Q&A: Ask Dawkins Anything 

I learn something new from Richard Dawkins all the time. That goes for this time.

Always a pleasure to listen to Dr. Richard Dawkins

I dont consider myself intellectual but i always find podcasts like these really interesting and Richard Dawkins is such a treat to watch , listen, and to learn from. Thank You

MUCH Love & RESPECT for DR. DAWKINS 💯.

Love hearing Dawkins talk about anything

Richard is so fair-minded that it is inspiring to listen to him. I love how he answers questions.

- False or not, my beliefs make me feel better - Well, if you're being attacked by a lion, yes, it may feel better to think it's a rabbit, but the reality is you're being attacked by a lion. Love it!

love this man , he is a treasure of humanity

It’s sad that our culture does not as yet have greater appetite for your wisdom across so many domains. Please keep teaching us.

I love to listen to Dr. Dawkins, his voice, his intelligence, his proper delivery.

Thank you professor for your generosity. I’m enjoying your talks :)

Mr. Dawkins is a rare gem. He is just unbeatable.

RD seems to be answering these questions off the top of his head without any preparation, very impressive ( not to mention interesting and entertaining).

You’re a living Legend, Mr. dawkins!!

Extremely interesting, succinct, accurate and with may references to others in various fields. A big thankyou from Australia.

If Richard Dawkins was to talk about how paint dries. I would still listen. He's an amazing scientists. ❤

Dawkins, I LOVE all your books! I can't wait for the Genetic Book of the Dead 😊

I cannot recommend this Q&A series enough. Please do this every week

Great to listen a man with a lot of knowledge an humble attitude.

It is always such a joy listening to you.

Thank you mister Dawkins for your excellent contributions to society

Amazing. I heard oxygen had to do with bugs being bigger. Excited for the new book!!!

Richard Dawkins, is like James May i could listen to him explain how to lick an envelope and still be fascinated..

A truly knowledgeable and awesome human being, I love listening to Prof. Dawkins. I love the part of gravity vs the probably size/height of aliens. I never thought of it that way. Pretty fascinating.

Thank Mr. Dawkins and Taryn😘

I love his deadpan reading of his hate mail. Hilarious!

I have purchased all his books. He is the best writer ever since Bertrand Russell.

