In Defense of Darwin?

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Natural Sciences, History, Documentary, Science, Society & Culture

4.6 • 44.5K Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2009

⏱️ 18 minutes

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Summary

When evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins' daughter was six years old, he told her that flowers are not here for beauty, not here for the bees, but instead merely to copy their own DNA. Sigh, what a Dad. So is Richard Dawkins always so gloomy and reductionist about the world? Well yes, but he would say that his vision of the world is anything but gloomy, he even calls it romantic. In this conversation from the 92nd St Y, Robert challenges Dawkins on this and a number of other sticky spots on the topic of biological evolution.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Wait, you're listening.
0:01.1	Okay.
0:02.4	All right.
0:03.6	Okay.
0:05.0	All right.
0:06.4	You're listening to Radio Lab.
0:09.4	Radio Lab.
0:10.1	Short!
0:11.4	From W. N. Y.
0:13.8	C.
0:14.7	See?
0:15.0	Yes.
0:16.5	And NPR.
0:19.1	Hi, I'm Robert Krilwich, and this is Radio Lab, The podcast, Jedda Boomerad, who's normally at my side, is still at home, eking out the very end of his paternity leave with his brand new baby, so I've been very careful not to disturb him, which means, though, I do have to find somebody else to fight with. And I did manage to get into a nice little tussle with Richard Dawkins,
0:42.3	one of the great defenders of Charles Darwin. He's the Charles Simony Professor of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford. He also comes from a long line of combative Englishmen,
0:47.6	including a guy who tried to burn down an Ivy League college in the United States. In fact,
0:52.3	why don't we begin with a little biographical sketch
0:55.0	of Richard Dawkins that I used to introduce him to an audience at the 92nd Street Y in New York City,
0:59.4	and then we'll get on to the discussion. I told them that Dawkins' great, great, great, great, great,
1:03.4	great, great, great, great, grandfather, going back to the 1700s. Was the major commander
1:08.4	of the British forces who fought George Washington here in the American Revolution.
1:13.2	And it was Richard Dawkins' Great Great Great, Great, Great, whatever, Sir Henry Clinton,
	...

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