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The Genius of Charles Darwin Episode 1 Part 1/5 HD (Richard Dawkins)

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    This series is about perhaps
    the most powerful idea
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    ever to occur to a human mind.
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    The idea is evolution
    by natural selection.
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    And the genius who thought
    of it was Charles Darwin.
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    I'm a biologist and Darwin
    has been an inspiration to me
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    throughout my whole career.
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    His masterpiece, On The Origin Of
    Species, was published 150 years ago.
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    And it changed forever our view
    of the world and our place in it.
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    What Darwin achieved was nothing
    less than a complete explanation
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    of the complexity
    and diversity of all life.
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    And yet, it's one of the simplest
    ideas that anyone ever had.
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    In this series,
    I want to persuade you
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    that evolution offers a far richer
    and more spectacular view of life
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    than any religious story.
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    It's one reason why
    I don't believe in God.
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    I want to show you how Darwin opened
    our eyes to the extraordinary reality
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    of our world.
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    In this first programme, I'm going to
    tell you who Charles Darwin was,
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    explain how he discovered his
    theory of evolution, what it is,
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    and why it matters.
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    By the end, I hope to have convinced
    you of the truth
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    that evolution is a fact,
    backed by undeniable evidence.
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    And I want to give you a glimpse
    of the brutal elegance of the force
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    which, Darwin realised,
    drives evolution on...
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    ..natural selection.
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    When Charles Darwin
    was born 200 years ago,
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    sailors and explorers
    were sending home
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    a dizzying array of specimens
    like these
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    from all parts of Britain's
    growing empire.
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    Every animal was believed to have
    a unique place in God's creation,
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    each made by God according to
    his perfect, unchanging design.
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    At school in Shrewsbury,
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    the young Charles Darwin was taught
    that God had created the Earth,
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    and all this rich variety of life
    just 6,000 years ago.
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    Today, thanks to Darwin,
    we know differently.
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    But even now, according to polls,
    four out of every ten British people
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    prefer to cling to the old ideas
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    and believe that God
    created our world
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    and every living creature in it.
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    I think it's scandalous
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    how little our children are taught
    about evolution at school.
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    A typical class gets
    just a few hours
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    to study one of the most
    important ideas in science.
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    This lot got me.
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    I went to meet a science class
    of 15 to 16-year-olds
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    at Park High School in London to
    try to open their eyes to Darwinism.
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    Why do we need to find out
    about evolution?
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    Why do we need to find out
    about evolution?
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    Because it is the explanation
    for our existence and because
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    it explains such a huge number
    of facts,
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    because everything we know
    about life is explained by it.
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    I believe in my religion
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    so whenever I read about evolution,
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    I can't understand it,
    I don't believe it,
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    I just, like, believe my religion.
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    Right, so you know what
    you believe when you start,
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    and any new book that says
    anything different,
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    you don't read it?
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    Even if you've got evidence,
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    I just like...I've found
    a stronger evidence,
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    which is the Holy Book, so...
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    So, the reason you believe it
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    is because that's the one
    you were told first?
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    'I can see that a few hours
    in the science lab is no match
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    'for a lifetime of religious
    indoctrination.'
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    I was brought up to believe it.
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    Is that a good reason
    to believe something?
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    Yeah, because I went to church
    since I was little.
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    Yeah, and it says it in the Bible.
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    Yes, but in the Hindu
    sacred scriptures,
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    it says something different,
    doesn't it?
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    Yeah, they're brought up
    to believe that...
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    So everybody should believe
    what they're brought up to believe
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    even though they contradict
    each other?
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    You can be made to believe
    something in science, and then,
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    you can be made to believe
    something in religious studies,
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    but it's really up to you
    what you believe.
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    You can't just say that...
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    Well, look, I hate this phrase,
    "made to believe", that's awful,
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    and I would hate anybody to think
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    I was trying to make
    anybody believe anything.
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    I'm asking you to look
    at the evidence.
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    Perhaps you haven't got
    a full impression
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    of how strong the evidence
    actually is.
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    Nobody has seen evolution
    take place over a long period,
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    but they've seen the after effects,
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    and the after effects
    are massively supported.
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    It's like a case in a court of law
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    where nobody can stand up and say,
    "I saw the murder happen",
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    but yet, you've got millions
    and millions of pieces of evidence
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    which no reasonable person
    could possibly dispute.
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    That's sort of the way it is.
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    'There's only one thing for it -
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    'I'm going to show them evidence -
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    'something they can touch with their
    own hands, see with their own eyes.
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    'Later, we'll see if I can
    make them think again.
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    'When Charles Darwin was a teenager,
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    'he would have been
    as much of a creationist
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    'as some of these children.'
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    Darwin was born into a prosperous
    Shropshire family in 1809.
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    His father was a doctor,
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    and keen that his son should
    follow in his scientific footsteps.
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    But the adolescent Charles,
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    more interested in shooting and
    fishing than academic prowess,
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    was contemplating an easy life
    as a country parson.
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    Luckily for him, and for us,
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    he had the opportunity to open
    his eyes to see the world.
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    In 1831, as a young man of 22,
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    Darwin's family connections got him
    a once-in-a-lifetime invitation -
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    a round-the-world voyage on
    the survey ship, HMS Beagle.
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    Over five years, Darwin collected
    hundreds and hundreds of specimens
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    to send back to the collections.
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    But increasingly,
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    he wasn't satisfied
    with just recording
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    the animals and plants he saw.
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    He was beginning to have doubts
    about the Biblical story
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    of how animals were created.
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    While ashore, riding across
    the South American flatlands,
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    Darwin amused himself
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    by chasing after rheas -
    shy, ostrich-like flightless birds.
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    But he was puzzled.
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    Why had God bothered to create
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    two very similar but slightly
    different types of rhea?
