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

Dawkins gained 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 significant contribution to evolutionary biology with the concept presented in his book The Extended Phenotype, which posits that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not limited to an organism's body but can extend into the environment, affecting other organisms.

He 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 on the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he described evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker. Dawkins has authored several popular science books and makes regular television and radio appearances to discuss these topics.

In 2006, Dawkins published The God Delusion, asserting that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion. He also 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).