I Don't Know About That - Evolution with Richard Dawkins

Episode Date: December 29, 2020

In this episode, the team discusses evolution with ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and author, Richard Dawkins.Follow Richard on Twitter (@RichardDawkins) or go to his website at www.RichardDawkins.netBe sure to check out his books as well as his newest book, Outgrowing God on your favorite website to buy books.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The holidays aren't sleigh bells and mistletoe. They're also airports, shopping malls, and dining tables crowded with people, some you're glad to see only once a year. Give yourself the ultimate gift of a stress-free holiday with NextEvo Naturals fast-absorbing CBD products. NextEvo's stress CBD complex gummies and clinically proven to have four times better absorption than the standard CBD. No other CBD brand can promise that. I had some people over for the holidays,

bloody family and friends, which is normally pretty stressful, but I popped some Nextivo CBD gummies and before that, I just started to like the people. I started to like them. They go totally stress-free. Nexto smart absorb technology delivers cbd to your system in as little as 10 minutes unlike other cbd brands regular cbd oil works more slowly because of how our bodies process oil-based ingredients compared to water-soluble supplements and regular cbd only activates two to ten percent absorption so over 90 of what you're taking goes to the waste. Nothing. Smart Zorb upgrades CBD's natural absorbent power.

It's scientifically formulated to deliver more CBD fast. The only brand clinically proven to deliver 30 times better absorption in the first 30 minutes. Help fight holiday stress with NextEvo's natural stress CBD complex gummy featuring ashwagandha. Ashwagandha. Clinically proven to reduce stress by 70%. Ashwagandha.

And CBD worked together to target the source of rising stress hormones like cortisol. Next Evo is the only brand that combines a natural patented whole plant ashwagandha that's eight times more powerful than regular ashwagandha. Believe me, than regular ashwagandha, believe me, than regular ashwagandha, and they're 100% US hemp-driven, smart-sorbed CBD with four times absorption than standard CBD.

That's wild. Get smarter CBD from NextEvo Naturals and get up to 25% off subscription orders of $40 or more at nextevo.com slash podcast. Promo code IDK. That's N-E-X-T-E-V-O dot com slash podcast promo code IDK. new year's eve new year's day what's the difference maybe you'll find out and i don't know about that with jim jeffries also we could talk about turtles all right hi welcome to i don't know about that with me, Jim Jeffries, the man who doesn't know anything about anything. Forrest Shaw, Kelly, Jack's up at the desk here. Jack's up at the desk.

We've got a camera on him. Welcome, everybody. We're going to buy an extra camera. Did you have a good Christmas, Jack? Hasn't happened yet. This airs the 29th. So how's your Christmas went? Christmas went great.

I think I'm in my house alone now. Is that your prediction for Christmas? I think everyone's leaving. Yeah, I'm alone. Do you want to come to my house for Christmas? Okay. All right. You got to get a COVID test.

Wait, your house was great on Christmas. All right, but you can come. Okay. Because it's in the future. I'll tell you my little Christmas story. My father who came out to spend Christmas with me last year because that year he became a widower. And so this is the first Christmas that I haven't been with

and his wife's dead, my mother. She's not all that round. And so my dad's by himself. So I thought what I'll do is, this is what I'll do. I'll send me dad a case of beer, a few bottles of wine, and a big Christmas hamper, right? A Christmas hamper? That's a way to throw dirty clothes in here.

No, like a hamper, like, you know, hampers. Like gift baskets. They're called hampers everywhere. We call hampers where you throw dirty clothes. Yeah. So it's got nuts and olives and shit. I thought it was just a basket of your dirty clothes. It was like a garland on it.

The rest of the world called them hampers. Okay. There you go. So a gift basket. Okay. It doesn't sound as fancy. Really? It doesn't.

And so I sent him a gift basket. It's got all this stuff and some nuts and some cheese and some fucking all that type of stuff and all cellophane. Now, they started to deliver them. Actually, I also sent him a case of beer two weeks earlier, but I forgot all about that. There was a beer company in Victoria that wrote to me and said we're big fans and blah, blah, blah. And I said, look, I don't live in Australia.

If you want to send my dad a case of beer, have at it. So I forgot all about that. So my dad, the hamper company which was called gourmet hampers i'm not saying right so the gift basket company sent the so the beer got sent before and then the uh the gift basket got sent and then the beer got sent and then the wine got sent all individually on different days right so my dad had four days of parcels coming to him now what i think is because my dad's at that stage of life where he's winding down, where he's getting rid of stuff.