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    Had an original group
    of rhea split in two,
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    and once separated,
    started to develop in their own way?
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    The mystery deepened when Darwin
    noticed an even more marked effect -
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    on islands.
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    I was lucky enough to retread
    Darwin's footsteps
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    on the Galapagos Islands last year.
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    Here, he began to wonder
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    why God would have created
    distinctive kinds of tortoise,
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    finch or iguana on more or less
    identical small islands.
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    Were iguanas like these related
    rather than separately created?
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    Were they cousins of the similar but
    different iguanas on nearby islands?
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    This pattern of relationships
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    became even more intriguing
    when Darwin encountered fossils.
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    The evidence of fossils
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    would help Darwin develop a theory
    of life on Earth
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    far more wonderful and more moving
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    than any religious story of creation.
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    This team of American scientists
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    has uncovered the remains of
    two-million-year-old ground sloths.
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    Today, I'm joining the dig
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    because it was fossils like these
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    that made a huge impression
    on the young Charles Darwin
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    during his voyage on HMS Beagle.
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    To Darwin, they looked like ancient,
    giant versions
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    of animals he saw around him.
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    (MAN) The ground sloths flourished
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    for millions of years,
    and were quite successful.
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    - They were huge, weren't they?
    - Some of them were.
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    They were bear-sized, up to...almost
    rivalling mammoths and mastodons,
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    up to six metres in height when
    they reared up onto their hind legs.
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    (DAWKINS) What struck Darwin was
    how, apart from their enormous size,
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    the fossils closely resembled
    in every other detail
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    the skeletons of modern sloths
    living nearby.
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    (MAN) You can see similarities in the
    details of their teeth,
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    peculiar features that they share
    with modern armadillos,
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    modern tree sloths
    and modern anteaters.
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    We can infer that they are
    related to these animals.
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    (DAWKINS) The discovery of fossils
    was a huge challenge
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    to the religious orthodoxy
    of Darwin's youth.
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    What were these animals?
    When had they lived?
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    And why didn't they exist any more?
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    Some suggested that fossils were just
    God playfully ornamenting his world.
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    Others claimed
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    they were the bones of sinners
    drowned in Noah's flood.
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    But Darwin was one of the first
    scientists
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    to correctly identify them as
    long-dead species of animals.
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    He was starting to grasp that
    the Earth might be a lot older
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    than the Bible led us to believe.
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    And how had he realised this?
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    Through a fascination with geology.
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    During the voyage of the Beagle,
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    Darwin had had time to immerse
    himself
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    in the pioneering work
    of Charles Lyell.
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    Lyell argued that the landscape
    we saw around us was formed
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    by the slow action of vast forces,
    not thousands,
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    but millions of years of gradual
    change.
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    So, if the Earth was shaped
    and reshaped
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    over an immense period of time,
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    was there room,
    Darwin began to wonder,
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    for life to undergo slow changes
    as well?
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    You know how old these rocks are?
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    They're about 200 million years old.
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    Back in the 19th century,
    lots and lots of people
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    came here to look for fossils.
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    And some of the most famous
    fossils have been found here.
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    'I'm taking the science class
    I met earlier to the beach.
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    'Many of these teenagers
    have been brought up
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    'to mistrust the idea of evolution.
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    'I'm hoping they'll find a small
    fragment of the kind of evidence
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    'that made Charles Darwin
    think again.'
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    Do you know what our ancestors
    were like 200 million years ago?
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    - They weren't...
    - They were around,
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    they wouldn't have been here
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    because this would have been
    the bottom of the sea.
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    They would have been kind of like
    shrews, little whiskery, twitchy...
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    It seems to be like a dream,
    but it's real.
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    Yeah, yes, it does, doesn't it?
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    This is all sedimentary rock,
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    meaning it's laid down at the bottom
    of the sea, mud coming down,
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    layer after layer after layer -
    that's what fossils are.
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    'On a beach like this,
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    'the pounding sea gradually
    exposes different layers of rock
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    'and within them, hidden treasure -
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    'a history of past life on Earth.
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    'So, each layer you go down to,
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    'you find a completely
    different set of animals.'
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    And if you look at the animals
    that you find, and plants,
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    over the great span of time,
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    you find that they form
    a kind of ordered sequence,
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    you find fish,
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    400 million years ago,
    but you find no mammals at all
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    400 million years ago.
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    The fish gradually changed into
    amphibians, changed into reptiles,
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    reptiles changed into birds,
    changed into mammals.
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    Did you find that?
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    - Yes.
    - Oh, that's terrific.
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    That's really great. Yeah.
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    That's a beautiful ammonite.
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    That's really beautiful. Well done
    for finding that. That's wonderful.
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    'The fossil hunt has been a success.
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    'Like Darwin, these teenagers
    have been brought face to face
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    'with some tangible remnants
    of evolution.'
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    The evidence Darwin had seen with his
    own eyes on the voyage of the Beagle
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    seeded huge heretical
    questions in his mind.
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    And once he started thinking,
    he couldn't stop.
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    Darwin, once
    an easily distracted student,
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    returned from the voyage
    of the Beagle
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    a determined, even
    obsessive research scientist.
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    The trip had changed him and it was
    soon to change the world forever.
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    Back in London in the late 1830s,
    the specimens he'd collected
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    and his reporting of the voyage
    made Darwin a scientific celebrity.
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    Even more importantly,
    while cataloguing his finds,
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    Darwin realised that
    life forms weren't fixed.
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    They had changed over time.
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    They must have evolved.
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    Now, he wanted to pull together
    all the evidence
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    to understand how and why
    this had happened.
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    It took Darwin 20 years of research,
    on and off, to develop the ideas
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    that would eventually be set out in
    The Origin Of Species.
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    He wanted to be fully certain
    of his facts.
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    BIRDS TWITTER
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    The hard graft was done here
    at Darwin's home,
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    Down House in Kent.
