Richard Dawkins Lecture - University of Washington -10/08/09 - Part 1

How life arose from non-life has nothing to do with evolution. Though Dawkins obviously doesn't believe in a god, evolutionary theory doesn't necessarily predict that one doesn't exist. Even if we were to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt there were a god, it still wouldn't change our understanding of evolutionary processes. Evolution doesn't create life, it only explains the processes that life goes through when there is life. Where that life came from is an entirely separate matter.

Your question is a little like asking how "storm" arises from "non-storm". A storm is not something fundamentally different from peaceful weather, whose origin requires some miraculous leap. It is only a way in which the same matter that makes up peaceful weather can be organized into a self-sustaining pattern. Life is something like that: a way for ordinary inanimate matter to be organized into self-sustaining units of replication. The origin of such organization is itself subject to evolution.

or "fire" from "non-fire", for that matter.

You're lending out your signed book? You are a braver soul than I, sir. ;)

that's cool! I wonder if he would sign any other older books which he released (blindwatchmaker, god delusion, etc.)??

Also, do they have a bookstand there selling the book/cds? I haven't got my book yet and am going to see him on Friday, just wondering..

hope you got your book back asap! =p

At the event I went to they had a bookstand where they were selling like 7 of his books (including the ones you listed above). I was able to get Selfish Gene signed, which was awesome ;)

Have fun on friday!