Basic Books is a book publisher founded in 1952 and located in New York. It publishes books in the fields of psychology, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, current affairs, and history.

History[link]

Basic Books is a member of the Perseus Books Group, since its sale by HarperCollins in 1997.^[1] Harper had owned the press since 1969.

Basic Books publishes the imprint Basic Civitas. Basic's list of authors includes Susan R. Barry, Stephen Carter, Iris Chang, George Chauncey, Richard Feynman, Niall Ferguson, Howard Gardner, Douglas Hofstadter, Victor Johnston, Irving Kristol, Edward Larson, Charles R. Marsh, Ernst Mayr, Alice Miller, Charles Murray, George H. Nash, Robert Nozick, Seymour Papert, Orlando Patterson, Samantha Power, Thomas Sowell, Beverly Tatum, Lester Thurow, Frank Wilczek and Irvin Yalom.

Select bibliography[link]

• It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism, Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein (2012)

Footnotes[link]

External links[link]

• Basic Books website
• Perseus Group website

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David Pawson
Born	1930
Occupation	International Bible Expositor, theologist, Pastor, previously Chaplain
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Durham University & Cambridge University
Genres	Christian apologetics, Evangelist
Subjects	Bible study (Christian)

J. David Pawson (born 1930) is a prominent Bible teacher based in Great Britain. He is the author of more than thirty books.

Biography[link]

According to his autobiography,^[1] Pawson's immediate ancestors were all farmers, Methodist preachers or both - dating back to John Pawson, a friend and follower of John Wesley. His father, H. Cecil Pawson, was head of Agriculture at Durham University and also Vice President of the Methodist conference.^[2] From his childhood in the north of England David Pawson had wanted to be a farmer, but by the time he had completed his studies for a B.Sc. in Agriculture at Durham University, he felt God was calling him into full-time Christian ministry. He then studied for an M.A. in theology at Wesley House, Cambridge University, and subsequently joined the Royal Air Force as a chaplain, serving in Aden.

After leaving the RAF he served as a Methodist minister, but became increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of infant baptism. After appearing before a doctrinal committee of the Methodist church, he volunteered to leave the denomination, and did so. Shortly thereafter he accepted an invitation to become the pastor of Gold Hill Baptist Church in Buckinghamshire.

Later, as pastor of Guildford Baptist Church ('Millmead', which he helped to design), he established a reputation among both evangelicals and charismatics as a Bible teacher. From here his teaching tapes - originally made for the church's sick and elderly members - became popular worldwide. Under his ministry, Millmead became one of the largest Baptist churches in the United Kingdom.

Pawson left Millmead in 1979 and engaged in an itinerant worldwide Bible teaching ministry. As of 2010, Pawson, aged 80, is still preaching at events across the globe.

Teachings[link]

In The Normal Christian Birth, Pawson argued that a biblical initiation into Christianity should involve more than a simple 'sinners prayer'. Whilst accepting the fundamental basis of salvation by faith, he argued that the Biblical model of a person's "birth" into God's kingdom included aspects which are frequently ignored or forgotten today. He proposed four principal steps: repentance towards God; believing in Jesus, baptism in water and receiving the Holy Spirit. This, according to Pawson, is the biblical pattern for a "normal Christian birth". According to the book itself, "David Pawson advocates a synthesis of the 'liberal' emphasis on repentance, the 'evangelical' on faith, the 'sacramental' on baptism and the 'pentecostal' on the Spirit." This work of Pawson has been influential and is taught at a number of theological seminaries and mission stations.

In Leadership is Male, he teaches that leadership is a role given by God to men. In so doing, he criticizes men for not taking proper responsibility in important aspects of family and church life. He argues that modern men too often neglect their social obligations and should return to the Biblical model of manhood. This book's foreword was written by a woman, Elisabeth Elliot.

In The Road to Hell, Pawson is critical of Annihilationism, the teaching that the punishment of hell is not eternal. He teaches that people who go to hell experience eternal suffering. According to the book itself, by "challenging the modern alternatives of liberal 'universalism' and evangelical 'annihilationism', David Pawson presents the traditional concept of endless torment as soundly biblical."

In Unlocking the Bible, Pawson presents a book by book study of the whole Bible. The book is based on Pawson's belief that the Bible should be studied, as it was written, "a book at a time" (certainly not a verse, or even a chapter at a time); and that each book is best understood by discovering why and for whom it was written. It is based on an arranged series of talks in which he set out the background, purpose, meaning and relevance of each book of the Bible, and was transcribed into written form by Andy Peck. The groundwork for this study was laid in the 1960s and '70s, when Pawson took his congregation through nearly half of the Old Testament and all of the New Testament line by line (recordings of those studies are still distributed).

In When Jesus Returns, he critically considers in the light of scripture the major views on eschatology popular in the church today, specifically the preterist, historicist, futurist and idealist schools of interpreting the Book of Revelation. He rejects postmillennialism in favour of a premillennial understanding of the Second Coming, so that Jesus will return bodily in power immediately before his reign over the world for a millennium from Jerusalem. He asserts that the supernatural taking up of believers alive at this time (following the 'tribulation' period of persecution), so as to join the returning Christ, fulfils the Rapture prophecies; he argues against a pre-tribulation timing of the rapture. He further argues that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land is a fulfilment of scriptural prophecy, and that prophecies spoken about Israel relate specifically to Israel (not to the church), so that the outstanding prophecies about Israel will be fulfilled before the end of the age.

In Jesus Baptises in One Holy Spirit, Pawson discusses the evidence for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit as a separate event from believing, repentance and water baptism. He argues that a believer does not receive the indwelling Holy Spirit until s/he is baptized in the Spirit, a distinct experience evidenced by charismatic gifts such as prophecy or tongues. This differs from the evangelical view that the Spirit is automatically received when a person believes, and the Pentecostal view that receiving the indwelling Spirit (at conversion) and receiving the Baptism in the Spirit are two experiences with different purposes.

In The Challenge of Islam to Christians, Pawson documents the present rapid rise of Islam in the West. He explains what Islam is, arguing that its rejection of Jesus Christ's divinity mean the two faiths cannot be reconciled, and he proposes a Christian response, based on the church purifying itself. The book details Pawson's testing of his premonition that Britain would become Islamic. In comparing the situation to that portrayed by the Hebrew prophet Habakkuk, Pawson implies that the rise of Islam could be impending judgement for the immorality into which Western churches and secular humanist society has sunk.

In Once Saved, Always Saved?, Pawson uses scripture to question the frequent evangelical claim that someone who has once believed in Jesus Christ will end up with Christ in heaven whatever that person subsequently believes or does. (Twelve years earlier, another evangelical, RT Kendall, summed up this claim in a book having the same title without a question mark.) Pawson points to the need to persevere in faith, and to the repeated exhortations in scripture to do so.

In Word and Spirit Together: Uniting Charismatics and Evangelicals (a revision of Fourth Wave), Pawson calls for an end to the division between charismatic and Evangelical Christians over the issue of Spiritual Baptism and charismatic gifts. He argues that the charismatic gifts are for the church today but that their practice should be built on a solid scriptural basis. He therefore argues that the two groups should learn from each other, to the benefit of both.

In Defending Christian Zionism, Pawson puts the case that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land is a fulfilment of scriptural prophecy, and that Christians should support the existence of the Jewish State (although not unconditionally its actions) on theological grounds. He also argues that prophecies spoken about Israel relate specifically to Israel (not to the church, as in "replacement theology"). However he criticises Dispensationalism, a largely American movement holding similar views about Israel. Pawson was spurred to write this book by the work of Stephen Sizer, an evangelical Anglican who rejects Christian Zionism. A debate can be heard between the two at Pawson/Sizer debate. Pawson's book Israel in the New Testament continues the Christian Zionist theme.

