Editing Richard Dawkins (section)

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[[File:Jayce Lewis & Prof Richard Dawkins 2018.jpg|thumb|The Welsh musician [[Jayce Lewis]] at Dawkins' home in 2018 while working on ''Million'' (Part 2)]]

In his role as professor for public understanding of science, Dawkins has been a critic of [[pseudoscience]] and [[alternative medicine]]. His 1998 book ''[[Unweaving the Rainbow]]'' considers [[John Keats]]'s accusation that by explaining the [[rainbow]], [[Isaac Newton]] diminished its beauty; Dawkins argues for the opposite conclusion. He suggests that deep space, the billions of years of life's evolution, and the microscopic workings of biology and heredity contain more beauty and wonder than do "[[myth]]s" and "[[pseudoscience]]".<ref>{{cite book |last=Dawkins |first=Richard |title=Unweaving The Rainbow |year=1998 |publisher=Penguin |location=United Kingdom |isbn=978-0-618-05673-6 |pages=4–7}}</ref> For [[John Diamond (journalist)|John Diamond]]'s posthumously published ''Snake Oil'', a book devoted to debunking [[alternative medicine]], Dawkins wrote a foreword in which he asserts that alternative medicine is harmful, if only because it distracts patients from more successful conventional treatments and gives people false hopes.<ref>{{cite book |last=Diamond |first=John |title=Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations |year=2001 |publisher=Vintage |location=United Kingdom |isbn=978-0-09-942833-6 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/snakeoilotherpre0000diam }}</ref> Dawkins states that "There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work."{{sfn|Dawkins|2003|p=58}} In his 2007 [[Channel 4]] film ''[[The Enemies of Reason]]'', Dawkins concluded that Britain is gripped by "an epidemic of superstitious thinking".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1559468/New-age-therapies-cause-retreat-from-reason.html |title=New age therapies cause 'retreat from reason' |date=5 August 2007 |first=David |last=Harrison |work=The Telegraph |location=London |access-date=25 March 2016 |archive-date=21 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180821160511/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1559468/New-age-therapies-cause-retreat-from-reason.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Continuing a long-standing partnership with Channel 4, Dawkins participated in a five-part television series, ''[[Genius of Britain]]'', along with his fellow-scientists [[Stephen Hawking]], [[James Dyson]], [[Paul Nurse]] and [[Jim Al-Khalili]]. The series was first broadcast in June 2010, and focuses on major British scientific achievements throughout history.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/2009/01/dawkins_to_front_c4_science_series.html |title=C4 lines up Genius science series |date=27 January 2009 |first=Robin |last=Parker |access-date=31 January 2009 |work=[[Broadcast (magazine)|Broadcast]]}} {{Subscription required}}</ref> In 2014 he joined the global awareness movement [[Asteroid Day]] as a "100x Signatory".<ref name="Telegrapharticle">{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/11272393/Asteroids-could-wipe-out-humanity-warn-Richard-Dawkins-and-Brian-Cox.html |title=Asteroids could wipe out humanity, warn Richard Dawkins and Brian Cox |newspaper=The Telegraph |first=Sarah |last=Knapton |date=4 December 2014 |access-date=4 December 2014 |archive-date=22 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200222205213/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/11272393/Asteroids-could-wipe-out-humanity-warn-Richard-Dawkins-and-Brian-Cox.html |url-status=live }}</ref>