As we approach the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's masterpiece, On The Origin Of Species, ethologist and writer Richard Dawkins presents the ultimate guide to Darwin and his revolutionary theory of evolution by natural selection. Dawkins considers this to be the most important idea to have ever occured to a human mind.
In this powerful three-part polemical series, Dawkins explains who Charles Darwin (pictured) was, how he developed his theory, what it is, and why it matters. He reveals how Darwin changed forever the way we see ourselves, the world and our place in it, and hopes to convince us that "evolution is a fact, backed by undeniable evidence".
According to recent polls, four out of ten British people still believe in God as the creator of the universe and everything in it. As a scientist, and Britain's best-known atheist, Dawkins believes that such people simply don't know enough about the evidence for Darwin's entirely natural explanation of life on Earth - evolution.
So now he retraces Darwin's journey as a scientist. He re-examines the rich evidence of the natural world - iguanas on the Galapagos Islands, giant fossilised sloths in the Americas and even pigeons back home in England - which opened Darwin's eyes to the extraordinary truth that all living things must be related and evolved from a common ancestor.
Darwin knew his espousal of evolution would cause outrage, challenging, as it did, the prevailing religious view of the world and our place in it. But, as Dawkins explains, it was really his theory of natural selection that undermined the notion of a benevolent God who designed all creatures great and small. Returning to his own birthplace, Kenya, Dawkins considers the brutal realities of the struggle for existence for wild animals on the plains of Africa. Here, he argues, we see the ongoing process of sex, suffering and death that drives evolution onward as the fittest survive to reproduce and the weakest perish without offspring.
And humans are not immune to the nightmarish Darwinian process. Dawkins travels to the slums of Nairobi where hundreds die of Aids each year. Here he meets prostitutes who seem to have acquired a genetic immunity to the HIV virus. This resistance, it seems, can be inherited and so, over time, will become more prevalent, shaping the community here. "This," Dawkins tells us, "is the unstoppable force of natural selection."
Finally Dawkins visits a state-of-the-art laboratory in America where scientists can now compare the genetic code of all living things, vindicating Darwin's theories, once and for all. "He showed us that the world is beautiful and inspiring without a God. He revealed to us the glory of life and revealed who we really are and where we've come from."
But back in Britain, can Dawkins convince a year 11 science class that evolution is the truth? Fearing that "a few hours in the science lab is no substitute for a lifetime of religious indoctrination" he takes the teenagers to Dorset's Jurassic Coast to examine fossil evidence for themselves. But will this win over this sceptical audience?
In the next programme, Dawkins explores what evolution really means for humans and human society and how it's been misused to justify human atrocities.
November 30th, 2008 - 11:50pmElaine Brokenshire said...
I felt the person who was sure of Darwin did not give any proof of Darwins theory it was all heresay
I read that Darwin had been trained to be a minister of religion but could not get a job when the oportunity came up for him to travell the world and collect plants and examine species ,his theory of evolution came after reading somone elses ideas on the thoery
he married his cousin. He was not a great mind with a high IQ.
His children who died were burried in a church yard and the American you visited said there is a whole lot of "creation" going on out there.
Religion is only mans interpretation of God and terrible disgusting things go on in these institutions
Einstein said that there had to be a great mind as there is order out there in the universe ( Einstein believed in creation i.e if the world was a fraction out it would be the end of us and the earth
The first book of Genisis says the earth hangs on nothing, mans idea of the earth being flat came later
Man has never been able to create life, yes he may have got dolly the sheep but life was already present, if it was as simple as getting the right amounts of DNA as you say.
I have read of scientists who started off to disprove the bible ended believing in creation
If we came from monkeys why are there still monkeys? or do you think they were once human. I have read about carbon dating and that is just a load of rubbish
Your theory allows, anything goes, sex here, there,anywhere it is all okay nothing we do is wrong it is the strogest of the species,but why do people get sexually transmitted diseases if they obeyed the laws of marriage it would not happen which is GODS law.
