Dawkins on Darwin

Dawkins suggests that there are four "bridges to evolutionary understanding" and illustrates this with four claimants to the evolution of natural selection: Edward Blyth, Patrick Matthew, Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin. The fifth bridge of evolutionary understanding is identified as modern genetics which he terms digital Darwinism. An outspoken proponent of Darwinism and rationalism, Oxford professor Richard Dawkins is also a fierce critic of religion. In his articles and best-selling books, he has challenged attempts to ascribe design to the universe or purpose to life, calling those who don't believe in evolution "ignorant or brainwashed.

Charles Darwin had a big idea, arguably the most powerful idea ever. And like all the best ideas it is beguilingly simple. In fact, it is so staggeringly elementary, so blindingly obvious that although others before him tinkered nearby, nobody thought to look for it in the right place. Darwin had plenty of other good ideas - for example his ingenious and largely correct theory of how coral reefs form - but it is his big idea of natural selection, published in On the Origin of Species, that gave biology its guiding principle, a governing law that helps the rest make sense. Understanding its cold, beautiful logic is a must.

Natural selection's explanatory power is not just about life on this planet: it is the only theory so far suggested that could, even in principle, explain life on any planet. If life exists elsewhere in the universe - and my tentative bet is that it does - some version of evolution by natural selection will almost certainly turn out to underlie its existence. Darwin's theory works equally well no matter how strange and alien and weird that extraterrestrial life may be - and my tentative bet is that it will be weird beyond imagining.

Richard Dawkins is one of Britain's foremost scientists. A zoologist and fellow of New College, Oxford, he now holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science. He is the author of best selling books including The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, The Extended Phenotype and most recently The God Delusion. He has presented television documentaries for Channel 4 including The Root of All Evil? and The Enemies of Reason. He is well known for his atheism and his forthright criticism of religious doctrine. In the forthcoming Channel 4 series Dawkins on Darwin he argues that Darwinism provides a more thrilling view of creation than any religion.

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