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    Long before the days
    of the internet, of course,
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    Darwin drew upon
    the collective knowledge
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    of an entire generation of
    naturalists all over the world.
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    He sent out thousands of letters
    asking for data,
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    posing questions,
    trying out theories.
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    And back the letters flowed
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    from all around the world into
    Down House, a river of information.
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    Darwin studied the detail
    of how different mammals
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    share remarkably similar skeletons.
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    Their limbs have the same
    bones in the same order,
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    just reshaped and resized
    to suit different ways of life.
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    He was drawn to the similarity
    of early embryo development
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    in very different types of animals -
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    fish, birds, reptiles.
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    Increasingly, he became convinced
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    that every living thing
    must be related to every other.
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    Darwin began to see the history
    of life as a vast family tree.
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    Life began millions of years ago
    at the base of the tree,
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    and as time went by,
    our ancestors evolved,
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    split off and multiplied along
    branches
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    until now,
    every species on the planet
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    is a twig at the end of a branch -
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    all are related, all cousins.
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    Life had evolved from single cells
    into complex sophisticated beings.
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    It may seem like a huge leap,
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    but Darwin realised it had
    been achieved by small steps
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    over a vast span of time.
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    He grasped the immense age
    of the Earth.
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    Darwin believed the world was
    hundreds of millions of years old.
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    Today, we know it's
    over four billion years old,
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    and the life we can
    actually see around us
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    has existed for an insignificant
    blink of that time.
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    Darwin's wife Emma used to play
    to him on the piano
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    in this very room,
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    and Darwin would lie
    on the sofa and listen.
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    It's not clear how much
    he got out of it, though,
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    because it was once said of him
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    he was so tone deaf that people
    had to nudge him to stand up
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    when they were playing
    God Save The Queen.
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    I want to use this piano
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    to illustrate
    the vastness of geological time,
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    and yet how comparatively
    little of it
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    is occupied by those animals and
    plants that we know anything about.
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    If we have the origin of life at
    the bottom of the piano there,
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    and recent times at the top,
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    I find it astonishing
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    that we have nothing
    but bacteria all the way up here,
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    past middle C,
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    way up to about here,
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    when more complicated cells
    than bacteria first evolve.
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    And then we get
    the first mini-celled animals,
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    the first large animals
    somewhere here,
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    fish start around here,
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    the dinosaurs don't come in
    until about here,
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    and then, the extinction
    of the dinosaurs around here.
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    About here, the apes and monkeys,
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    and the whole of human history
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    would occupy a space less than
    the width of one piano STRING
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    right at the top of the keyboard.
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    Life had evolved over time.
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    But how had this happened?
    Why hadn't creatures stayed the same?
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    WINGS FLAP, PIGEONS COO
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    Darwin wasn't just
    an abstract theorist,
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    he like to get his hands dirty,
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    testing his ideas,
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    and in the 1850s, he became
    fascinated by pigeons,
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    by how man had remoulded
    the wild rock dove
  • 20:47 - 20:50
    into a rich variety of forms.
  • 20:54 - 20:56
    Darwin's bird specimens
    are now stored
  • 20:56 - 20:59
    at the Natural History Museum
    at Tring.
  • 21:00 - 21:02
    It's a very weird feeling,
  • 21:02 - 21:06
    these are actually
    Darwin's own specimens.
  • 21:06 - 21:11
    I see from Darwin's own label here
    that this is a blue owl pigeon.
  • 21:11 - 21:15
    Tumblers are characterised by
    this curious tumbling behaviour
  • 21:15 - 21:17
    that they show, sort of
    falling through the sky.
  • 21:17 - 21:20
    This one has been relabelled,
    it is a Darwin specimen.
  • 21:20 - 21:25
    This one actually has
    Darwin's original label here.
  • 21:27 - 21:31
    Darwin realised that, for centuries,
    through small steps, pigeon breeders
  • 21:31 - 21:34
    had been in the business of
    evolution.
  • 21:34 - 21:37
    Here was life in constant flux.
  • 21:37 - 21:40
    One of the big things
    Darwin had to fight against
  • 21:40 - 21:42
    was the feeling that people had
  • 21:42 - 21:46
    that species were species and they
    never changed into anything else.
  • 21:46 - 21:49
    Artificial selection on dogs,
    pigeons, cabbages,
  • 21:49 - 21:53
    was a beautiful illustration for
    Darwin of how plastic things were,
  • 21:53 - 21:56
    you could pull them, it was
    like modelling clay, almost -
  • 21:56 - 21:59
    you could take a wild animal
    and pull bits out,
  • 21:59 - 22:01
    press other bits in, enlarge bits.
  • 22:01 - 22:06
    It was showing that there's
    nothing static about species.
  • 22:06 - 22:08
    Species can change.
  • 22:12 - 22:16
    Now, in his 40s, Darwin
    became a pigeon fancier.
  • 22:16 - 22:19
    He kept some 90 birds of 16 types,
  • 22:19 - 22:23
    devoured books on breeding
    and attended numerous pigeon shows.
  • 22:23 - 22:28
    What excited Darwin was the powerful
    comparison that could be drawn
  • 22:28 - 22:31
    between domestic breeding
    and what he'd observed of nature
  • 22:31 - 22:34
    acting on wild animals
  • 22:34 - 22:36
    like the finches he'd
    collected in Galapagos.
  • 22:36 - 22:40
    In the pigeon's case,
    it's artificial selection,
  • 22:40 - 22:42
    it's human breeders using their eye
    to choose -
  • 22:42 - 22:46
    I think I'll breed from that one,
    I want the beak longer, or shorter,
  • 22:46 - 22:48
    I want the plumage
    to be whiter or fluffier.
