An hour with Richard Dawkins

from the leed center at the university of kansas k pr prisons and power with richard dawkins and k mcintyre so i'll just an oxford professor richard dawkins is perhaps the best known contemporary evolutionary biologist in the world lawrence kansas was the first stop in duncan's recent national book tour to promote the god delusion in which he challenges the entire premise of religion the very existence of god in his first book the selfish gene published in nineteen seventy six has been widely hailed as one of the most important works on evolutionary biology of the twentieth century his ferocious defensive evolution recently earned him the title darwin's rottweiler from discover magazine dawkins appearance was a presentation of k use hall center for the humanities and the biodiversity institute and was part of the difficult dialogue series on knowledge faith and reason it was also co sponsored by the student union activities is perfect cover fifteen few thousand faithful for

defend our faith and fifty fifth fleet cosmologists fred hoyle said but the probability of life originating on earth is no greater than the chance that a higher again blowing through a scrap yard would have the luck to assemble the boeing seven for seven others a bar of the image to reflect the major evolution of complex living bodies where it has a spurious people's ability the odds against assembling a fully functioning holds a beetle or ostrich i randomly shuffler shuffling the parts is indeed a player in several southern turkey this in a nutshell is the creationists favorite argument an argument that could be made by somebody who doesn't understand the first thing about natural selection they think natural selection is a theory of chance

actually in the relevant sense of trance it is the opposite of the creationists hijacking of the argument from improbability always takes the same general fault some of the phenomenon a living creature when it's more complex organs could be anything from a molecule of the universe itself is extolled as statistically improbable sometimes the language of information theories used we don't use a challenge to explain the source of all the information leaving matter in the technical sense of information which is a kind of measure of the improbability or the argument may be expressed in terms of the economists macho there's no such thing as a free lunch in fact darwinian natural selection is the only no solution to the otherwise unanswerable riddle of where that information comes from it turns out to be the god theory that tries to get something

for nothing doll tries to have his free lunch and b it too how ever statistically improbable the end do you seek to explain why ripping a designer the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable god is the ultimate boeing seven for seven natural selection not only explains life it also raises our consciousness more generally it was the feminists who raised my consciousness to the top of consciousness raising even those who still use man instead of human do so with an air of self conscious apology or even truck is taking a stand for traditional language even deliberately to rile feminists all participants in

the zeitgeist today have had their consciousness raised even if some of them respond by digging in their heels and the doubling the offense i mentioned feminism shows us part of consciousness raising i want to borrow the technique of consciousness raising for natural selection natural selection not only explains the whole of life but it also raises our consciousness to the power of science to explain organized complexity from simple starting points who before darwin could have guessed that something that seemed so obviously designed as a cat or a comedian is really the end product of a long sequence of purely natural causes leonard susskind a distinguished physicist said i'm not a historian without venture an opinion modern cosmology really began telling the audience unlike anyone before them they provided an explanation about existence that

completely rejected supernatural agents darwin and wallace set a standard not only for the life sciences cosmology as well masquerading as a new and different breed the so called intelligent design theorists are making exactly the same arguments as old style creationists although they try to bamboozled their audience by shifting to the molecular level michael behe is formed to the concept of the reducible complexity is formally identical to the old what is the use of half an eye which darwin himself dealt with in the origin of species and i brought it up to date in the blind watch me that receive either way to beautiful pieces of metal design a rose thorn on the right and which is adapted to see off predators of roses and bugs on the

left which many rose thorns to see off their creditors the logic of creationism is always the same some natural phenomenon is to statistically improbable too complex to beautiful to or inspiring to have come into existence by chance design is the only alternative to chance that the ofa can imagine therefore design must have done it and sciences onset of this faulty logic is also always the same design is not the only alternative to chance natural selection is a better alternative they discussed it as if fearing a sales in some particular respect the league he must be right at supported by loads of evidence the immediate supported by no evidence at all i can't explain how theory a explains banks can

explain everything else but just on the little x that you can't explain and forty or ed muskie rights ignoring the question of whether thierry became explain its toll and ignoring the fact that theory we can't explain anything else and has no positive evidence in its favor anyway creationism intelligent design is gone to the sort of charmed immunity to the rigorous demands made of real science in fact a design is not a real alternative to chance of toll because it raises an even bigger problem than it sells who designed the designer charles and design both fail solutions to the problem of statistical improbability because one of them is the problem the other one rig isis to that natural selection is a real solution

