History UsefulNotes / RichardDawkins

* HitlerAteSugar: He addresses the "Hitler was atheist, so atheism is evil" argument in ''The God Delusion''. Aside from Hitler's ambiguous religious beliefs[[note]]He identified publicly as a "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity Positive Christian]]", but his private statements on religious matters are so contradictory that to this day historians still dispute whether he viewed himself as a Christian or an atheist, with enough evidence pointing towards both. Wikipedia has [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler an entire article]] on it.[[/note]], Dawkins points out that none of the twentieth century dictators (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.) waged wars and engaged in various forms of genocide and democide in the name of ''atheism'', but radical ideologies such as Nazism and Communism. Further, plenty of wars and tyrannies have been justified on religious grounds in the past.

* VoodooShark: He believes theism to be this, at least as far as explaining the origins of universe. He asserts that the existence of a creator is not a satisfactory scientific answer to the question of how the universe originated, as rather than simplifying and expanding our understanding of the universe, such an explanation simply raises more questions (who was the creator, what exactly is he/she/it like, how did they create the universe, etc.). [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]] even has an article on this argument, which it calls [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Boeing_747_gambit the Ultimate Boeing 747 Gambit.]]

* ''The Ancestor's Tale'' (2004) - Dawkins summarizes all of human evolution in forty chapters. Starting with the most recent split between us various extinct humanoid "species" and ending with the beginning of life, each chapter details the "meeting" of humans and their increasingly large family with the organisms that split off at that approximate date. This includes a guess at the appearance of the most recent common ancestor ("Concestor") of these two groups and a tale about a particular aspect of evolution that has to do with the meeting somehow.

Clinton Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941 in Nairobi, Kenya) is a Kenyan evolutionary biologist and an outspoken UsefulNotes/{{atheis|m}}t who, in addition to his work in biology, is also critical of religion and religious people, as well as of supernaturalism, superstition and alternative medicine. He has written and presented several documentaries on British television, has written a number of books and gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 1991.

Clinton Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941 in Nairobi, Kenya) is a [[UsefulNotes/Kenya Kenyan]] evolutionary biologist and an outspoken UsefulNotes/{{atheis|m}}t who, in addition to his work in biology, is also critical of religion and religious people, as well as of supernaturalism, superstition and alternative medicine. He has written and presented several documentaries on British television, has written a number of books and gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 1991.

Clinton Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941 in Nairobi, Kenya) is a Kenyan evolutionary biologist and an outspoken UsefulNotes/{{atheis|m}}t who, in addition to his work in biology, is also critical of religion and religious people, as well as of supernaturalism, superstition and alternative medicine. He has written and presented several documentaries on British television, has written a number of books and gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 1991.

Clinton Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941 in Nairobi, Kenya) is an evolutionary biologist and an outspoken UsefulNotes/{{atheis|m}}t who, in addition to his work in biology, is also critical of religion and religious people, as well as of supernaturalism, superstition and alternative medicine. He has written and presented several documentaries on British television, has written a number of books and gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 1991.

In ''The Selfish Gene'', he coined the word "{{meme}}" to discuss how culture is transmitted, by analogy with genes and with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimesis mimesis]]. Interestingly enough, a rival coinage, culturogen, was coined at roughly the same time, but by a process of [[ShapedLikeItself memetic competition]] the word meme became more popular and the word culturogen is almost never used any more. Although he often refers to it, he admits his initial coinage was not a serious cultural theory but was mostly used to make an illustrative point about his theory of replicators.

He played himself in a news clip in the ''Series/DoctorWho'' story [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E12TheStolenEarth "The Stolen Earth"]]. He's also married to Lalla Ward, who played the second Romana in that show. In 2016, they announced an amicable separation. The two met via Creator/DouglasAdams (who was writing the show at the same time Lalla Ward was starring in it), who Dawkins referred to as "Possibly my tallest convert".

