Richard Dawkins: From Selfish Gene to Flights of Fancy 

We should keep and protect Mr Dawkins at all cost. We are so lucky to live in a time when he's with us. Both Carl Sagan and C. Hitchens have passed away way too soon and before their time. We need more people like Dawkins with us today.

My interest in Prof. Dawkins started with The Selfish Gene decades ago. He helped me to instill the importance of science into my daughter who is now also a scientist. Years ago while she was at UC Berkeley Prof Dawkins was lecturing there and we both attended. I brought my original dog eared copy of Selfish Gene in hopes of an autograph and sure enough he was gracious enough to oblige.

I love Dawkins!❤. His comments, always so well explained. I started reading Dawkins when I had doubts as a believer and I am glad I did! Now I am not a believer and happy to be one. He helped so much! I think without reading him probably I would be thinking that it was me, that I was weak having doubts, I know it sounds silly but I didn’t allow myself to THINK! 🙄. Reading him I realized its OK. 🤷‍♀️. Haha! It sounds so stupid but it was like that. Thank you Richard Dawkins!

Beautiful to see them chatting again here ♥️♥️

This was both fascinating and wonderful to watch. Lawrence, and Richard: You two are heroes for your decades of work of communicating science and reason. Ignorance is like darkness and you two are radiant beacons of light. Keep on shining, my friends.

Two great minds. How lucky I am to live in this era to learn from such phenomenal teachers. I am from India

Two of my most favourite scientists, ever.

It is sad to think that time will end the content these two produce. I will watch all I can in the mean time.

I've loved that Krauss has let Dawkins do a little talking a few times.

I can remember getting his book "The God Delusion" after seeing an interview with him. An acquaintance of mine said, "Oh, he is that crazy scientist." Thanks for opening that truthful, rational rabbit hole, Richard!

I could listen to Richard Dawkins for hours

Thank you so much for this conversation, Dr. Krauss.

*hears “Dawkins” & immediately checks running time* Two hours?. hell yeah!! 🍿

These minds should live forever!

Great podcast. Great to see, two of my favorite teachers, together again. Thank you very much..

Awesome. Thanks to you both, seriously, for all of the years of hard work that it took to arrive at a podcast like this one.

I can listen to you both all day, I barely understand some of things talked about, but that doesnt hurt the sheer joy of listening, thanks to both of youi.

Morris' painting is fantastic. Selfish Gene causes something in my mind to perk up and it's because those two words have never been seen together. It still makes one react to the bizarre combination of words. It is a smashing title for a book. Richard is doing what we all do and that is we all make decisions and then later, sometimes, we can have doubts. I once asked a finance manager what is the most important thing a manager in his busines must never do on the job. He told me something that I have taken to heart and try to live by to this very day. He said, "What he does is never to go back on a decision he made about anything at work. If he had to sack someone, rather than go back in your mind and start kicking yourself for being too hard on the person---he would not question his decision again. Rather than pine over not signing a contract with a supplier, he stood by his decision to go with another company. You're free from guilt when you don't beat yourself up for thinking you made the wrong decision. You made the right decision and the thing is you can't undo it; so why worry about it? Up until the moment I met that man I had done what Richard has done and that is go back in my mind and wonder out loud if Imade the right decision on just about everything. We only tread water in life if we don't believe in our decisions...

Thank you. I was thinking just today how I wish so many people with these crazy ideas would have taken just one physics class.

What a way to bless ( easy now Dawkins) my saturday evening! Thank you.

My like came so easy. Having two of my best people on the planet interview each other... legendary!

"Well, if you're Feynman all you need is Newtons laws and then you just derive everything from that..." lol Feynman is still my ultimate scientific hero and favourite bongo player.

You both have given us so much for so long. Thank you so much for all the hope you've given us that no matter the stupidity , Reason and Scientific Brilliance can prevail and beam our species forward away from self destruction...

More of this please my mind needs it.

I really enjoyed this - two of my most favourite voices of reason in this turmoil of insanity these days - thank you very much! If you ever get to visit Galapagos together, please make it into a video series! I'd be delighted to watch ☺️

What a TERRIFIC conversation! Thank you BOTH!

Seeing these two scientists talking to each other , smiling , enjoying the converation make me happy somehow. Thanks to youtube.

Excellent. Two of my favorite scientists

I could listen to this all day❤️

I've missed you two ❤

Very glad prof dawkins is in fine and well

Can't believe this has only been up 7 days. Man, I'm doing through the top thinkers in the world and I just happened to look this up.

Science is fantastic.