I'll give the music question a go. When you pluck a string or strike an object, it resonates at a particular pitch. This is the "shockwave" bouncing back and forth within the object. I hit the object on one side, displacing its surface atoms, which push and displace their neighbours, which push and displace their neighbours... creating a wave through the object. When the wave hits the other side of the object, it rebounds (well, some of the energy displaces air atoms - that's what we ultimately hear as sound - but some of it also bounces back into the object, in an elastic way). And, because of this, every object has a resonant frequency (though it need not be within the range of human hearing). The interesting thing with this resonant frequency is that you also find all its harmonics. So if I strike the bell, it might ring out at 440Hz. But we'll also hear its multiples too - 880Hz, 1320Hz, 1760Hz, 2200Hz, etc. - ring out (albeit more quietly so). As well as the root frequency - which will be the main frequency - we're also getting that frequency times two, times three, times four, times five. Because as the "shockwave" resonates through the object at a set frequency (the time it takes for the shockwave to bounce back and forth through the object's shape and density), we can also fit, naturally, standing waves that match two or three or four or five times that frequency. These aren't as loud as the root frequency, but these secondary "shockwaves" can also travel through the object as well. If you know your music theory, then this "harmonic series" actually maps out fifths, fourths, minor thirds, major thirds, etc. - the ratios are neat fractions of each other. And we humans find these neat integer ratios to sound "harmonious" to us. The underlying evolutionary reason why - because of this harmonic series. If you're hearing frequencies that are all neat ratios and multiples of each other, then they're likely coming from the same object. Because, as we established, that's how objects naturally resonate. The root frequency, double it, triple it, quadruple it, etc. So to have a ear / brain that detects these ratios in the sounds we hear, is a ear / brain system that can pull sounds out of a cacophony of background noise. There might be traffic noise, there might be dogs barking - a whole random mess of frequencies - but I can hear the 440Hz bell loud and clear. Because my brain detects the 440Hz, 880Hz, 1320Hz, 1760Hz, etc. frequencies and pulls them out, and associates them together. "They must", the brain reasons, "all be coming from the same resonant object". Being able to do this has obvious survival advantage. I can differentiate sounds. I can hear and understand what someone is saying - social - even with a lot of loud background noise going on (think of talking to someone in a night club, where loud music is being played - but you can still make out their words through the noise, albeit shouting at one another). I can differentiate a growl - maybe from a predator - from a rustling leaf. Our brain responds to the harmonic series (which is a perfectly natural phenomenon of resonant frequencies), because that's how it pulls one sound apart from another, when there are multiple sounds going on simultaneously. These frequencies sound "harmonious" to us. And what music is doing is a deliberate "super-stimulation" of this mechanism. We have musical instruments that resonate precisely, so we can produce exact notes. Then we have two instruments both play a 440Hz note. Ah, this is interesting. Because we're kind of confounding this mechanism. We're deliberately mixing two different sounds, so that their resonant frequencies collide with each other. The brain is trying to pull the sounds apart by their harmonic series, because we're producing sounds that deliberately collide with each other. All these violins playing together overlap and phase in their frequencies. The cello is playing a harmony against that - which has some shared harmonic frequencies and some not shared, with the violins. We're creating this complex "puzzle" of frequencies for the brain to pull apart. Sometimes colliding, sometimes conflicting. The part of the brain tasked with pulling out resonant frequencies is working overtime here. It's being over stimulated. It's being given quite the complex "puzzle" to solve. And this is pleasurable to us. Just like solving other puzzles - like doing a crossword or codeword puzzle. Just like when we're being creative - which is "play fighting" for an intelligent species like us (as dogs and cats will "play fight" to hone their fighting / hunting skills, we humans love to play game and tell stories because this is "mental play fighting". We're honing our mental skills. Because as an intelligent species, these are the skills we need to refine. Where a cat enjoys practicing its hunting skills - climbing and hiding and sneaking up on its owner). Music is a deliberate over-stimulation - a "play fighting" puzzle to give us practice and exercise our brains - of a basic mechanism for pulling out resonant frequencies, which is how the ear / brain makes sense of different sounds. All these frequencies here go together to make up one sound source, all these other frequencies go together to make up another different sound source. Our brain does this to make sense of the soundscape around us, to differentiate noises from each other - which has the survival advantage of being able to hear someone shout "HELP!", despite the loud traffic noise. To make out a rustling of the bushes - which might have a predator hiding inside - from the sound of a howling gale. Music is an over-stimulating "play fighting" with this mechanism. Creating a complex puzzle of frequencies - sometimes colliding, sometimes conflicting - for our brains to pull apart. And this feels pleasurable to us. Which is the same sort of reward system as why sex feels pleasurable, or solving puzzles is enjoyable. Evolution has bred these "rewards" into us, for performing our survival instincts successfully. And music is playing that game sonically, where - for example - a horror film or rollercoaster is playing the same game but with other survival instincts. The horror movie or rollercoaster gets our "fight or flight" instincts going - makes us feel like we're in danger - and then we can enjoy the "happy chemicals to the brain" reward afterwards, that evolution gives us for having survived our terrifying ordeal. The rollercoaster or horror movie is designed to make us feel endangered - even though, really, we aren't - so that we get the "well done for surviving the ordeal" reward that evolution has bred into us. A nice burst of dopamine and endorphins to the brain, which feels good. Music is playing a similar game but with a different mechanism. It's over-stimulating the part of our brains that deal with processing sounds, as a horror movie over-stimulates the part of the brain that senses danger. And then we crank this all the way up to 11. A really complex mess of frequencies in a symphony, a really terrifyingly fast rollercoaster ride, a very scary horror movie indeed. The more you stimulate these things, the bigger the "happy chemicals" reward for surviving / solving the puzzle. Indeed, when a scientist does their maths, pulls apart a problem and finds a solution, they're also playing the same game. Like solving the crossword. You give yourself the challenge of a complex puzzle, to enjoy the "happy chemicals" reward when you finally solve it. Evolution giving us a "well done for surviving" reward. Just like, more obviously, an orgasm is the reward for "doing your duty" of attempting to reproduce. When you do the right thing, in evolutionary terms, evolution says "here, have a cookie" (this, of course, is itself another example - we get a chemical reward for eating, as evolution wants to encourage the survival instinct of not starving ourselves to death). (Admittedly, in the above, I focused on frequencies. Music also has rhythm too. But I leave it as an exercise to the reader to work out how that also plays a part. It should be noted that frequencies - 440Hz - are, in fact, a rhythm too. Play a click 440 times a second and it starts to sound like a note. Frequency and rhythm are really the same thing, but when rhythms get real fast, we stop hearing them as individual sounds and they start to sound like notes to us.)

