Reviewed by Matthew Cockerill

The Royal Institution Faraday Lectures, delivered each Christmas by a distinguished scientist and in recent years broadcast by the BBC, have been enjoyed by both children and adults for generations.

Richard Dawkins' 1991 lectures received particular acclaim. Dawkins is in top form, articulating with evangelical fervor the case for science and rationality as a means of understanding the universe and our place within it.

The Wonders of Evolution

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Dawkins' books, from The Selfish Gene onwards, have successively articulated this theme, with Dawkins making full use of his unparalleled talent for explaining complex ideas in simple language. As a lecturer, Dawkins is no less eloquent. In his series of lectures, he draws on a variety of analogies, thought experiments, practical demonstrations, and astonishing footage of the natural world, to show how powerful the ideas of Darwinian evolution are as a means of understanding the world we live in.

The lectures, which later formed the basis for the book Climbing Mount Improbable, argue that for a rational human being, believing in evolution is not just one possible choice: it is the only choice that makes any sense. In his characteristically uncompromising style, Dawkins attacks the woolly thinking that would accept religion as an alternative explanation of the world we live in, or, perhaps worse from Dawkins' point of view, accept that religion has a different but parallel role to play. Religion, to Dawkins, is by its very nature the antithesis of rationality.

These convictions, expressed with Dawkins' usual verve and clarity, make this series of lectures an extremely provocative starting point for debate.

Dawkins and like-minded neo-Darwinians, as they are known, believe that our current knowledge of molecular biology, taken together with Darwin's idea of natural selection, is sufficient to remove the mystery from the origin and evolution of life on earth, without any need to evoke a higher power. Even within the scientific community, however, the confidence of neo-Darwinians in the power of natural selection to deliver the goods has not gone unchallenged. The astronomer Fred Hoyle was famously troubled by the apparent unlikelihood that blind chance could have led to the evolution of complex living organisms. Even the most primitive organisms display such staggering and intricate complexity that for an organism, or even a single organ like the eye, to evolve by chance, would, suggested Hoyle, be like a whirlwind blowing through a junkyard and assembling a 747.

In his lectures, Dawkins addresses the 747 argument head-on. Organisms are able to achieve the apparently impossible, through evolution, thanks to a process of "smearing out the luck." Rather than suddenly coming up with a fully formed wing, organisms gradually acquire better and better approximations. "Oh yes?" sneer the antievolutionists, "so show us an animal with half a wing. What use could half a wing possibly be?" Dawkins rises to the challenge, describing three animals that have evolved what could be seen as "partial wings" and which clearly do find them useful. A similar argument holds with the eye, that other canard of antievolutionists: although widely used by creationists as an example of an organ so complex that natural selection cannot explain its evolution, the evidence from the natural world suggests that eyes evolve almost embarrassingly easily, and have done so dozens of times independently in the history of life on earth. As Dawkins graphically demonstrates, even an extremely primitive "eye" consisting of a single light-sensitive cell can be enormously more useful than no eye at all.

"Climbing Mount Improbable" is the metaphor Dawkins chooses to describe the way in which evolution advances by small increments. Rather than making a few highly improbable jumps, evolution is able to take gradual steps, none of which is particularly unlikely, and so ascend the heights of Mount Improbable.

747s and Creationism

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Dawkins argues, in fact, that it is the creationists who are really vulnerable to the 747 argument. Postulating that the entirety of life on earth, in all its intricacy, simply came out of nothing is indeed like imagining a 747 being assembled by chance from a whirlwind of rivets and metal sheeting. So, the argument from design is hoist by its own petard.

Is Half a Wing Any Use?

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After making short work of the argument that "blind chance isn't enough," Dawkins moves on to his other main target - the belief that science and rationality do not themselves provide an adequate basis for human knowledge and understanding, and that some form of spirituality must play a part. This is an issue that is clearly very close to Dawkins' heart, and it forms the core of his most recent book, Unweaving the Rainbow. It is also a subject that continues to get him into hot water, since "peaceful coexistence" isn't on his agenda.

True "Faith"...

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For Dawkins, a scientific worldview is fundamentally irreconcilable with the inherently antirationalistic aspects of religion - dogma, belief from authority, blind faith - all inimical to any efforts toward achieving a rational understanding of the world.

In his early work, Dawkins developed the concept of "memes," which are cultural analogs of genes - ideas that are passed on from person to person, and evolve over time. Particularly successful genes, and memes, spread themselves far and wide and persist over centuries. Religions are memes that Dawkins sees as being analogous to viruses. They exploit the vulnerabilities of their hosts, and parasitically carve out an existence without necessarily contributing anything positive in return.

The Human Brain Can Be Deceived....

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The human brain, Dawkins points out, is a highly evolved organ that has developed all kinds of tricks to make sense of the world based on incomplete information. But powerful as the brain's faculties are, they are also vulnerable to deception, as Dawkins demonstrates in the lectures with an extremely convincing optical illusion (right). We can be deceived in other ways too, says Dawkins, and it is only scientific, rational thinking that can get us back on track.

In overcoming our superstitions, fantasies, and delusions and discovering the rationality of science, says Dawkins, we are finally emerging from an eons-long slumber and "waking up in the universe." As we enter the 21st century, it is this we should be celebrating.

Matthew Cockerill is Product Manager of BioMedNet.

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Endlinks

Books by Richard Dawkins:

• The Selfish Gene
• The Extended Phenotype
• The Blind Watchmaker (accompanying evolution software also available)
• Climbing Mount Improbable
• River out of Eden
• Unweaving the Rainbow

The World of Richard Dawkins - a wonderful collection of links relating to Richard Dawkins and evolution, maintained by John Catalano

Richard Dawkins: Software and Biomorphs - A list of evolution simulation software, including a good deal that was inspired by Dawkins' efforts. Much of it is ideal for classroom use, and the majority is available for free downloading. Although Dawkins' original software was written for the Macintosh, much of the rest consists of Java applets that can run on almost any Web browser.

Purchase

This five-video series can be purchased directly from the publisher by sending a check for $110 (non-UK orders) or £55 (UK orders) to the address below, specifying either the PAL (U.S.) or NTSC (European) version. Price includes postage and handling.

BioMedNet INCA Special Offer
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UNITED KINGDOM

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