NationMaster - Encyclopedia: River out of Eden

River out of Eden (subtitled "A Darwinian View of Life") is a 1995 popular science book by Richard Dawkins. The book is about Darwinian evolution and includes summaries of the topics covered in his earlier books, The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype and The Blind Watchmaker. It is part of the Science Masters series and is Dawkins' shortest book. It also includes illustrations by Lalla Ward, Dawkins' wife. The book's name is derived from passage 2:10 of Genesis relating to the Garden of Eden: "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads." Image File history File links River_Out_of_Eden_Cover. ... 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. ... Lalla Ward (born Sarah Ward, June 28, 1951) is an English actress and illustrator best known for playing the part of Romana in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... Basic Books is a book publisher founded in 1952. ... Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full 1995 Gregorian calendar). ... â€œISBNâ€ redirects here. ... Cover illustration by the zoologist Desmond Morris The Blind Watchmaker is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins in which he presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. ... Climbing Mount Improbable cover Climbing Mount Improbable is a 1996 popular science book by Richard Dawkins. ... This article is not about the magazine, Popular Science Popular science is interpretation of science intended for a general audience, rather than for other scientists or students. ... 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. ... This article is about Darwinism as a philosophical concept; see evolution for the page on biological evolution; modern evolutionary synthesis for neo-Darwinism; and also evolution (disambiguation). ... This article is about evolution in biology. ... Original book cover from the painting The Expectant Valley by zoologist Desmond Morris The Selfish Gene is a very popular and somewhat controversial book on evolutionary theory by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976. ... A cathedral termite mount â€“ a small animal with a very noticeable extended phenotype The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene is a 1982 book by British ethologist Richard Dawkins. ... Cover illustration by the zoologist Desmond Morris The Blind Watchmaker is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins in which he presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. ... The Science Masters series is a global publishing venture consisting of original science books written by leading scientists andpublished by a worldwide team of twenty-six publishers assembled by John Brockman. ... Lalla Ward (born Sarah Ward, June 28, 1951) is an English actress and illustrator best known for playing the part of Romana in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... For other uses, see Genesis (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Garden of Eden (disambiguation). ...

River out of Eden comprises five chapters. The first chapter lays down the framework on which the rest of the book is built, that life is a river of genes flowing through geological time where organisms are mere temporary bodies. The second chapter shows how human ancestry can be traced via many gene pathways to different most recent common ancestors, with special emphasis on the African Eve. The third chapter describes how gradual enhancement via natural selection is the only mechanism which can create the complexity we observe all around us in nature. The fourth chapter expounds on the utter indifference of genes towards organisms it builds and discards, in its relentless drive to maximize its own utility functions. The last chapter summarizes milestones during the evolution of life on Earth and speculates on how similar processes may work in alien planetary systems. For other uses, see River (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Gene (disambiguation). ... The table and timeline of geologic periods presented here is in accordance with the dates and nomenclature proposed by the International Commission on Stratigraphy. ... â€œLife on Earthâ€ redirects here. ... The most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of any set of organisms is the most recent individual from which all organisms in the group are directly descended. ... Mitochondrial Eve (mt-mrca) is the name given by researchers to the woman who is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for all living humans. ... This article is about utility in economics and in game theory. ... This article is about Earth as a planet. ... â€œGreen peopleâ€ redirects here. ... An artists concept of a protoplanetary disc. ...

The digital river

Dawkins begins the book with a startling, yet true claim on behalf of all organisms that have ever lived: not a single one of our ancestors died before they reached adulthood and begot at least one child. In a world where most organisms die before they can procreate, descendants are common but ancestors are rare. But we can all proudly claim an unbroken chain of successful ancestors all the way back to the first single-celled organism. The gene-centered view of evolution, gene selection theory or selfish gene theory holds that natural selection acts through differential survival of competing genes, increasing the frequency of those alleles whose phenotypic effects successfully promote their own propagation. ... Original book cover from the painting The Expectant Valley by zoologist Desmond Morris The Selfish Gene is a very popular and somewhat controversial book on evolutionary theory by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976. ... â€œLife on Earthâ€ redirects here. ... Cells in culture, stained for keratin (red) and DNA (green) The cell is the structural and functional unit of all living organisms, sometimes called the building blocks of life. ...