is the only workable solution that has ever been suggested is not only a workable solution it is a solution of the most intense and pow what is it that makes natural selection succeed as a solution to the problem but improbability where charleston design fail at the starting gate in essence the answer is that natural selection is a cumulative process which breaks the problem of the improbability up into small pieces each of the smaller pieces is slightly unprintable but not prohibitively so when large numbers of the slightly improbable events are stacked up in cascade the end product of the accumulation is very very improbable indeed improbable enough to be beyond the reach of chance it's the skin products that formed the subject of the creationists aimlessly recycled argument the creationist

completely misses the point because he suspected women for once went mind the masculine pronoun because he insists on treating the genesis of statistical improbability as a single mom off event he doesn't understand the power of accumulation why not teach the controversy the controversy want controversy it's been i have to apologize for the fact that this headline which i presume comes from the onion does mention the us the state of

kansas now perhaps perhaps rather than just apologize what i should do is pay tribute to you at this campus i know that you hear messages the damage us now when i was asked to say a few words i know that you hear are in the front line trench against powerful forces of darkness the police and the police i salute you because any way i can help please let me know i have actually had serious letters from goat and conscientious science teachers in the state of kansas telling me in all seriousness that they feel beleaguered intimidated even threatened by

maybe the parents of children that they teach maybe other teachers i don't know who is easy ladies and gentleman for me to say that i don't feel intimidated but i live a long way away and i repeat i salute the science teacher's of kansas fight the good fight the politically students interested in learning more about promoting science and reason should see lauren becker who's from the centre for inquiry on campus who is sitting i think that on the right lauren becker years back yes years ago the stalled theory was labeled crazy but the new store intelligent design

the pain essentially what is wrong with intelligent design is that it's what the philosopher daniel dennett calls a spy skyhawk is something that doesn't explain anything untoward comes out of the sky with absolutely no basis for it it explains nothing except in terms of something larger which is even more needy of explanation the opposite of a sky hook dennis terminology is a crane a crane is something that does a genuine expanded free work natural selection is a prime

example of a crane it starts from simple beginnings which means by definition easy to understand and it raises also gradually to complex dance and this is characteristic of all explanations that we can call cranes natural selection of the type specimen of a crater another good metaphor for extreme improbability is a combination lock a bank robber could theoretically get lucky and hit upon the right combination of numbers like shocking to spin the wheel to random and lo and behold your lucky but in practice of course combination locks are designed with enough improbability to make this tantamount to impossible as unlikely as fred told boeing seven for seven but now imagine a badly designed combination lock that gives article hints progressive the equivalent of the children's game and you have one percent are in this country children's game lead the nevada not

where the adults is getting warmer getting cooler getting warmer getting so imagine a combination lock that when you travel the dark as you got a little bit closer to the correct number one of security agents that the door opened a little chink a little dribble of money trickled out well if you had a combination lock like that on a bank safe obviously anybody would very soon her name on the jackpot the drilling combination lock is a good analogy for darwinian evolution where the real backup it's about the real backdrop to monster and you get the jackpot or nothing but the dribbling combination lock the few hints along the way you work up to it cumulatively darwin devoted an entire chapter of the oregon see whether this is a bank of england ten pound note and you know just because there's a saying in god we trust it has a rather fine

portrait of the greatest englishman that he devoted a chapter of the origin of species through difficulties on the theory of dissent that modifications it's fair to say that this brief chapter anticipated and disposal every single one of the alleged difficulties the distance being proposed right up to the present day including so called intelligent design theorists the most formidable difficulties of what darwin cold war winds of extreme perfection and complications nowadays sometimes called it reducible complexity darwin sing about the eyes getting a particularly challenging problem he said to suppose that the idea for his engine but all in all it's inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances from eating different amounts of light and for the corrections very dramatic operation could have

been formed by natural selection seems i freely confess absurd in the highest degree creationists put this sentence again and again needless to say they never quote what follows dollars generously free confession turned out to be a rhetorical device he was leading his opponents towards you so that is punch when it came it the harder the punch of course was darwin's effortless explanation of exactly how the eye evolved by graduate degrees darwin didn't use the phrase that reduces the complexity know my phrase the smooth gradient of mount improbable that he clearly understood the principle of both searching for particular examples of what seems to be a reducible complexity is very bad way to proceed a special case of arguing from president ignorance it appeals to the same forty large as the god of the gaps

