Richard Dawkins

Clinton Richard Dawkins was born on 26 March 1941 in Nairobi, Kenya, where his father was stationed with the Colonial Service. The family returned to England in 1949. Dawkins studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, where he received his bachelor's degree and subsequently completed his doctorate under the ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973.

After completing his doctorate, Dawkins taught at the University of California, Berkeley from 1967 to 1969, then returned to Oxford, where he held a lectureship at New College. In 1976 he published The Selfish Gene, his first book, which presented the gene-centered view of evolution to a broad audience. The book introduced the concept of the meme as a cultural analogue of the gene, a term that has since passed into general use. The Selfish Gene remains one of the most widely cited works in popular science.

His subsequent books include The Extended Phenotype (1982), which elaborated his theoretical arguments for a specialist audience; The Blind Watchmaker (1986); River Out of Eden (1995); Climbing Mount Improbable (1996); Unweaving the Rainbow (1998); The Ancestor's Tale (2004); and The Greatest Show on Earth (2009), among others. In 2006 he published The God Delusion, which argued against the existence of God and became a global bestseller.

In 1995, Oxford University established the Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science, a position funded by the software engineer Charles Simonyi. Dawkins was the first holder of this professorship and held it until his retirement from the position in 2008. He has continued to write and give public lectures since retiring from the professorship.

Dawkins is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He received the Royal Society of Literature Award in 1987 and has received numerous honorary degrees. He founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science in 2006.