If the success of an organism is measured by its ability to survive and reproduce, then all living organisms can be said to have inherited good genes from successful ancestors instead of less successful contemporaries. Each generation of organisms is a sieve against which replicated and mutated genes are tested. Good genes fall through the sieve into the next generation while bad genes are weeded out. This explains why organisms become better and better at whatever it takes to succeed, and is in stark contrast to Lamarckism. Successful organisms do not and cannot refine their genes during their lifetime. Rather, good genes make successful organisms which perpetuate good genes themselves. For other uses, see Gene (disambiguation). ... Generation (From the Greek Î³Î¹Î³Î½Î¼Î±Î¹), also known as procreation, is the act of producing offspring. ... It has been suggested that DNA replicate, Replisome, Replication fork, Lagging strand, Leading strand be merged into this article or section. ... It has been suggested that mutant be merged into this article or section. ... Lamarckism or Lamarckian evolution is a theory put forward by the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, based on heritability of acquired characteristics, the once widely accepted idea that an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring. ...

Following this gene-centered view of evolution, it can be argued that an organism is no more than a temporary body in which a set of companion genes (actually alleles) cooperate toward a common goal: to grow the organism into adulthood, before they part company and go on their separate ways in bodies of the organism's progenies. Temporary bodies are created and discarded, but good genes live forever in the form of perfect replicas of themselves, a result of high-fidelity copy process which is typical of digital encoding. The gene-centered view of evolution, gene selection theory or selfish gene theory holds that natural selection acts through differential survival of competing genes, increasing the frequency of those alleles whose phenotypic effects successfully promote their own propagation. ... An allele is any one of a number of alternative forms of the same gene occupying a given locus (position) on a chromosome. ... It has been suggested that DNA replicate, Replisome, Replication fork, Lagging strand, Leading strand be merged into this article or section. ... Copying is the duplication of information, or an artifact, based only on an instance of that information or artifact, and not using the process that originally generated it. ... A digital system is one that uses discrete values (often electrical voltages), especially those representable as binary numbers, or non-numeric symbols such as letters or icons, for input, processing, transmission, storage, or display, rather than a continuous spectrum of values (ie, as in an analog system). ...

Through meiosis (sexual reproduction), immortal genes find themselves sharing temporary bodies with different set of intimate companion genes in successive generations of organisms. Thus genes can be said to flow in a river through geological time. Scoop up a bucket of genes from the river of genes, and we have an organism. Even though genes are selfish, over the long run every gene needs to be compatible with all other genes in the gene pool of a population of organisms, in order to produce successful organisms. Not to be confused with miosis. ... Sexual reproduction is a union that results in increasing genetic diversity of the offspring. ... Original book cover from the painting The Expectant Valley by zoologist Desmond Morris The Selfish Gene is a very popular and somewhat controversial book on evolutionary theory by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976. ... The gene pool of a species or a population is the complete set of unique alleles that would be found by inspecting the genetic material of every living member of that species or population. ...

A river of genes may fork into two branches, mostly due to geographical separation between two populations of organisms. Because genes in the two branches never share same bodies, they may drift apart until genes from the two branches become incompatible. Organism created by these two branches (or two rivers) will form separate, non-interbreeding species, completing the process of speciation. In population genetics, genetic drift is the statistical effect that results from the influence that chance has on the success of alleles (variants of a gene). ... // This article is about a biological term. ... For other uses, see Species (disambiguation). ... Charles Darwins first sketch of an evolutionary tree from his First Notebook on Transmutation of Species (1837) Speciation is the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise. ...

