Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins is the evolutionary biologist and author of The Selfish Gene (1976), which proposes a gene-centered view of evolution and, in Kyle’s anti-library, sits on Charlie Munger’s recommended-reading list from Poor Charlie’s Almanack.

Dawkins is best known in Kyle’s corpus as the man who coined the word “meme.” In The Meme Economy, Kyle quotes the etymology: Dawkins introduced the meme in The Selfish Gene as “a unit of cultural transmission, similar to how genes transmit biological traits” — an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person, subject to a kind of cultural natural selection. That framing anchors Kyle’s recurring interest in Memetics and the stories that move markets and people.

Elsewhere in the corpus Dawkins appears as an exemplar of prominent atheism: in -You Sit on a Throne of Lies- Kyle groups him with Stephen Fry, Ricky Gervais, and Sam Harris when describing skepticism toward God, and quotes his line that the universe has “no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

Where this appears

• The Selfish Gene — listed as the book’s author; on Munger’s Poor Charlie’s Almanack reading list.
• The Meme Economy — credited with coining “meme” in The Selfish Gene; the etymology grounds the essay’s thesis.
• -You Sit on a Throne of Lies- — cited among prominent atheists on skepticism toward God.