strategy invented or contributed to the theologians dietrich bonhoeffer bonhoeffer said religious people often speak of god when human perception is often out of laziness as an end or human resources fail of necessity that can only go on until man can buy their own strengths pushed the borders a little further so that god becomes purchase a gap in present day knowledge or understanding these eagerly sought by creationists if an apparent gap has found it is assumed that god by default must fill it what worries thoughtful theologians such as bomb have is that gap streak science advances and god is threatened with eventually having nowhere to hide what worries scientists to something else it's an essential part of the scientific enterprise to admit to ignorance even to exotic birds as matt ridley my friend is written most scientists aboard by what they have already

discovered it is ignorance that drives them on mistakes excelled in history and wanted to stay a mysterious scientist exotic mystery for different reasons it gives them something to do the creationist ploy undermines the scientists natural necessarily rejoicing in uncertainty today scientists suspect perhaps especially in america where religion is a formidable political force today scientists cannot say in answer to the question i bet you don't know how the elbow joint of the weasel from evolved i made that up businesses things a weasel frog that would be a typical question that one might be challenged how do you explain the elbow joint of the weasel from them scientists cannot say yes interesting question that i wonder how the weasel front

ancestors did evolve their elbow joint especially seaweeds of frogs that are going to the library and take a look i make an interesting project a graduate student but no the moment the scientists that something like that long before the graduate student began the project the default conclusion would become a headline in a creationist pamphlet weasel from could only have been designed by god so there's an unfortunate hookup between sciences methodological need to seek out gaps in our knowledge in order to target research and intended designers need to seek out areas of ignorance in order to claim victory by default it is precisely the fact that intelligent design has no evidence of its own but thrives in gaps left by scientific knowledge like we need sits an easily recites his need to identify an acclaimed the very same gaps in this respect science

finds itself in alliance with sophisticated theologians like bon iver united against the common enemy of my even talk of this theology and the gap theology of intelligent design the creation is love of gaps in the fossil record as a metaphor for their whole gap feel itchy i was introduced to chapter on the so called cambrian explosion with the words quote it is as though the fossils were planted there without an evolutionary history and quote this was a rhetorical overture intended to what the reader's appetite for the full explanation which was to follow sad hindsight tells me a predictable it was the explanation would be cut out and michael the church itself belief really quoted out of context creation is a door gaps in the fossil record

many evolutionary transitions are elegantly documented by morris continuous series of gradually changing intermediate fossils a few are not and these are the famous guests michael shermer has literally pointed out that if the new fossil discovery neatly by sects a gap in the fossil record the creation is to declare that there are now two gaps but in any case that again the unwarranted use of a default if there were no fossils to document the evolution of transition the default assumption by the creationist is that there was no evolutionary transition god must have intervened to leave a logical to demand complete documentation of every step of a new narrative with evolution or any other softly in fiction you maestro demand for convicting somebody of murder a complete cinematic record of

videotape but every movement every step leading up to the crime with no missing frames only a tiny fraction of dead animals fossilized were lucky to have as many intermediate fossils we have we could easily have had no fossils at all the evidence for evolution from other sources such as molecular genetics geographical distribution would still be utterly overwhelmingly strong on the other hand evolution makes a strong protection that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological structures the theory would be blown out of the water when he was challenged by so let's compare it to say how evolution could ever be falsified the greats biologist at a scolding famously growled faso rubinson the precambrian no such anachronistic fossils have ever been found was quite

discredited creationist legends of human skulls in the cold measures and human footprints interspersed with those of dinosaurs the logic of intelligent design turns out to be no more convincing than this by richard dawkins and personally unable to think of any way in which some particular biological phenomenon could've been built up a step by step therefore it is in reducing the complex that means it is designed a previously dubbed this the argument from personally incredulity scientists always need to do a lot more work and of course they will such work would never be done if scientists are satisfied with a lazy default of the falling behind if you don't understand how something works never mind just give up and say going to get

you don't know how the nerve impulse works vogt you don't understand how memories and laid down in the brain accidents is photosynthesis a baffling a complex process wonderful please don't go to work on the problem just give up and appeal to god yes it just don't work on your mysteries relax your mysteries the we could use them don't squander precious ignorance by researching it away we need those precious gaps as a last refuge for god as the american geneticist jerry coyne put it in his review of michael b he's infamous book quote if the history of science shows us anything it is that we get nowhere where labeling on ignorance god

