Marian Stamp Dawkins (born Marian Ellina Stamp; 13 February 1945) is a British biologist and professor of

ethology Ethology is a branch of zoology that studies the behavior, behaviour of non-human animals. It has its scientific roots in the work of Charles Darwin and of American and German ornithology, ornithologists of the late 19th and early 20th cen ...

at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. Her research interests include vision in birds, animal signalling, behavioural synchrony,

animal consciousness Animal consciousness, or animal awareness, is the Quality (philosophy), quality or state of self-awareness within an animal, or of being aware of an external object or something within itself. In humans, consciousness has been defined as: senti ...

and

animal welfare Animal welfare is the quality of life and overall well-being of animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures ...

Education

Dawkins was educated at Queen's College, London and Somerville College, Oxford, where she earned bachelor's and PhD (1970) degrees. Her doctoral research was supervised by Niko Tinbergen.

Career and research

Dawkins was appointed a lecturer in zoology in 1977 and in 1998 was made

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

of animal behaviour. She is currently (2014) Head of the Animal Behaviour Research Group and is the Director of the John Krebs Field Laboratory. Dawkins has written extensively on animal behaviour and issues of

. Along with other academics in the field, such as Ian Duncan, Dawkins promoted the argument that animal welfare is about the feelings of animals. This approach indicates the belief that animals should be considered as sentient beings. Dawkins wrote, "Let us not mince words: Animal welfare involves the subjective feelings of animals. In 1989, Dawkins published a study in which she filmed hens from above while they performed common behaviours (e.g. turning, standing, wing-stretching). From these films, she calculated the amount of floor-space required by the hens during these behaviours and compared this to the amount of floor-space available in battery cages. She was able to show that many of these common behaviours were highly restricted, or prevented, in battery cages. In 1990, she contributed to a paper in which she developed her ideas regarding how to assess animal welfare by asking questions of animals. She proposed using preference tests and consumer demand studies to ask what animals prefer (e.g. space, social contact) and how highly motivated they are for these. She argued that animals were more likely to suffer if they were not provided with resources for which they are highly motivated. Central to her most recent (2012) view on animal welfare is scepticism about whether science can establish that animals have

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...

and therefore its role in definition and measurement of animal welfare and suffering. Instead, her view is that good animal welfare rests on determining the needs and wants of animals, which do not require that they are conscious. These theses are presented in her book ''Why Animals Matter: Animal Consciousness, Animal Welfare, and Human Well-being'' (2012). Her views on animal consciousness have been criticised by evolutionary biologist Marc Bekoff, who argues that she too readily rejects anthropomorphic research on animals. She responded to the criticism by stating her position as "wrongly interpreted", and says that "my concern is to make the case for animal emotions as watertight as possible and thereby to strengthen it. That is the way science progresses and always has."

Selected publications

* ''Animal Suffering: The Science of Animal Welfare''. Chapman and Hall. 1980. * ''Unravelling Animal Behaviour.''

Longman Longman, also known as Pearson Longman, is a publisher, publishing company founded in 1724 in London, England, which is owned by Pearson PLC. Since 1968, Longman has been used primarily as an imprint by Pearson's Schools business. The Longman ...

. 1986. * ''The Tinbergen legacy.'' Edited by Marian Stamp Dawkins, Tim R. Halliday and Richard Dawkins. London: Chapman & Hall. 1991. * ''Through Our Eyes Only?: The Search for Animal Consciousness''. Oxford:

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. 1993. * ''Living with the Selfish Gene.'' One of the collected essays in '' Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think''. Editors: Alan Grafen, Mark Ridley. Oxford University Press. 2006.
''The scientific basis for assessing suffering in animals.''PDF Version
Chapter in ''Peter Singer: In Defense of Animals: The Second Wave''. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 2006. * ''Observing Animal Behaviour: Design and Analysis of Quantitative Data''. Oxford:

. 2007. * ''The Future of Animal Farming: Renewing the Ancient Contract.'' Edited by Marian Stamp Dawkins and Roland Bonney. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 2008. * ''An Introduction to Animal Behaviour.'' With Aubrey Manning. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

. 2012. * ''Why Animals Matter: Animal Consciousness, Animal Welfare, and Human Well-being.'' Oxford:

. 2012.

Awards and honours

Dawkins was awarded the RSPCA/British Society for Animal Protection prize in 1991, Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour's Niko Tinbergen Medal in 2009, and the World Poultry Science Association Robert Fraser Gordon Medal in 2011. Dawkins was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(CBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to animal welfare. In 2014, she was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

(FRS) for “substantial contributions to the improvement of natural knowledge”. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:

Personal life

She was born in Hereford to Arthur Maxwell Stamp and (Alice) Mary Stamp (née Richards). On 19 August 1967, she married fellow ethologist

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an Oxford fellow, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Simonyi Professor for the Publ ...

in the Protestant church in Annestown,

County Waterford County Waterford () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is part of the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. It is named after the city of Waterford. ...

, Ireland.Richard Dawkins
''An Appetite for Wonder – The Making of a Scientist''
p.201. They divorced in 1984. She remains known as Marian Stamp Dawkins.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dawkins, Marian 1945 births 20th-century British biologists 21st-century British biologists Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford Animal cognition writers British animal welfare scholars British women biologists Commanders of the Order of the British Empire English biologists Ethologists Women ethologists Female fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford Living people People educated at Queen's College, London Place of birth missing (living people)