Philosopher · Contemporary
Richard Dawkins
b. 1941 · Scientific naturalism (New Atheism)
An evolutionary biologist and the best-known of the “New Atheists”; raised Anglican, unbelieving since his teens.
Dawkins's Selfish Gene restated evolution from the gene's point of view and coined “meme”; The Blind Watchmaker argued that natural selection explains apparent design; The God Delusion treated God as a scientific hypothesis, found it almost certainly false, and called religious upbringing a form of abuse. He holds that science is the only road to knowledge and that morality drifts with a “shifting moral Zeitgeist.”
Why he matters: He made atheism a popular cause and forced Catholic apologetics (Feser, Haught, McGrath) to restate the classical arguments and the distinction between the God of the philosophers and a “designer” within the universe; Fides et Ratio 88 names the scientism he represents.
Where to be careful
Atheism and scientism are contrary to Dei Filius ch. 2 and Fides et Ratio 88; the denial of the soul, free will and the natural law is contrary to Lateran V, Trent and Veritatis Splendor; his account of God as a complex entity inside the universe misreads what the Church means by God (CCC 42–43).
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.