got theologians who may get mobilize wings and bombardier beetles and all the other things the jetliner bacterium so often pin their remaining hopes on the origin of life evolutions roots in chemistry somehow seem to present a bigger gap in any particular transition during subsequent evolution and so in one sense it is that one sense it's quite specific when it offered snowden real comfort to the religious apologized the origin of life only had to happen once we therefore can if we have two people didn't if we have to be devil come along the origin of life to have been an extremely improbable event many orders of magnitude more improbable than most people realize and i want to show subsequent evolutionary step to duplicate even more similar ways brought millions and millions of species in parallel independently continually repeatedly throughout geologic time so we can resort

to the same kind of statistical reasoning as is unthinkable to the origin of life we can say that that is that the puritan a particular species has all that improbable the un threatening principle he's used it like to the cosmos not come to that time but i didn't introduce the idea on a small a planetary scale we exist here on earth and therefore must be the kind of planet that is capable of generating and supporting us however unusual even unique that kind of plan it might be a kind of life can survive without liquid water which is why it's so biologists searching for evidence of terrestrial life scanning the heavens in practice theyre looking for signs of water around a typical start as a so called goldilocks zone not to hope not too hot not too cold but just right just right the planets with

liquid water of the amanda orbits around the ticket a stop light between being too far from the start where water freezes into places where it boils lies in the goldilocks zone the reason possesses all the favorable qualities for life is that we are here that's the antarctic backwards way pushing it sounds paradoxical at first but there are two ways to transform the paradox into a sensible for one hour two of the design approach says that god made the world and placed it in the goldilocks zone for our benefit the scientific approach is very different as i think a darwinian feel the vast majority of planets in the universe and not in the goldilocks those of their respective styles but they're the ones that don't have life we necessarily live on one of the minority of planets where water exists in on the boilers ball freezes

could waters once quoting the need for the origin of life is far from sufficient to even get some water the art of life is probably a highly improbable occurrence darwinian evolution proceeds narrative once life was originated but how does life get started the origin of life as the chemical event or series of events where by the vital conditions for natural selection can get started the major condition is heredity i the dna or more probably some because her dna something functional equivalent to dna such as self customizing rna the bottle probably was self reputation once that was in place the natural selection could get going but the spontaneous arising by chance of the first to recruit more like you write many as improbable maybe it is made these very very very improbable and i want to elaborate this is central to the point i'm making the origin of life as a flourishing speculative areas of research and its expertise in

effect is chemistry and i'm not a chemist so i watch from the sidelines with curiosity i would be surprised if in the next few years thomas succeed in finding a workable model of the origin of life but it hasn't happened yet and it's still possible to maintain that the probability of its happening is and always was exceedingly low just as they did with a goatee not all brits we can make the point that how improbable the origin of life might be chemically speaking we know it happened on earth because we're here in intricate language the fact that we exist determines the origin of life and again as the goldilocks the two approaches to telling that backwards paradox of the antarctic principle into sensible forward narrative the design approach often it's a god who brought a new record in the pre bioethics and struck it would define fire and launched dna or something equivalent on it's momentous career but again as the goldilocks the

alternative to the designers the scientific and so is statistical we resort to the magic of large numbers it's been estimated that there are between a billion and thirty billion planets in our galaxy and about a hundred billion galaxies in the universe looking off you know what's a reasonable reproduce a billion billion is a conservative estimate of the number of planets in the universe was supposed the origin of life the spontaneous the rising of something like dna rna really was a quite staggering improbable event supposedly so improbable as to occur when only one in a billion planets now the national science foundation would loft in a chemist who admitted that the chance of his proposed research succeeding was only one in a hundred but here we're talking about pulse of one in a billion and yet even with such delays are really miniscule false life will still rise on a

billion planets of which of course has to be one because here we are that conclusion is a surprising about face again if the odds against life are arising spontaneously on the planet was little as a billion to one against nevertheless that's defying the improbable event would still happen on a billion planets the chance of finding any one of those billion like there in comets it's just like much worse than the proverbial needle in a haystack but the beauty of the amtrak be principles we don't have to go looking for that needle because any being capable of looking must necessarily start out sitting on one of those needles but now suppose i make it was that argument that statistical argument to explain the general phenomenon of biological adaptations appealing to an immense number of available to

