“Oxygen flooded into the atmosphere as a pollutant, even a poison, until natural selection shaped living things to thrive on the stuff and, indeed, suffocate without it.”

British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator, atheist activist, and author

Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator, atheist activist, and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford. In 1995 he became the first Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, a post he held until 2008. Dawkins is known for writing and speaking about evolution, science, and atheism, and for explaining science to a broad audience. He has received several academic and literary honors, including the 2005 Shakespeare Prize and the 2006 Lewis Thomas Prize.