In the Come with me through series, Pawson goes through an entire book of the Bible. This series is also based on the preaching of David Pawson to his congregation back in the 60's and 70's. There are currently just a few titles released in this series with more to come.

Books[link]

• Christianity Explained, 2006, David Pawson, Terra Nova Publications, ISBN 1-901949-46-X
• Explaining Water Baptism, 2000, David Pawson, Sovereign World Ltd, ISBN 1-85240-083-8
• Explaining the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, 2004, David Pawson, Joyce Huggett, Sovereign World, ISBN 1-85240-383-7
• Explaining the Resurrection, 2000, David Pawson, Sovereign World, Ltd, ISBN 1-85240-089-7
• Explaining the Second Coming, 2000, David Pawson, Renew, ISBN 1-85240-118-4
• Hope for the Millennium, 1999, David Pawson, Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 0-340-73559-7
• Head in the Clouds, 1999, David Pawson, Hodder & Stoughton Religious, ISBN 0-340-60812-9
• Is John 3:16 the Gospel?, 2007, David Pawson, Terra Nova Publications International Ltd, ISBN 1-901949-55-9
• Infant Baptism Under Cross-examination, 1976, David Pawson, Colin Buchanan, Grove Books Ltd, ISBN 0-901710-89-X
• Is the Blessing Biblical?, 1996, David Pawson, Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 0-340-66147-X
• Jesus Baptises in One Holy Spirit: When?, How?, Why?, Who?, 1997, David Pawson, Hodder&Stoughton Religious, ISBN 0-340-69398-3
• Jesus Baptises In One Holy Spirit, 2006, David Pawson, Terra Nova Publications, ISBN 1-901949-44-3
• Leadership Is Male, 1990, David Pawson, Thomas Nelson Inc, ISBN 0-8407-9023-6
• Loose Leaves From My Bible, 1994, David Pawson, North Bank Graphics, ISBN 0-9522985-0-3
• Not as Bad as the Truth: Memoirs of an Unorthodox Evangelical, 2006, David Pawson, Hodder Headline, ISBN 0-340-86427-3
• Once Saved, Always Saved?: A Study in Perseverance and Inheritance, David Pawson, Roger Forster, Hodder Headline, 1996, ISBN 0-340-61066-2
• Tell me the truth!, 1977, David Pawson, Harold Shaw, ISBN 0-87788-837-X
• The Road to Hell: Everlasting Torment or Annihilation? 1996, David Pawson, Hodder Headline 1996 and Terra Nova Publications International Ltd 2007, ISBN 0-340-53964-X
• The Normal Christian Birth: How to Give New Believers a Proper Start in Life, David Pawson, Hodder & Stoughton 1989 and Hodder Headline 1991, ISBN 0-340-48972-3
• The Challenge of Islam to Christians, 2003, David Pawson, Hodder Headline, ISBN 0-340-86189-4
• Unlocking the Bible Omnibus: A Unique Overview of the Whole Bible, 2003, David Pawson, HarperCollins UK, ISBN 0-00-716666-4
• When Jesus Returns, 1995, David Pawson, Hodder & Stoughton Religious, ISBN 0-340-61211-8
• Word And Spirit Together, 2007, David Pawson, Terra Nova Publications, ISBN 1-901949-53-2
• Where is Jesus now?, 2001, David Pawson, Kingsway Publications, ISBN 0-85476-930-7
• Why Does God Allow Natural Disasters?, 2007, David Pawson, Terra Nova Publications, 2007, ISBN 1-901949-56-7
• Defending Christian Zionism, 2008, David Pawson, Terra Nova Publications, 2008, ISBN 978-1-901949-62-9
• Practising the Principles of Prayer, 2008, David Pawson, Terra Nova Publications, ISBN 978-1-901949-58-2
• Living in Hope, 2008, David Pawson, Terra Nova Publications, ISBN 978-1-901949-60-5
• The God and the Gospel of Righteousness, 2008, David Pawson, Terra Nova Publications, ISBN 978-1-901949-59-9
• Come with me through Revelation, 2008, David Pawson, Terra Nova Publications, ISBN 978-1-901949-61-2
• Israel in the New Testament, 2009, David Pawson, Terra Nova Publications, ISBN 978-1-901949-64-3
• Come with me through Mark, 2009, David Pawson, Terra Nova Publications, ISBN 978-1-901949-66-7

References[link]

External links[link]

• David Pawson website
• A brief history of Guildford Baptist Church

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (May 2012)

Thomas Sowell (born June 30, 1930) is an American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, and author. A National Humanities Medal winner, he advocates laissez-faire economics and writes from a conservative and libertarian perspective. He is currently a Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Sowell was born in North Carolina, but grew up in Harlem, New York. He dropped out of high school, and served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. He received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1958 and a master's degree from Columbia University in 1959. In 1968, he earned his doctorate degree in economics from the University of Chicago.

Sowell has served on the faculties of several universities, including Cornell and University of California, Los Angeles, and worked for think tanks such as the Urban Institute. Since 1980 he has worked at the Hoover Institution. He is the author of more than 30 books.

Biography[link]

An African-American, Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina. His father died shortly before he was born, and his mother, a house maid, already had four children. A great-aunt and her two grown daughters adopted Sowell and raised him.^[1] In his autobiography, A Personal Odyssey, he said his childhood encounters with white people were so limited that he did not believe blond was really a hair color.^[2] When Sowell was nine, his family moved from Charlotte, North Carolina to Harlem, New York City. He attended Stuyvesant High School, the first in his family to study beyond the sixth grade. However, he was forced to drop out at age 17 because of financial difficulties and problems in his home.^[1] He worked at a number of jobs, including at a machine shop and as a delivery man for Western Union,^[3] and tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1948.^[4] Sowell was drafted in 1951, during the Korean War, and was assigned to the Marine Corps. Because of his experience in photography, he was assigned as a photographer, but he also trained Marines in .45 caliber pistol proficiency.^[1]

After his discharge, Sowell worked a civil service job in Washington, D.C. and attended night classes at Howard University, admitted on the basis of his General Education certificate. His high scores on the College Board exams and recommendations by two professors helped him gain admission to Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1958 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.^[1][5] He received a Master of Arts from Columbia University the following year, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968.^[5]

Sowell had initially chosen Columbia University to study under George Stigler (who would later receive the Nobel Prize in Economics). When he learned that Stigler had moved to the University of Chicago, he followed him there.^[6]

Sowell has taught economics at Howard University, Rutgers, Cornell, Brandeis University, Amherst College, and UCLA. Since 1980 he has been a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he holds a fellowship named after Rose and Milton Friedman, his mentor.^[5][7]

In 1987, Sowell testified in favor of federal appeals court judge Robert Bork during the hearings for Bork's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. In his testimony, Sowell said that Bork was "the most highly qualified nominee of this generation" and that judicial activism, a concept that Bork opposed, "has not been beneficial to minorities."^[8]

Sowell has stated that he was a Marxist “during the decade of my 20s"; one of his earliest professional publications was a sympathetic examination of Marxist thought vs. Marxist-Leninist practice.^[9] His experience working as a federal government intern during the summer of 1960 caused him to reject Marxian economics in favor of free market economic theory. During his work, Sowell discovered a correlation between the rise of mandated minimum wages for workers in the sugar industry of Puerto Rico and the rise of unemployment in that industry. Studying the patterns led Sowell to theorize that the government employees who administered the minimum wage law cared more about their own jobs than the plight of the poor.^[10]

Writings[link]

Sowell is both a syndicated columnist and an academic economist.

Besides scholarly writing, Sowell has written books, articles, and syndicated columns for a general audience in such publications as Forbes Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and major newspapers. He is a regular contributor to GOPUSA, a conservative web and email newsletter run by Endeavor Media Group, LLC. He primarily writes on economic subjects, generally advocating a free market approach to capitalism. Sowell, whose autobiography describes his serious study of Brady McGarry, opposes Marxism, providing a critique in his book Marxism: Philosophy and Economics.

