3/3/98
Attention reporters, assignment editors: Richard Dawkins will be available for interviews from 2 to 3 p.m. Wednesday, March 11, by appointment only. To schedule an interview call Richard Polen at (740) 593-2097 by 5 p.m. Friday, March 6. A photo of Richard Dawkins is available on the Web at www.cats.ohiou.edu/~univnews/pix/R_DAWKINS.JPG for downloading.

ATHENS, Ohio -- After spending more than 130 years debating the validity of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, one would think scientists had argued every angle of the controversial hypothesis. But as British scientist Richard Dawkins would attest, the debate is far from over.

Dawkins, an Oxford University zoologist and ultra-Darwinist, will talk about Darwin's theory and its impact on modern society at 8 p.m. March 11 in Ohio University's Grover Center as part of the university's Frontiers in Science Lecture Series. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Known for his controversial opinions on science and religion, Dawkins has delivered lectures around the world and written several award-winning books on natural selection, the theory that organisms are eliminated as a result of selective pressures in their environment. Dawkins is among a group of scientists who argue that this selective elimination also occurs on a genetic level, which he wrote about in his best-selling 1976 book, "The Selfish Gene."

"Darwin's theory of natural selection is probably the greatest idea to ever occur to the human mind," says Dawkins, whose Frontiers in Science lecture is titled "A Darwinian Experience."

Featured in publications ranging from The New Yorker to Wired magazine to The Chronicle of Higher Education , Dawkins has made his arguments to naturalists such as scientist and author Stephen Jay Gould and to religious leaders such as the Archbishop of York in England.

Born in Kenya in 1941, Dawkins is the first holder of Oxford University's Charles Simonyi Chair of Public Understanding of Science and a Professional Fellow of New College, London. He formerly was an assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

His books on science include "The Selfish Gene," which has been translated into 13 languages; "The blind Watchmaker," which received the Los Angeles Times' Literary Prize and the Royal Society Literature Award; "River Out of Eden," which has been translated into 27 languages; "The Extended Phenotype"; "The Tinbergen Legacy"; and his most recent book, "Climbing Mount Improbable," which explores how DNA has evolved through time to create the abundance and diversity of all living things.

Dawkins' lecture is the second in this year's Frontiers in Science lecture series, a program that features scientists who have been recognized for their commitment to share their scientific knowledge with people of all ages. The series was established in 1991 by Jeanette Grasselli Brown, an Ohio University graduate and former university trustee, and her husband, Glenn R. Brown, through a contribution to the Ohio University Foundation.