I ran into Krauss at an airport. “Lawrence Kraus!!” flew out of my mouth like a bird. He stopped and said, “Yeah.” My girlfriend took our picture. She was like, whose that? I said that’s the Bob Dylan of physics. My grandfather was a great physicist but he’s long gone. Krauss is a kind of avuncular physicist.

It's wonderful to imagine with facts. Thank you!

The contrast of this conversation after going from Richard's one with a creationist 😅

I bought my son Flights Of Fancy, a fantastic book.

Thank you for this interview,Dr Krauss. Love your RU-vid channel. Though I have never met Professor Dawkins in person, he is my favorite Professor of Evolution through television starting in the 1990s when I was kid.

How I admire these two great minds. Thanks to the two who remind us this is a wonderful world and some minds make our lives more discerning. I salute both men with my heart from India

A great conversation.

All That Breathes a documentary about the black kites of New Delhi is a fascinating story of biology and ecosystems.

High School Physics, then Chemistry, then Biology. Great point! I would have liked a narrative throughput.

It was due to Professor Krauss' book "A Universe From Nothing" which I read in February 2016 that I went from being an agnostic -which I was for thirty-seven years -to an atheist. I shortly thereafter read Professor Dawkins' book "The God Delusion". These two men have been beacon lights for me in our modern age, i.e., mentors. I have read Darwin's two major works as well. I grew up Mormon but cannot accept the validity of it -or any -religion. Many thanks to all those scientists for all their hard work in seeking to understand the world as it is, not as religion would like it to be. May good health and happiness accompany these two great men. Thank you both for helping to remove the scales from my eyes and helping me to see my place in this grand existence!!!! Atheist in a Mormon town.

Holy crap, thank you RU-vid random suggestions!

Pure epicness....seeing people like you discussing life and science is such a delight, too bad it's hard to bring worlds together , schedules and distance BUT, use your charisma Mr Krauss and trick people into doing it more often, it ballances out the uselessness of the world today, it is much needed and very appreciated, good job gentlemen, best wishes and looking forward for more. P.S. Congrats on the latest book Mr. Dawkins.

What a treat to see Dr. Dawkins in the flesh, thank you for the excellent interview Dr. Krauss! I’m seeing him in Brisbane in February!

"Flights" is a really fun read, btw, you should all totally read it. It's more casual than "Greatest Show" or "Selfish Gene" so it's even a good fit for science minded kids maybe age 10 or so. I love all his books.

Great GREAT interview. THANK YOU.

It's so good to watch this just after surviving the interview between Richard Dawkins and Jordan Peterson.

Two of my favorite people!

The intro for your podcast is awesome

Great interview. First time I have seen Richard so clearly happy and excited talking about a topic he is so passionate about. Most you tube videos show Richard and Larence in confrontational roles which while entertaining, don't provide a forum to hear them communicate about their specialist subjects

Canadian geese always migrated through Northern California. Many years ago they got to Marin County liked the year round mild weather and stayed.

Great! Dawkins, already 81, seems to be in great shape, good for all (excluding religious nuts) of us. : )

Such a great podcast. Thank you both very much.

how is this not more popular?

When I listen to Richard Dawkins talk about evolution I feel like watching 5 documentaries about evolution

Thoroughly enjoyed this fascinating conversation. I felt like a kid all over again.

something to listen to and lighten up my weekend!

Great to see Richard back to his old self; he seemed mentally and physically frail some time back after his stroke, and I thought maybe that wasn't ever going to reverse.

Thank you both!

We need more people like you

FWIW, photography proves that the streams above and below the wing do not arrive simultaneously. The recirculation argument you mentioned is likely more correct than a simple application of conservation of energy.

Great to see this great exciting dynamic duo talking and sharing ideas again. Great minds. Great people.

Richard, you are wrong about helicopters. They don't just push air down. Each rotor is an aerofoil section like a conventional wing. Therefore they create lift in the same way as a fixed wing. Still, you're right about God...so 9/10.

Just realized that the argument around the 10-12 min mark on the genetic code is due to Krauss thinking genetic code = nucleotides of DNA not the mapping between codons and amino acids (which is way more complex and it would be bizarre if it was the same)

At 1:35 it is called "dynamic soaring", well known to RC glider flyers.

A lot of people, including myself, discovered Dawkins because of Nightwish, namely his reading of Darwin in their song "The Greatest Show on Earth". What a fascinating conversation

Nice.. why am I just seeing this.. can't wait to watch all of this

Good to see Dawkins thriving in his older years, top man

i love that more scientists are doing podcasts now. we need them

Can't wait to watch the rest of this. I just learned that LK has a podcast. Just want to say the selfish gene was a great title and the title alone grabs me and Interests me and it was one of the best books I've ever read. It changed my perception of life.