  • 22:48 - 22:52
    So, breed from the one that
    has the quality you want,
  • 22:52 - 22:56
    and then, after surprisingly few
    generations, you can produce
  • 22:56 - 23:00
    a change in the breed. In nature,
    it's not like that, of course.
  • 23:00 - 23:01
    Nobody comes along and says,
  • 23:01 - 23:04
    "I want one that has
    a great big, thick beak."
  • 23:04 - 23:08
    Nevertheless, given that
    there are tough seeds
  • 23:08 - 23:10
    that only a thick beak can crack,
  • 23:10 - 23:14
    natural selection favours
    those individual birds
  • 23:14 - 23:16
    that succeed
    in cracking the seeds,
  • 23:16 - 23:21
    until you end up with this sort of
    climax beak, which is really huge,
  • 23:21 - 23:25
    the product of tens of thousands
    of generations of...
  • 23:25 - 23:30
    natural selection breeding for
    ability to open tough seeds.
  • 23:32 - 23:33
    BARKING
  • 23:33 - 23:37
    Man had utterly transformed
    many animals and plants
  • 23:37 - 23:40
    by selecting for particular
    characteristics
  • 23:40 - 23:41
    over and over again.
  • 23:43 - 23:46
    Nature was also doing this.
  • 23:46 - 23:50
    But how could nature make
    specific choices, as humans could?
  • 23:51 - 23:54
    Darwin's answer would
    come in understanding
  • 23:54 - 23:56
    exactly what nature is.
  • 24:16 - 24:18
    150 years ago,
  • 24:18 - 24:22
    Charles Darwin's work revolutionised
    the way we understand our world.
  • 24:22 - 24:27
    For 20 years, he had pieced together
    evidence that proved the fact of
    evolution
  • 24:27 - 24:31
    and developed a theory
    of how nature, not God,
  • 24:31 - 24:35
    selects life in a similar way
    to humans breeding pigeons.
  • 24:37 - 24:39
    How does nature select?
  • 24:39 - 24:42
    In the cruellest way.
  • 24:42 - 24:46
    Today, much of the world is
    controlled and cultivated by man,
  • 24:46 - 24:51
    but there are still a few remote
    places red in tooth and claw.
  • 24:51 - 24:54
    I've come to Kenya, where I was born.
  • 24:54 - 24:57
    It's one of the wilder places on
    Earth,
  • 24:57 - 25:00
    where the full force of natural
    selection can still be seen.
  • 25:02 - 25:05
    As night falls, it's kill, or be
    killed.
  • 25:05 - 25:07
    ANIMALS GRUNT
  • 25:10 - 25:13
    The total amount of suffering
    in the natural world
  • 25:13 - 25:16
    is beyond all decent contemplation.
  • 25:16 - 25:19
    During the minute that it takes me to
    say these words,
  • 25:19 - 25:22
    thousands of animals are running for
    their lives,
  • 25:22 - 25:26
    whimpering with fear, feeling teeth
    sink into their throats.
  • 25:28 - 25:31
    Thousands are dying from starvation
    or disease
  • 25:31 - 25:34
    or feeling a parasite rasping away
    from within.
  • 25:36 - 25:39
    There is no central authority, no
    safety net.
  • 25:39 - 25:44
    For most animals, the reality of life
    is struggling, suffering, and death.
  • 26:01 - 26:07
    For Darwin, grappling with nature's
    horrors must have been a huge
    challenge.
  • 26:07 - 26:09
    As a young man,
  • 26:09 - 26:12
    he had wanted to become
    a country parson.
  • 26:12 - 26:15
    He had believed in an orderly
    and harmonious animal kingdom.
  • 26:17 - 26:20
    Now, he contemplated
    the brutal reality of nature.
  • 26:20 - 26:26
    Darwin's brilliance was to connect
    what he was seeing
  • 26:26 - 26:31
    with an idea from a completely
    different discipline - economics.
  • 26:31 - 26:36
    Thomas Malthus had written
    a popular influential diatribe
  • 26:36 - 26:40
    about the perils of population growth
    in early industrial Britain,
  • 26:40 - 26:45
    and how this would inevitably be
    stopped by food shortage and disease.
  • 26:49 - 26:54
    Darwin seized upon Malthus's warning
    about a human struggle for resources,
  • 26:54 - 26:59
    and he applied it
    to what was happening in nature.
  • 26:59 - 27:03
    As more individuals are produced
    than can possibly survive,
  • 27:03 - 27:08
    there must in every case
    be a struggle for existence.
  • 27:11 - 27:13
    Nature is an arena of pressure.
  • 27:13 - 27:14
    Of every individual born,
  • 27:14 - 27:19
    the chance of it surviving to
    reproduce the next generation
    is very, very small.
  • 27:19 - 27:21
    Most animals die young.
  • 27:23 - 27:26
    The next step for Darwin
    was to realise this -
  • 27:26 - 27:30
    what makes the difference
    between success and failure
  • 27:30 - 27:34
    in the struggle for existence
    isn't just chance.
  • 27:34 - 27:36
    All living things vary,
  • 27:36 - 27:37
    even if only slightly.
  • 27:42 - 27:45
    Darwin realised this was the key,
  • 27:45 - 27:50
    a tiny variation - sharper teeth
    or faster legs, keener eyes,
  • 27:50 - 27:54
    better camouflage, better sense of
    smell can make a crucial difference
  • 27:54 - 27:56
    in an animals chances of survival.
  • 28:04 - 28:07
    If an animal survives,
    it is more likely to reproduce
  • 28:07 - 28:12
    and crucially, pass those variations
    on to its offspring.
  • 28:13 - 28:18
    Nature's struggle for existence means
    that organisms with helpful
    variations
  • 28:18 - 28:24
    tend on average to survive
    and reproduce.
  • 28:24 - 28:28
    Those without die without offspring.
  • 28:30 - 28:32
    The race is survival.
  • 28:32 - 28:35
    The finishing line is reproduction.