Sowell also writes on racial topics and is a critic of affirmative action and race based quotas.^[11][12] While often described as a black conservative, he prefers not to be labeled, and considers himself more libertarian than conservative.^[13]

In another departure from economics, Sowell wrote The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late, a follow-up to his Late-Talking Children. This book investigates the phenomenon of late-talking children, frequently misdiagnosed with autism or pervasive developmental disorder. He includes the research of—among others—Professor Stephen Camarata, Ph.D., of Vanderbilt University and Professor Steven Pinker, Ph.D., of Harvard University in this overview of a poorly understood developmental trait. It is a trait which he says affected many historical figures. He includes famous late-talkers such as physicists Albert Einstein, Edward Teller and Richard Feynman; mathematician Julia Robinson; and musicians Arthur Rubenstein and Clara Schumann. The book and its contributing researchers make a case for the theory that some children develop unevenly (asynchronous development) for a period in childhood due to rapid and extraordinary development in the analytical functions of the brain. This may temporarily “rob resources” from neighboring functions such as language development. The book contradicts Simon Baron-Cohen’s speculation that Einstein may have had Asperger syndrome (see also people speculated to have been autistic).

Themes of Sowell’s writing range from social policy on race, ethnic groups, education and decision-making, to classical and Marxist economics, to the problems of children perceived as having disabilities.

In Intelligence and Ethnicity, Sowell argues that IQ gaps are hardly startling or unusual between, or within, ethnic groups. He notes that the roughly 15-point gap in contemporary black–white IQ scores is similar to that between the national average and the scores of particular ethnic white groups in years past.

Sowell has also written a trilogy of books on ideologies and political positions, including A Conflict of Visions where he speaks about the origins of political strife, The Vision of the Anointed, where he compares the conservative/libertarian and liberal/progressive worldviews,The Quest for Cosmic Justice, where, like in many of his other writings, he outlines his thesis of the need for intellectuals, politicians and leaders to fix and perfect the world in utopian, and ultimately he posits, disastrous fashions. Separate from the trilogy, but also in discussion of the subject, he wrote Intellectuals and Society, where he discusses what he argues to be the blind hubris and follies of intellectuals in a variety of areas, building on his earlier work.

Sowell takes strong issue with the notion of government as a helper or savior of minorities, arguing that the historical record shows quite the opposite.

Sowell also challenges the notion that black progress is due to progressive government programs or policies, in The Economics and Politics of Race, (1983), Ethnic America (1981), Affirmative Action (2004), and other books. He claims that many problems identified with blacks in modern society are hardly unique in terms of American ethnic groups, nor in terms of a rural proletariat swept by disruption as it became urbanized, discussed in his book Black Rednecks and White Liberals.

In Affirmative Action Around the World^[14] Sowell holds that affirmative action covers most of the American population, particularly women, and has long since ceased to be directed towards blacks.

Columns[link]

Sowell has a nationally syndicated column distributed by Creators Syndicate that appears in various newspapers, as well as online on websites such as Townhall, WorldNetDaily, OneNewsNow and the Jewish World Review.^[15]

Sowell comments on issues he considers to be problematic in modern-day society, which include liberal media bias;^[16] judicial activism (while staunchly defending originalism);^{[17][18][19][20][21]} partial birth abortion;^[22] the minimum wage; socializing health care; government undermining of familial autonomy; affirmative action; government ^[23] bureaucracy; militancy in U.S. foreign policy; the U.S. war on drugs, and multiculturalism.^[24]

Sowell supports free market and pro-growth economics. In one column he criticized as socialism for the rich certain policies which he describes as benefiting the wealthy at the expense of the poor.^[25]

Sowell in a Townhall editorial, "The Bush Legacy," assessed President George W. Bush, deeming him "a mixed bag," but "an honorable man."^[26]

Sowell also favors decriminalization of all drugs.^[27]

In November, 2011, a column fiercely critical of "Obama's America" and falsely attributed to Sowell was circulated on the Internet.^[28]

Critical reception[link]

Awards[link]

In 1990, he won the Francis Boyer Award, presented by the American Enterprise Institute. In 1998 he received the Sydney Hook Award from the National Association of Scholars.^[29] In 2002, Sowell was awarded the National Humanities Medal for prolific scholarship melding history, economics, and political science. In 2003, he was awarded the Bradley Prize for intellectual achievement.^[30] In 2004 he was given a Lysander Spooner Award for his book Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One.^[31] In 2008, getAbstract awarded his book Economic Facts and Fallacies with its International Book Award.

Controversies[link]

Sowell has been criticized for various remarks such as a comparison he made between President Barack Obama and Adolf Hitler in an editorial for Investor's Business Daily^[32] after the creation of a relief fund for the BP oil spill. This has been criticized by liberal groups such as Media Matters^[33] and the Democratic National Committee.^[34] However, Republicans such as Sarah Palin^[34] and Representative Louie Gohmert^[35] have endorsed Sowell's comparison.

Sowell was also criticized for an editorial in which he stated that the Democratic Party played the Race card, instigating ethnic divisions and separatism, and argued that a similar situation occurred between the Tutsis and the Hutus in Rwanda.^[36][37]

Economics[link]

The Economist magazine praised Sowell's books Affirmative Action Around the World as "terse, well argued and utterly convincing" and "crammed with striking anecdotes and statistics"^[38] and Economic Facts and Fallacies: "Mr Sowell marshals his arguments with admirable clarity and authority. There is not a chapter in which he does not produce a statistic that both surprises and overturns received wisdom."^[39]

Reviewing Sowell's 1984 book Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality?, University of Chicago sociologist William Julius Wilson said that Sowell did not explore "reasonable alternative explanations and hypotheses" in his critiques of affirmative action. For instance, regarding Sowell's theory that women are underrepresented in fields like law and engineering because of the heavy responsibilities of marriage such as childrearing and other household work: "A plausible alternative to Mr. Sowell's hypothesis on women's pay differentials and occupational segregation is that women are virtually excluded from many desirable positions and therefore crowd into obtainable occupations."^[40] Sowell since then has written on affirmative action in an international context to address such criticisms in two books (Preferential Policies, Affirmative Action Around the World) and has written about pay differentials and occupational segregation in Economic Facts and Fallacies.

Patricia Roberts Harris, who was an official in the Carter Administration, once said that Sowell and Walter Williams "don't know what poverty is." Sowell called her position "a pathetic sign of intellectual bankcruptcy," saying that he "was almost 9 years old before [he] lived in a home with [hot] running water" and that she "was a campus social leader in an 'exclusive sorority' - meaning that it was for middle-class (light-skinned) women" while he worked full time and went to [the same college] at night."^[41]

Career highlights[link]

• Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, September 1980–present
• Professor of Economics, UCLA, July 1974–June 1980
• Visiting Professor of Economics, Amherst College, September–December 1977
• Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, April–August 1977
• Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, July 1976–March 1977
• Project Director, The Urban Institute, August 1972–July 1974
• Associate Professor of Economics, UCLA, September 1970–June 1972
• Associate Professor of Economics, Brandeis University, September 1969–June 1970
• Assistant Professor of Economics, Cornell University, September 1965–June 1969
• Economic Analyst, American Telephone & Telegraph Co., June 1964–August 1965
• Lecturer in Economics, Howard University, September 1963–June 1964
• Instructor in Economics, Douglass College, Rutgers University, September 1962–June 1963
• Labor Economist, U.S. Department of Labor, June 1961–August 1962

Books by Sowell[link]

