An Evening with Richard Dawkins
The controversial evolutionary biologist – who coined the term ‘meme’ – is touring Australia and New Zealand for a series of unscripted conversations about religion, science and the importance of reason.
A lot has happened in the world since Richard Dawkins last visited Australia. The best-selling British author and evolutionary biologist toured here in 2018, about a year before the spread of Covid skepticism and conspiratorial thinking began to threaten popular faith in scientists and scientific reasoning .
It’s a topic the prominent atheist will most likely touch on when he comes here for a series of unscripted conversations, where he’ll discuss science, religion and more.
Dawkins is one of the most influential scientists of our time. He wrote a number of books, including his highly acclaimed 1976 title, The selfish gene, which held that natural selection operates at the genetic level rather than at the level of the individual or species. It is in this book that Dawkins introduces the concept of “memes”.
He is also famous for his 2006 The illusion of Godwhere he discussed the benefits of atheism for society and the individual.
While he won millions of followers for his impassioned arguments about the vital importance of science, reason and critical thinking, and won awards for his contributions to communicating scientific concepts to the public, Dawkins also courted controversy.
He recently fell under criticism for comments he made on Twitter about trans peopleand in 2014 he raised his eyebrows in suggesting that it is immoral not to abort a fetus with Down syndrome.
Her six-city tour kicks off in Melbourne before heading to Sydney, Perth and Brisbane, then ending in New Zealand. Tickets go on sale Thursday, June 30 at 10 a.m. local time.