  • 28:37 - 28:42
    This is what Darwin defined
    as natural selection...
  • 28:44 - 28:46
    ..the key to evolution.
  • 28:58 - 29:03
    "Natural selection is daily and
    hourly scrutinising throughout
    the world
  • 29:03 - 29:05
    "every variation, even the slightest,
  • 29:05 - 29:07
    "rejecting that which is bad,
  • 29:07 - 29:09
    "preserving and adding up
    all that is good,
  • 29:09 - 29:11
    "silently and insensibly working.
  • 29:11 - 29:16
    "We see nothing of these
    slow changes in progress,
  • 29:16 - 29:19
    "until the hand of time
    has marked the lapse of ages."
  • 29:22 - 29:28
    Gradually, very gradually, as
    successful variations are inherited,
  • 29:28 - 29:31
    natural selection sculpts life
    into different shapes,
  • 29:31 - 29:36
    better and better adapted to eke
    resources out of their
    particular surroundings.
  • 29:36 - 29:41
    Longer necks are favoured
    to feed from tall trees.
  • 29:41 - 29:43
    Thinner fur for warmer climates.
  • 29:43 - 29:46
    Life forms become ever more
    specialised.
  • 29:48 - 29:52
    And if separated from their
    ancestral group by geography,
  • 29:52 - 29:55
    by a forest or desert, on an island,
  • 29:55 - 30:01
    they can specialise to such an extent
    that they no longer breed
    successfully
  • 30:01 - 30:02
    with that ancestral group.
  • 30:02 - 30:05
    They are then classified
    as a distinct species.
  • 30:07 - 30:10
    This is the origin of species.
  • 30:18 - 30:20
    But evolution doesn't stop there.
  • 30:20 - 30:26
    These species are then themselves
    honed by the presence of other
    species.
  • 30:29 - 30:33
    The environment in the form of lions
    is getting systematically worse
  • 30:33 - 30:36
    from the point of view of a zebra.
  • 30:36 - 30:40
    And from the point of view of a lion,
    zebras are getting systematically
    worse,
  • 30:40 - 30:42
    they're getting better at
    running away.
  • 30:42 - 30:44
    Predators are getting better
    at catching prey.
  • 30:44 - 30:49
    Prey are getting better
    at escaping from predators.
  • 30:49 - 30:51
    So there's a kind of escalation,
    it's an arms race.
  • 30:59 - 31:03
    Arms races account for
    the spectacularly advanced
  • 31:03 - 31:04
    engineering of life -
  • 31:04 - 31:07
    camouflage systems,
  • 31:07 - 31:10
    camera lens eyes, venomous stings.
  • 31:14 - 31:18
    Arms races can be seen
    in unexpected places.
  • 31:18 - 31:22
    Mankind is certainly not immune
    to the nightmare Darwin called,
  • 31:22 - 31:24
    "the war of nature."
  • 31:24 - 31:28
    We humans are currently
    in a battle with viruses.
  • 31:28 - 31:31
    It's being fought all round
    our world.
  • 31:38 - 31:40
    Today, in the slums of Nairobi,
  • 31:40 - 31:44
    natural selection acts
    through a virulent disease
  • 31:44 - 31:47
    cutting through the population.
  • 31:47 - 31:52
    Nairobi's prostitutes have,
    on average,
    seven to ten clients per day
  • 31:52 - 31:58
    with a high prevalence of
    HIV which causes AIDS.
  • 31:58 - 32:01
    But genetic researchers have
    found that some lucky individuals
  • 32:01 - 32:04
    have a weapon in the arms race with
    HIV...
  • 32:04 - 32:06
    Salome?
    Yeah. >
  • 32:06 - 32:07
    How are you?
  • 32:07 - 32:08
    I'm Richard.
  • 32:08 - 32:12
    '..a remarkable resistance to the
    virus.'
  • 32:12 - 32:15
    Can I ask, how long have
    you been a sex worker?
  • 32:19 - 32:21
    25 years.
  • 32:21 - 32:26
    And during that time,
    have you lost many friends to AIDS?
  • 32:29 - 32:32
    I have lost
    many friends.
  • 32:32 - 32:33
    Many friends?
  • 32:33 - 32:39
    When did you first discover
    that you are resistant to HIV?
  • 32:43 - 32:46
    She knew for a long time,
  • 32:46 - 32:49
    but she actually believed
    completely in 1990
  • 32:49 - 32:52
    that she was resistant.
  • 32:52 - 32:55
    She feels God has been good
    to her and she's the lucky one.
  • 32:55 - 32:57
    Yes.
  • 33:00 - 33:05
    It's not God at work here in
    all this squalor and suffering.
  • 33:05 - 33:08
    And it's not luck either.
  • 33:08 - 33:11
    The Canadian scientist, Larry Gelmon,
  • 33:11 - 33:13
    has studied the odds of survival.
  • 33:13 - 33:16
    We knew the prevalence of HIV
  • 33:16 - 33:18
    in the sex worker population,
  • 33:18 - 33:22
    we knew the prevalence in
    the clients they were dealing with,
  • 33:22 - 33:26
    we knew how often they were
    having sex with these people,
  • 33:26 - 33:30
    and it was a mathematical
    impossibility that
    they should have been sex workers
  • 33:30 - 33:33
    for as long as they have with
    the number of contacts they had,
  • 33:33 - 33:34
    and not become HIV infected.
  • 33:34 - 33:37
    The resistance
    these women have
  • 33:37 - 33:43
    seems to be a variation that can be
    passed on to their children.
  • 33:43 - 33:46
    Some of the women
    are related to each other familially,
  • 33:46 - 33:51
    we also think there is some factor
    in their blood, in their cells
  • 33:51 - 33:54
    that is probably genetically
    transmitted.
