Richard Dawkins |
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Richard Dawkins is the first Oxford University Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. One of the world’s bestselling popular science authors, he has made Darwin’s theory of evolution understandable for ‘the man in the street’ in his brilliantly-written 'The Selfish Gene'. In 'Unweaving The Rainbow' he moved this argument on to, perhaps surprisingly, an appreciation of the beauty of life and nature, writing: ‘After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life... Isn’t it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born?’
Born in Nairobi in 1941, he has blazed a scientific trail via Berkley and Oxford. Some would describe him as a scientific evangelist attempting to destroy what he sees as the ‘superstition’ of religious belief and belief in the ‘super-natural’. He has made some enemies along the way, especially in religious circles, but few have been able to deny the clarity and compelling nature of his writing in 'The Blind Watchmaker' and more recently 'Unweaving The Rainbow'. Dawkins has become the standard-bearer for the so-called ‘Ultra Darwinist’ movement, which insists that evolution takes place at the most basic level of life: individual genes. In 'The Selfish Gene' and 'The Blind Watchmaker' he claims that all diversity of life is the product of ‘selfish genes’ fighting to be passed on to the next generation. Every living thing, therefore, from the lowest bacterium to Richard Dawkins himself, is designed to act in ways that boost the chances of their genes being passed on. In his own words: ‘We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.’
Further than this, Dawkins would argue that our genes do not have any scruples either. If it is a choice between the survival of the genes or the death of the organism they inhabit, tough. The selfish genes come first and everything else a poor second.
However, this is not to say that Dawkins is arguing that there is no point in getting up every day. There is purpose to life beyond the gene. In 'Unweaving The Rainbow' he argues that discovering why and how we are here, and appreciating the amazing intricacies of the natural world should give us all enough purpose to our lives. It is a rebuttal against his critics who claim that his view of the world is a depressing one which leaves no room for human creativity or beauty.
Those who disagree with Dawkins are the scientists who are roughly described as the ‘Naturalist Darwinists’. Chief amongst these is Harvard’s Stephen Jay Gould who insists that the idea of evolution being the result of a war between selfish genes is hopelessly simplistic. They argue that evolution involves life at a whole variety of levels: genes, individual organisms, species. Many also argue that the environment plays a much greater role than Dawkins would allow – they claim that life can affect the environment in ways that dramatically affect its own evolution.
Of course there are also those who deny that evolution is a valid explanation for human life at all and are deeply offended by Dawkin’s arguments against God and religion.
Words of Wisdom
From the Books:
‘They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence – they go by the name of genes and we are their survival machines’
The Selfish Gene
‘However many ways there are of being alive, it is certain that there are vastly more ways of being dead’
The Blind Watchmaker
‘If you wanted to make a flying animal, you wouldn’t start with a hippo’
Climbing Mount Improbable
In the Press:
On the theory of evolution: ‘I was a bit sceptical and somehow it didn’t seem to be quite enough to explain all the beauty and the complexity of life. Didn’t really appreciate how powerful the theory is or the fact that it’s the only theory we’ve got. Above all, I didn’t appreciate the enormous amount of time available for evolution to take place – it is this that the human mind has most difficulty grasping.’
The Daily Telegraph, Sep 1999
‘When you think that it is the explanation for our existence and the existence of all life and that it is not difficult to understand – really rather simple, compared to quantum mechanics – it seems absurd that it is one of the last things you are taught in schools.’
The Daily Telegraph, Sep 1999
‘The argument for god starts by assuming what it is attempting to explain – intelligence, complexity, it comes to the same thing – and so explains nothing. God is a non-explanation. Whereas evolution by natural selection is an explanation. It really does start simply and become complex.’
The Daily Telegraph, Sep 1999
‘Anybody who objects to cloning on principle has to answer to all the identical twins in the world who might be insulted by the thought that there's something offensive about their very existence. Clones are simply identical twins’
BBC World Service, Jan 1999
‘We should devote as much time to studying serious theology as we devote to studying serious fairies and serious unicorns.’
The Independent, Dec 1998
Self-written epitaph: ‘Others lived beyond his means: a giver not a taker. He was less selfish than his genes; more blind than his watchmaker.”
The Independent, Dec 1998
Want to Know More?
If you’d like to read more about Richard Dawkins, the theory of evolution and the general debate surrounding this fascinating subject then the links below are a good place to start
» World of Richard Dawkins
» Online literature library - Charles Darwin
» Evolution: Theory and History - University of California
» Creation / Evolution resources - Talk.origins Archive
