predictions
Markov Chain 244, 246
testing 184-92, 210
pregnancy 271
Presley, Elvis 141-2
Price, George 273
Priestman, ‘Snappy’ 120-2
Pringle, John 194, 216, 220, 222
psychologists 176-7
psychopathy 97
race 123
radio signals 247
Railway Club, at Chafyn Grove 104-5
rainbows 165-6
reading 15, 64-5, 113-14
aloud 88
Reagan, Ronald 206
Rector, James: death 206
religion 13, 37, 103-4, 139-43
at school 64, 100-1, 102-3, 139-40, 142-3
replication 263, 277-80
reproduction 262-5, 267
Rhodesia 63, 69
Eagle School 60, 63-9, 77, 80-1, 90
Salisbury airport 69
Umtali 69
Ridley, M. 198
Robeson, Paul 50
Robinson, Michael 175
Rodgers, Michael 276, 277, 280
Rose, Steven 282
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures 21
Royal Photographic Society 110
Royal Society 24
Ruiter, Leen de 180-1
Russell, Bertrand 47, 218
Ryan, Alan 162
Saidi (messenger) 44
Salisbury (England)
St Mark’s church 100, 103
see also Chafyn Grove
Salisbury (Rhodesia), airport 69
Sampson brothers (at Chafyn Grove) 90-1
San Francisco 201, 205, 207, 208
Sanderson, F. W. 106, 128, 129, 131, 132, 136
Scales, George 105
Scandinavian languages 18
Schicklgruber, Alois 288
Schleidt, Wolfgang 196
schools
boarding 23-4, 63, 81
preparatory 63, 81
public 119-20, 137-8
see also Chafyn Grove; Eagle School;
Oundle School
science education 151
scientists 173
scorpions 36-7
Scout Troop 91-2
Searle, Pat 277
Second World War 22, 29, 288, 289
sedge warblers 178
self-grooming, in flies 228, 229-31, 232
Selfish Gene, The (book) 25, 32, 130, 197, 201, 255
writing 259-65, 266-8, 269-70, 271, 274-5, 276-7
title 275
jacket 280-1
Japanese translation 265-6
publication 265-6, 269, 269, 275-6, 277, 280-1, 287
reviews 281-3, 291-2
Selfish Gene, The (TV documentary) 281
Seventh Seal, The (film) 165
Shaffer, Lary 175
Shakespeare, William 121
Shannon, Claude 20, 227
Shannon Information Index 227-8, 231
Sharpe, Tom 39
Shaw, Bernard 142
Shaw, Pretty 89
Sierra Leone 10, 38
Simon, Herbert 247
Simpson, George Gaylord 268
singing
Oundle choir 136-7
see also songs
Smith, Joseph 64, 175
Smythies, Arthur (great-grandfather of
RD) 11, 13, 23, 24, 49
Smythies, Bertram (‘Billy’) 12
Smythies, Charles Alan (bishop) 218
Smythies, Evelyn (great-uncle of RD) 11-12
Smythies, John 12
Smythies, Olive 12
Smythies, Revd William 13
Smythies, Yorick 12-13, 23-4
Snow, Peter 163
social behaviour 196
social contract 259
sociobiology 208
solidity, perception of 179-83
songs
birdsong 17, 89, 243
children’s 57
crickets’ 236-8
‘I Believe’ 141-2
in pub 164-5
at school 68, 124
in school play 93-4
Scout 91-2
Uncle Bill’s 175-6
Victorian Society 163-4
see also hymns
South Africa 43, 53
Sparrowhawk, Mrs 25
Spooner, W. A. 10
squash 99
Stainforth, Gus 120, 144
stammer 125-6
Stamp, Marian see Dawkins
starfish 158-9
Stedman, Tom 101
stooking 113
Storr, Anthony 282
strike, 1973 259, 269
Summer Interlude (film) 165
sun, position 179-80
Surrey Puma 193
survival 260, 261, 262-8, 270, 277
Sweden 18
Swinburne, A. C. 167
symbiotic cleaners 32
Tanganyika 34, 35, 57
Taylor, A. J. P. 155
television 75
Thomas, loan 130-1, 143, 145
Thompson, Silvanus: Calculus Made Easy 20, 234
Thorpe, W. H. 243
Tiger, Lionel 282
Times, The, letter to 206
Tinbergen, Lies 210
Tinbergen, Niko 156, 157-8, 168, 171, 172, 175, 176, 179, 196, 201, 210-11, 216, 223, 232-3, 278
Nobel Prize and retirement 287
Niko's Nature (Kruuk) 171, 233
The Study of Instinct 244
tractors 111-12, 133
Trim, Dr 36, 40
Trinity College, Cambridge 150-1
Trivers, Robert 270, 271, 274
Turner, F. Newman 112
tutorial system 157-9
mutual tutorials 209
Tyacke, Nicholas 162
Uganda 10, 32, 34, 57
Umtali (ship) 73-4, 79
Umtali, Rhodesia 69
University of California at Berkeley 196, 201, 207-10, 273
‘People’s Park’ 205-6
University of Sussex 273
Vietnam War 205
Vollrath, Fritz 183-4
Voltaire 260
Vumba Mountains 63, 68