  • 33:54 - 33:57
    (DAWKINS) I suppose if we
    came back in 1,000 years,
  • 33:57 - 34:01
    we might expect to see
    a major shift in the frequency
  • 34:01 - 34:04
    of these genes in the population?
  • 34:04 - 34:08
    (GELMON) Yes, I think in any epidemic
    situation, those people who are
  • 34:08 - 34:11
    very vulnerable and susceptible
    will get sick and die.
  • 34:11 - 34:15
    And those people who are going to
    survive are going
    to have some kind of resistance
  • 34:15 - 34:17
    which they'll transmit on
    to their descendants.
  • 34:29 - 34:34
    Just as Europeans today are
    descendents of those who
    had the genes
  • 34:34 - 34:35
    to survive the plague,
  • 34:35 - 34:39
    so if Africa's AIDS epidemic
    took its course,
  • 34:39 - 34:43
    natural selection would favour
    descendents
    of women with resistance to HIV.
  • 34:51 - 34:57
    This is the unstoppable force of
    natural selection
    first revealed by Darwin,
  • 34:57 - 34:59
    now observed by modern science.
  • 35:08 - 35:11
    Back in England at Down House,
  • 35:11 - 35:14
    now 20 years after his
    voyage on the Beagle,
  • 35:14 - 35:19
    Darwin had worked out the answers
    to the biggest questions ever asked.
  • 35:20 - 35:25
    But he was strangely reluctant
    to go public with his idea.
  • 35:25 - 35:30
    Darwin himself said that he'd
    become a kind of machine
  • 35:30 - 35:34
    for grinding theories out of
    huge assemblages of facts.
  • 35:34 - 35:36
    I think that wasn't really
    what it was like at all.
  • 35:36 - 35:40
    He was an extraordinarily
    imaginative, deep thinker.
  • 35:40 - 35:44
    He had a prodigiously
    curious mind as well.
  • 35:44 - 35:47
    He was drawn to facts
    that didn't fit.
  • 35:47 - 35:51
    He once said,
    "I cannot bear to be beaten."
  • 35:55 - 36:01
    Darwin's theory explained how
    the diversity of life from the planet
  • 36:01 - 36:06
    had evolved spontaneously
    without interference from any god.
  • 36:06 - 36:08
    But he was acutely aware
    of how upsetting
  • 36:08 - 36:12
    this flat contradiction of
    the religious story would be.
  • 36:12 - 36:15
    He hesitated to publish.
  • 36:18 - 36:22
    Then, in June 1858,
    Darwin received a letter
  • 36:22 - 36:26
    from a naturalist travelling in the
    Far East, Alfred Russel Wallace,
  • 36:26 - 36:28
    which set our similar ideas.
  • 36:28 - 36:33
    Darwin was in despair about
    being scooped.
  • 36:33 - 36:36
    He was even ready to drop
    his life's work.
  • 36:36 - 36:40
    But he was persuaded by
    Charles Lyell and others
  • 36:40 - 36:44
    to present his unpublished work
    alongside Wallace's notes,
  • 36:44 - 36:49
    and then complete his masterpiece
    for publication.
  • 36:49 - 36:54
    I've come to meet Randal Keynes,
    Darwin's great-great-grandson
  • 36:54 - 36:57
    to try to understand
    Darwin's frame of mind
  • 36:57 - 36:59
    as he finished his book.
  • 36:59 - 37:03
    This is a book about
    geology by Mr Greenough.
  • 37:03 - 37:05
    It has this wonderful inscription -
  • 37:05 - 37:09
    "Charles Darwin, Buenos Aires,
    October 1832."
  • 37:09 - 37:11
    So he's on the Beagle,
  • 37:11 - 37:15
    really getting into
    his stride as a geologist.
  • 37:15 - 37:18
    This is a scrapbook,
    a children's scrapbook
  • 37:18 - 37:21
    that belonged to Darwin's daughter
    Annie.
  • 37:21 - 37:24
    'Darwin was
    no aggressive polemicist.
  • 37:24 - 37:27
    'He didn't take to the stage
    to publicise his work,
  • 37:27 - 37:31
    'but sought to influence leading
    thinkers behind the scenes,
  • 37:31 - 37:35
    'by sending them proof copies of the
    book with apologetic letters
    attached.'
  • 37:37 - 37:40
    He would write things like,
    "This vile rag of a theory of mine."
  • 37:40 - 37:45
    Was that genuine modesty or was there
    an element of false modesty about it?
  • 37:45 - 37:50
    It was entirely real, um, and this is
    a very strange point about him.
  • 37:50 - 37:56
    Through the years when he was
    steeling himself for publication,
  • 37:56 - 38:03
    um, he was, at different times,
    enormously confident in it,
  • 38:03 - 38:07
    and at other times,
    he was utterly uncertain.
  • 38:07 - 38:12
    He had a deep fear, I think,
  • 38:12 - 38:15
    that one species would be discovered
  • 38:15 - 38:20
    that had some element of its make-up
  • 38:20 - 38:24
    that could only have been designed.
  • 38:26 - 38:28
    Doubts may have lingered
    in Darwin's mind,
  • 38:28 - 38:33
    but finally, 150 years ago,
    he set out his ideas on evolution
  • 38:33 - 38:37
    and how it worked
    in The Origin Of Species.
  • 38:39 - 38:44
    The book sold out its first run
    of 1,250 copies within two days.
  • 38:46 - 38:48
    It has never been out of print since.
  • 38:51 - 38:53
    The Origin turned our world
    upside down...
  • 38:55 - 39:00
    ..but still there was one big gap
    in Darwin's understanding.
  • 39:12 - 39:15
    150 years ago, at the age of 50,
  • 39:15 - 39:18
    Charles Darwin finally published
    the big idea
  • 39:18 - 39:20
    he had sat on for almost 20 years...
