195 | Richard Dawkins on Flight and Other Evolutionary Achievements

195 | Richard Dawkins on Flight and Other Evolutionary Achievements

Evolution has equipped species with a variety of ways to travel through the air — flapping, gliding, floating, not to mention jumping really high. But it hasn't invented jet engines. What are the different ways that heavier-than-air objects might be made to fly, and why does natural selection produce some of them but not others? Richard Dawkins has a new book on the subject, Flights of Fancy: Defying Gravity by Design and Evolution. We take the opportunity to talk about other central issues in evolution: levels of selection, the extended phenotype, the role of adaptation, and how genes relate to organisms.

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Richard Dawkins received his Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Oxford. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, where he was previously the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science. He is an internationally best-selling author, whose books include The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, and The God Delusion. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature.


Episoder(416)

315 | Branden Fitelson on the Logic and Use of Probability

315 | Branden Fitelson on the Logic and Use of Probability

Every time you see an apple spontaneously break away from a tree, it falls downward. You therefore claim that there is a law of physics: apples fall downward from trees. But how can you really know? A...

19 Mai 20251h 28min

314 | Karen Lloyd on the Deep Underground Biosphere

314 | Karen Lloyd on the Deep Underground Biosphere

There are living creatures dwelling deep below the surface of the Earth, as deep as we are able to drill. These hearty microorganisms are related to more familiar life forms on land and under water, b...

12 Mai 20251h 9min

313 | Eric Topol on the Changing Face of Medicine and Aging

313 | Eric Topol on the Changing Face of Medicine and Aging

Medical science is advancing at an astonishing rate. Today we talk with leading expert Eric Topol about two aspects of this story. First, the use of artificial intelligence in medicine, especially in ...

5 Mai 20251h 12min

AMA | May 2025

AMA | May 2025

Welcome to the May 2025 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreon...

28 Apr 20253h 38min

312 | Thomas Levenson on the Mutual History of Humans and Germs

312 | Thomas Levenson on the Mutual History of Humans and Germs

The germ theory of disease is a crowning achievement of science, up there with modern physics, continental drift, and evolution via natural selection. (Even if there will always be cranky skeptics.) B...

21 Apr 20251h 31min

311 | Annaka Harris on Whether Consciousness is Fundamental

311 | Annaka Harris on Whether Consciousness is Fundamental

Questions about consciousness range from the precise and empirical -- what neurons fire when I have some particular experience -- to the deeply profound -- does consciousness emerge from matter, or do...

14 Apr 20251h 10min

AMA | April 2025

AMA | April 2025

Welcome to the April 2025 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patre...

7 Apr 20253h 30min

310 | Marc Kamionkowski on Dark Energy and Cosmic Anomalies

310 | Marc Kamionkowski on Dark Energy and Cosmic Anomalies

Cosmologists were, let us be honest, pretty stunned in 1998 when observations revealed that the universe is accelerating. There was an obvious plausible explanation, the cosmological constant proposed...

31 Mar 20251h 26min

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