Richard Dawkins

Born March 26, 1941 - Nairobi, Kenya

Field- Evolutionary biology

Institution - Oxford University

Notable Prizes- Zoological Society Silver Medal (1989) Faraday Award (1990) Kistler Prize (2001)

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".