Richard Dawkins Greatest Show on Earth 

I am superior to no other human and although I was born into a Christian society, I am an atheist. I have reached a point where my life is drawing to its close. I will of course live on in my children and my children's children just as I have been part of my parents and grandparents afterlife. I feel enormously privileged to have lived for a time on this beautiful Earth and its amazing, creative people.

He could read a Chinese take out menu and I'd still listen to him

A truly enlightened human being. Thank god he was born in the digital age where his message can be spread to the masses.

So much respect for this wonderful gentleman ❤

I fall asleep nearly every night listening to Prof. Dawkins. My favourite is 'The Ancestors Tale.' And it's another of the greatest shows on Earth. Great title.

Some Americans , not so much suffer from ignorance, they rejoice in it.

One of the greatest minds of all time! Dawkins one incredible, knowledgeable man of reality and the real truth

Thank you for helping me survive my struggle as a JW

It took evolution millions of years to give us a brain and creationists choose not to use it.

Professor Dawkins is such a fantastic treasure to our social understanding. Helping provide freedom to our lives. (- religion) An amazing intellectual and tremendous author/teacher. I'm so grateful having discovered him & so much of his life's work. Still being consolidated & is generously shared through many mediums. Thank you Richard.

This is another inspiring reminder of why life is fascinating. Dawkins is an appropriate window of learning opportunity. We need his work read and studied in schools.

When uneducated people wanted to fill in the blanks: we have religion

It makes me sad to realize that 50% of people just look at him, nod away and leave with absolutely no idea what he was talking about... Or not wanting to know what he was talking about. This man is Don Quijote battling stupidity of mankind, a Sisyphos of our times. We'll forever be grateful to you for opening (or keeping open) the eyes of the other 50%, Mr. Dawkins!

Richard is a remarkable teacher. He has been consistently espousing the cause of science and fighting religious obscurantism... We need to keep up this tradition every where and always with a view to preventing any more territory to religions of all shades

Love this guy, a personal living hero of mine.

Dawkins is brilliant. Read his books and you'll be a better person.

The only game in town, "The greatest show on earth!" A truly, truly informed and knowledgeable human being. Absolutely love Prof. Dawkins.

A fantastic book. Of course no single book can explain all the details of evolution, but I give this one a 5 star rating.

Would have to rank Richard Dawkins as one world’s great teachers. Gives me great understanding and happiness when I listen to his presentations. Cheers SBM.

The fact of evolution is a heavy blow on the teeth of religious theories.thanks to Darvin who has been the pioneering genius of evolution.

Even Indiana Loves that there are people like you. I am a graduate of Purdue and It is great that you stand up.

Dawkins is a major hero in my book he ought to be given the highest honors from around the world.

Thanks, Natural Selection, for Richard Dawkins. :) We need more of this evolved species in order to fight back some regressive apes that believe they 're or they 'll be some kind of angels (fallen or otherwise) in some fairy tale land. ;)

nightwish brought me here...

I love Richard Dawkins ☺️💜🌞

A wonderful talk by a wonderfully brilliant man. So happy to listen to all his speeches. One is always a better and enlightened person for taking the time to listen. The world is a better place for people like Darwin, Dawkin, Hitchens just to name a few. I love his ending; The Greatest Show on Earth

Biology is science, Psychology is science, Sociology is science. All of them can explain where our morals come from

I am of a similar generation to Richard Dawkins. In my youth in the 60s the way religion was going, at least in GB I thought it would be invisible by the time I reached my pension. Many people of my generation have been dismayed by many developments which seemed highly unlikely from the 60 view. Social economic, and commercial. The march of asocial capitalism, one shock, and cultural deterioration. Religion, and superstition the other. Big business, commercialised religion in the US is probably at the heart of this cancer of unreason, and inhumanity.

fascinating , a compliment to the human mind...for those of us who revel in understanding..and have the appetite for truth....

haha, gotta luv dawkins, just a true gent

He's GOT to be one of my favorite humans, bar none. If my wife is reading this,....I love you.

I miss you so much, Richard. can't wait to find my place, and invite to my brain again. You have changed everything. And I adore that you did that. It was like finding home, when I found you. I bow to you, Richard. Thank you. Even my babies know you, admire you, are empowered because of the freedom you brought to our lives. Forever eternal.

The agricultural revolution (the time when humans first started farming and raising livestock) occurred around 10,000 BCE, 6000 years 44% of Americans seem to believe the world started.