tenants it's the fact that every species every organ in every species that have been looked at is good at what it does birds bees and bats are flying it would've seen leaves a good event a synthesizing we live on the planet well we're surrounded by literally millions of species each one of whom independently displays a powerful illusion of a parent as i could really get away with that huge numbers of planets argument to explain all these separate illusions of design no we could not repeat not don't even think about this and it's important to go to the heart of one of the most widespread misunderstandings of dollars it doesn't matter how many planets we have to play with lucky charms could be enough to explain the lush diversity of living complexity on earth in the way that we used it to explain the origin of life in the first place it's a completely different place from the origin of life because the origin of life was a police could have

been a unique event you only have to happen once he adapted fit of species have a separate environments is millions owed it happens over and over again on this planet on earth we're dealing with a generalized process for optimizing biological species a process which works all over the planet on all continents and islands and at all times you can safely predict if we wait another ten million years a whole new set of species will be as well adapted to their ways of life of today species out of that is a recovered predictable person is not a piece of statistical luck recognize with hindsight the domino of the princess is natural selection as he said is daily and on the scrutinizing throughout the world every variation even the slightest rejecting that which is bad preserving and adding on what is good silently

and insensitive working whenever and wherever opportunity office an improvement to be sure gonna be so you're the principal could explain the origin of it went to for explaining the diversity of life we really need a powerful crane of darwinian natural selection to account for the diversity of life on earth and especially a superficially persuasive illusion of design the origin of life lies outside the reach of that crane of natural selection can't get started without it and it's here that the antarctic principle might come into it so we can deal with the origin of natural selection by postulated a very large number of punditry opportunities once that initial spoke about has been granted the amtrak the principle is decisively grants to us natural selection takes over a natural selection has very little

connection with luck it may be said that the origin of life is not the only major golf evolution restore this bridge by sheer luck and frantically justified my colleague mark ridley into mendelssohn demon which is called something else over here and to be an annoying publishes habit of changing books titles as they cross the atlantic it even seen and even bought the same book twice going to materialize margaret he suggested that the origin of the hugh carey optics ls that the large and complex so which would win the lovable plants and from the image of everything the bacteria track but the origin of you carry out excel could have been another one off event statistically improbable the same kind of way as the origin of life or maybe the origin of consciousness is another major gap another rubicon was bridging was of the same order of improbability one off events like that might be

explained by the entropy principle along the following lines there are billions of planets that have developed life at the level of bacteria but only a fraction of these life forms ever make it across that gap to something like you carry a cell and all of those yet smaller fraction managed to cross the late show rubicon to consciousness you know there was a one off events and we're not dealing with a ubiquitous of aging process as we are with ordinary run of the mill biological adaptation can forget principle states that sits only complex you carry out your equivalent unconscious life forms a capable of noticing their own existence our planet has to be one of the intensity where planets the region all three gaps welcome we lived not only on a friendly climate but also in a friendly universe the laws of physics must be friendly enough to allow

life to arise physicists have noted many ways in which if a northern constants in physics have been ever so slightly different universe would've turned out in different ways such that the evolution of life would have been impossible different <unk> different ways that computers always much the same the present astronomer royal so martin rees speech will come out has calculated that the sixth major consequence which required explanation of this sort and they're believed to hold or around the universe each of these six numbers as finely tuned in the sense that if it were ever so slightly different the university comprehensively different and presumably unfriendly to life for each of the six numbers the bottom lines to say the actual number but we observe sits near the middle of a goldilocks plant a values outside which life at least as we know it would not have been possible how should we respond to this one again two main classes of answer have been proposed but the sun set

and entropy comes in the theaters as the god setting up the universe had a number of half a dozen or few more numbers that he could travel tuning the fundamental constants of the universe so that each one leighton is goldilocks zone for the production of life as ever the few sounds that is deeply unsatisfying because it leaves the existence of god and explained a god capable of calculating that goldilocks balance of just six numbers would have to be at least as improbable as the finely tuned combination of numbers it follows the atheist has utterly failed to make any headway whatsoever towards solving the problem at hand it don't have to dismiss it when at the same time arguing the undoubted fact that many people can't see the problem and even seem to be satisfied by the answers the psychological reason for that has something do with the fact that

