“We paired up Britain’s most celebrated scientists to chat about the big issues: the unity of life, ethics, energy, Handel – and the joy of riding a snowmobile”
“Sir David Attenborough, 84, is a naturalist and broadcaster. He studied geology and zoology at Cambridge before joining the BBC in 1952 and presenting landmark series including Life On Earth (1979), The Living Planet (1984) and, recently, Life. Richard Dawkins, 69, was educated at Oxford, later lectured there and became its first professor of the public understanding of science. An evolutionary biologist, he is the author of 10 books, including The Selfish Gene (1976), The God Delusion (2006) and The Greatest Show On Earth (2009). He is now working on a children’s book, The Magic Of Reality.
What is the one bit of science from your field that you think everyone should know?
David Attenborough: The unity of life.
Richard Dawkins: The unity of life that comes about through evolution, since we’re all descended from a single common ancestor. It’s almost too good to be true, that on one planet this extraordinary complexity of life should have come about by what is pretty much an intelligible process. And we’re the only species capable of understanding it.”
Head over to The Guardian to hear the audio interview and read the Q&A
"
Imagine seeing these two giants of science sitting on a bench? I wonder if they ever just talk about cars?
DA: One would be when I first dived on a coral reef and I was able to move among a world of unrevealed complexity.
RD: Something to do with a puzzle being solved – things fall into place and you see a different way of looking at things which suddenly makes sense.
DA lives his life as a mystery/adventure, dawkins as puzzles. Both valid and awesome.
If I was ever going to follow a Messiah, it’d be David Attenborough.
@Jessxxx I think Dawkins would vomit at your proposition of calling ANYONE a messiah, I can’t agree with anyone being messiah-like, but attenborough (and most certainly dawkins as well) both have auras of majesty. “Auras of majesty” is as “etherea” as I get.
@V Just my way of putting it; I am a huge admirer of Attenborough.
I’m currently reading Dawkin’s The Ancestor’s Tale, it’s a great read. I recommend it to anyone curious about evolution or genetics.
two superstars of the scientific world who live in their own intellectual ‘cocoon’, whilst the rest of the world drowns in ignorance. DA says we are living in the most exciting age of scientific discovery, yet here we are in the 21st century and as I write, the shamefully evil triumvurate of the establishment ( queen, PM and BBC ) are fawning at the feet of the pope on his official visit to this country. I am nauseated, depressed and angry because if we should fawn at anyones feet, it should be RD and DA.
Excited about future bedtime stories with The Magic Of Reality.
To Mike:
Are RD and DA God ? If not, then there is no need to bow at their feet, they are just mere men like anyone else is. Except they never can give their over reactive brain a rest and be quiet and go to those places that have true spiritual activity and I am not talking about Lourdes, Ted Haggard who was caught in homosexual activity and many other fallacies in spiritual frauds.
Let him go to prophets that have evidence of proving they see the future years, months ahead. If you just do an investigation you will find them. They do exists. But RD and DA never go and visit them. They have their own agenda and have a cult following because their cult does not look anywhere else then believing what they crap up, whether it is science or just for the heck of it, what they ONLY can see
with the natural Eye(s), microscope, or other tools. Why not go and check those who have a reputation of proof of supernatural healing, prophecy, unusual phenomena, etc. etc. There is tons of it on Youtube and even their establishments where they practice it, you can go to and see it with your own eyes and yet invisible things are happening.
But no, none of those here will do that. It is better to panhandle it and call it a farce while they never have been anywhere near such phenomena. Again only what their brain, eyes, facts can discover they run after….
It’s time that the bashing stops from both sides and let them come together and observe each others discoveries instead of going out on a limp to prove this or that. Criticism has evolved to nothing than unbelief of the supernatural.