An Appetite for Wonder Page 27

  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

  United States, Department of Homeland Security 3

  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.