Richard Dawkins - Bryant McGill

# Richard Dawkins **Domain:** Evolution / Cultural Transmission **Doc Type:** Thinker Node **Maturity:** Evolving **Related:** [[The Mind's I]], [[Memetics]], [[Digital Evolution]], [[Natural Selection]] --- ## Definition Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist and writer known for gene-centered evolutionary explanation and for introducing the term meme as a model of cultural transmission. ## Corpus Context His appearance in [[The Mind's I]] connects replicating patterns to identity questions, while [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism]] keeps biological and computational evolution precisely distinguished. ## Relationships [[The Mind's I]], [[Memetics]], [[Digital Evolution]], [[Natural Selection]] - **Edge source route:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] connects this topic to exact Annual Question passages promoted into the Simple Reminders archive. ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts  > "All living things are descended from a single common ancestor." > **— Richard Dawkins**, *Evolution interviews and writings, compressed candidate wording* *Verification Status: Unverified — exact wording/source has not yet been independently confirmed against a primary source; source clue: Evolution interviews and writings, compressed candidate wording.* [[reminders/unverified/All Life Shares One Common Ancestor by Richard Dawkins|All Life Shares One Common Ancestor by Richard Dawkins]] > "DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music." > **— Richard Dawkins**, *River Out of Eden (1995), widely cited* *Verification Status: Unverified — exact wording/source has not yet been independently confirmed against a primary source; source clue: River Out of Eden (1995), widely cited.* [[reminders/unverified/DNA Neither Cares nor Knows by Richard Dawkins|DNA Neither Cares nor Knows by Richard Dawkins]] > "Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool." > **— Richard Dawkins**, *The Selfish Gene (1976), excerpt candidate* *Verification Status: Unverified — exact wording/source has not yet been independently confirmed against a primary source; source clue: The Selfish Gene (1976), excerpt candidate.* [[reminders/unverified/Ideas Replicate Like Genes by Richard Dawkins|Ideas Replicate Like Genes by Richard Dawkins]] > "The scientific view of the world is true, inspiring, remarkable, and unifying." > **— Richard Dawkins**, *Times Higher Education interview (1995), compressed candidate wording* *Verification Status: Unverified — exact wording/source has not yet been independently confirmed against a primary source; source clue: Times Higher Education interview (1995), compressed candidate wording.* [[reminders/unverified/Science Can Still Inspire Wonder by Richard Dawkins|Science Can Still Inspire Wonder by Richard Dawkins]] > "We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines." > **— Richard Dawkins**, *The Selfish Gene (1976), attribution clue* *Verification Status: Unverified — exact wording/source has not yet been independently confirmed against a primary source; source clue: The Selfish Gene (1976), attribution clue.* [[reminders/unverified/We Are Built as Gene Machines by Richard Dawkins|We Are Built as Gene Machines by Richard Dawkins]]  > “I believe that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all 'design' anywhere in the universe, is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection. It follows that design comes late in the universe, after a period of Darwinian evolution. Design cannot precede evolution and therefore cannot underlie the universe.” > **— Richard Dawkins**, *2005, Edge Annual Question, “What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Design Cannot Precede Evolution by Richard Dawkins|Design Cannot Precede Evolution by Richard Dawkins]] > “Our ethics and our politics assume, largely without question or serious discussion, that the division between human and 'animal' is absolute. 'Pro-life', to take just one example, is a potent political badge, associated with a gamut of ethical issues such as opposition to abortion and euthanasia. What it really means is pro-human-life. Abortion clinic bombers are not known for their veganism, nor do Roman Catholics show any particular reluctance to have their suffering pets 'put to sleep'. In the minds of many confused people, a single-celled human zygote, which has no nerves and cannot suffer, is infinitely sacred, simply because it is 'human'. No other cells enjoy this exalted status.” > **— Richard Dawkins**, *2009, Edge Annual Question, “What Will Change Everything?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Human-centered Ethics Ignore the Capacity to Suffer by Richard Dawkins|Human-centered Ethics Ignore the Capacity to Suffer by Richard Dawkins]] > “The three meanings are too disparate to bring together easily, but I'll try. The popular question 'Has there been enough time for evolution to take place?' can now confidently be answered in the affirmative. It should never have been put in the first place since, self-evidently, we are here. But what is more interesting is that the real question that faces us is almost the exact opposite. Why is evolution so slow, given that natural selection is so powerful? Far from there being too little time for evolution to play with, there seems to be too much.” > **— Richard Dawkins**, *2001, Edge Annual Question, “What Questions Have Disappeared?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Natural Selection Is Powerful Yet Evolution Can Be Slow by Richard Dawkins|Natural Selection Is Powerful Yet Evolution Can Be Slow by Richard Dawkins]] > “I am reminded of an insight that comes from Fred Hoyle’s science fiction novel, The Black Cloud. The cloud is a superhuman interstellar traveller, whose ‘nervous system’ consists of units that communicate with each other by radio – orders of magnitude faster than our puttering nerve impulses. But in what sense is the cloud to be seen as a single individual rather than a society? The answer is that interconnectedness that is sufficiently fast blurs the distinction. A human society would effectively become one individual if we could read each other’s thoughts through direct, high speed, brain-to-brain radio transmission. Something like that may eventually meld the various units that constitute the Internet.” > **— Richard Dawkins**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “HOW IS THE INTERNET CHANGING THE WAY YOU THINK?”* [[reminders/Cybernetics/Fast Enough Interconnection Could Turn Society Into One Individual by Richard Dawkins|Fast Enough Interconnection Could Turn Society Into One Individual by Richard Dawkins]] ## Sources / Provenance - [[articles/Beyond the Sea|Beyond the Sea]] ## Directory Context [[Recommended Institutions and Signals]] · [[Team Leela]] ## STEVE Routing [[articles/STEVE|STEVE]] places this entry within the article’s scientific, intellectual, or institutional topology. The article documents that connection; formal membership in [[Team Leela]], shared intent, and coordinated program activity remain unverified. [[articles/STEVE|STEVE]] · [[Team Leela]] · [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism]] · [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] · [[articles/The Hawking Continuity|The Hawking Continuity]] · [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]]