All Africa and her progenies

When tracing human lineage back in time, most people look at parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and so on. The same approach is often taken when tracing descendants via children and grandchildren. Dawkins shows that this approach is misguided, as the numbers of ancestors and descendants seem to grow exponentially as generations are added to the lineage tree. In just 80 generations, the number of ancestors can exceed a trillion trillion. The most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of any set of organisms is the most recent individual from which all organisms in the group are directly descended. ... In genetics, coalescent theory is a retrospective model of population genetics that traces all alleles of a gene in a sample from a population to a single ancestral copy shared by all members of the population, known as the most recent common ancestor (MRCA; sometimes also termed the coancestor to... Kinship and descent is one of the major concepts of cultural anthropology. ... In mathematics, exponential growth (or geometric growth) occurs when the growth rate of a function is always proportional to the functions current size. ...

This simple calculation does not take into account the fact that every marriage is really a marriage between distant cousins which include second cousins, fourth cousins, sixteenth cousins and so on. The ancestry tree is not really a tree, but a graph. Marriage is an interpersonal relationship with governmental, social, or religious recognition, usually intimate and sexual, and often created as a contract, or through civil process. ... â€œNephewâ€ redirects here. ... A labeled tree with 6 vertices and 5 edges In graph theory, a tree is a graph in which any two vertices are connected by exactly one path. ...

A better way to model ancestry is to think in terms of genes flowing through a river of time. An ancestor gene flows down the river either as perfect replicas of itself or as slightly mutated descendant genes. Dawkins fails to explicitly contrast ancestor organism and descendant organisms against ancestor genes and descendant genes in this chapter. But the first half of the chapter is really about differences between these two models of lineage. While organisms have ancestry graphs and progeny graphs via sexual reproduction, a gene has a single chain of ancestors and a tree of descendants. Sexual reproduction is a union that results in increasing genetic diversity of the offspring. ...

Given any gene in the body of an organism, we can trace a single chain of ancestor organisms back in time, following the lineage of this one gene, as stated in the coalescent theory. Because a typical organism is built from tens of thousands of genes, there are numerous ways to trace the ancestry of organisms using this mechanism. But all these inheritance pathways share one common feature. If we start with all humans alive in 1995 and trace their ancestry by one particular gene (actually a locus), we find that the farther we move back in time, the smaller the number of ancestors become. The pool of ancestors continues to shrink until we find the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all humans alive in 1995 via this particular gene pathway. In genetics, coalescent theory is a retrospective model of population genetics that traces all alleles of a gene in a sample from a population to a single ancestral copy shared by all members of the population, known as the most recent common ancestor (MRCA; sometimes also termed the coancestor to... Short and long arms Chromosome. ... The most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of any set of organisms is the most recent individual from which all organisms in the group are directly descended. ...

In theory, one can also trace human ancestry via a single chromosome, as a chromosome contains a set of genes and is passed down from parents to children via independent assortment from only one of the two parents. But genetic recombination (chromosomal crossover) mixes genes from non-sister chromatids from both parents during meiosis, thus muddling the ancestry path. In genetics, Independent assortment is the process of random segregation and assortment of chromosomes during gametogenesis to produce genetically unique gametes. ... Genetic recombination is the process by which a strand of DNA is broken and then joined to the end of a different DNA molecule. ... Thomas Hunt Morgans illustration of crossing over (1916) Homologous Recombination is the process by which two chromosomes, paired up during prophase I of meiosis, exchange some distal portion of their DNA. Crossover occurs when two chromosomes, normally two homologous instances of the same chromosome, break and then reconnect but... A chromatid forms one part of a chromosome after it has coalesced for the process of mitosis or meiosis. ... Not to be confused with miosis. ...

However, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is immune to sexual mixing, unlike the nuclear DNA whose chromosomes are shuffled and recombined in Mendelian inheritance. Mitochondrial DNA, therefore, can be used to trace matrilineal inheritance and to find the Mitochondrial Eve (also known as the African Eve), the most recent common ancestor of all human via the mitochondrial DNA pathway. Mitochondrial DNA (some captions in German) Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondria. ... Nuclear DNA is DNA contained within a nucleus of eukaryotic organisms. ... Mendelian inheritance (or Mendelian genetics or Mendelism) is a set of primary tenets relating to the transmission of hereditary characteristics from parent organisms to their children; it underlies much of genetics. ... Matrilineality is a system in which one belongs to ones mothers lineage; it may also involve the inheritance of property or titles through the female line. ... Mitochondrial Eve (mt-mrca) is the name given by researchers to the woman who is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for all living humans. ...

Do good by stealth

The main themes of the third chapter are borrowed from Dawkins' own book, The Blind Watchmaker. This chapter shows how the gradual, continuous and cumulative enhancement to organisms via natural selection is the only mechanism which can explain the complexity we observe all around us in nature. Dawkins resolutely refutes the need of Creationists to invoke supernatural powers in order to account for complexities. He tears their "I cannot believe so and so could have evolved by natural selection" argument to pieces, and mockingly calls it the Argument from Personal Incredulity. Cover illustration by the zoologist Desmond Morris The Blind Watchmaker is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins in which he presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. ... Diagram of major stages in the eyes evolution. ... Cover illustration by the zoologist Desmond Morris The Blind Watchmaker is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins in which he presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. ... For other uses, see Natural selection (disambiguation). ... Creationism is generally the belief that the universe was created by a deity, or alternatively by one or more powerful and intelligent beings. ... Look up Supernatural in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam or argument by lack of imagination, is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false, or that a premise is false only because it has not been...

Creationists often claim that some features of organisms (e.g. resemblance of Ophrys (orchid) to female wasp, figure-eight dances of honeybees, mimicry of stick insects, etc.) are too complicated to be a result of evolution. Some say, "half of an X will not work at all." Others say, "in order for X to work, it had to be perfect the first time." Dawkins shows that these are no more than bold assertions based on ignorance: Species About 40 The genus Ophrys is a large group of orchids from the alliance Orchis in the subtribe Orchidinae. ... Orchid re-directs here; for alternate uses see Orchid (disambiguation) Genera Over 800 See List of Orchidaceae genera. ... Waggle dance is a term used in beekeeping and ethology for a particular figure-eight dance of the honeybee. ... Species Apis andreniformis Apis cerana, or eastern honey bee Apis dorsata, or giant honey bee Apis florea Apis koschevnikovi Apis laboriosa Apis mellifera, or western honey bee Apis nigrocincta Apis nuluensis Honey bees are a subset of bees which represent a far smaller fraction of bee diversity than most people... Ctenomorpha Chronus Ctenomorpha Chronus Medauroidea Extradentata Stick insects are members of the one of the two insect families Phasmatidae and Phylliidae. ...

Dawkins goes on to illustrate his point by demonstrating how scientists have been able to fool creatures big and small using seemingly dumb triggers. For instance, stickleback fish treat a pear-shaped as a sex bomb (a supernormal stimulus). Gulls' hard-wired instincts make them reach over and roll back not just their own stray eggs, but also wooden cylinders and cocoa tins. Honeybees push out their live and protesting companion from their hive, when the companion is painted with a drop of oleic acid. Furthermore, a turkey will kill anything which moves unless it cries like a baby turkey. If the turkey is deaf, it will mercilessly kill its own babies. Genera Apeltes Culaea Gasterosteus Pungitius Spinachia The Gasterosteidae are a family of fishes including the Sticklebacks. ... A superstimulus or superreleaser is an exaggerated version of a stimulus to which there is an existing response tendency, or any stimulus that elicits a response more strongly than the stimulus that normally releases it. ... For other uses, see Instinct (disambiguation). ... Oleic acid is a monounsaturated omega-9 fatty acid found in various animal and vegetable sources. ...

