Why Is Darwin’s Idea So Revolutionary? Richard Dawkins Lecture on Natural Selection and More

Is Genetic Inheritance Like Mixing Red and Blue to Get Purple? What Is Natural Selection, and How Does It Create Diverse Life? In this lecture, Richard Dawkins discusses natural selection, Darwinism, and more.
----------------------

I shall be spending the whole of September, and the first week of October, in North America, speaking in ten different cities from Dallas to Vancouver. I am 83 years old, and travel is more irksome than it was. The maxim, “Quit while you’re ahead” has recently received a welcome boost, and I anticipate that this will be my last American tour. My swansong. My final bow.

There’ll be a Q & A at every event. This will probably be your last opportunity to tell me how profoundly you disagree with everything I’ve written and said. Or the reverse if that is the case. Either way, I look forward to seeing you.
--------------------------------------------
Join Substack:

Subscribe to Poetry of Reality Channel:

Follow:

[bdbtbb]

Told a girlfriend at uni that I was uncomfortable with my religious upbringing. She recommended me to read "The Blind Watchmaker". I did, and other of your early books, and the intellectual confidence I gained allowed me to push off in a new, secular direction and I have never ever regretted that.

[madlynx]

The two books that explained life and psychology on earth to me are ‘The Selfish Gene’ by our man here, and ‘Demonic Males; apes and the origins of human violence’ by Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson

[chompolomiss]

Dawkins -- when I realized yesterday that I would not be making it to Vancouver, I was inconsolably upset. My partner who is an equally enthusiastic fan can attest - I was a hysterical mess. Now I have to suffer knowing I will never get another chance to meet my lifelong hero, or do a book signing, or tell him how much his work has meant to me, and there is noone to blame but myself! I really, really needed to be at this lecture in person, but I was not amd now I will suffer for years knowing I had a chance and missed it.
If anyone at all is reading this, NEVER WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE TO DO ANYTHING!! Avoid the heartache I am suffering now!!! Avoid the tears I'm writing this comment through right now.

Yes it is possible that I could travel to England and see Dawkins speak there some day. But costs can be prohibitively high, and as a rural Canadian this really was the best opportunity I had, and I should have been there last night.

[the-darksicilian]

This man is a treasure of information. The gestures and his body movements while he explains these topics help to understand everything in an easier manner. Almost like when italians talk and gesture their conversation. Absolutely brilliant.

[Three-Chord-Trick]

Aristotle had the idea before Darwin. And Darwin concedes this in a footnote on the first page of the SECOND edition of The Origin of Species.
Aristotle states in Physicae Auscultationes, 2, 8, 2:
'Why should not nature work, not for the sake of something, not because it is better so, but just as the sky rains, not in order to make the corn grow, but of necessity?
'What is drawn up must cool, and what has been cooled must become water and descend, the result of this being that the corn grows.
'Similarly if a man's crop is spoiled on the threshing-floor, the rain did not fall for the sake of this – in order that the crop might be spoiled – but that result just followed.
'Why then should it not be the same with the parts in nature, e.g. that our teeth should come up of necessity – the front teeth sharp, fitted for tearing, the molars broad and useful for grinding down the food – since they did not arise for this end, but it was merely a coincident result; and so with all other parts in which we suppose that there is purpose?
'Wherever then all the parts came about just what they would have been if they had come to be for an end, such things survived, being organized spontaneously in a fitting way; whereas those which grew otherwise perished and continue to perish.'

[timsullivan]

I am not sure which I most enjoyed - the experience of listening to an exquisitely accurate communicator...
...or the content of that communication. Bravo and thank thank you for both.

[anotherfreediver]

The final question was something that puzzled me as a biology student, many years ago: how was the ne-ne saved from extinction by rescuing a very few individuals, around 20 I think, whereas the passenger pigeon – another bird, so close in broad evolutionary terms, crashed when its numbers dipped below around 20, 000, if I recall correctly? I see the same with insect populations in Britain: some species manage to hang on in isolated habitats with very low population densities, whereas others that were very common a few decades ago are extinct in their old habitats. This year, for example, I haven't seen a single crane-fly in my village, whereas they were abundant five years ago. Wasps crashed this year as well.

[VaughanMcCue]

I feel so privileged to have experienced this video .

[springford]

Thanks for this, Mr Dawkins is such a fabulous presenter and material.

I was just wondering if this was a recent recording? Maybe put the recording date in the blurb above (sorry I can't think what else to call it right now:-).

[soilmanted]

Natural selection seems to be such a simple and obvious explanation for the variety of living organisms. that the first thing I thought when I learned about it at about around 1959 at age 11, is "what took so long, " why wasn't this idea expressed 100's of years earlier. For _thousands_ of years people had been aware of _human selection, _ that is creating a wide variety of angiosperms by choosing which which ovaries to pollinate with which pollen and then selecting which offspring to allow to mature to reproductive age and which to prevent from doing so. Same with animals creating a wide variety of animals by selecting which females to mate with which males and from their offspring selecting which ones to allow to mature to reproductive age and which to prevent from doing so. Look at the wide varieties of cruciferous vegetables, collards, kale, mustard, napa cabbage, heading cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower – all created from a common ancestor by _human selection._ Look at the variety of dogs that were all created from a common ancestor by human selection. Humans are part of the environment of these plants and animals. If humans can create all these varieties over a few 1000 years, it is only one "thought experiment" away from human selection to imagine selection by other things in an organism's environment – _natural selection_ – and wonder whether other things in an organism's environment, things other than humans, can do the same thing. And it is only one more thought experiment to wonder whether what a vast array of organisms, a great amount of differentiation, could develop if natural selection were to proceed over millions of years. Yet it took until 1859 for this idea to be taken seriously. Why? One reason may have been stubborn resistance to the idea by the Catholic Church but I think there must have been more to it than that. In my mind it the idea might have been entertained _before_ Christianity, before Judaism, by the Greeks, by the Chinese, by the Arab scientists of the 9th century, by others. But I'm not aware of that ever happening historically.

[loolylooly]

Would you be able to do series on Alfred Russell Wallace please? He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection in his 1858 paper

[IsaacFraser-jm]

I’m so glad I got to see you when you came to Milwaukee Wisconsin I about lost it I’m a follower of you Dawkins I will keep your work going you have taught me am still teach me so much an I will study you am advocate for you till the end Isaac Fraser

[vijaysahani]

Thank you Mr Dawkins for enlightening me through " Poetry of Reality. ❤🎉

[hboder]

I watching all of these marvellous videos so I can educate myself more in evolutionary biology which is fascinating

[jelleludolf]

Dawkins, you have deserved your position among Darwin's canines long, long ago. Ever since, you have become the leader of the pack.

[inessaarmand]

Richard, you're one of the greatest minds. Darwin would be pleased to have your acquaintance! (to know you) I am sure of this.

[Johnwick-wizw]

Its great to watch the man the myth the legend in action.😊😊😊

[daveome]

The reference to Dobzhanski triggered a name I have been trying to remember for years. 40? Curse the failing memory but thank you. Vague teen memories that may be totally wrong of a symbolic patchwork quilt moving in time, dependent on shifting probability of best fit to environment. Then the idea of extinction events being holes in the quilt. Time to revisit Dobzhanski.

[kazkk_]

It would be great to have Dawkins for a neighbour or close friend

[ansfridaeyowulfsdottir]

I loved that song at the end!

{:o:O:}