{"aliases":[],"awards":["Fellow of the Royal Society","Kistler Prize","Michael Faraday Prize","International Cosmos Prize","Lewis Thomas Prize","Shakespeare Prize","Medal of Representation of the President of the Italian Republic","Nierenberg Prize","Silver Medal of the Zoological Society of London","honorary doctorate of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel"],"biography_summary":"Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator, noted atheist, 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.\" 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 evolution gradually creates complex adaptations 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\". Dawkins is a prominent atheist.","birth_date":"1941-03-26","birth_place":"Nairobi","birth_place_coordinates":{"latitude":-1.286389,"longitude":36.817222},"birth_place_wikidata_id":"Q3870","birth_place_wikidata_url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3870","canonical_name":"Richard Dawkins","canonical_url":"https://zh-cn.instaget.online/people/d56d405b187ff684516dbdef","citizenships":["United Kingdom"],"death_date":null,"description":"English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author (born 1941)","external_ids":{"imdb":{"id":"nm1468026","url":"https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1468026/"},"isni":{"id":"0000000121208079","url":"https://isni.org/isni/0000000121208079"},"loc":{"id":"n81074298","url":"https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n81074298.html"},"viaf":{"id":"12307054","url":"https://viaf.org/viaf/12307054/"}},"full_name":"Richard Dawkins","height_cm":null,"names":{"aliases":["C. Dawkins","C. Richard Dawkins","Clinton Dawkins","CR Dawkins","Clinton Richard Dawkins","R. Dawkins"],"birth":[{"language":"en","source_property":"P1477","value":"Clinton Richard Dawkins"}],"native":[{"language":"en","source_property":"P1559","value":"Clinton Richard Dawkins"}],"official":[]},"native_name":null,"notable_works":["The Selfish Gene","The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution"],"occupations":["evolutionary biologist","ethologist","science writer","science communicator","essayist","theoretical biologist","epistemologist","sociobiologist","screenwriter","biologist"],"official_websites":["https://www.richarddawkins.net/","https://richarddawkins.com/"],"photo":null,"profile_url":"https://zh-cn.instaget.online/people/d56d405b187ff684516dbdef","provenance":{"catalog":"wikidata_wikipedia","fetched_at":"2026-08-29T07:10:38Z","social_archives_included":false,"source_url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q44461"},"public_hash":"d56d405b187ff684516dbdef","schema_version":"1.1","socials":{"facebook":{"handle":"RichardDawkinsBooks","url":"https://www.facebook.com/RichardDawkinsBooks"},"twitter":{"handle":"RichardDawkins","url":"https://x.com/RichardDawkins"}},"tags":[{"key":"category:arts-and-culture","label":"Arts and culture","type":"category"},{"key":"category:science-and-academia","label":"Science and academia","type":"category"},{"key":"occupation:evolutionary biologist","label":"evolutionary biologist","type":"occupation"},{"key":"occupation:ethologist","label":"ethologist","type":"occupation"},{"key":"occupation:science writer","label":"science writer","type":"occupation"},{"key":"occupation:science communicator","label":"science communicator","type":"occupation"},{"key":"occupation:essayist","label":"essayist","type":"occupation"},{"key":"occupation:theoretical biologist","label":"theoretical biologist","type":"occupation"},{"key":"occupation:epistemologist","label":"epistemologist","type":"occupation"},{"key":"occupation:sociobiologist","label":"sociobiologist","type":"occupation"},{"key":"occupation:screenwriter","label":"screenwriter","type":"occupation"},{"key":"occupation:biologist","label":"biologist","type":"occupation"}],"wikidata_id":"Q44461","wikidata_url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q44461","wikipedia_url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins"}