One To Watch

Dawkins on Darwin - a prize-winning combination., and two men on my 'dinner-party' list. (Along with Grace Kelly for a bit of glamour.)

'The Genius of Charles Darwin'
Channel 4, Monday 4th August, 8PM.

As we approach the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's masterpiece, On The Origin Of Species, ethologist and writer Richard Dawkins presents the ultimate guide to Darwin and his revolutionary theory of evolution by natural selection. Dawkins considers this to be the most important idea to have ever occured to a human mind.

In this powerful three-part polemical series, Dawkins explains who Charles Darwin (pictured) 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".

According to recent polls, four out of ten British people still believe in God as the creator of the universe and everything in it. As a scientist, and Britain's best-known atheist, Dawkins believes that such people simply don't know enough about the evidence for Darwin's entirely natural explanation of life on Earth - evolution.

So now he 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 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 of sex, suffering and death that drives evolution onward as the fittest survive to reproduce and the weakest perish without offspring.

And humans are not immune to the nightmarish Darwinian process. Dawkins travels to the slums of Nairobi where hundreds die of Aids each year. Here he meets prostitutes who seem to have acquired a genetic immunity to the HIV virus. This resistance, it seems, can be inherited and so, over time, will become more prevalent, shaping the community here. "This," Dawkins tells us, "is the unstoppable force of natural selection."

Finally Dawkins visits a state-of-the-art laboratory in America where scientists can now compare the genetic code of all living things, vindicating Darwin's theories, once and for all. "He showed us that the world is beautiful and inspiring without a God. He revealed to us the glory of life and revealed who we really are and where we've come from."

But back in Britain, can Dawkins convince a year 11 science class that evolution is the truth? Fearing that "a few hours in the science lab is no substitute for a lifetime of religious indoctrination" he takes the teenagers to Dorset's Jurassic Coast to examine fossil evidence for themselves. But will this win over this sceptical audience?

In the next programme, Dawkins explores what evolution really means for humans and human society and how it's been misused to justify human atrocities.