  • 39:21 - 39:24
    ..a natural law that explains
    life itself
  • 39:24 - 39:27
    and the evidence available to him
    to back it up.
  • 39:29 - 39:32
    This is the most precious book
    in my collection.
  • 39:32 - 39:35
    It's a genuine first edition
    Origin Of Species.
  • 39:35 - 39:39
    But it's not just the most precious
    book in my library.
  • 39:39 - 39:41
    Charles Darwin's Origin Of Species
  • 39:41 - 39:46
    is one of the most precious books
    in the entire library of our species.
  • 39:46 - 39:49
    This book made it possible
  • 39:49 - 39:55
    no longer to feel the necessity
    to believe in anything supernatural.
  • 39:55 - 39:59
    It completely revolutionised
    the way we see ourselves,
  • 39:59 - 40:02
    the world and our origins.
  • 40:12 - 40:14
    But what Darwin never cracked
  • 40:14 - 40:17
    was how the improvements
    of natural selection
  • 40:17 - 40:20
    were preserved
    from generation to generation,
  • 40:20 - 40:23
    why they didn't become diluted
    by interbreeding.
  • 40:25 - 40:29
    It was only in the 20th century,
    in the neo-Darwinian revolution,
  • 40:29 - 40:32
    that scientists married
    evolution with genetics.
  • 40:35 - 40:38
    Genes are the long strings of code,
  • 40:38 - 40:42
    instructions to the cells that build
    all living things.
  • 40:44 - 40:47
    Scientists now realise
    that genes from the parents
  • 40:47 - 40:51
    don't blend as they combine
    during reproduction.
  • 40:51 - 40:56
    Each gene is inherited in its
    entirety...or not at all.
  • 40:57 - 41:02
    The science of the genes also showed
    how new variations arose.
  • 41:02 - 41:06
    When animals reproduce,
    their genes are copied,
  • 41:06 - 41:07
    and put into sperm and eggs.
  • 41:07 - 41:09
    During that copying process,
  • 41:09 - 41:12
    occasionally
    there's a random mistake.
  • 41:12 - 41:14
    Those mistakes are mutations,
  • 41:14 - 41:17
    which give rise
    to new characteristics
  • 41:17 - 41:21
    on which Darwinian natural selection
    then acts.
  • 41:23 - 41:24
    And, what's more,
  • 41:24 - 41:27
    genes can be compared
    with pinpoint precision.
  • 41:27 - 41:31
    The genes in every cell
    of every living thing
  • 41:31 - 41:33
    are made up of DNA -
  • 41:33 - 41:38
    a code of the same four chemicals,
    known as A, T, C and G,
  • 41:38 - 41:42
    which these machines can analyse.
  • 41:42 - 41:46
    Whether the cell builds a hamster,
    a horse or a human
  • 41:46 - 41:49
    simply depends on the order
    of the letters in the code.
  • 41:52 - 41:55
    Just as Darwin might have predicted,
  • 41:55 - 41:58
    animals more closely related
    by evolution
  • 41:58 - 42:03
    have more similarities in their code
    than more distantly related animals.
  • 42:03 - 42:08
    And these codes can be printed out
    right here in this man's lab.
  • 42:10 - 42:14
    In 2000, Craig Venter
    was among the first scientists
  • 42:14 - 42:18
    to map the human genome,
    our sequence of code letters.
  • 42:18 - 42:19
    In the process,
  • 42:19 - 42:24
    this unlocked the ultimate proof
    of Darwin's Tree of Life.
  • 42:27 - 42:32
    'He was looking at the visible world
    and seeing how different it was.'
  • 42:32 - 42:35
    We now have the opportunity,
    with this toolset,
  • 42:35 - 42:38
    to look at the invisible world,
    that he could only get hints of.
  • 42:38 - 42:42
    And it shows that
    there's vast continuity
  • 42:42 - 42:47
    from the simplest life forms
    to the more complex.
  • 42:47 - 42:50
    He, of course, emphasised diversity,
    because that's what he saw,
  • 42:50 - 42:54
    the whole organism, but you're
    finding the incredible similarity
  • 42:54 - 42:57
    that there is between creatures.
    Even bacteria.
  • 42:57 - 43:01
    To me, it's not a theory any more.
    I've looked at the genetic code
  • 43:01 - 43:05
    of this wide diversity of species,
    and it's a continuum.
  • 43:05 - 43:07
    Yes. Well, evolution is a fact.
  • 43:07 - 43:08
    That's right.
  • 43:08 - 43:11
    I mean, there's no question
    about that,
  • 43:11 - 43:15
    and I'm always being asked,
    "Well, produce the evidence!"
  • 43:15 - 43:18
    And, really, you're producing
    the best evidence of any.
  • 43:18 - 43:19
    I mean, fossils are nice,
  • 43:19 - 43:22
    but if we haven't got a single fossil
    anywhere...
  • 43:22 - 43:24
    The genetic code on its own
    is enough.
  • 43:24 - 43:26
    the evidence from this lab alone
    would be...
  • 43:26 - 43:30
    Not just enough but overwhelmingly,
    staggeringly enough.
  • 43:42 - 43:45
    Darwin anticipated problems
    with his theory.
  • 43:45 - 43:48
    Modern science has answered them.
  • 43:48 - 43:50
    Evolution by natural selection
  • 43:50 - 43:53
    has been triumphantly vindicated
    as fact.
  • 43:53 - 43:55
    Case closed, surely.
  • 43:55 - 43:58
    But can I convince
    those school children?
  • 43:58 - 44:01
    What's so beautiful about DNA
  • 44:01 - 44:06
    is that it's turned biology into a
    kind of branch of computer science,
  • 44:06 - 44:09
    that every animal and plant
    is carrying around,
  • 44:09 - 44:11
    inside every one of its cells,
  • 44:11 - 44:16
    an instruction book for making
    that animal and making its children.
