Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and popular science author. He was formerly Professor for Public Understanding of Science at Oxford and was a fellow of New College, Oxford.

Dawkins came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme. In 1982, he made a widely cited contribution to evolutionary biology with the concept, presented in his book The Extended Phenotype, that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms.

Dawkins is well known for his candid criticism of creationism and intelligent design. In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, he argued against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he described evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker. He has since written several popular science books and makes regular television and radio appearances, predominantly discussing these topics.

A vocal atheist, Dawkins further expanded his critique of religion in The God Delusion (2006), where he argues that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist, calling religious faith a delusion. He founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science in 2006. Dawkins has published two volumes of memoirs, An Appetite for Wonder (2013) and Brief Candle in the Dark (2015).