New Richard Dawkins special on Darwin

[Ro]

Episode 1 of 3 of "The Genius Of Charles Darwin" aired yesterday, video up today on Google Video:

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-4471435322910215458&ei=12yaSJHfC5DQ-wHIw-0y&q=richard+dawkins+darwin

Haven't watched it yet, but I enjoyed his last two BBC series "The Enemies Of Reason" and "The Root Of All Evil," also both available on GV (I think).

Edit- I can't get the link to work properly, but the video I'm referring to can be accessed along the left hand side if you scroll down a bit. It's 48 min long.

[RougeUnderoos]

I watched the first episode today. I thought he was kind of harsh with the English school kids. His line of reasoning to those kids, while it makes perfect sense to me, is a little rough for schoolchildren with a camera on them

And I know it's Dawkins and that religion is never going to be far off, he could have told the story without all the yakking about "Darwin's theory is way better than any religious story". I didn't think religion had to be brought up at all. He was explaining a theory to "laymen" and it just seemed to complicate matters.

I guess, though, that in the context of the time that Darwin was doing his thing, it does make sense to explain what most everyone else was believing to be true.

[photon]

I think the kids are old enough to answer as simple a question as "is it right to believe something just because you were raised to think that way", but it didn't seem they had ever considered the question before. And so many of them saw it as a choice between God and evolution when it doesn't have to be.

Interesting video, very very basic for people who have no introduction to the subject which is good. Look forward to the next ones.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by photon

I think the kids are old enough to answer as simple a question as "is it right to believe something just because you were raised to think that way", but it didn't seem they had ever considered the question before. And so many of them saw it as a choice between God and evolution when it doesn't have to be.

Yeah, that's true. It just seemed to me that a guy like Dawkins, who is really bringing a gun to a knife fight in that kind of discussion, was a little tough on them.

But... whoever told these kids to believe what they do believe was even tougher, and spiced his "theories" up with spooky tales about what will happen if they believe otherwise, so maybe it was a fair approach.

I had vague ideas about all the big questions when I was 15. If some charismatic celebrity preacherman had come into my school with a camera crew and used fancy words to get my head spinning, well that just wouldn't have seemed fair.

He proved a point but he didn't need kids to do it I guess is my argument.

On the other hand, using affluent, English private-school students to prove that point wasn't an accident, so maybe it was a good thing.

[Circa89]

Very interesting.
I love evolutionary theory but not neccesarily staunch darwinism. I lived for a while at the base of Mount Burgess in Yoho National Park where I discovered Stephen J. Gould's studies ( The Burgess Shale) on the precambrian explosion where he developed the idea of decimation and diversification. In this theory he takes the tree of life (increasing cone of diversity) and almost inverts it pointing out that there were a thousand models for animal life and only a few were expanded upon. Imagine the possibilities

I have just recently in the past five years or so really read up on Quantum evolution. Neat stuff that can help explain a lot.

But I still fail to see how religion and evolution are mutually exclusive topics.
Every kid can grasp the concept of natural selection (or forced selection) by looking at dog breeds. How can ANYONE argue that a Yorkshire Terrier and a Saint Bernard were always found in the wild and Gods Creation? They weren't, they were selctively bred and everyone knows that. What is the difference in general concept between forced breeding over hundreds of years and natural selection over millions? A pretty basic concept that can be grasped by any 14 year old I'm sure.

Still religion does not have to be discounted because try as it may evolutionary theory or science in general never explains, nor ever can explain the rise from the single celled organism to the self aware consciousness ( I think therefore I am) Cartesian thought process that humans have, the faculty of the mind supercedes evolutionary explainations plain and simple.

This coming from a guy who has never even been to a church.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Circa89

But I still fail to see how religion and evolution are mutually exclusive topics.

Yeah, but in this Darwin documentary does he even get to that?

Early on he does say "this theory is what leads me to believe there is no god", but the gist of his religious argument, as I saw it, was "this evolution explanation is way better than an explanation we get from any religious text" and that's about as far as he goes.

I think I'm contradicting myself.

[Circa89]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Yeah, but in this Darwin documentary does he even get to that?

Early on he does say "this theory is what leads me to believe there is no god", .

I guess that is what I am trying to say, evolution and religion are NOT mutually exclusive. Dawkins has no reason to discount God simply because he likes Darwin and religious folk have no business disregarding evolution because they like God.

Dawkins doesn't broach the subject that Creationism and Evolution are mutually exclusive but "God" and evolution are not.

[Thor]

I always enjoy Dawkins work, maybe its my guilty pleasure as he often says things many of us are thinking but hold back for not wanting to be too harsh.

Watching and hearing from friends in Europe the impact of the influence and push by Islam, I can clearly see why people like Dawkins are no longer quiet or gentle about the debate.

I guess in Canada we can be quite fortunate to not have our public school board meetings chalk full of people trying to get creationism into our science classes nor the zealotry found in places like in parts of the US and of course much of the muslim world.

I still find the series done by PBS's NOVA on Darwin as the best ever documentary series made on the subject. Probably not too hard to find online, the series was called Darwin's Dangerous Idea (2hrs) and the Nova Evolution series which was 7 parts (7hrs), Liam Neeson narrated.