• 2011. The Thomas Sowell Reader. Basic Books. pp. 464. ISBN 978-0-465-02250-2. 
• 2010. Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy (4th edition ed.). Cambridge, Mass: Perseus Books Group. ISBN 978-0-465-02252-6. 
• 2010. Dismantling America. Basic Books. pp. 352. ISBN 978-0-465-02251-9. 
• 2010. Intellectuals and Society. Basic Books. pp. 416. ISBN 978-0-465-01948-9. 
• 2009. The Housing Boom and Bust. Basic Books. pp. 184. ISBN 978-0-465-01880-2. 
• 2008. Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One (2nd ed.). Basic Books. pp. 400. ISBN 978-0-465-00345-7. OCLC 260206351. 
• 2007. Economic Facts and Fallacies. Basic Books. pp. 262. ISBN 978-0-465-00349-5. 
• 2007. Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy (3rd edition ed.). Cambridge, Mass: Perseus Books Group. ISBN 978-0-465-00260-3. OCLC 76897806. 
• 2007. A Man of Letters. San Francisco: Encounter Books. pp. 320. ISBN 978-1-59403-196-0. 
• 2006. Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. pp. 460. ISBN 978-0-8179-4752-1. 
• 2006. On Classical Economics. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. 2006. pp. 320. ISBN 978-0-300-12606-8. 
• 2005. Black Rednecks and White Liberals: And Other Cultural And Ethnic Issues. San Francisco: Encounter Books. pp. 360. ISBN 978-1-59403-086-4. 
• 2004. Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. pp. 256. ISBN 978-0-300-10775-3. 
• 2004. Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy, revised and expanded ed. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-08145-2 (1st ed. 2000)
• 2003. Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One, ISBN 0-465-08143-6
• 2002. The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late, ISBN 0-465-08141-X
• 2002. Controversial Essays, ISBN 0-8179-2992-4
• 2002. A Personal Odyssey, ISBN 0-684-86465-7
• 2002. The Quest For Cosmic Justice, ISBN 0-684-86463-0
• 1998. Conquests and Cultures: An International History, ISBN 0-465-01400-3
• 1996. Migrations and Cultures: A World View, ISBN 0-465-04589-8 OCLC 41748039
• 1996. The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-08995-X
• 1995. Race and Culture: A World View. Description & chapter previews. ISBN 0-465-06796-4
• 1993. Inside American Education, ISBN 0-7432-5408-2
• 1990. Preferential Policies: An International Perspective, ISBN 0-688-08599-7
• 1987. A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles. William Morrow, ISBN 0-688-06912-6
• 1987. Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays. William Morrow, ISBN 0-688-07114-7
• 1986. Education: Assumptions Versus History. Hoover Press, ISBN 0-8179-8112-8
• 1985. Marxism: Philosophy and Economics. Quill, ISBN 0-688-06426-4
• 1984. Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? William Morrow, ISBN 0-688-03113-7
• 1983. The Economics and Politics of Race. William Morrow, ISBN 0-688-01891-2
• 1981. Ethnic America: A History. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-02074-7
• 1981. Markets and Minorities. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-04399-2
• 1980. Knowledge and Decisions. Basic Books.
• 1975. Race and Economics. David McKay Company Inc, ISBN 0-679-30262-X
• 1972. Say's Law, An Historical Analysis. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-04166-0

See also[link]

Biography portal

• List of newspaper columnists

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Thomas Sowell

• Thomas Sowell’s home page
  • Complete list of writings
• Thomas Sowell Features at Creators Syndicate
• Column archive at Townhall.com
• Free Podcasts of Sowell’s recent articles
• Archive of Articles by Thomas Sowell at JewishWorldReview.com
• Book review of The Einstein Syndrome by Isabelle Rapin, Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
• Snopes.com on Various articles attributed to Thomas Sowell

Articles and interviews[link]

• 'Uncommon Knowledge' Interviews (2008-2011)
• 'The George Jarkesy Show : Sowell on Derrick Bell, Critical Race Theory and Obama Mentors (2012)
• Booknotes interview with Sowell on Preferential Policies, June 10, 1990.
• Fox News - 'In the Right Direction' interview (2005)
• C-SPAN Q&A interview with Sowell, April 17, 2005

• "A Dangerous Obsession" — Part I II, III, IV, and V
• "Too “Complex”?" — Part I, II, & III
• "Alice in Health Care" — Part I, II, III, IV
• "The 'Costs' of Medical Care" — Part I, II, III, IV
• Socialism for the rich by Thomas Sowell (October 6, 2006)
• “10 Questions With Thomas Sowell”, John Hawkins, Right Wing News. Sowell on flat-tax vs. progressive tax, rent-control, balanced budget amendments, protectionist tariffs, poverty and welfare, profit-restriction, illegal immigration, a weak dollar vs. a strong dollar, affirmative action, and reparations.
• 'Uncommon Knowledge' discussion of affirmative action
• Economic Fallacies -- Interview with Thomas Sowell by Bill Steigerwald
• Thomas Sowell- Columns on Jewish World Review website
• “Race and IQ” Detailed discussion of Race and IQ including techniques that have masked the improvement of black IQ scores.
• “Choosing a College” — discusses benefits and costs including college quality, size, specialty, intellectual rigor, social, political and sexual environment of today’s campuses. Recommends hard-nosed parental analysis (including campus visits) that ignores PR fluff and focuses on the bottom line
• “Affirmative Action around the World” - critical analysis of Affirmative Action and its failures worldwide.
• Salon interview with Sowell
• Audio interview with National Review Online
• Sowell on Economic Facts and Fallacies: Audio interview
• Sowell en español

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2011)

Killah Priest
Performing in Chicago, July 2007
Background information
Birth name	Walter Reed
Also known as	Priest
Origin	Brooklyn, New York, United States
Genres	East Coast hip hop, alternative hip hop
Occupations	Rapper, producer, actor
Years active	1993 – present
Labels	Geffen Records, MCA Records, Legion of D.O.O.M.[disambiguation needed ]
Associated acts	Wu-Tang Clan, The HRSMN, Almighty[disambiguation needed ], One Over, Black Market Militia, Starkim, Sunz of Man, Felony Fights, Ras Kass

Walter Reed, better known as Killah Priest, Iron Sheik from the Middle East, or Masada, is an African-American rapper and Wu-Tang Clan affiliate who was raised in Brooklyn. He is known for intensely spiritual lyrics loaded with metaphors and religious references. He is connected to the Black Hebrew Israelites through his rhymes, and is known for controversial and Afrocentric subject matter. He is also a part of supergroup the HRSMN along with Canibus, Ras Kass, and Kurupt. He has a hardcore fan base and has been known to be very generous and giving of his time to his fans and various charitable organizations.

Biography[link]

1990s[link]

Priest first made himself known to the hip hop world rapping on two songs on the Gravediggaz album 6 Feet Deep in 1994, and followed this with two appearances on each of two Wu-Tang Clan solo albums, Ol' Dirty Bastard's Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version and GZA's Liquid Swords, both from 1995 (see 1995 in music). Liquid Swords in fact included a Killah Priest solo track titled "B.I.B.L.E. (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth)". Also in 1995, Priest's group Sunz Of Man with rappers Hell Razah, 60 Second Assassin, Prodigal Sunn were signed to Wu-Tang Records and released three 12" singles through the label. Initially Sunz Of Man included Shabazz the Disciple, who had previously been in a duo with Priest called The Disciples, but Shabazz basically left the group before the contract with Wu-Tang Records was signed, thus only appearing on the B-side "5 Arch Angels".