Always fascinating and enlightening.

It's nice to hear him finally talk about something other than God and religion. After all, he's not just an atheist, but a professor of evolutionary biology and zoology!

Really enjoy these videos, would love to see more, perhaps even some sort of schedule like once a fortnight or once a month

What a joy to hear this man riff on all things. All things. Rif with style, education, wisdom, and discretion. I’ve never thought of myself as someone who appreciates poetry (as I am a pretty left brain evidence-based person) but I stand corrected. I’m loving poetry today is spoken by the great Dr. Hawkins. Again, I stand corrected - the greatest, Dr. Hawkins.

Science is made of FACTS & sir. Richard Dawkins explains everything scientifically & comprehensively. Can't question FACTS

Really entertaining to listen to. Thankyou

Thank you for sharing your knowledge Dr Dawkins.

His face when she said auras and vibrations was priceless 😂😂

No matter what your area of expertise and how much knowledge you already have, you'll always be a bit smarter after listening to Richard.

A question for professor Dawkins: I'm intrigued by the genetics of male pattern baldness. It's commonly understood that the baldness gene is inherited from the mother's side. However, it's interesting to note that many sons experience baldness when their fathers are also bald. While the scientific consensus emphasizes maternal transmission, the observable evidence suggests paternal influence as well. Could you share your insights on this apparent discrepancy and help clarify the role of both maternal and paternal genetics in male pattern baldness?

Its such a pleasure to listen to such an intelligent human being .

In order of enjoyment, starting with my favorite: The Greatest Show on Earth The Selfish Gene Climbing Mount Improbable The Extended Phenotype The Blind Watchmaker A Devil's Chaplain Science in the Soul Books Do Furnish a Life The Magic of Reality Unweaving the Rainbow The God Delusion Outgrowing God A River Out of Eden Brief Candle in the Dark An Appetite for Wonder Flights of Fancy The Ancestor's Tale But they're all terrific.

I was really hoping he would answer the resurrect question with his good friend Hitch. Miss his debate style, vast vocabulary, wit and just pulling references, dates, historical events, geographical locations like from a constantly updating encyclopedia. True legend

ריצארד דוקינס היקר. תמשיך להאיר את האפלה. כל הכבוד על ההתמדה . הינך מודל לחיקוי. שמעתי את דבריך באקדמיה הישראלית למדעים בביקורך בארץ. תודה רבה לך.

I admire everything about Prof. Richard. It is my dream to meet him.

What’s all this Dr, Dawkins, or Mr Dawkins? Must be Americans, they’ll be using that ‘sir’ nonsense as they tend to too, I suppose. Richard has been Richard to us Brits for so long now, we just expect the world audience to be just as knowledgeable of his work as we are. Always great to see and hear Richard’s viewpoint, his year’s of knowledge are an absolute pleasure to behold. Thank you Richard.

I was surprised that Richard didn’t have a response for the question on why animals were bigger in the past. I can’t remember verbatim, but the way it was taught to me in my college geology class was that the higher levels of oxygen, nitrogen, etc and plentiful living space for creatures at that time drove this. Great episode as always!

I feel like tiptoeing out of the presence of such erudition. The final answer was a gem

You are great professor!

Fascinating, thank you

Great podcast

Simply the best!