"I dont know why the Illustrations were so dirt cheap, but I'm delighted by it", the Artist: "Thanks, I hate it"

Hi. If I can make a suggestion, I would recomend you divided this post into sections each dealing with a subject or question (everybody does it). Not everybody has 2 hours at their disposal. Sometimes we are just interested in, say, what Mr Dawkins thinks about black holes and not the rest. Tks

In South Australia, we began learning Physics, Biology and Chemistry in Year 10, High School. Mind you, that was in the 80s. Also, the curriculum was/is determined at a state by state level in Australia, so I don't even know how/when it was/is taught in the other states, such as Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales etc. It makes sense to me to learn all three subjects at the same time as they are so interconnected, though I probably didn't appreciate it at the time.

Which scientist is Dawkins mentioning at 34:17? Can't make it out. Edit: Never mind it's Peter Medawar

Aw greate scientst and thinker Richard Dawkins, now you got little old but you are still a lovely Dawkind

I'm just picturing Richard Dawkins sliding down an inclined plane going "this is rather nice"

Nice to see to great person together, love it

it's always a joy to be privy to conversations that articulately and courageously flesh out the perennial conflict between the conversationaly defined stances of robust tentativity (science) and certitude-at-all-cost (religion as ideology). Both stances are strategies for attempting to tame the sense of overwhelming awe spawned by the combinatorially explosive aspectual nature of the unfolding lifeworld. Ironically, both are premised on the assumption that the lifeworld itself is intelligible.

Ohh finally a new Richard Dawkins video/interview and with krauss on the other end! Man this is gonna be enjoyable on another level🤤🤤

Love both of these guys.

Thank you for sharing this conversation

Thank you for this discussion. What I learned from it is that I need Flights of Fancy, it sounds fascinating.

So relaxing to listen to you gentlemen!

If only we could get the whole world into science or intellectual debates instead of religion

Wonderful to see these two!

Who needs infinite monkeys and infinite time writing Shakespeare when we have a great ape writing great books in in our time in Dawkins.

You're not alone. Regards from Australia.

Richard im 27 years old I have your books and I have Steven pinkers books I have cosmology books too Richard I'm gonna read it throughout the entire month :)

Bat synesthesia. Jaime Foxx's character in The Soloist had auditory color synesthesia. I think that bats can switch between color representation and black and white; one type of representation for navigation/identification, and the other for predation.

Agreed, Physics and Chemistry first before Biology. Or at least teach student same time. To make sense biology in a molecular level

I like this. But what is that odd music rolling in the background?

Great conversation, as there always are. And the Easter egg? Lawrence's shirt.

I’m so excited at having the opportunity to someday maybe make a scientific discovery. I most likely won’t, but that is part of the beauty in it.

Selfish gene is the master piece

Please add time stamps. Thanks.

1:38:00 we've been doing this for a long time in computer animation, we call it flocking, and basically a bird follows a path and any other birds stay within a certain distance and series of angles that are "springy", so they all follow a route, but with a delay and with a boundary. i think i first did one of these in the late 80's? but certainly it was "perfected" in the 90's. i did special effects on the movie of the original resident evil (milla, james perfoy and eric mabius), i did twenty or so shots of the creature (any shot with the tongue in i worked on) and although i had no part in the shot of the birds flocking, at the very beginning milla (alice) startles a flock of birds in a tree - that was computer graphics.

Bats should be a physicists favorite animal to read about due to all the fascinating adaptations. Their flight abilities are enhanced compared to birds because their wing membranes are attached to their finger bones that can move independantly, as well as ankles and tail membrane that can alter the membrane shapes. This allows for fine manipulation and maneuverability. They also use their back and shoulder muscles rather than mostly chest muscles like a bird does. Species that fly fast and high have long narrow wings. Species that fly in cluttered woods have short broad wings to maneuver and gleen insects off leaves. Species sonograms differ depending on how and where they capture prey and their technique. Lower more constant frequency for fast flyers, higher and changing frequencies for clutter flyers. They use harmonics too. Some moths not only drop in elevations to evade bat sonar, but some species rub their genitals to create a sound that jams the bat radar. Their hibernation and torpor abilities, delayed conception or implantation, along with demographic segretation allow for longecity and improved survival of offspring. A species from siberia has been found to live over 40 years. Microchiropetran bats have remarkable abilities.

45:00 - yes, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.