Killah Priest's first solo album was Heavy Mental, released on Geffen Records in May 1998. It mostly expanded on the themes of "B.I.B.L.E.", featuring religious references and allegory woven into commentary on African American society and history. The album was mostly produced by the Wu-Elements producers, a group of in-house Wu-Tang producers mentored by Wu leader RZA. Sunz Of Man released their debut album The Last Shall Be First later in 1998, but by that time Priest's ties to the Wu were beginning to weaken, as he and long-time friend Shabazz clashed with RZA (their business ties with the Wu also began to weaken after the GZA Entertainment management agency, which they were both signed to, dissolved in 1996). After unsuccessful attempts by the pair to create new post-Wu Tang crews (Priest proposed a crew called the Maccabeez which would include himself, Shabazz and Timbo King among others, while Shabazz proposed a group including himself and Priest called the Sunz Of Thunder) they both effectively went their separate ways and cut their respective Wu-Tang ties.

2000s[link]

After leaving the Wu stable, and consequently also effectively leaving Sunz Of Man, Priest helped form the hip hop supergroup The HRSMN with Ras Kass, Canibus and Kurupt. In October 2003, Killah Priest and Dreddy Kruger released a nine track album entitled The Horsemen Project. It was released independently through Think Differently Music/Proverbs Music Inc. and was only available to purchase off the internet.^[1] Each track featured at least two members of the group as well as an appearance by Pak Man. It is currently unknown who handled the majority of the production on the album, although it is known that Mark Sparks was responsible for two songs. On Killah Priest's HipHopGame.com journal, he mentions the Horsemen a few times. The talks about a new album were mentioned on the May 1, 2006 entry. He said "The Horsemen project is definitely going to come. Right now we just have to get Kurupt. He's been doing the Dogg Pound thing, but it's definitely going to come. We have songs recorded and we have more in store."^[2]

Ras Kass and Canibus were featured on Priest's second album, View From Masada, which featured no Wu-Tang input whatsoever (though the album's liner notes included the note "Peace to Wu-Tang Clan"). The album had a decidedly more commercially minded style than Heavy Mental, and introduced his new Maccabeez crew, featuring a crew of then-unknown rappers. The album was also an important early stepping stone to stardom for producer Just Blaze, who would later go on to produce countless mainstream hip hop hits for the likes of Cam'ron, Erick Sermon, Fabolous and Jay-Z. However, View From Masada received mixed reviews.

Priest had to leave the major labels behind after View From Masada sold poorly. His first independent release Priesthood (2001), released on Proverbs Music, his own record label, was critically acclaimed though it suffered from very limited distribution. Black August followed in 2003 on Recon Records, and was also well-received. Priest also released an album on the Internet titled Black August Revisited a few months after the release of Black August which shared few similarities with the original, save its title. Black August Revisited also saw Priest rediscover his Wu-Tang ties, including collaborations with Hell Razah and Ol' Dirty Bastard. He also appeared in the music video for the single "Made You Look" by fellow New York rapper Nas.

In 2004, Priest performed numerous times with other Wu-Tang Killa Beez and also appeared on Masta Killa's album No Said Date. November 2005 saw the re-release of Priesthood on Mic Club Music, a label owned by Louis Lombard III (aka Luminati), who produced Priesthood as well as recent albums by Canibus. March 2007 saw the release of Killah Priest's mixtape album "End of the World".

On August 21, 2007, Killah Priest released The Offering, which was sequenced by his former manager, Stacey Castro and featured appearances from Nas, Immortal Technique, his fellow HRSMN, & 4th Disciple as well as Hell Razah, who appears on the advance single title track that was released in October 2005.

Killah Priest next album titled Behind the Stained Glass, was released on May 20, 2008 on the label Good Hands Records. It's reported that he's also in the midst of recording Behind the Stained Glass Part Two.^[3] Killah Priest also released an album titled Elizabeth on October 20, 2009 on Proverbs Records, which Priest owns. Killah Priest is also recording another double album called The Psychic World of Walter Reed, produced by Dutch producers Godz Wrath, 4th Disciple, RZA, DJ Woool and more. Killah Priest also mentioned in a YouTube interview for Pyramid West that he is also working on a sequel to Heavy Mental called Heavier Mental.

2010s and beyond[link]

In a August 2010 radio interview with Mista Montana, Killah Priest discussed the creation of his next album PWOWR, stating that the Rza and many other key Wu Tang Clan members will feature on there, including the Four Horsemen.^[4] Throughout the past and currently Killah Priest has been barking about the unofficial wutang website wu-international(fan website) and affiliated website wutancorp for not supporting wutang affiliates album campaigns properly during album releases.

Discography[link]

Solo albums[link]

Group albums[link]

Album information
The Last Shall Be First with Sunz of Man Released: July 21, 1998 Label: Red Ant Entertainment Singles: "Natural High", "Shining Star"/"Cold", "The Plan"/"Collaboration '98"
The First Testament with Sunz of Man Released: January 31, 1999 Label: Red Hook Records Singles: "Deep in the Water"/"In the Beginning..."/"The Sins of Man", "Who are the Sunz of Man?"/"The Valley of Death"/"Bring Back the Mike"/"Valley of Kings"
The Horsemen Project with The HRSMN Released: 2003 Billboard 200 chart position: - R&B/Hip-Hop chart position: - Singles: -
Black Market Militia Released: March 22, 2005 Billboard 200 chart position: - R&B/Hip-Hop chart position: - Singles: "Audobon Ballroom"/"Thug Nation"/"Hood Lullabye", "Gem Stars (Remix)"/"Mayday!"
Original S.I.N. with Almighty[disambiguation needed ] Released: July 22, 2008 Billboard 200 chart position: - R&B/Hip-Hop chart position: - Singles: "Obey (The Statesmen)"
Beautiful Minds with Chief Kamachi[5] Released: September 23, 2008 Billboard 200 chart position: - R&B/Hip-Hop chart position: - Singles: -
RawzChyld The Creation of Care Released: TBA Billboard 200 chart position: - R&B/Hip-Hop chart position: - Singles: "Run On"/"Amen Ra"/"Illuminati"
The Lamb's Supper with Hell Razah as Thug Vaticans [6] Released: 2012 Billboard 200 chart position: - R&B/Hip-Hop chart position: - Singles: "New Millennium Child"

Guest appearances[link]