An even more convincing way to refute the Argument from Personal Incredulity is to emphasize the gradual nature of evolution. For example, some creatures such as the stick insects possess the most amazing degree of camouflage, but in fact any sort of camouflage is better than none. There is a gradient from perfect camouflage to zero camouflage. A 100 percent camouflage is better than 99 percent. A 50 percent camouflage is better than 49 percent. A 1 percent camouflage is better than no camouflage. A creature with 1 percent better camouflage than its contemporaries will leave more descendants over time (an evolutionary success), and its good genes will come to dominate the gene pool. Ctenomorpha Chronus Ctenomorpha Chronus Medauroidea Extradentata Stick insects are members of the one of the two insect families Phasmatidae and Phylliidae. ... Countershaded Ibex are almost invisible in the Israeli desert. ... For other uses, see Gradient (disambiguation). ...

Not only can we classify the degree of insect camouflage using a gradient, we can also study all aspects of the surrounding environment as gradients. For instance, a 1 percent camouflage may not be distinguishable from no camouflage under bright daylight. But as light fades and night sets in, there is a critical moment when the 1 percent camouflage helps an insect escape detection by its predator, while its companion with no camouflage is eaten. The same principle can be applied to the distance between prey and predator, to the angle of view, to the skill or the age of a creature, etc.

Not satisfied with merely demonstrating how gradual changes can bring about features as complex as the human eye, Dawkins cites computer simulation work by Swedish scientists Dan Nilsson and Susanne Pelger to show that the eye could have evolve from scratch thousand times in succession in any animal lineage. In Dawkins' own words, "the time needed for the evolution of the eye... turned out to be too short for geologists to measure! It's is a geological blink." And, "it is no wonder the eye has evolved at least forty times independently around the animal kingdom." For other uses, see Eye (disambiguation). ... It has been suggested that simulation software be merged into this article or section. ...

God's utility function

This chapter explores the meaning of life or, in other words, the purpose of life. This is the why question about life which philosophers and theologians have been pondering in vain for ages, and is a counterpart to the how question about nature which engineers have been able to resolve successfully. Gods utility function is a phrase coined by Richard Dawkins in his book River Out of Eden. ... This article is about the concept of the meaning of life. ...

Dawkins opens the chapter quoting how Charles Darwin lost his faith in religion, "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars." We ask why a caterpillar should suffer such cruel punishment. We ask why digger wasps couldn't first kill caterpillars to save them from a prolonged and agonizing torture. We ask why a child should die an untimely death. And we ask why we should all grow old and die. For other people of the same surname, and places and things named after Charles Darwin, see Darwin. ... Omnibenevolence is sometimes used to describe the property of being perfectly or absolutely good. ... Omnipotence (literally, all power) is the power to do absolutely anything. ... This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ... Subfamilies Lycorininae Orthopelmatinae Orthocentrinae Tersilochinae Microleptinae Mesochorinae Xoridinae Acaenitinae Ophioninae Anomaloninae Cremastinae Porizontinae Diplazontinae Metopiinae Scolobatinae Tryphoninae Banchinae Ephialtinae (=Pimplinae) Gelinae (=Crytinae) Ichneumoninae The Ichneumonidae is a family of the Ichneumonoidea Categories: Insect stubs ... This article is about insect larvae. ... Species of Sphex numerous Sphex is a genus of insects in the Family Sphecidae, order Hymenoptera. ... It has been suggested that Longevity genes be merged into this article or section. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

Dawkins rephrases the word purpose in terms of what economists call a utility function, meaning "that which is maximized". Engineers often investigate the intended purpose (or utility function) of a piece of equipment using reverse engineering. Dawkins uses this technique to reverse-engineer the purpose in the mind of the Divine Engineer of Nature, or the Utility Function of God. Economists are scholars conducting research in the field of economics. ... This article is about utility in economics and in game theory. ... Engineering is the application of scientific and technical knowledge to solve human problems. ... Reverse engineering (RE) is the process of taking something (a device, an electrical component, a software program, etc. ...