* HitlerAteSugar: He addresses the "Hitler was atheist, so atheism is evil" argument in ''The God Delusion''. Aside from Hitler's ambiguous religious beliefs[[note]]He identified publicly as a Catholic, being born in Austria and all, but his private statements on religious matters are so contradictory that to this day historians still dispute whether he viewed himself as a Christian or an atheist, with enough evidence pointing towards both. Wikipedia has [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler an entire article]] on it.[[/note]], Dawkins points out that none of the twentieth century dictators (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.) waged wars and engaged in various forms of genocide and democide in the name of ''atheism'', but radical ideologies such as Nazism and Communism. Further, plenty of wars and tyrannies have been justified on religious grounds in the past.

* HitlerAteSugar: He addresses the "Hitler was atheist, so atheism is evil" argument in ''The God Delusion''. Aside from Hitler's ambiguous religious beliefs[[note]]He identified publicly as a Catholic, being born in Austria and all, but his private statements on religious matters are so contradictory that to this day historians still dispute whether he viewed himself as a Christian or an atheist, with enough evidence pointing towards both.[[/note]], Dawkins points out that none of the twentieth century dictators (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.) waged wars and engaged in various forms of genocide and democide in the name of ''atheism'', but radical ideologies such as Nazism and Communism. Further, plenty of wars and tyrannies have been justified on religious grounds in the past.

* HitlerAteSugar: He addresses the "Hitler was atheist, so atheism is evil" argument in ''The God Delusion''. Aside from Hitler's ambiguous religious beliefs[[note]]He identified publically as a Catholic, but his private statements are so contradictory that to this day historians still dispute whether he viewed himself as a Christian or an atheist, with enough evidence pointing towards both.[[/note]], Dawkins points out that none of the twentieth century dictators (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.) waged wars and engaged in various forms of genocide and democide in the name of ''atheism'', but radical ideologies such as Nazism and Communism. Further, plenty of wars and tyrannies have been justified on religious grounds in the past.

* GodwinsLaw: He addresses the "Hitler was atheist" argument in ''The God Delusion''. Aside from Hitler's actual ambiguous religious beliefs, Dawkins points out that none of the twentieth century dictators (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.) waged wars and engaged in various forms of genocide and democide in the name of ''atheism'', but radical ideologies such as Nazism and Communism. Further, plenty of wars and tyrannies have been justified on religious grounds in the past.

* GodwinsLaw: He addresses the "Hitler was atheist" argument in ''The God Delusion''. Aside from Hitler's acual ambiguous religious beliefs, Dawkins points out that none of the twentieth century dictators (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.) waged wars and engaged in various forms of genocide and democide in the name of ''atheism'', but radical ideologies such as Nazism and Communism. Further, plenty of wars and tyrannies have been justified on religious grounds in the past.

* GodwinsLaw: He addresses the "Hitler was atheist" argument in ''The God Delusion''. Aside from Hitler's ambiguous religious beliefs, Dawkins points out that none of the twentieth century dictators (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.) waged wars and engaged in various forms of genocide and democide in the name of ''atheism'', but radical ideologies such as Nazism and Communism. Further, plenty of wars and tyrannies have been justified on religious grounds in the past.

* GodwinsLaw: He addresses the "Hitler was atheist" argument in ''The God Delusion''. Aside from Hitler's ambiguous religious beliefs, Dawkins points out that none of the twentieth century dictators (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.) waged wars and engaged in various forms of genocide and democide in the name of ''atheism'', but radical ideologies such as Nazism. Further, plenty of wars and tyrannies have been justified on religious grounds in the past.

Of his works to date, Richard Dawkins is best known for ''The Selfish Gene'', a book on evolutionary biology from a gene-centred perspective, the two-part documentary ''Root of all Evil?'', and his 2006 book ''The God Delusion''. In the latter, he presents a case against the idea of a theistic god and criticises the attitudes and behaviours of religious practitioners. The book was not the first criticising religion, and it was not the first time that Dawkins had done so in his works, but it has attracted much attention to the point where [[AllThereIsToKnowAboutTheCryingGame it tends to eclipse all his other work]].

As Dawkins is a ''very'' polarizing figure, not just amongst religious folks but even some atheist circles, please observe the Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment.