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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 the University of Oxford. Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene , which popularised the gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the term meme , helping found the field of memetics. In 1982, he made a widely-cited contribution to the science of evolution with the theory, presented in his 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, and appeared in a number of television and radio programmes, concerning evolutionary biology, creationism, and religion. In addition to his biological work, Dawkins is well known for his views on religion. He is an outspoken antireligionist, atheist, secular humanist, and sceptic, and he is a supporter of the Brights movement.
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