[photon]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Yeah, but in this Darwin documentary does he even get to that?

Early on he does say "this theory is what leads me to believe there is no god", but the gist of his religious argument, as I saw it, was "this evolution explanation is way better than an explanation we get from any religious text" and that's about as far as he goes.

I think I'm contradicting myself.

I don't think Darwin does, I just found that the kids themselves did very much, saying that the information on evolution was interesting but they still believed in God one said I think.

Originally Posted by Circa89

Still religion does not have to be discounted because try as it may evolutionary theory or science in general never explains, nor ever can explain the rise from the single celled organism to the self aware consciousness ( I think therefore I am) Cartesian thought process that humans have, the faculty of the mind supercedes evolutionary explainations plain and simple.

I disagree, the whole point of evolution is a common ancestor, at one point far in the past all life was a single population of single celled organisms. There's been tons of research into consciousness and how it evolved, why would that be outside evolution's ability to describe?

And even if it was something that evolution didn't explain, why would religion be the only alternative?

[Bagor]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

I watched the first episode today. I thought he was kind of harsh with the English school kids. His line of reasoning to those kids, while it makes perfect sense to me, is a little rough for schoolchildren with a camera on them

Agreed, I'm a big fan of Dawkins and believer in the theory but found this approach a bit condescending, smart alicky and aggressive. Not really much different to a Jehovah on your doorstep with their self righteous attitude. Teach the subject and let the kids see for themselves.

Here's my problem with the way the whole thing has gone though and that is modern day nomenclature re. the naming of species.

If we take the accepted definition of species:

A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species

I find that there are too many organisms out there that meet the above criteria yet are often labelled as seperate species. Ornithologists IMO are the most guilty.

e.g. A conservation effort from Europe.

next part of the problem is that these two ducks are closely enough related to breed successfully, resulting in lots of little hybrid ducklings swimming about the ponds of Europe. The reason this is a problem is that the white-headed duck is European, while the ruddy duck is an escaped American import to the UK that has spread to Europe. Without intervention, the ruddy duck's adventuring spirit may be the end of the white-headed duck as it is now known........

The hybrid ducks are fully fertile and breed with more white-headeds, thereby increasing the speed of hybridisation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A663004

Now couldn't the argument be made that these two "different" species as they're known although showing some genetic difference and morphological traits are technically and strictly in a biological sense (as defined above) the same species but two different races of the same species with the traits of the ruddy duck being selected for? It's basically Dawkin's selfish gene concept in action.

IMO they are just labelled as species based on morphological difference and slight genetic variation alone. Goal posts have moved.

This is where I have the main problem and I use this anology to make a point. If they're doing this with animals why not humans? I'm morphologically and slightly genetically different to for example a black African* yet I'm known as a different race of the same species. Why the lack of consistancy for animals and humans re. nomenclature? Why aren't the 2 ducks known as different races of the same species? The same thing goes on with plants, fish .......

Or to go to the very extreme if they're able to split species into sub species ( Presence of specific locally adapted traits may further subdivide species into subspecies. (above link)) for plants and animals why not do it for humans. Why is there no Homo sapien sicklecellus?

All I'm saying is there appear to be different rules for nomenclature for humans and the rest of organisms. I believe they should just keep it simple and if breeding is witnessed then the organism(s) should be rearranged as the same species, different races. Things have got too messy with DNA analysis.

*This is not meant to be racist in any way, simply a factual observation, if you want to jump all over me and accuse me as being racist go ahead. I'm not prepared to debate it for the simple matter that it'll go on for pages and I'd never convince you otherwise.

[troutman]

Episode I:

http://www.richarddawkins.net/articl...kins-Channel-4

[photon]

http://angusreidstrategies.com/uploa....05_Origin.pdf

58% percent nationally accept evolution, while only 37% do in Alberta, while 22% nationally believe in special creation while in Alberta 40% do.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by photon

http://angusreidstrategies.com/uploa....05_Origin.pdf

58% percent nationally accept evolution, while only 37% do in Alberta, while 22% nationally believe in special creation while in Alberta 40% do.

Notably, the younger and more educated you are, the more likely you are to accept evolution (close to 70%).

[Thor]

37% in Alberta, ouch!

[RougeUnderoos]

Ouch indeed. It's downright depressing.

Funny thing -- we (at least in Alberta) always make cracks about Saskies being a bunch of rubes, but they've got us beat pretty soundly on this one.

[Cowboy89]

I'm rather shocked that 2 in 5 people in Alberta actually believe that humans were created by God in the past 10,000 years. That's terrible that people would actually be that stupid.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

I'm rather shocked that 2 in 5 people in Alberta actually believe that humans were created by God in the past 10,000 years. That's terrible that people would actually be that stupid.

"Whole lotta honkeys in here..."

[Thor]

All 3 episodes are online now, for those interested.

Gotta say Dawkins held back a bit here from his usual aggressive approach, probably very intentional on his behalf.

Still love the PBS series on Darwin better, but this was very enjoyable as well, the science teacher who thought the earth was less than 10,000yrs old was quite funny, especially how easy Dawkins was on him