I guess people don't want to believe in god because they can't do bad stuff because the bible only talks about being good and not doing bad
The bible has promised Jeus will return and then we will all know about Darwin and his theory.
August 19th, 2008 - 8:53amMonica said...
I am a "decent" human being with many flaws but I've reached 60 and I'm learning more than at any time in my life. I am now learning, not from indoctrination or anybody elses demons but from EXPERIENCE of life. I only have to walk outside on a clear night and look up into the sky (not heaven) to make me gasp in awe. I have shared dreadful and sad experiences and have seen something good evolve from them. These are the things that shape me as a person, not the fear that I'll be punished when I die! I see the aweful warping and closing of a child's mind by parent's whose minds have been closed by some fanatical religions. Religion evolved at a time when humans lived in fear of the unknown - a completely NATURAL emotion. Later that fear was used by governments to "control" the uneducated people When I fear the unknown I seek knowledge that wasn't available to them. Many children are told that religion equals good and non religion equals bad. From my experience I believe this is not so. My belief is there is a POWER greater than the human mind is able to comprehend. The nearest I can get to a label is nature and all things depend on each other as do human beings - when a strong human encounters a suffering or weak human being he/she should help the weak become strong again. I don't need somebody in a church, temple, mosque etc to tell me that. The reward comes from the feeling I get inside. I don't do it because I fear punishment if I turn away. Unfortunately, the written scriptures I see as similar to the game "chinese whispers". Some elements of truth and, while I don't doubt some miraculous things have happened over thousands of years, they would not have been documented the way they would now so we cannot read them with 20th century minds. Does anybody believe the stories of Robin Hood to be truth? I really enjoyed Proffessor Dawkins' programme and agreed entirely that children are not given the facts to make informed choices. The need is to educate the parents in science then they can make the choices but, as more and more children of different religions and non religious families integrate we will see a change in religions in Great Britain in the next generation - in my opinion, for the better.
August 18th, 2008 - 2:41amClarice Madruga said...
"The whole problem with the world
is that fools and fanatics are always
so certain of themselves,
but wiser people
so full of doubts.”
Bertrand Russell
August 4th, 2008 - 2:32pmAlan said...
To Stafford Gordon, very true, assuming that what we believe and percieve is true because we believe it. I think you greatly misunderstand the objectivity of Christianity though - which is by no means your fault but rather highlights the horendous job the church has done in confusing it's own very simple message.
The exact reasoning you used to show how we must think to understand evolution is what I would use to explain what Christianity truly is, rather than the shallow and subjective mutant that is paraded in the media to be rightly mocked.
Ironic, eh!
Please do be careful.
You aren't actually saying anything about the Bible or Christianity. Just something that looks like it.
It's almost as if you're critiquing a fake watch and instead of drawing the conclusion that the watch you're holding is fake you've jumped way, way ahead and claimed that because this watch is fake there is in fact no real watch at all.
Baby, bathwater, mistake...
:D
August 2nd, 2008 - 11:50amStafford Gordon said...
Religion is arguably the most profoundly subjective of all human activities. There could be as many personal gods as there are individuals who believe in their personal god; in which case each would last for just one human life span.
No wonder the comfort zone of religion is so hard to escape from. It's as if humans have become religiously institutionalised.
But, Darwin found the key to this institution, and finally found the courage to leave it. How tragic that so many still sit cringing inside their cells.
Unlike religion, Darwinism calls for total objectivity. It's very hard to comprehend geological or cosmological time spans, but to even begin to understand evolution that is essentially the very first step; we have to step outside our own life spans.
Which, of course, means that we have to face up to the fact that we are going to die.
One day when our daughter was about six, she was standing in the hall as her mother came in, and she asked "Mummy, when you die can I have that dress?"
Beautiful.
July 31st, 2008 - 6:08pmRob said...
There's none so blind as those who will not see! But the Religious zealots will never admit they are wrong!
'Knowledge & Reason - the arch enemy of faith'
July 31st, 2008 - 5:22pmChris said...
I hope this one goes as well as his last one then maybe i'll see a few more people in church this sunday lol
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