Just to verbalize a thought I had listening to Dawkins in this speech; there's no drive to get more complexity; I was pleased to hear that. Also because complexity, as long as I know, once reached and passed a certain threshold (always different for every species and/or environment in wich they live), becomes more a problem than a resource. From that threshold on, the more complex you get, the less resilient you get. And that applies not only to individuals, but to entire groups, tribes, communities, civilizations, and eventually species. And that's probably one reason why extintions are so common (even though we made them much more common...). Anyway, goosebumps. Always, listening to Dawkins.

The people that dont need this great talk are listening to it. People that need it never will. As a human society , we need to attack (educate) confirmation bias and other psychological hurdles as a ROOT problem for our species.

Oddly, I was educated in Catholic schools but we had many brilliant teachers and I was taught Evolution. Sixty years ago my biology classroom had a large model of RNA. Very lucky.

delightful ...

Thanks for posting.

This is the enlightenment what we need

Dear Richard Dawkins love reading your books but I lovedon't reading the greatest show on earth it is (before our very eyes)If you would like to put that way :) but really your books really intreast me and I must say you are a very intelligent man. Your my favourite author ever. Thank you very much cincerly a very big fan :)

He has to be the smartest person alive I think.

The most common prayer I've learned from Christianity: With greatest fervor and sanctimony, close eyes tightly, place hands over ears, say the following in loudest voice... La la la la la la la la la la la la la la...

22:34 That "want to bet?" was savage, I love it.

Technically yes. But the same rational thinking process that makes people reject belief in a deity should also make them reject belief in fairies and devils.

I would love to see a documentary on evolution on pattern of Cosmos by Dawkins! He is doing nice work!

It's crazy that for so long we selectively bred domesticated and agricultural animals for certain characteristics, knowing what we were doing and why, yet it took until Darwin to realise what was going on in nature.

I will continue looking forward moreso than looking back.

There are RU-vid videos that feature the Russian experiments to breed wild foxes in captivity, selecting for tameness with humans. Those experiments produced the most astonishing results that will force you to wonder even more about nature. Also, wolf domestication videos reveal amazing differences between wolves & dogs. Nature is fascinating!

45:29 - From-Some-Thing-Else. (I'm not a musician but) that's first 4 notes of NUMB by Linkin Park.

While Newton was a genius and it would've obviously been a treat to speak and learn from him (in certain aspects), he was also religious.

Great to see Dawkins talking on something he's educated in

The point Steven Weinberg, and others, make though is that no matter how much we know we will likely always simply be pushing the "ultimate question" further and further back.

To all our theist friends:you can thank your beliefs you're wrong.

50:00 The most beautiful and deepest feeling of existence, the mystery of the observer, the weirdness of conscious beings.

Dawkins was the professor of science for many years at oxford. and he is not afraid to stand up for science against massive adversity (much like Newton). so therefore he does have a connection

According to a research made 2007 in the US 23% of the evengalical protestants believed in evolution, 45% of the muslim, 58% of the catholics, 77% of the secular unaffiliated, 80% of the hindus, 81% of the buddhists and 87% of the atheists/agnostics. Says something about religious views and how they can differ in their beliefs in science. (Source:wikipedia)

What a nice intelligent audience! You should have them stuffed Richard!

To David Franklin and r Lee: To win your argument it seems to me that you are basically saying that the Bible is correct because it says so in the Bible. Creation is only the correct way things came into being because it says so in the Bible. The universe is 6000+ years old because it says so in the Bible. Dawkins is a fool because it says so in the Bible. You want to shut people down because they disagree with your Bible and that is the correct course of action according to the Bible. So all hail the Bible. To prove or disprove something it is always best to have information coming from different sources that have no vested interested in each other. To take an old archaic collection of bronze age stories that got written down years later during the early iron age and to take them as absolute truth in this atomic age is short sighted to say the least. In short the Bible can't be right because it says so in the Bible. In what court of law will that hold up? You will probably say in the God's court during the final judgement because it says so in the Bible!!! PLEASE!!! I case you are wondering, I come from a tribe/clan who converted to Christianity from Saint Thomas the Apostle who was an eye witness to the one called Jesus. We also have this habit of making education of both boys and girls important. The reason being a child's first classroom is his mother's lap. This is the reason why we do not take the Bible, especially the old genesis stories, as literal truth. They are to us just old myths of blood shed, warfare and other weird things. We rather use the parables that Jesus taught to help us live with one another to better our lives and not to do to others as we would not want them to do us. The Bible is not a Science book and should never be viewed as such.

Excellent talk, as usual. It took me a moment to realize he was talking about small birds (Parus major) at 1:16:10

quite easily the most important scientist in life sciences since Darwin; I learned so much from RD and his boks

"How can science be objective when it's performed by humans?" - The solution lies in the plural. The fact that science is performed by large groups of humans who cooperate and check and double check and falsify each others findings makes it as objective as humanly possible. That is why science in general is so incredibly successful. The fruits of science are million-fold proof that it delivers more knowledge than anything religious superstitions have had to offer in tens of thousands of years

I love this man. He is another Genius of our time. But, I still believe (in which case I couldn't explain) that there is GOD from whom the first scientifically proven big bang might have been created.

oh, i never saw this one. thanx for the upload

Listening to him and hearing all of the scientific discoveries that evidence what he says, It makes me sad that so many people, for religious reasons, deny that evolution is the explanation for the origin of species.

such interesting man ..humbled to see him this spring

I'm amused by the hipster with the goofy hat, pseudo-military shirt, and the inability to express himself without using the extraneous "like" every few words. In an apparent effort to separate himself as intellectually superior to Sarah Palin, and he cites her as evidence of a potential misstep in human evolution. The obvious inference is Sarah Palin is an idiot. This may or may not be true, but I don't think we win any arguments by pointing to the opposition and calling them stupid. Lawrence Krauss frequently belittles Republicans as a group in his lectures. The "Haha! I'm superior because I don't believe in god, and you're stupid because you do!" is counterproductive. Many "believers" are quite intelligent people, but have been indoctrinated from birth to believe fables and falsehoods. Convincing many of them there is no god is as daunting as convincing them that water is not wet. Unless you're just waiting for all believers to simply die off, another approach may be warranted.

he outright stated that all fossils could be considered intermediates--that would also refer to those that we will leave behind..but to say that any change is gradual is an understatement and to say that our evolution is favorable or not is speculative

When he mentioned that there are British getting their science from the Flinstones, I think everyone was so heavy hearted by the comments he had just made about religious people controlling our education and our politics that no one could LOL.

I can't learn anything from Richard Dawkins because I'm too busy feeding my brain with some of the greatest minds on earth like Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, and Joshua Feuerstein. Insert Fart sound here.

Creationists claims are like a detective investigating the bloody scene of a severely stabbed victim and claiming it must have been a heart attack.

Well yes I agree. However if they believed that a flat earth was also a belief then that is also ridiculous. It's as if beliving the hanging gardens of Babylon was a real structure.

Explanation about genes is fascinating.

Good stuff. Required learning in homes, schools, and churches.

I agree that we must not give into the urge to set right those trolls whose purposes are not to discuss the subject but to keep the attention on themselves . Thereby they slow the free exchange of ideas among those who seek to learn more about the subject .

Excellent sir😍😍😍👍

I'd rather be living in a dull but truthful world than in a deluded state of excitement. Truth is Love. Love is truth.

Marco Polo left for China in AD 1271. He arrived in AD 1273. He described seeing a two-legged dinosaur. He wrote that in the “province of Carajan” [South Eastern Asia] there existed - giant serpents of such vast size as to strike fear into those who see them. You may be assured that some of them are ten paces in length; and in bulk they are equal to a great cask, for the bigger ones are about 10 palms in girth, they have two forelegs near the head [T.Rex kind] but for feet nothing but a claw of a hawk or that of a lion. The head is very big; the eyes are bigger than a great loaf of bread. [In those days bread was circular in shape] The mouth is large enough to swallow a man whole, {again it sounds like a T. Rex kind of dinosaur having a very big head and mouth} and it is garnished with great pointed teeth. In 1611 the emperor appointed the post of a “Royal Dragon Feeder” books even tell of Chinese families raising Dragons to use their blood for medicines and highly prized their eggs Marinus Willem Devisser- The Dragon in China & Japan 1969 William Caxton, England’s First Printer, recorded the description of a large serpent in 1884. About the marshes of Northern Italy, within a meadow was sometime a serpent of a wonderful and right marvelous greatness, sight: hideous and fearful. For first he had the head greater than the head of a calf; secondly, he had a neck of the length of an ass [snake] and the body made after the likeness of a dog and his tail was wonderfully great, thick and long, without comparison to any other. [His description is that of a Tanystropheus kind of dinosaur]. Bill Cooper, After the Flood 1994 Page 139 On May 13th, 1572 near Bdogna, Italy, Scientist Ulysses Aldiovandus recorded an encounter between a peasant named Baptista and a dragon whose description fits that of a small dinosaur Tanystropheus: The remarkable lizard had a 3 metre long neck, which it probably used for fishing in shallow sea water; and maybe for reaching into rocky crevices, oddly though it was very long, the neck was not very flexible, so it is possible that it had some completely different purpose which we have yet to understand. [He obviously observed this dinosaur’s movements very closely in order to recognise that this creature had a neck which was not very flexible]. 1496 Grave of the Bishop of Carlisle Richard Bell England which can be seen today! In 1496 the Bishop of Carlisle Richard Bell was buried in the floor of the Carlisle Cathedral in Cumbria UK. The tomb is inlaid with brass plates, with various animals engraved upon them. One is unmistakably similar to a dinosaur! This is only 500 years ago in England. In 1883; the Scientific American Magazine reported an “extraordinary saurian” killed in Bolivia. Here is the description: The legs, belly and lower part of the throat appear defended by a kind of scale armour and all the back is protected by a still thicker and double cuirass, starting from behind the ears of the anterior head, and continuing to the tail. The neck is long, and the belly large and almost dragging on the ground.

