PZ Myers Discussion (1/10) - Richard Dawkins

Buy it now on DVD at: http://richarddawkins.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&...

DURING HIS U.S. TOUR in 2008, Biologist and bestselling author Richard Dawkins met with some of the world's leading scientists to discuss topics such as Quantum Physics, Biology, Evolutionary Psychology, Science education, religion, atheism and more. This video brings you the fascinating unedited discussions between Richard Dawkins and Nobel Prize-winning Physicist Steven Weinberg, Physicist Lawrence Krauss, Biologist and blogger PZ Myers, and Evolutionary Psychologist David Buss.

From a public conversation at Stanford University to private conversations in Austin and Minneapolis, this collection offers a rare and inspirational opportunity to observe some of today's top scientists as they discuss some of the big issues without interruption.

Credits:
Produced by Josh Timonen and Maureen Norton
Edited by Josh Timonen
Camera by Josh Timonen and Wayne Marsala

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Richard
• Dawkins
• PZ
• Myers
• Evolution
• Biology
• Science
• Atheism
• Religion
• Voices
• of

[tragicslip]

i couldn't help but notice only about one in seven of you will watch the entire interview. if only those rare ones of seven commented as much as everyone else.

[FellOnSoundGarden]

@FeignofCordor

you came from a single cell. and it only took 9 months!

[porrsmurfen]

@FeignofCordor You don't seem to understand the fundamentals of fossilization. For something to fossilize, it needs to have a hard, dense structure, such as bone, iron etc. Since bacteria DO NOT have bone, they basically never fossilize, except for a select few that secrete special hard substances that preserve them.

And no, animal fossils didn't exist before about 600 million years ago, there was just bacteria. And the causes of the cambrian explosion are well documented - I suggest u google.

[FeignofCordor]

@porrsmurfen I`m not at all wrong. fossils existed before the Cambrian fossils but nobody has ever found the evolutionary links that should lead to the Cambrian explosion as its known. They just appeared in a relatively short period of time with no evolutionary steps prior to their appearing. Darwin predicted they would be found and they haven`t

[youthank8]

i used to be a miltant atheist, but then i took a dawkins brand of elegance to the knee

[porrsmurfen]

@FeignofCordor You're completely wrong. Precambrian fossils have been found, and the oldest dated >confirmed< fossil is of simple bacteria approx. 3.5 billion years old, found in Greenland. Complex multicellular life never evolved until about 600 million years ago right before the cambrian, at which point different types of predators and parasitic organisms started emergin in the fossil record - this triggered the evolutionary armsrace and the so called "cambrian explosion".

[FeignofCordor]

@FellOnSoundGarden It wouldn`t matter if the person or persons who told me is a Creationist or a atheist Biologist facts are facts whether you are comfortable with them or not. Darwin searched for the pre Cambrian evolutionary scale that would explain those diverse Cambrian fossils but neither he nor his contemporaries found them and so in his writings he predicted that in the decades and century to come we would find them, But nobody has. We now also know that we never came from a single cell

[FeignofCordor]

@FellOnSoundGarden I need to get straight what you`re saying, Are you saying that the reason why no prior stages of evolution leading to the Cambrian fossils have been found because they was soft bodied and therefore have left no trace?

[FellOnSoundGarden]

@FeignofCordor

There are many evolutionary explinations for the cambrian explosion. First off, "sudden" in geological time is 100's of thousands of years or even millions. Also, a hard skeleton and exoskeleton first appeared around that time and this leads to better fossilization. For the same reason we don't have any flatworm fossils, there is nothing hard to fossilize. This is why the major phyla appear to us observers, through fossils, to appear "suddenly".

[FellOnSoundGarden]

@FeignofCordor

What evidence goes against that theory? and who told you that the evidence goes against that theory? let me guess, some creationist? There is over 150 years of scientific evidence that evolution and common descent of all organisms are FACTS. A good theory like evolution is falsifiable, yet is not falsified. Evolution had many chances to be proven wrong but all evidence shows it is FACT. The evidence is literally everywhere and overwhelming. I would happy to explain

[FeignofCordor]

@FellOnSoundGarden

True so i`ll rephrase what I typed. I don`t believe that all life evolved from a single cell.

[FeignofCordor]

@sophocrat

I`m flexible about the possibility that there is local evolution but I just don`t go the rest of the way with evolutionist who believe that we all came from one simply Cell. The evidence goes against that theory.