Walter family (Mbagathi, Kenya) 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 40
Water Hall, Essex 22
Wearne, Connie (later Ladner;
grandmother of RD) 15, 21, 55, 79, 98
Wearne, Ethel 19
Wearne, Dr Walter (great-grandfather of RD) 18
Wellington School 144
Wild Strawberries (film) 165
Williams, Bernard 282
Williams, George C. 271
Adaptation and Natural Selection 264-5
Winograd, Terry 234
wireless sets 20-1
Wittgenstein, Ludwig 12, 13, 24
Wodehouse, P. G. 88, 126
Wordsworth, William 166, 206, 282
workshops 116, 128-9, 139
writing 232, 259, 276-7
Wychwood School, Oxford 81
Yeats, W. B. 165, 167
Young, J. Z. 24
Zomba, Nyasaland 44
hospital 43
Zomba Mountain 50-1
Zoology Department, Oxford University 104, 151, 171-3, 193-4, 210-11, 217, 293
Animal Behaviour Research Group (13 Bevington Road) 171, 172, 173, 174-6, 183, 189, 197, 200, 208, 216, 219, 221, 222, 243, 277
Bureau of Animal Populations 174
computers 193-4
RD lectures 196, 199
Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology 174
Tinbergen Building, South Parks Road 174, 222
Zurich 194, 195
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Dawkins was first catapulted to fame with his iconic work The Selfish Gene, which he followed with a string of best-selling books: The Extended Phenotype, The Blind Watchmaker, River Out of Eden, Climbing Mount Improbable, Unweaving the Rainbow, The Ancestor's Tale, The God Delusion, The Greatest Show on Earth, The Magic of Reality, and
a collection of his shorter writings, A Devil's Chaplain.
Dawkins is a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature. He is the recipient of numerous honours and awards, including the Royal Society of Literature Award (1987), the Michael Faraday Award of the Royal Society (1990), the International Cosmos Prize for Achievement in Human Science (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Shakespeare Prize (2005), the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science (2006), the Galaxy British Book Awards Author of the Year Award (2007), the Deschner Prize (2007) and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009). He retired from his position as the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University in 2008 and remains a fellow of New College.
In 2012, scientists studying fish in Sri Lanka created Dawkinsia as a new genus name, in recognition of his contribution to the public understanding of evolutionary science. In the same year, Richard Dawkins appeared in the BBC Four television series Beautiful Minds, revealing how he came to write The Selfish Gene and speaking about some of the events covered in this memoir.
In 2013, Dawkins was voted the world’s top thinker in Prospect magazine’s poll of 10,000 readers from over 100 countries.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
ALSO BY RICHARD DAWKINS
The Selfish Gene
The Extended Phenotype
The Blind Watchmaker
River Out of Eden
Climbing Mount Improbable
Unweaving the Rainbow
A Devil’s Chaplain
The Ancestor’s Tale
The God Delusion
The Greatest Show on Earth
The Magic of Reality (with Dave McKean)
CREDITS
Cover design by Allison Saltzman
Cover photograph © by Terry Smith/Getty Images
Diagrams by Patrick Mulrey
COPYRIGHT
AN APPETITE FOR WONDER. Copyright © 2013 by Richard Dawkins. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST U.S. EDITION
Originally published in Great Britain in 2013 by Bantam Press, an imprint of Transworld Publishers.
ISBN 978-0-06-222579-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-06-228715-1 (international edition)
ISBN 978-0-06-231580-9 (signed edition)
EPub Edition OCTOBER 2013 ISBN 9780062225818
13 14 15 16 17 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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1 H. B Wheatley and P. Cunningham, London Past and Present (London, Murray, 1891), vol. 1, p. 109.