• 1994 "Diary of a Madman" and "Graveyard Chamber" (Gravediggaz album 6 Feet Deep)
• 1995 "Where Ya At?" and "Where Ya At? (extended version)" (with Ice-T, Ice Cube, Chuck D, RZA, Kam, Mobb Deep, DA Smart, Insane, Shorty, & Smooth B) and "Wicked Ways" (with Sunz Of Man) (from One Million Strong)
• 1995 "Greyhound, Pt. 2" (from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion album Experimental Remixes)
• 1995 "Snakes"; "Proteck Ya Neck II The Zoo"; & "Don't U Know" (from the Ol' Dirty Bastard album Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version)
• 1995 "4th Chamber" & "B.I.B.L.E. (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth)" (from the GZA album Liquid Swords)
• 1996 "America" (from the AIDS compilation album America Is Dying Slowly)
• 1996 "Parle (Hip-Hop Remix)" (with Kavalier album Nikera)
• 1997 "Repentance Day" (off the Gravediggaz album The Pick, the Sickle and the Shovel)
• 1998 "Degree Zero" (from the DJ Spooky album Riddim Warfare)
• 1998 "Abide By" (with other HRSMN members Canibus, Ras Kass, & Kurupt from a 12" single called "White Label")
• 1998 "No Superstar" (from the Bounty Killer album Next Millennium)
• 1998 "Moanin"(By Antonio Chance,Killa Sin) and "Street Opera" (from the "One Step" UK single)
• 1998 "5 Boroughs" (with KRS-One, Buckshot, Cam'Ron, Redman, Run, Keith Murray, Prodigy, & Vigilante) (The Corrupter Soundtrack)
• 1999 "4 Bars" (along with Canibus & Rose Cartel from Universal)
• 1999 "Real Nigga Livin" (with Fat Kat Kareem) (album unknown)
• 1999 "Temple of the Mental" (from the Material album Intonarumori)
• 1999 "Beneath The Surface" Feat, RES (From GZA/Genius "Beneath The Surface")
• 1999 "1112" Feat, Masta Killa & Njeri (From GZA/Genius "Beneath The Surface")
• 1999 "Feel Like An Enemy" Feat, Hell Raizah, Trigga & Prodigal Sun (From GZA/Genius "Beneath The Surface")
• 2000 "Horsementality" (from the Canibus album 2000 B.C.)
• 2000 "Im a Horseman (Promo)" (on Tim Westwood's Radio 1 Rap Show with HRSMN members Canibus & Ras Kass)
• 2001 "Bread of Life" (from the Cappadonna album The Yin and the Yang)
• 2001 "Catechism" (with DJ Spooky off the Wu-Chronicles, Chapter 2)
• 2001 "In Here" (from the Guru album Baldhead Slick & Da Click)
• 2002 "Catechism Part 2" (with DJ Spooky)
• 2002 "Out Tha Spot” (with Kurupt) (Released: 2002 (Unknown))
• 2002 "No Chaser" (with Raze, Hot Rod, & Fokis) (also released in 2003 by Raze on "Leavin Empty Shells")
• 2004 "Masters Degree" (with Block McCloud, Jean Grae, & Pumpkinhead on album Uncle Howie)
• 2004 "Ain't No Way" ((with the HRSMN) off the unreleased album Catch Me If You Can)
• 2004 "Never Imagined" (with Main Flow & Master Foul, off the album Hip-Hopulation)
• 2004 "Chains" (with Masta Killa) (from R.A. The Rugged Man album Die, Rugged Man, Die)
• 2004 "Secret Rivals" (from the Masta Killa album No Said Date)
• 2004 "Saviorself" (from the Jedi Mind Tricks album Legacy of Blood)
• 2005 "Champions" (with Soulstice) and "Wannabattle Tactics" (with Buckshot & Donte) (from Main Flow album Notebook Assassins)
• 2005 "Horsemen" (by Pak-Man and the HRSMN off the Pak-Man album Chow Time)
• 2005 "The Saints" (with Nas) (From the Dirty Harry mixtape The Warriors)
• 2005 "The 10 Plagues" (by Socalled off the Socalled album The Socalled Seder)
• 2005 "Testimony" (with SHI 360 and Remedy)
• 2006 "Beastin" (from the Chino XL album Poison Pen)
• 2006 "Constant Dreams" (from The UNDC album Closed captioned)
• 2006 "Pagan Helmets" (from Neurologists album As The Dark Settles)
• 2007 "Awaiting The Hour" (From The Ill Bill mixtape Black Metal)
• 2007 "Divine Sacred" (from Lightborn album "The Psychology of Fire")
• 2007 "Shall I Continue" (from Gumz album From Fetus to Genius...)
• 2007 "In The Name Of Allah" (from the Cilvaringz album I)
• 2007 "Liquid Wordz" (from the Canibus album For Whom the Beat Tolls)
• 2007 "Taarruz Basladi" (from the Ako-Akonomi album)
• 2007 "Build" (from the Contribution X album Cobra Of The North)
• 2007 "Law & Order" (from the iCON the Mic King & Chum^{[disambiguation needed ]} album Mike and the Fatman)
• 2007 "Picture of Selassie I (Remix)" (from the Picture of Selassie album by Khari Kill Feat. Jah Bami)
• 2008 "Galaxies" (from the Praxis album Profanation (Preparation for a Coming Darkness))
• 2008 "Eat Ya Food" (from the Brooklyn Zu album Chamber #9, Verse 32)
• 2008 "Bloody Moon" (from VoodooCore {Shaka Amazulu The 7th & Wasabifunk})
• 2008 "One Day" (From Endemic (Terminal Illness) ft. Killah Priest & Timbo King)
• 2008 "Theory Of Dominance" (with Corown Da Sensei/Da Shogunz)
• 2008 "Se7en" (With Shaka Amazulu The 7th ft. Timbo King)
• 2008 "Walking The Line" (with Annakin Slayd from the album Stalwart Empire)
• 2008 "Immaculate for the Babylon A.D. Film" (With Michael Arkangelo and Shakura Holiday Prod by RZA and Shavo (Achozen))
• 2009 "Babylon Beast" (from the Heavyweight Dub Champion album Rise of the Champion Nation)
• 2009 "Where I Come From (Remix)" (with Tha Advocate, Willy Northpole, Hussein Fatal, Stat Quo, DoItAll, Big Lou, Sha Stimuli, Mr. probz)
• 2009 "God is Love" (from the U-God album Dopium)
• 2009 "Memoir Of A Gravedigga" (from Shaka Amazulu The 7th [Black Stone of Mecca album] ft. 9th Prince, Warcloud, Frukwan, and Shabazz The Disciple)
• 2009 "Murder" (with Chino XL & Sean Price, off the DJ-JS1 album "Ground Original 2- No Sellout")
• 2010 "Soul Purpose" (from Dusty Philharmonics album "The Audiotopsy", Unexpected Records)
• 2010 "Purified Thoughts" feat GZA/Genius (From Ghostface Killah Apollo Kids)
• 2011 "Wu Crime" feat GZA/Genius (from Raekwon Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang)
• 2011 "Picture Perfect" Tragic Allies feat. Killah Priest (from Tragic Allies debut album The Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil)
• 2011 "Among Us" Trai Kennedi feat. Killah Priest (debut single by producer DUS)
• 2011 "Emerald Cypher" Canibus Feat. Killah Priest, Born Sun, K-Rino (Lyrical Law)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Site
• Killah Priest on Myspace
• Killah Priest at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview on DUBCNN
• Uncensored Interview on Conspiracy Radio

Richard Dawkins
Dawkins in 2010 at Cooper Union in New York City
Born	Clinton Richard Dawkins (1941-03-26) 26 March 1941 (age 71) Nairobi, Kenya Colony
Nationality	British
Education	MA, DPhil (Oxon)
Alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford
Occupation	Ethologist
Years active	1967–present
Employer	University of California, Berkeley University of Oxford
Organization	Fellow of the Royal Society Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
Known for	Gene-centered view of evolution, concept of the meme, as well as advocacy of atheism and science.
Notable work(s)	The Selfish Gene (1976) The Extended Phenotype (1982) The Blind Watchmaker (1986) The God Delusion (2006)
Influenced by	Charles Darwin, Ronald Fisher, George C. Williams, W. D. Hamilton, Daniel Dennett, Bertrand Russell, Nikolaas Tinbergen, John Maynard Smith, Robert Trivers
Spouse	Marian Stamp Dawkins (m. 1967–1984) Eve Barham (m. 1984–?) Lalla Ward (m. 1992–present)
Children	Juliet Emma Dawkins (born 1984)
Parents	Clinton John Dawkins Jean Mary Vyvyan (née Ladner)
Awards	ZSL Silver Medal (1989) Faraday Award (1990) Kistler Prize (2001)
Website
The Richard Dawkins Foundation

Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941), known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford,^[1] and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008.^[2]

Dawkins came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the term meme. In 1982 he introduced an influential concept into evolutionary biology, 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.^[3]

Dawkins is an atheist, a vice president of the British Humanist Association, and a supporter of the Brights movement.^[4] He is well known for his 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. In his 2006 book The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief."^[5] As of January 2010 the English-language version has sold more than two million copies and had been translated into 31 languages.^[6]

Biography[link]

