Professor Richard Dawkins' Seminar at Science World 2011 Part 3

"Should doctors be Darwinian?"
Professor Richard Dawkins visited Science World 2011 and presented some challenging new ideas about medicine and evolution to a packed out audience. Famous for his popular science books The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion; Dawkins changed track in this lecture and discussed the need for doctors and medical researchers to be mindful of evolution when treating and studying disease.
Professor Dawkins is Vice President of the British Humanist Association and founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. The mission of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is to support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and human suffering.

Register for next year's Science World event at: http://www.fisher.co.uk/scienceworld

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[GreatBigBore]

Oops, never mind. I posted my "better" explanation before listening to the rest of the video.

[GreatBigBore]

Rather than using the calcium example to explain the tooth quality question, I think that Dr Dawkins' point might have been clearer if he'd explained thus: in the wild, a rat's body must expend a certain amount of energy to produce good teeth. If a rat can't get enough food to build those teeth but his genes are trying to build them anyway, the rat will be malnourished and raise fewer viable offspring. Rats needing less energy might have worse teeth, but they'd be healthier and more prolific.

[niginit]

He's absolutely right, I've broken both of my clavical bones twice!