Richard Dawkins: Anti-spiritual or Anti-superstitious?

[Megan]

Not that those are the only two choices, of course--feel free to give your take on Dawkins!

We've been having a lively side discussion on another thread about the popular scientist and writer, Richard Dawkins, and I was thinking since there is so much interest in Dawkins, the man, that he deserves his own thread.

He is a complex figure, drawing both admiration and ire from his readers and fellow scientists.

'Darwin's Rottweiler' probably needs no introduction, but....

Clinton Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941) is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science writer who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.

Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centric view of evolution and introduced the term meme into the lexicon, thereby helping to found the field of memetics.

In 1982, he made a major contribution to the science of evolution with the theory, presented in his widely cited book The Extended Phenotype, that phenotypic effects are not limited to an organism's body but can stretch far into the environment, including into the bodies of other organisms.

He has since written several best-selling popular books on, and appeared in a number of television and radio programmes about, evolutionary biology, creationism, and religion.

Dawkins is an outspoken atheist, humanist, and sceptic, and is a prominent member of the Brights movement. In a play on Thomas Huxley's epithet "Darwin's bulldog", Dawkins' impassioned defence of evolution has earned him the appellation "Darwin's rottweiler".

Richard Dawkins - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here are some linked articles:

Richard Dawkins

And here is Dawkins' web site:

RichardDawkins.net - The Official Richard Dawkins Website

Enjoy!