Test 3.26

Published on March 26, 2021

Wiki material Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme. With his book The Extended Phenotype (1982), he introduced into evolutionary biology the influential concept that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism’s body, but can stretch far into the environment. In 2006, he founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Dawkins is an atheist. He is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design.[25] In The Blind Watchmaker (1986), he argues against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker, in that reproduction, mutation, and selection are unguided by any designer. In The God Delusion (2006), Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion. Dawkins’ atheist stances have sometimes attracted controversy.[26][27][28]

Test

Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such as spandrels, described by Gould and Lewontin)[63] and about selection at levels “above” that of the gene.[64] He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance of group selection as a basis for understanding altruism.[65] This behaviour appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources and decreases one’s own fitness. Previously, many had interpreted this as an aspect of group selection: individuals are doing what is best for the survival of the population or species as a whole. British evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton used gene-frequency analysis in his inclusive fitness theory to show how hereditary altruistic traits can evolve if there is sufficient genetic similarity between actors and recipients of such altruism (including close relatives).[66][a] Hamilton’s inclusive fitness has since been successfully applied to a wide range of organisms, including humans. Similarly, Robert Trivers, thinking in terms of the gene-centred model, developed the theory of reciprocal altruism, whereby one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of future reciprocation.[67] Dawkins popularised these ideas in The Selfish Gene, and developed them in his own work.[68] In June 2012, Dawkins was highly critical of fellow biologist E. O. Wilson’s 2012 book The Social Conquest of Earth as misunderstanding Hamilton’s theory of kin selection.[69][70] Dawkins has also been strongly critical of the Gaia hypothesis of the independent scientist James Lovelock.[71][72][73]