How can anyone dismiss this?. FOR GODS SAKE.

Like Douglas Adams put it - "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

Great Q & A. Some very smart questions. I wish I could ask him a question. I've been wanting to ask him something for a long time now.

Amazing

New species of dogs from existing dogs or new species of finches from existing finches through natural selection is quite different from the transformation of reptiles into mammals through natural selection. Please read the book Evolution: the hidden assumptions (Amazon Kindle)

Nah. We had this same argument with religionists about whether the world was round or flat, with whether the Earth orbits the Sun or the Sun orbits the Earth, we had this argument about whether or not there is a "firmament" above the sky that God opens up to let the rain fall down, we even argued about the nature and origin of lightning. We've had this argument many times, and we will have it many times more.

This is virtually the same as saying: Public schools -- no corporal punishment Private schools -- none of your business. or Public schools -- health screening and required immunizations Private school -- none of your business Abuse and neglect of children can be mental and intellectual as well as physical. It is always "our business."

I would like to see him debate Stephen Myer, Michael Behe and John Lennox, not on religion, but on evolution

44% of people... it's scary really

I was terrorized by religious people when I studied Master of Science in Engineering Physics. I got telephone threats night before exams, mocked on lectures and brakes. This because I said I thought I could prove that all can be described with mathematics. The university LTH did nothing to help me. The terrorization went on after I took my exam and I was attacked even at work.

which earth and in which universe?

What I learned from this: "Fish don't have necks."

it definitely seems crazy when you don't live in that bubble, I agree with you their. To many of them the idea of evolution or global warming is crazy. I do my best to not label things in that way as the answer is typically more complex then that, and in searching for those answers can find better ways of breaking through the bubble. Just calling someone crazy will instantly make them distrust anything else you have to say after that.

Dawkins speaks from the greatest city on earth. Love to Tokyo too. Havent been there yet.

Modern forms of communication and large Hadron Collider may have been unthinkable, but they were not ruled out. Modern cosmology pretty much rules out observation of events prior to photon decoupling. That doesn't mean we can't attempt to experimentally recreate conditions prior to that time, or develop theories of what the universe was like before that time which predict the state of the universe after that time and which conform to experimental results.

yes but above 40% in my own country just makes me sad. I don't personally understand why people wish to "believe" in something rather than attempting to understand the truth of what we know of our existence. Just outright dismissing science and scientists when they're showing you evidence every step of the way so you can keep believing what someone tells you without ANY evidence because it's comfortable is just mind boggling to me. Willful ignorance is inexcusable and shouldn't be tolerated

good on you :)

What does Dawkins say about Dr. James Tour's worldview on evolution?

The biggest mistery of the universe for me is that in 2024 this man still needs to convince people to the evolution theory or to the fact that earth is older than 6000 years.

It's quite comical listening to YECs trying to explain away the giraffe's recurrent laryngeal nerve. 🦒🐠 {:o:O:}

Just as modern forms of communication and large Hadron Collider were unthinkable phenomena a few hundred years ago, what is 'unobservable' now will almost sure be 'observable' at some point in the future, however far ahead that might be. There is much in science that cannot be directly observed but which can be deduced from related and easily observable phenomena. The rate at which science is conquering what was once not only unknown but also 'unknowable' is increasing exponentially!

I wonder how creationists explain the fact that there are no fossils of modern humans or modern animals if the earth is so young.

I see it as just an assertion of ultimate justice. I don't know if ultimate justice even exists. If something is just, there needs to be a reason why it is just. Otherwise it would be an arbitrary rule. But if we have a reason, one can discuss that reason. If a god makes only just rules, he is bound to reason, too.