Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator, atheist activist, and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford. In 1995 he was named the first Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, a position he held until 2008, and is on the advisory board of the University of Austin. Dawkins has won several academic and writing awards, among them the 2005 Shakespeare Prize and the 2006 Lewis Thomas Prize. Presenting the latter, Paul Nurse said "In eloquent, evocative prose, Richard Dawkins conveys the certainty that, rather than diminishing the myriad beauties of the universe and extinguishing wonderment at its mysteries, science reveals truths that are yet more awe-inspiring than the mysteries they solve." Dubbed "Darwin's rottweiller", Dawkins has written a number of popular books explicating evolution. In The Selfish Gene (1976), he espoused the gene-centred view of evolution and coined the word meme. In The Blind Watchmaker (1986), he explains how the cumulative, non-random process of natural selection, coupled with random variation, creates complexity. In Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), he explores how complex adaptations gradually evolve through a series of intermediates. The book grew out of his Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, Growing Up in the Universe. With Yan Wong, he co-authored The Ancestor's Tale (2004), a "Chaucerian pilgrimage to the dawn of life". He considers The Extended Phenotype (1982) his major contribution to biology. Along with Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, he is known as one of the "Four Horsemen of New Atheism". He made the case for atheism in The God Delusion (2006), which The Sunday Times described as one of the 12 most influential books since the Second World War. That year he founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. He edited The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing (2008) and wrote a children's book, The Magic of Reality (2011). He published two collections of essays, Unweaving the Rainbow (1998) and A Devil's Chaplain (2003) and two volumes of memoirs, An Appetite for Wonder (2013) and Brief Candle in the Dark (2015).
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