  • 44:16 - 44:19
    You've got billions of letters
    and you can actually line them up
  • 44:19 - 44:22
    and you can take the rat DNA
    and the mouse DNA
  • 44:22 - 44:23
    and you line them up and you say,
  • 44:23 - 44:26
    "Same, same, same...
    Ah! A difference there.
  • 44:26 - 44:29
    "..same, same, same, same...
    A difference there."
  • 44:29 - 44:33
    And that means that when you say that
    two animals like rats and mice
  • 44:33 - 44:38
    have a common ancestor, you can be
    totally confident that that's right
  • 44:38 - 44:42
    because the sheer number
    of similarities is so gigantic,
  • 44:42 - 44:45
    far, far more than Darwin
    could ever have dreamed of,
  • 44:45 - 44:49
    and Darwin would just have loved
    to know about DNA.
  • 44:49 - 44:54
    It's such a shame that he didn't
    live long enough to learn about DNA.
  • 44:54 - 44:56
    I already believed in evolution,
  • 44:56 - 44:59
    but this has just helped me to
    understand a bit more about it.
  • 44:59 - 45:03
    We have talked about it in class
    more, but I still do believe in God.
  • 45:03 - 45:06
    But I'm starting to think whether
    evolution is true or false.
  • 45:06 - 45:08
    I do believe in evolution
  • 45:08 - 45:12
    but I don't think it's ever
    going to be 100% accepted
  • 45:12 - 45:15
    because there are many
    religious people out there.
  • 45:15 - 45:17
    I thought about it more
  • 45:17 - 45:21
    but I still believe in
    what the Bible tells me.
  • 45:21 - 45:24
    When Richard came to our school
    today,
  • 45:24 - 45:26
    I started learning about evolution
  • 45:26 - 45:31
    and I'd really love to learn more
    about it but I don't want to, like,
  • 45:31 - 45:34
    leave my religion
    and go down that path.
  • 45:34 - 45:39
    I think evolution is the main part
    of how the Earth developed,
  • 45:39 - 45:42
    but I'll still say my prayers
    and just keep life going.
  • 45:46 - 45:50
    I only had a few hours
    with these children,
  • 45:50 - 45:53
    but I hope it'll help them
    begin to open their eyes
  • 45:53 - 45:56
    to the wonderful reality of life
    and, at the very least,
  • 45:56 - 46:01
    ask questions about what they've been
    brought up to believe.
  • 46:05 - 46:07
    Darwin used to do
    a lot of his thinking
  • 46:07 - 46:12
    on solitary walks along this path
    around his home, Down House.
  • 46:12 - 46:18
    At the end of Origin Of Species,
    he contemplated how an entangled bank
  • 46:18 - 46:19
    along a lane like this,
  • 46:19 - 46:23
    with its teeming life of plants,
    birds, worms and insects,
  • 46:23 - 46:27
    had been formed by the unseen laws
    acting around us.
  • 46:30 - 46:33
    "There is grandeur
    in this view of life.
  • 46:33 - 46:35
    "Whilst this planet
    has gone cycling on
  • 46:35 - 46:37
    "according to the fixed law
    of gravity,
  • 46:37 - 46:39
    "from so simple a beginning
  • 46:39 - 46:42
    "endless forms most beautiful
  • 46:42 - 46:44
    "and most wonderful
  • 46:44 - 46:47
    "have been, and are being, evolved."
  • 46:48 - 46:51
    Thanks to Darwin,
    we, alone of all species,
  • 46:51 - 46:53
    know that each and every one of us
  • 46:53 - 46:56
    is a thread in the evolved fabric
    of life.
  • 46:56 - 46:57
    Darwin showed us
  • 46:57 - 47:01
    that the world is beautiful
    and inspiring without a god.
  • 47:01 - 47:04
    He revealed to us the glory of life
  • 47:04 - 47:06
    and opened our eyes
    to who we really are
  • 47:06 - 47:08
    and where we've come from.
  • 47:15 - 47:16
    In the next programme,
  • 47:16 - 47:20
    Darwinism applied to mankind
    and our society,
  • 47:20 - 47:25
    its terrible misuse in attempts
    to justify cut-throat competition,
  • 47:25 - 47:27
    even genocide.
  • 47:27 - 47:33
    In the world of the selfish gene,
    what hope for the human species?
Title:
The Genius of Charles Darwin Episode 1 Part 1/5 HD (Richard Dawkins)
Description:

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Broadcast (2008) In the first part of the series, Richard Dawkins retraces Darwin's journey as a scientist. He re-examines the rich evidence of the natural world -- iguanas on the Galapagos islands, giant fossilised sloths in the Americas and even pigeons back home in England -- which opened Darwin's eyes to the extraordinary truth that all living things must be related and had evolved from a common ancestor.

Darwin knew his espousal of evolution would cause outrage, challenging, as it did, the prevailing religious view of the world and our place in it. But, as Dawkins explains, it was really his theory of natural selection that undermined the notion of a benevolent God who designed all creatures great and small. Returning to his own birthplace, Kenya, Dawkins considers the brutal realities of the struggle for existence for wild animals on the plains of Africa. Here, he argues, we see the ongoing process sex, suffering and death, that drives evolution onward as the fittest survive to reproduce and the weakest perish without offspring.

The Genius of Charles Darwin is a three-part television documentary, written and presented by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. As we approach the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, Richard Dawkins presents the ultimate guide to Darwin and his revolutionary theory of evolution by natural selection which Dawkins considers the most important idea ever to occur to a human mind.

Dawkins explains who Charles Darwin was, how he developed his theory, what it is, and why it matters. He reveals how Darwin changed forever the way we see ourselves, the world and our place in it, and hopes to convince us that "evolution is a fact, backed by undeniable evidence".
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Video Language:
English
Duration:
10:00

English subtitles

Revisions

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