Richard Dawkins: Evolution And 'Digital Darwinism'

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Darwin's Universal Impact: Evolution And 'Digital Darwinism'. Professor Richard Dawkins (University of Oxford) @ University of Cambridge: Darwin's universal impact.

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Was Darwin the most revolutionary scientist ever?

If, by revolutionary, we mean the scientist whose discovery initiated the most seismic overturning of pre-existing science, the honour would at least be contested by Newton, Einstein and the architects of quantum theory.

Those same physicists might have outclassed Darwin in sheer intellectual fire power. But Darwin probably did revolutionize the world view of people outside science more comprehensively than any other scientist.

I want to recognize four bridges to evolutionary understanding. The first bridge is to natural selection as a force for weeding out the unfit. The second bridge is the recognition that natural selection can drive evolutionary change.

Bridge number three leads to the imaginative grasp of the importance of natural selection in explaining all of life, in all its speciose richness. Bridge number four is the bridge to public understanding and appreciation. Darwin crossed it alone, in 1859, by writing "On the Origin of Species".

The fifth bridge, which Darwin himself never crossed was neo-Darwinism or what I shall rename digital Darwinism because the essence of Mendelian genetics is that it is digital. As crests get longer, or eyes rounder, or tails gaudier, what is really being carved by natural selection is the gene pool.

As mutation and sexual recombination enrich the gene pool, the chisels of natural selection carve it into shape, working away through geological time. It is an image that might have seemed strange to Darwin. But I think he would have come to love it.

-- Richard Dawkins

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Richard Dawkins is an ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science writer. He was born in Nairobi in 1941, graduated from the University of Oxford in 1962, where he also studied for his doctorate. He spent two years at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, before returning to Oxford in 1970 to take up a lectureship in the Zoology Department.

Between 1995 and 2008, Dawkins held the Charles Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford.

He published his first book, "The Selfish Gene", in 1976. It became an instant bestseller, as were subsequent books, amongst them, "The Blind Watch Maker" (1986) and, more recently, "The God Dellusion" (2006).

He makes regular TV and radio appearances. He has won prizes for science, science communication, literature and TV productions.

http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/684763
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Category:

Education

Tags:

• richard
• dawkins
• evolution
• natural
• selection
• neo
• digital
• darwinism
• theories
• charles
• darwin
• science
• origin
• species
• mendel
• genetics
• biology

[Mankepanke]

I love his Crocoduck tie! :-D

[JerezJulio]

@the0fart0machine

So if you want to falsify evolution all you have to do is find a fossil of a modern Animal who is several dozen millions of years old.

for example if you find a the reminds of a man that is 30 or 40 millions year old, you will completely debunk evolution. But if you keep calling Genesis, and Zeus all you will get is mocks.

[Spasatcom]

Good. Video. Thanks for vids.

[karlasechler]

thank you for the informative post and keep up the good work!

[keliangarcia]

@Mogley52 nobody at ICR has a degree , you yourself evolved from a single cell to an animal in 9mths inside your mothers womb

[discipleryan]

what about the evolution of everybody who wants to think of themselves as special being called terrorists .. eugenics science out in the open lol AGENDA 21 

[Mogley52]

Dawkins won't debate with creationists who are scientists, such as the scientists at ICR, The Institure for Creation Research. Ask him why? Read my Internet article: ANY LIFE ON MARS CAME FROM EARTH. This article will also explain the scientific impossibility of life evolving into existence.

[laserindie]

@ivylsp conservation of energy don't fuck with thermodynamics

[dltanner99]

Novel about an alternative view of evolution see video book trailer

[ivylsp]

Free energy has been here for a while ,But the coverup is very strong,Find this technology at LT-MAGNET-MOTORdotCOM ,Let the revolution begin!

[STEPHENWRAYSFORD33]

Anyone interested in natural selection or Darwinism should try to read some of the original books written in the 1930s & 1940s on Neo-Darwinism, the synthesis of natural selection and Mendel's genetics. Try to read anything written by R A Fisher, Julian Huxley, J B S Haldane, T. Dobzhansky, G G Simpson Sewall Wright, G L Stebbins and Ernst Mayer.