many people have not had their consciousness raised as biologists have by natural selection and its power to detain improbability biologists having seen the part of a good creighton natural selection to explain how massive improbability can be built up from simpler and therefore less improbable ingredients biologists are unlikely to be satisfied with theories that evade the problem of improbability altogether by just pushing it back on stage the fiesta response to the riddle of the improbability is an invasion of stupendous proportions all the restatement of the problem it's a grotesque amplification of it down for the cancer to the riddle is the general form is again we could only be discussing the question in the kind of universe was capable of producing parts existence there for innocence retrospect it determines that the fundamental constants had to be in that goldilocks those different

physicist espoused different kinds of them for a solution to the riddle of our existence hard nosed physicists like the nobel prize winning theory steven weinberg say that the six mile to have an enormous there are one level for each vary in the first place when physicists finally reach a long hoped for theory of everything we shall see that martin rees says six numbers depend upon each other in ways that we today can't imagine the six numbers may turn out to be no more free to very and if the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter turn out that there is only one way for universe to be gone too far from godly needed to triple six knots there are no not to travel or to muster the same thing but not a fixed gang locked together so you can turn one of them without all of them turning in sympathy but other physicists find that way putting it unsatisfying nothing much in recent minutes on what the country

that it is indeed a perfectly plausible that there is only one way for universe to be but why did that one way have to be such a setup for eventual evolution why did it have to be the kind of universe which almost seems as if in the words of the physicist freeman dyson it must have known we were coming the philosopher john misty use the analogy of the man sentenced to death by firing squad it is just possible that all ten men of the firing squad will miss their victim with hindsight the victim who finds himself in a position to reflect on his luck kim jeffrey say what all this video message i want to be yet but he could still forgive me wonder why they all mixed and taught with hypotheses that is that they were bright that problem can be answered by the suggestion which martin recent self supports that there are many

universes coexisting a multiverse to make of us so the film of bubbles each bubble being one universe the malls and constance have anyone universe such as our observable universe the bubble in which we happen to be amir finals parochial finals the multiverse as a whole has a plethora of alternative sets of the finals the amtrak the principal mouse kicks in to explain that we have to be in one of those universes one of those bubbles begin to minority whose finals just happened to be a propitious to our eventual evolution now it's tempting to think many have succumbed to postulate a plethora of universes is a profligate luxury which would not be allowed if we're going to allow our imaginations the extravagance of a multiverse so those people say it might as well be hungry she has a lamb and allow god are they both equally and

possum in years at how i've often sees an equally unsatisfactory know anybody who thinks that does not understood the consciousness raising lesson of natural selection the key difference between the genuine extravagant god hypothesis and he apparently extravagant multiverse hypothesis is one of statistical improbability that much evidence for that it is extravagant is simple god or any intelligent decision taking calculated agent is complex the multiverse may seem extravagant and sheer number of universes which of each one of those universes is very simple in its fundamentals are still not postulated anything highly improbable the very opposite has to be said that any kind of intelligence which can only come from statistically improbable complexity us alone the kind of god is capable of

forgiving sins announcer impress and listening to your thoughts and raising from the dead and all the other things that god is supposed to do well overseas there's a lot more game in my book that no time covert all that could be caught in conclusion a few sides in a straight points that come up in the book is it's a remarkable coincidence or what everyone has the same religion as their parents and it's always just happens to be the right religion religion tends to run in families if you and i had been brought up in ancient greece italy were shootings use of apology been born vikings little bit that worshiping where town and fall how does this come about through childhood indoctrination religion runs in families a christmas time a few years ago my daily newspaper the independent was

looking for a nice seasonal picture they found a heart warming economic alarm to school nativity play the three wise men what played by shadi hamid to see more scharf a muslim and abdel a christian all at full imagine another if life be just imagine the outcry if the caption for such a picture had red shirt reads a monitor as michelle wrath keynesian and abdel a marxist old age four there's no such thing as a catholic child

there's no such thing as a protestant child there's no such thing as a muslim child there's a child of catholic parents there's a child of protestant parents as a child of muslim parents but to label a four year old child to tie label around its neck with the religion of its parents is a form of mental child abuse it's been imagine that she had read an atheist the shore of an agnostic and i don't the secular humanist old age four we will see maps of the world like this which showed him in color where different religions prevail maginnis science work like that imagine the controversy over