Dawkins shows that it is a mistake to assume that an ecosystem or a species as a whole exists for a purpose. In fact, it is wrong to suppose that individual organisms lead a meaningful life either. In nature, only genes have a utility function – to perpetuate their own existence with indifference to great sufferings inflicted upon the organisms they build, exploit and discard. As hinted at in chapter one, genes are the supreme lords of the natural world. A coral reef near the Hawaiian islands is an example of a complex marine ecosystem. ... For other uses, see Species (disambiguation). ...

As long as an organism survives its childhood and manages to reproduce thus passing its genes down to the next generation, what happens to the parent organism afterwards does not really bother genes. Because an organism is always at the danger of dying from accidents (a waste of investment), it pays for the genes to build an organism which pools almost all its resources to produce offspring as early as possible. Thus we accumulate damages to our body as we age and harbor late-onset diseases such as Huntington's disease which have minimum impact on the evolutionary success of our gene overlords.

Genes are pitilessly indifferent to who or what gets hurt, so long as DNA is passed on. Dawkins wrote at the end:

The replication bomb

In the last chapter, Dawkins considers how Darwinian evolution may look like outside of planet Earth. It seems that the trigger event would be the spontaneous arising of self-replicating entities or the phenomenon of heredity. Once this process is initiated, it will launch an explosion of replicating entities until all available resources are used and all vacant niches are taken. Thus the title of this book. This article is about Earth as a planet. ... Self-replication is the process by which some things make copies of themselves. ... See Heredity (disambiguation) for other meanings. ...

Dawkins tries to distill ten milestones from the history of the only one replication bomb we know of, life on Earth. He strips any local conditions peculiar to Earth from these milestones which he calls thresholds, in the hope that these thresholds will be applicable to an alien evolution in an alien planetary system. â€œGreen peopleâ€ redirects here. ... An artists concept of a protoplanetary disc. ...

From the starting point of the Replicator Threshold, we may eventually reach the higher thresholds of Consciousness, Language, Technology, and Radio. The final threshold is Space Travel. In reaching the moon, we have hardly made it past the front door. Still frame from July 20, 1969 video transmission of Buzz Aldrin stepping onto the surface of the Moon. ...

References

Categories: 1995 books | Biology books | Genetic genealogy | Science books | Books by Richard Dawkins 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. ... 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. ... Original book cover from the painting The Expectant Valley by zoologist Desmond Morris The Selfish Gene is a very popular and somewhat controversial book on evolutionary theory by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976. ... A cathedral termite mount â€“ a small animal with a very noticeable extended phenotype The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene is a 1982 book by British ethologist Richard Dawkins. ... Cover illustration by the zoologist Desmond Morris The Blind Watchmaker is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins in which he presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. ... Climbing Mount Improbable cover Climbing Mount Improbable is a 1996 popular science book by Richard Dawkins. ... Unweaving the Rainbow (subtitled Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder) is a book by Richard Dawkins, published in 1998 discussing the relationship between science and arts from the perspective of a scientist. ... A Devils Chaplain (Phoenix, 2003, ISBN 0753817500) is a book collecting selected essays and other writings by the British zoologist Richard Dawkins. ... The Ancestors Tale cover The Ancestors Tale (subtitled A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life) is a 2004 popular science book by Richard Dawkins, with contributions from Dawkins research assistant Yan Wong. ... The God Delusion is a book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (669x716, 44 KB) Picture of Prof. ... The Atheism Tapes is a BBC TV documentary series by Jonathan Miller. ... The Root of All Evil? is a television documentary, written and presented by Richard Dawkins, in which he argues that the world would be better off without religion. ... For the Frantics album, see Enemies of Reason. ... Growing Up in the Universe is a series of lectures given by Richard Dawkins as part of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, where he discusses the evolution of life in the universe. ... For other uses, see Meme (disambiguation). ... Gerin Oil or Geriniol is a fictional drug used as a device to criticize religion in articles written by Richard Dawkins. ... The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS or RDF) is a non-profit organization founded by biologist Richard Dawkins in 2006. ... Lalla Ward (born Sarah Ward, June 28, 1951) is an English actress and illustrator best known for playing the part of Romana in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. ...

Contents