Dawkins was born in Nairobi, Kenya.^[7] His father, Clinton John Dawkins (1915–2010),^[8] was an agricultural civil servant in the British colonial service, in Nyasaland (now Malawi). Dawkins has a younger sister.^[9] His father was called up into the King's African Rifles during World War II,^[10][11] returning to England in 1949, when Dawkins was eight. His father had inherited a country estate, Over Norton Park, which he turned into a commercial farm.^[8] Both his parents were interested in natural sciences; they answered Dawkins' questions in scientific terms.^[12]

Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal Anglican upbringing".^[13] He was confirmed, and embraced Christianity until his mid-teens, at which point he concluded that the theory of evolution was a better explanation for life's complexity, and ceased believing in a god.^[9] Dawkins states: "the main residual reason why I was religious was from being so impressed with the complexity of life and feeling that it had to have a designer, and I think it was when I realised that Darwinism was a far superior explanation that pulled the rug out from under the argument of design. And that left me with nothing."^[9]

He attended Oundle, a Church of England school,^[9] from 1954 to 1959. He studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was tutored by Nobel Prize–winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen, graduating in 1962. He continued as a research student under Tinbergen's supervision, receiving his M.A. and D.Phil. degrees by 1966, and remained a research assistant for another year.^[7] Tinbergen was a pioneer in the study of animal behaviour, particularly in the areas of instinct, learning and choice.^[14] Dawkins' research in this period concerned models of animal decision-making.^[15]

From 1967 to 1969, he was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. During this period, the students and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed to the ongoing Vietnam War, and Dawkins became heavily involved in the anti-war demonstrations and activities.^[16] He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 taking a position as a lecturer, and in 1990, as a reader in zoology. In 1995 he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field",^[17] and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins.^[18]

Since 1970 he has been a fellow of New College.^[19] He has delivered a number of inaugural and other lectures, including the Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture (1989), first Erasmus Darwin Memorial Lecture (1990), Michael Faraday Lecture (1991), T. H. Huxley Memorial Lecture (1992), Irvine Memorial Lecture (1997), Sheldon Doyle Lecture (1999), Tinbergen Lecture (2004) and Tanner Lectures (2003).^[7] In 1991 he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children. He has also served as editor of a number of journals, and has acted as editorial advisor to the Encarta Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Evolution. He is a senior editor of the Council for Secular Humanism's Free Inquiry magazine, for which he also writes a column. He has been a member of the editorial board of Skeptic magazine since its foundation.^[20]

He has sat on judging panels for awards as diverse as the Royal Society's Faraday Award and the British Academy Television Awards,^[7] and has been president of the Biological Sciences section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2004 Balliol College, Oxford instituted the Dawkins Prize, awarded for "outstanding research into the ecology and behaviour of animals whose welfare and survival may be endangered by human activities".^[21] In September 2008, he retired from his professorship, announcing plans to "write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in 'anti-scientific' fairytales."^[22]

Personal life[link]

On 19 August 1967, Dawkins married fellow ethologist Marian Stamp in Annestown, County Waterford, Ireland;^[23] they divorced in 1984. Later that same year, on 1 June, he married Eve Barham (19 August 1951^[24]–28 February 1999) in Oxford. They had a daughter, Juliet Emma Dawkins (born 1984, Oxford).^[24] Dawkins and Barham also divorced^[25] and she later died of cancer.^[26][27] In 1992 he married actress Lalla Ward^[25] in Kensington and Chelsea, London.^[24] Dawkins met her through their mutual friend Douglas Adams,^[28] who had worked with her on the BBC's Doctor Who.

Work[link]

Evolutionary biology[link]

Dawkins at the University of Texas at Austin, March 2008

In his scientific works, Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of the gene-centred view of evolution. This view is most clearly set out in his books The Selfish Gene (1976), where he notes that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities", and The Extended Phenotype (1982), in which he describes natural selection as "the process whereby replicators out-propagate each other".^[29] In his role as an ethologist, interested in animal behaviour and its relation to natural selection, he advocates the idea that the gene is the principal unit of selection in evolution.

Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such as spandrels, described by Gould and Lewontin)^[30] and about selection at levels "above" that of the gene.^[31] He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance of group selection as a basis for understanding altruism.^[32] This behaviour appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources and decreases one's own fitness. Previously, many had interpreted this as an aspect of group selection: individuals were doing what was best for the survival of the population or species as a whole, and not specifically for themselves. British evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton had used the gene-centred view to explain altruism in terms of inclusive fitness and kin selection − that individuals behave altruistically toward their close relatives, who share many of their own genes.^[33][a] Similarly, Robert Trivers, thinking in terms of the gene-centred model, developed the theory of reciprocal altruism, whereby one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of future reciprocation.^[34] Dawkins popularised these ideas in The Selfish Gene, and developed them in his own work.^[35]

He has also been strongly critical of the Gaia philosophy theory of the independent scientist James Lovelock.^[36][37][38]

Critics of Dawkins' approach suggest that taking the gene as the unit of selection − of a single event in which an individual either succeeds or fails to reproduce − is misleading, but that the gene could be better described as a unit of evolution − of the long-term changes in allele frequencies in a population.^[39] In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains that he is using George C. Williams' definition of the gene as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency."^[40] Another common objection is that genes cannot survive alone, but must cooperate to build an individual, and therefore cannot be an independent "unit".^[41] In The Extended Phenotype, Dawkins suggests that because of genetic recombination and sexual reproduction, from an individual gene's viewpoint all other genes are part of the environment to which it is adapted.

Advocates for higher levels of selection such as Richard Lewontin, David Sloan Wilson, and Elliot Sober suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The philosopher Mary Midgley, with whom Dawkins clashed in print concerning The Selfish Gene,^[42][43] has criticised gene selection, memetics and sociobiology as being excessively reductionist^[44] and suggests that the popularity of Dawkins' work is due to factors in the Zeitgeist such as the increased individualism of the Thatcher/Reagan decades.^[45]

In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (the so-called 'Darwin Wars'),^[46][47] one faction was often named after Dawkins and its rival after the American palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, reflecting the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of pertinent ideas.^[48][49] In particular, Dawkins and Gould have been prominent commentators in the controversy over sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, with Dawkins generally approving and Gould generally being critical.^[50] A typical example of Dawkins' position was his scathing review of Not in Our Genes by Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin and Richard C. Lewontin.^[51] Two other thinkers on the subject often considered to be allied to Dawkins are Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett; Dennett has promoted a gene-centred view of evolution and defended reductionism in biology.^[52] Despite their academic disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins dedicated a large portion of his 2003 book A Devil's Chaplain posthumously to Gould, who had died the previous year.

Dawkins' book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution expounds the evidence for biological evolution.^[53] All of his previous works dealing with evolution had assumed its truth, and not explicitly provided the evidence to this effect. Dawkins felt that this represented a gap in his oeuvre, and decided to write the book to coincide with Darwin's bicentennial year.^[54]

Meme[link]

Dawkins coined the word meme (the behavioural equivalent of a gene) as a way to encourage readers to think about how Darwinian principles might be extended beyond the realm of genes.^[55] Indeed, it was intended as an extension of his "replicators" argument, but it took on a life of its own in the hands of other authors such as Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore. These popularisations then led to the emergence of the field of memetics, from which he has distanced himself.^[56]

Dawkins' memes refer to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator of a certain idea or a complex of ideas. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as capable of such replication, generally through exposure to humans, who have evolved as efficient (although not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour. Memes are not always copied perfectly, and might indeed become refined, combined or otherwise modified with other ideas, resulting in new memes, which may themselves prove more, or less, efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for a hypothesis of cultural evolution, analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.^[57]

Although Dawkins invented the specific term meme independently, he has not claimed that the idea itself was entirely novel,^[58] and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past. For instance, John Laurent has suggested that the term may have derived from the work of the little-known German biologist Richard Semon.^[59] In 1904 Semon published Die Mneme (which appeared in English in 1924 as The Mneme). This book discussed the cultural transmission of experiences, with insights parallel to those of Dawkins. Laurent also found the term mneme used in Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life of the White Ant (1926), and has highlighted the similarities to Dawkins' concept.^[59] Author James Gleick describes Dawkins’ concept of the meme as "his most famous memorable invention, far more influential than his selfish genes or his later proselytizing against religiosity".^[60]

