeks to advance the causes of rationalism and humanism.^[101] The foundation is in developmental phase. It has been granted charitable status in the United Kingdom and the United States. RDFRS plans to finance research on the psychology of belief and religion, finance scientific education programs and materials, and publicise and support secular charitable organizations.^[101]

Out Campaign

Main article: Out Campaign

Dawkins founded the Out Campaign in 2007 to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly and proudly.^[102] Inspired by the gay rights movement, Dawkins hopes that atheists' identifying of themselves as such, and thereby increasing public awareness of how many people hold these views, will reduce the negative opinion of atheism among the religious majority.^[4] The campaign urges atheists to "come out", "reach out", "speak out", "keep out" (that is, to resist intrusion of religion into education and politics), and "stand out". To "stand out", the campaign encourages atheists to wear or display the movement's symbol, a stylized red letter A called the "Scarlet Letter A",^[103] an ironic reference to The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Other fields

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 takes John Keats' accusation that, by explaining the rainbow, Isaac Newton had diminished its beauty, and 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".^[104] Dawkins wrote a foreword to John Diamond's posthumously published Snake Oil, a book devoted to debunking alternative medicine, in which he asserted that alternative medicine was harmful, if only because it distracted patients from more successful, conventional treatments, and gave people false hopes.^[105] Dawkins states that "there is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work."^[106]

Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth of the planet's human population, and about the matter of overpopulation.^[107] In The Selfish Gene, he briefly mentions population growth, giving the example of Latin America, whose population, at the time the book was written, 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.^[108]

As a supporter of the Great Ape Project—a movement to extend certain moral and legal rights to all great apes—Dawkins contributed an article entitled "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".^[109]

Dawkins also regularly comments in newspapers and weblogs on contemporary political questions; his opinions include opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq,^[110] the British nuclear deterrent, and the actions of U.S. President George W. Bush.^[111] Several such articles were included in A Devil's Chaplain, an anthology of writings about science, religion and politics.

In the 2007 TV documentary The Enemies of Reason,^[112] Dawkins discusses what he sees as the dangers of abandoning critical thought and rationale based upon scientific evidence. He specifically cites astrology, spiritualism, dowsing, alternative faiths, alternative medicine, and homeopathy. He also discusses how the Internet can be used to spread religious hatred and conspiracy theories with scant attention to evidence-based reasoning.

Awards and recognition

Dawkins was awarded a Doctor of Science by the University of Oxford in 1989. He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Westminster, Durham University,^[113] and the University of Hull, and an honorary doctorate from the Open University and from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.^[12] He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from the University of St Andrews and the Australian National University, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and the Royal Society in 2001.^[12]

In 1987, Dawkins received a Royal Society of Literature award, and a Los Angeles Times Literary Prize for his book, The Blind Watchmaker. In the same year, he received a Sci. Tech Prize for Best Television Documentary Science Programme of the Year, for the BBC Horizon episode entitled The Blind Watchmaker.^[12]

His other awards have included the Zoological Society of London Silver Medal (1989), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the Humanist of the Year Award (1996), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), and the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002).^[12]

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.^[114][115] He has been short-listed as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll.^[116] In 2005, the Hamburg-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded him its Shakespeare Prize in recognition of his "concise and accessible presentation of scientific knowledge". He won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science for 2006 and the Galaxy British Book Awards Author of the Year Award for 2007.^[117] In the same year, he was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007,^[118] and was awarded the Deschner Prize, named after Karlheinz Deschner.^[119]

Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International has awarded a prize during its annual conference, honoring an outstanding atheist whose work has done most to raise public awareness of atheism during that year. It is known as the "Richard Dawkins Award", in honor of Dawkins' own work.^[120]

Publications

Books by Richard Dawkins

As sole author

• Dawkins, Richard (1976). The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-286092-5. 
• Dawkins, Richard (1982). The Extended Phenotype. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-288051-9. 
• Dawkins, Richard (1986). The Blind Watchmaker. Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 0-393-31570-3. 
• Dawkins, Richard (1995). River out of Eden. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-06990-8. 
• Dawkins, Richard (1996). Climbing Mount Improbable. New York: Norton. ISBN 0-393-31682-3. 
• Dawkins, Richard (1998). Unweaving the Rainbow. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-05673-4. 
• Dawkins, Richard (2003). A Devil's Chaplain. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-33540-4. 
• Dawkins, Richard (2004). The Ancestor's Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-00583-8. 
• Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. Bantam Books. ISBN 0-618-68000-4. 