2 See web appendix: www.richarddawkins.net/afw.
3 And whose obituary I wrote: see web appendix.
4 http://wab.uib.no/ojs/agora-alws/article/view/1263/977
5 ‘Growing up in ethology’, ch. 8 in L. Drickamer and D. Dewsbury, eds, Leaders in Animal Behavior (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010).
6 From Randigal Rhymes, ed. Joseph Thomas (Penzance, F. Rodda, 1895).
7 Fuss.
8 Store for live bait.
9 Swallowed.
10 Pebble, though my grandmother translated it as plumstone, which makes more sense.
11 Properly.
12 Throat.
13 Choked.
14 Retched.
15 Stamped.
16 Mad.
17 Local proverb.
18 Forelock.
19 Stoat, weasel.
20 Somersault.
21 Medicine distilled from peppermint.
22 Nonsensical story.
23 Swallowed a frog.
24 Mischievous imp.
25 Truant.
26 Pitch and toss.
27 Tie a tin can or something to an animal’s tail.
28 Rob.
29 Briskly strode.
30 Back of the head.
31 Cow parsleys are in bloom.
32 I’ve consulted an expert on Scandinavian languages, Professor Björn Melander, and he agreed with my theory of ‘insult or flattery’ but added that there are, inevitably, complications of context.
33 ‘Vacuum tubes’ in American English.
34 ‘Askaris’ was the name given to the African rank and file in the KAR.
35 My wife’s and my private word for heartlessly rule-loving bureaucrats, a word that I am trying to introduce into the English language. It comes from a comic novel by Tom Sharpe, in which J. Dundridge epitomized the type. It’s such a suitable-sounding word. For a new word to qualify for the Oxford English Dictionary it must be used sufficiently often in the written language, without definition or attribution. I speak from experience and am delighted to say that an earlier coining, ‘meme’, has met the criterion and is safely perched among the Ms. Please use dundridge and give it currency.
36 Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined (New York, Viking, 2011).
37 Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1984).
38 http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/2127-george-scales-war-hero-and-generous-friend-of-rdfrs.
39 American: Erector Set.
40 Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Oxford (London, Methuen, 1944).
41 ‘Evolution in biology tutoring?’, in David Palfreyman, ed., The Oxford Tutorial: ‘Thanks, you taught me how to think’ (Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies, 2001; 2nd edn 2008). When the essay first appeared (in The Oxford Magazine, No. 112, Eighth Week, Michaelmas Term 1994), it bore the ‘deliberately graceless’ title ‘Tutorial-Driven’, in reflection of the ‘lecture-driven’ teaching I was criticizing.
42 Hans Kruuk, Niko’s Nature: The Life of Niko Tinbergen and his Science of Animal Behaviour (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003).
43 Robert Mash, How to Keep Dinosaurs (London, Orion, 2005).
44 N. Tinbergen, The Study of Instinct (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1951).
45 R. Dawkins, ‘The ontogeny of a pecking preference in domestic chicks’, Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie, 25 (1968), pp. 170–86.
46 Peter Medawar, The Art of the Soluble: Creativity and Originality in Science (London, Methuen, 1967); Pluto’s Republic: Incorporating The Art of the Soluble and Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982).
47 R. Dawkins, ‘A threshold model of choice behaviour’, Animal Behaviour, 17 (1969), pp. 120–33.
48 R. Dawkins and M. Impekoven, ‘The peck/no-peck decision-maker in the black-headed gull chick’, Animal Behaviour
, 17 (1969), pp. 243–51.
49 R. Dawkins, ‘The attention threshold model’, Animal Behaviour, 17 (1969), pp. 134–41.
50 American: Rube Goldberg.
51 The clearest explanation is given by my Oxford colleague and sometime graduate student Professor Alan Grafen, ‘A geometric view of relatedness’, in R. Dawkins and M. Ridley, eds, Oxford Surveys in Evolutionary Biology, vol. 2 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 28–89.
52 The American equivalent would be ‘assistant professor going on associate professor’.
53 R. Dawkins, ‘A cheap method of recording behavioural events for direct computer access’, Behaviour, 40 (1971), pp. 162–73.
54 R. Dawkins, ‘Selective neurone death as a possible memory mechanism’, Nature, 229 (1971), pp. 118–19.
55 R. and M. Dawkins, ‘Decisions and the uncertainty of behaviour’, Behaviour, 45 (1973), pp. 83–103.