Criticism of creationism[link]

Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism (the religious belief that humanity, life and the universe were created by a deity,^[61] without recourse to evolution^[62]). He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood",^[63] and his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argued against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the 18th-century English theologian William Paley in his book Natural Theology. Paley argued that, just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, nonintelligent, blind watchmaker.^[64]

Dawkins at the 34th annual conference of American Atheists, 2008

In 1986 Dawkins participated in an Oxford Union debate, in which he and English biologist John Maynard Smith debated Young Earth creationist A. E. Wilder-Smith and Edgar Andrews, president of the Biblical Creation Society.^[b] In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of engaging with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public."^[65]

In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word theory, Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English."^[66]

Dawkins has ardently opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one".^[67] He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler",^[68] a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and he plans—through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science—to subsidise the delivery of books, DVDs and pamphlets to schools, in order to counteract what he has described as an "educational scandal".^[69]

Advocacy of atheism[link]

Dawkins lecturing on his book The God Delusion, 24 June 2006.

Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a prominent critic of religion. In an interview with Thomas Bass for a book published in 1994 he described himself as a "fairly militant atheist".^[70] In 1996, when asked if he would prefer to be known as a scientist or a militant atheist, he replied "Bertrand Russell called himself the Passionate Sceptic. It's aiming high, but I'll shoot for that."^[71] Dawkins is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society,^[72] a vice-president of the British Humanist Association (since 1996),^[7] a Distinguished Supporter of the Humanist Society of Scotland,^[73] a member of the Secular Coalition for America advisory board,^[74] a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism,^[75] and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.^[76] In 2003 he became a signatory of the humanist manifesto Humanism and Its Aspirations, published by the American Humanist Association.^[77] As a result of his advocacy of atheism, Dawkins has sometimes been described as a vocal, militant rationalist,^[78][79] and as "the UK's Chief Atheist".^[80]

Dawkins believes that his own atheism is the logical extension of his understanding of evolution^[81] and that religion is largely incompatible with science.^[82] In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins wrote:

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: "I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one." I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.^[83]

In his 1991 essay "Viruses of the Mind" (from which the term faith-sufferer originated), he suggested that memetic theory might analyse and explain the phenomenon of religious belief and some of the common characteristics of religions, such as the belief that punishment awaits non-believers. According to Dawkins, faith − belief that is not based on evidence − is one of the world's great evils. He claims it to be analogous to the smallpox virus, though more difficult to eradicate.^[84] Dawkins is well known for his contempt for religious extremism, from Islamist terrorism^[85] to Christian fundamentalism; but he has also argued with liberal believers and religious scientists, from biologists Kenneth Miller^[86] and Francis Collins^[87] to theologians Alister McGrath and Richard Harries.^[88] Dawkins has stated that his opposition to religion is twofold, claiming it to be both a source of conflict and a justification for belief without evidence.^[89] However, he describes himself as a "cultural Christian",^[90] and proposed the slogan "Atheists for Jesus".^[91]

Following the 11 September 2001 attacks, when asked how the world might have changed, Dawkins responded:

Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful!^[92]

Dawkins has especially risen to prominence in contemporary public debates relating science and religion since the publication of his 2006 book The God Delusion, which has achieved greater sales figures worldwide than any of his other works to date. Its success has been seen by many as indicative of a change in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist, central to a recent rise in the popularity of atheistic literature.^[93][94] The God Delusion was praised by among others the Nobel laureates Sir Harold Kroto and James D. Watson and by psychologist Steven Pinker.^[95] In the book, Dawkins suggested that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, because atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind.^[96] He sees education and consciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination.^[16][97][98] These tools include the fight against certain stereotypes, and he has adopted the term Bright as a way of associating positive public connotations with those who possess a naturalistic worldview.^[98] Dawkins notes that feminists have succeeded in arousing widespread embarrassment at the routine use of "he" instead of "she". Similarly, he suggests, a phrase such as "Catholic child" or "Muslim child" should be considered just as socially absurd as, for instance, "Marxist child": children should not be classified based on their parents' ideological beliefs.^[98] According to Dawkins, there is no such thing as a Christian child or a Muslim child, as children have about as much capacity to make the decision to become Christians or Muslims as they do to become Marxists.^[96]

In January 2006 Dawkins presented a two-part television documentary The Root of All Evil?, addressing what he sees as the malignant influence of religion on society. The title itself is one that Dawkins disliked, noting that religion shouldn't be regarded as the root of all evil.^[99] Critics have said that the programme gave too much time to marginal figures and extremists, and that Dawkins' confrontational style did not help his cause and exhibited similarities with the approaches of religious fundamentalists more than with the approaches of the dispassionate, analytic approach of 'hard' science;^[100][101] Dawkins rejected these claims, citing the number of moderate religious broadcasts in everyday media as providing a suitable balance to the extremists in the programmes. He further remarked that someone who is deemed an "extremist" in a religiously moderate country may well be considered "mainstream" in a religiously conservative one.^[102] The unedited recordings of Dawkins' conversations with Alister McGrath and Richard Harries, including material unused in the broadcast version, have been made available online by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.^[103]

Dawkins' work has been controversial, and a number of Christian thinkers have responded to it. For example, Oxford theologian Alister McGrath (author of The Dawkins Delusion and Dawkins' God) maintains that Dawkins is ignorant of Christian theology and therefore unable to engage religion and faith intelligently.^[104] In reply, Dawkins asks "do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in leprechauns?",^[105] and − in the paperback edition of The God Delusion − he refers to the American biologist PZ Myers, who has satirised this line of argument as "The Courtier's Reply".^[106] Dawkins had an extended debate with McGrath at the 2007 Sunday Times Literary Festival.^[107]

Dawkins argues that "the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other".^[108] He disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria. In an interview with Time magazine, Dawkins said:

I think that Gould's separate compartments was a purely political ploy to win middle-of-the-road religious people to the science camp. But it's a very empty idea. There are plenty of places where religion does not keep off the scientific turf. Any belief in miracles is flat contradictory not just to the facts of science but to the spirit of science.^[109]

Astrophysicist Martin Rees, who has described himself as an unbeliever who identifies with Christianity from a cultural perspective, has suggested that Dawkins' attack on mainstream religion is unhelpful.^[110] Regarding Rees' claim in his book Our Cosmic Habitat that "such questions lie beyond science", Dawkins asks "what expertise can theologians bring to deep cosmological questions that scientists cannot?"^[111][112] Elsewhere, Dawkins has written that "there's all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic, and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority or revelation."^[84] As examples of "good scientists who are sincerely religious", Dawkins names Arthur Peacocke, Russell Stannard, John Polkinghorne and Francis Collins, but says "I remain baffled ... by their belief in the details of the Christian religion."^{[113][114][115][116][117]} He has said that the publication of The God Delusion is "probably the culmination" of his campaign against religion.^[118]

In 2007 Dawkins founded the Out Campaign to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly and proudly.^[119] Inspired by the gay rights movement, Dawkins hopes that atheists' identifying of themselves as such, and thereby increasing public awareness of how many people hold these views, will reduce the negative opinion of atheism among the religious majority.^[120][121]

In September 2008, following a complaint by Islamic creationist Adnan Oktar, a court in Turkey blocked access to Dawkins' website richarddawkins.net. The court decision was made due to "insult to personality".^{[122][123][124][125][126][127]} As of 8 July 2011, richarddawkins.net is no longer blocked in Turkey.^[128]