As sole editor

• Dawkins, Richard (2008). The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-199-21680-0. 

Dawkins' next book, which will marshal empirical evidence supporting the theory of evolution, is scheduled to be published in the United States by Free Press on November 24, 2009, the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's seminal On the Origin of Species.^[121]

Books about Richard Dawkins

General books about Dawkins

• Sexton, Ed (2001). Dawkins and the Selfish Gene. ISBN 1-84046-238-8. 
• Sterelny, Kim (2001). Dawkins vs Gould: Survival of the Fittest. ISBN 1-84046-249-3. 
• Grafen, Alan; Mark Ridley (eds.) (2006). Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-929116-0. 

Books by theists critical of Dawkins

• McGrath, Alister (2004). Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 1-4051-2538-1. 
• Ward, Keith (2006). Is Religion Dangerous?. London: Lion Hudson Plc. ISBN 978-0745952628. 
• McGrath, Alister; Joanna Collicutt McGrath (2007). The Dawkins Delusion?. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. ISBN 0-281-05927-6. 
• Hahn, Scott; Benjamin Wiker (2008). Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins' Case Against God. ISBN 978-1931018487. 

Documentaries and debates

• Nice Guys Finish First (1987)
• The Blind Watchmaker (1987)
• Growing Up In The Universe (1991)
• Break the Science Barrier (1996)
• The Root of All Evil? (2006)
• The Enemies of Reason (2007)

On September 30, 2007, Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens discussed their views on atheism and religion, amongst themselves. The talk was filmed and entitled Discussions with Richard Dawkins, Episode One: The Four Horsemen.^[122] Episode Two in the series, a short segment of which has already been released,^[123] will feature a 90-minute conversation between Dawkins and PZ Myers.

Notes

References

External links

[edit] General

• Official website
• The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
• The Current Simonyi Professor: Richard Dawkins
• TED Talks: Richard Dawkins Speech – An atheist's call to arms.
• Richard Dawkins at the Internet Movie Database
• Richard Dawkins Resource Page – links to videos that include Richard Dawkins, with thumbnails and descriptions.
• Livejournal community dedicated to discussing Dawkins' ideas and activities

Selected writings

• Viruses of the Mind (1993) – Religion as a mental virus.
• The Real Romance in the Stars (1995) – A critical view of astrology.
• The Emptiness of Theology (1998) – A critical view of theology.
• Snake Oil and Holy Water (1999) – Dawkins claims that there is no convergence occurring between science and theism.
• Bin Laden's Victory (2003) – The Guardian editorial arguing Osama bin Laden was the real victor of the Iraq War.
• What Use is Religion? (2004) – Suggests that religion may have no survival value other than to itself.
• Race and Creation (2004) – On race, its usage and a theory of how it evolved.
• The giant tortoise's tale, The turtle's tale and The lava lizard's tale (2005) – A series of three articles written after a visit to the Galápagos Islands.
• Papers and commentary by Richard Dawkins (no longer maintained)
• Dawkins' Huffington Post articles

[hide] v • d • e Richard Dawkins
Books	The Selfish Gene (1976) · The Extended Phenotype (1982) · The Blind Watchmaker (1986) · River out of Eden (1995) · Climbing Mount Improbable (1996) · Unweaving the Rainbow (1998) · A Devil's Chaplain (2003) · The Ancestor's Tale (2004) · The God Delusion (2006)
Related works	Growing Up in the Universe (1991) · Break the Science Barrier (1996) · The Atheism Tapes (2004) · Beyond Belief (2006) · Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think (2006) · The Root of All Evil? (2006) · The Enemies of Reason (2007) · The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing (2008)
See also	Meme · Gerin oil · Foundation for Reason and Science · Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit · Lalla Ward

Quelle (05.2008): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins