Dawkinsian

English

Etymology

From Dawkins +‎ -ian, after Richard Dawkins.

Adjective

Dawkinsian (comparative more Dawkinsian, superlative most Dawkinsian)

1. Relating to the "selfish gene" view on evolution as proposed by Richard Dawkins.
   • 1985, Tony Solomonides, Les Levidow, Compulsive Technology: Computers as Culture, page 42:

     In an essay entitled 'Selfish Genes and Social Darwinism' (1983, p.366) she argues that 'sociobiological thinking, especially in its Dawkinsian form, actually reinforces Social Darwinism, both by its language and by some of its substance'.

   • 1993, Werner Callebaut, Taking the Naturalistic Turn, Or How Real Philosophy of Science Is Done, page 162:

     In two papers, I argued that differential selection ought to favor more nearly decomposable or more quasi-independent phenotypes, so that the evolution of or selection for quasi-independence paradoxically meant that if a Williamsian or Dawkinsian genic selectionist picture is true, it is true because selection at higher levels produced it!

   • 2002, John Dupré, Humans and Other Animals, page 162:

     It is not entirely clear how much the Dawkinsian perspective has to do with the issues of present concern.

   • 2006, Robin Attfield, Creation, Evolution and Meaning, page 145:

     The suggestion that Rolston diverges from Darwinism could also be directed at Ward when he seeks to supplement Dawkinsian, gene-machine-like, accounts of evolution by reference to a guiding purpose.

2. Stridently atheist, like Richard Dawkins.
   • 2010, Amarnath Amarasingam, Religion and the New Atheism: A Critical Appraisal, page 121:

     […] two million people convinced and converted to Dawkinsian atheistic humanism.

   • 2012, Keith Allen, The God Conclusion, page 54:

     From that moment, I became an atheist — but we still remained best friends (probably because neither of us tried to convert the other). Let me state right now that I was never Dawkinsian in either temperament or zeal.