how the dinosaurs went extinct what'd you to a meteorite taking the world with a due to the mammals taking over was it due to a virus suppose the world and it was a match like that and the malaria is everybody believe it was uneasy allies in the red areas they believe it was a comment on the yellow areas of hours they can sell it's b the court interview biology is a very reputable a logical journal i read it off and i put it ever hear an imaginary special issue in the court review on this interesting question did an asteroid killed the dinosaurs i'm going to fill in the table of contents with a set of possible papers the first one's a very plausible scientific paper that says this is what a sound of people would look like you read him that at foundry and potassium art and at crate and you can tom indicate

asteroids killed the dinosaurs are scientific paper the president of the royal society has been vouched safe to a strong in a conviction that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs it has been trying to be revealed to professor hossein was an asteroid killed the dinosaurs professor hallie was brought up to have to school and non christian faiths as an asteroid killed the dinosaurs professor hawkins has promulgated un official dogma binding on a whole lot of hope he was eons

some asteroids be killed the dinosaurs that's american of belfast the oranges protestant areas and the blue is catholic areas that no other difference between those people they look the same they sent the same language they sound the same the only thing that keeps them apart is the religion of their forefathers get passed down from generation to generation by sectarian schools with the full support and connivance of the british government we've already seen this map similar map of different areas in which people believe different things about how the dinosaurs were killed again the absurdity or believing different things about the world

about the universe about things that really matter in different regions and it makes a difference every one he's an atheist about his use of his thunder bolts apollo would fall with his mistress mayo or once worshipped as gods people believed in them pray to them sacrificed for them lots of people they were intimately intertwined with their respective cultures and creatures children were brought up in the knowledge of them told of their existence as a matter of uncounted fact nowadays everybody believes that no matter how sincere those but he was undoubtedly were they were deluded we are all atheists about all those golds every one of his guards was a delusion and so the

country suffers but anthropologist to describe for us or around the world everyone today agrees that all those ancient gods with allusions some of us just go one going further it's both fb professor douglas darwinian evolution by natural

selection in a grand unifying long while he explains the history of diversity of life on the patterns and processes and with that diversity rose why so much of the public the nih this explanation and her face of compelling i don't think of stupidity i think it's ignorance i have done a number of radio talk shows in the united states and i when i first started doing them talk about evolution about my night it did to get hostile questions but in fact i got rather little of that i got questions which are clearly based on ignorance and when i actually talked until people were representations about i got expressions of real interests and curiosity in both britain and america hardly anybody is properly told what evolution actually is which is

a tragedy of course the understanding of why we exist why we're here why life is the way it is is so the spellbinding exciting and it's something that since eighteen fifty nine humanity has been privileged to know and yet the majority of humanity does not know because they're not taught to love this story by my colleague john engler who was one of the foremost and scientists working on studies of natural selection he was once on a plane and internal fighting united states and he got talking to his next door neighbor in the plane and next on a boston what he didn't end there explained about his experiments on official puppies and streams in in trinidad and central america in which he demonstrated natural selection in a brilliant experiments and field observations and he never once mentioned by the

evolution or natural selection but he told his neighbor exactly what he did and his neighbor was very exciting he said gee thats really interesting why must be some theory behind that what what's the theory behind that and only then did and not reveal his hand he said it's darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and the man was incredibly them out and turned away and would have no more to do with it that kind of bigotry i suspect is comparatively rare what i think is that there is an enormous well springs of ignorance which are just waiting for us to do something about and that's what i've tried to devote my life to encourage additional rivers originate few fans duffy's and for four to five favorite fifteen thousand fifth avenue

center at the university of kansas it was the presentation of youthful center for the humanities and the biodiversity institute and was part of their difficult dialogue series and knowledge faith and reason and j mcintyre keep your prisons as a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas said this is the worst of former white house that we've ever american history or pod next time on tv here presents robert f kennedy jr from his recent appearance at a youth league center join as eight o'clock sunday night on kansas public radio as kennedy lasting environmental record of the bush white house the polluters in charge of perjury or the agency's officials to be protecting the rest of us from pollution stealth attack the white house used all kinds of ingenious imaginations to conceal its radical agenda for the american public at our prisons environmental activists robert f kennedy jr sunday night at eight o'clock on kansas public

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