On the point of music from an evolutionary perspective: Ian Cross has written about this. If I remember correctly the idea is that music functions as an aid to group cohesion and unity. The first musical instrument was the voice, and music was a participatory activity. By providing a unique, coordinated and shared experience, a tribe’s music would foster a sense of group unity and belonging, helping to build a mindset geared towards cooperation and acting for the good of the tribe as opposed to pure self-interest. In addition, music acts as ‘social lubricant’. Whereas arguments in a group inevitably flare up periodically about concrete matters, eg the objects of ‘language’, musical information is more abstract and therefore harder to disagree about. This goes for pitch, rhythm etc, and even sung words are usually an abstraction of sorts compared with everyday speech, since any repeated song by definition cannot be about the specifics of the here and now. This means music may have provided something a tribe could universally agree on, acting as a counterweight to any differences revealed through the sharper semantic tool of language, and was likely self-reinforcing as a favoured activity allowing individuals to participate in feeling connected to each other.

Thank You, Simply Thank You ✌🏻&❤️

I love this discussion

Yeah, yeah I bet Richard LOVES❤️🔥 being interviewed by Taryn, haha gold.

Lovely! I would like to hear Professor Dawkins evaluate the life forms in the series "The Expanse", especially the "Protomolecule" that plays such an important role. The series is renowned for taking science very seriously, which makes it a hugely enjoyable read evem for one who at present would prefer the gravity of Mars or the Belt!

Question - can a universe be observed as an organism or a cell? Are there any similarities that could support this view?

Thank you for making this poetry of reality. The best line from this episode was "I don't know".

So curious to know more about how AI “mutations” work! Could you elaborate on this in another video?!

I love you Richard! Like a friend, like a friend..

The idea, I guess we credit Pinker, that 'simple' sounds (as in music), are why we love music, is fascinating.

Very interesting! I really enjoy this format. Since i know Dr. Dawkins appreciates science fiction i'm curious whether he is familiar with the field of speculative evolution/biology as a subgenre of the field. There are several nice books and online projects on the topic such as "After Man: a zoology of the future" by Dougal Dixon or "Serina: a natural history of the world of birds". "Expedition" by Barlowe looks at how life on an alien planet might look like using fascinationg illustrations.

Genius ❤

Love the Q&As. I have a question on evolutionary biology and "aliens". Q: How do we arrive at a conclusion that intelligent alien life is predictable by evolution? From my understanding, evolutionarily development does not predict intelligent life. It seems to me that evolutionary development does not lead to a single global optimum, but rather to some local optimum at a certain time depending on the environment and chance and you do not need intelligence in the equation for survival.

Ohhh a new richard dawkins book!

Dawkins resurects Jesus and shows him the history of Christianity. Jesus: "blimey. I didn't expect the Spanish inquisition"

A new book is coming! ❤❤❤❤❤❤

Thank you for sharing your wisdom and being generous with your time!

I wrote a novel called "Atropos" that deals with the issues that Richard alludes to when he discusses rejuvenation...

Re music, and the arts & sciences - my thought is that they developed as a consequence of consciousness. So not really evolutionary in the sense that they helped us to survive, but we developed those things because we could, and of course the spin off with technology especially, really did help us to survive. Tools - the wheel - textiles - building - and sitting around the fire at night humming, creating stories about the day's hunting, drawing pictures on cave walls - and eventually sending men to the moon and beyond. Breathtaking.

Resurrecting Jesus would be wonderful for Arsenal FC right now

Beautiful, beautiful and absolutely beautiful! ❤

What are the error bars, or sensitivity analysis of the constants of the universe that are the limits of what they need to be to create the universe as we see it, or at least close to it?

I remember reading somewhere about three Christians ... hundreds of years back in time ... discussing the idea that after three days being dead in such a hot climate ... and then rising from the dead with his body intact ... one of them saying, "Jesus MUST have stinketh." Even back then, those men figured out that the story itself ... was anti-scientific.

I recall it only took 6 generation of fox breeding to get that tame result. Respect and pleasure when I hear Dr Dawkins talk.

What is consciousness? How can atoms feel pain and pleasure? What is sense?

Survivability and/or Pleasurable/Pain avoidance.

To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a cheesecake is just a cheesecake.

On animal size, largeness is a protection from predation. There are other defences such as speed, sense acuity and intelligence, but quite possibly evolution amongst dinosaurs was slower in these characteristics.

Love is the greatest tamer

Logical thinking is at an inherent persuasive disadvantage because it leaves open the position "I don't know" (41:00), which for those who believe in certainty is never enough and may be taken as an admission of a failure of argument. The humility of science is to be praised.

Taryn is great.

When we are racing to the precipice in terms of climate change and there is no political will to stop burning fossil fuels, how long does Richard Dawkins think human beings, and indeed all other species, have left? What will come after us, if anything? With only one known example this is less of a question and more of a musing, is intelligence a fatal mutation and could this be why we see no ET's? Has intelligence just made us more effective killing machines?

Awareness is known by awareness alone.

Music may have had its origin in using the beating of drum like objects or other sound producing devices to communicate over distances.

Dr. Dawkins, what would be a great way to educate people more efficiently about embracing the scientific method or atheism ?

The argument about belief in God, 'because it makes me feel better!' always makes me laugh because I've heard a few people say that to me. But it's very pathetic, really, and sadly, it's how many people seem to live their lives. Much respect for Dawkins, my favourite science author!

27:00 blade runner for hire 😅

the experiment with the foxes took only 3 generations if i remember correctly. Their coats did change too.

I don't know how you have so many views but so if you likes Richard, you're amazing.

I would suggest that music was first developed as a cry to ward off predictors - especially during the preparation of food and more so at night. This would eventually become a playful thing, by the nature of teaching children - to learn the method of self-preservation. Further developments would most certainly be as a form of cross cultural communication, as music has no boundaries. This would more likely be in the form of war cries and the like, then evolving into a base form of communication for different tribes who's language differs from one another. 🤔 Instruments will certainly have developed to support all of the above and the drum is most certainly the first of such instruments. 🪘🥁😊

I’ve often wondered if our prehistoric ancestors were inspired to make music and dance by observing the birds ? Apart from humans, I don’t know any other species of animal which does this. And like the birds, (with the addition of elaborate body adornment and fancy footwork), humans of both sexes use it to attract a potential mates.

This is so great!

My friend raised a fox cub from birth because his mother was killed , it was more dog like than most dogs ! , its about nurturing as much as nature . Be kind folks its amazing what happens.

I'm pretty sure that I didn't quite get the distinction between epigenetics that Richard mentioned. I think he only briefly touched on epigenetics in his books, I forget which one it was, but it would be really nice to have him update the world on modern understanding of epigenetics, and my question would be if he and J. Craig Venter are in agreement or not about how our "junk DNA" is now perceived vs the paradigms of the 80s and 90s, when Richard wrote those books, and what has changed. If I'm confused, I'm sure others are also confused, as well.

Excellent...Q+A Well, what can one say. But, biology is the Mother, Science the way. Thank you.

The Harvard scientist Hopi Hoekstra has worked based on your theoretical work in the book The Extended Phenotype. I think she is an excellent scientist. It would be great if you invited her to your Podcast. It would be a good idea for you to recommend following some prominent scientists who could be good representatives in the future. of scientific and skeptical thought, who will continue your legacy? We want to know about people that you can recommend to us as promoters of rationalism. I wish you many more years of life, but after you, which scientists do you recommend us to follow?

Please get a decent microphone so that it doesn’t sound like an echo chamber. Otherwise i think a great programme

If only we could breed tameness into certain religions , there is one particular one in dire need of it

He is so satisfying to hear, she is so pleasant to look at, I enjoyed that a lot. Also for all those accusing me of being sexist feel free to talk to my selfish genes. It's "them" who find her suitable survival machine to merge with ❤. I'm just kidding much love to all

I heard of a Russian woman that bred foxes to be tame and others to be aggressive. The "tame" foxes became more dog-like while the agressive ones would try to bite the hands of their handlers.