You don't want to give him anything material because he doesn't bloody want it. There's no gift the man fucking wants. So you give him perishables. You give him things that he can eat. And, you know, so he can feel more Christmassy, right? So I sent these things. There was a card in there.

It said, to dad, love you, son these things. There was a card in there. It said, to dad, love you, son, right? There was a card in there. But my dad, there was no card for that first case of beer. So what happened was these four deliveries happened. My dad assumed, because no one's ever sent him anything in his entire life, that they were meant for someone else or it had something to do with a terrorist or something. The beer?

Yeah. He left all the stuff in its boxes, right? Even the hamper came in a box for some reason. He left everything in the box and he told my brother, the cop, had to come down to inspect the parcels. I wish terrorists would send me alcohol. My dad's gone. Someone sent me a case of beer. They must have an ulterior motive.

me alcohol. My dad's gone. Someone sent me a case of beer. They must have an ulterior motive. He couldn't live in a world where someone

just liked him and wanted him to have a good time. So did your brother give him to him? My brother went down, opened the box up. They all stood back

in the... The bomb squad. The robot opening. I assume my brother was in a bulletproof vest just standing back. And then they open it up and he went, ah, it's from Jim. Yeah, it was Mick Malloy's Brewing Company.

Mick Malloy's Brewing Company. That's where it happened. Mick Malloy. It was Mick Malloy. Mick Malloy, I do radio with him in Australia. He's one of my comic heroes. And I do his radio show once a week every now and then. Him and Jane Kennedy do a show.

And I love Mick Malloy. And Mick Malloy, that's where I did a show, and they said, I'll send you some beers. I said, I'll just send them to me dad. Anyway, so he rings up, and he goes, I've got these parcels. And he goes, I sent them, Dad. It's all right. And he goes, oh, thanks for the beer two weeks ago.

Right? And I went, and I forgot about the Mick Malloy beers, as I couldn't remember who was Mick Malloy then. And I just went, I didn about the McMalloy beers as I couldn't even remember who was at McMalloy then. And I just went, I didn't send you beers two weeks ago. And so the mystery is back open in his mind.

He's there going, who's, he thinks he's got a secret admirer or something. Oh, but you just solved the mystery right now? Yeah, I just solved it right now. Oh, so you sent your own beer

and McMalloy. Wow. But your dad doesn't know about the McMulloy. My dad doesn't know they're from McMulloy, so I've got to ring my dad today and tell him that they're McMulloy beers. So he drank beer two weeks previous, no problem, but then the other beer was Terrace beer? He got the first case of beer, and then he goes,

oh, I didn't think they were for me. There was no card on them or anything like that. He goes, I had a few, and then I was worried they were for a neighbor or something like that. It had his name on there and the address. He goes, I was worried they were for someone else. So I've only had two of those in case someone knocks on the door asking for their beer. And then when the three other boxes showed up, he goes,

oh, something's wrong in the universe. I've never gotten so many gifts. I like that he thinks it's better to, instead of drinking all the beers and just pretending he's never seen them, just give them, like, four beers instead of six. Like, I only had two. No, no, he drank, like, two out of the case, so 24 beers. Oh, it's 24.

But he rang my brother up at 7.30 in the morning, 7.30 in the morning, and said, boxes keep appearing. I like that he thinks it's terrorists. They're like, who can we get first? Let's see here. Gary. Let's get him. He'll send a message to Australia.

He sent my brother over. He sent him a cop to come over to the house. He wouldn't open them himself. And I only found out because my brother rang me up and went, bloody hell, don't send anything to fucking daddy. He bloody wakes me up in the morning. I had to go over there with a fucking Stanley knife. Alright.

We have a new segment for Jack this week. Brand new Jack segment? New segment. What's it called? It's called Life Hacket. Life Hackets? Life Hackets? Plural? All right.

Jim came up with that. You have more than one, right? That's true. I do have more. I came up with this idea, right? The idea is, you know when you go online and your Facebook, they go life hack, and they show you how if you get the rings off a thing and then you put it on there, you can pot a plant or some shit. There's always some way to, like if you want to make ice cream sandwiches,

you cut the actual ice cream tube so you get a perfect disc rather than try to, that's a life hack. There's always some way to, like if you want to make ice cream sandwiches, you cut the actual ice cream tube so you get a perfect disc rather than try to, that's a life hack. There you go. Jim Hack. I didn't invent that, but I've used it.

You cut the thing and then you put it in the cookies and you get perfect ice cream discs. Yeah, 100 incredible life hacks that make your life so easy. I'm just looking at, yeah,

there was stuff with your cords, with your phones. Yeah. It was out of those. Some of them aren't much easier. They're just kind of like a different way to do things but you're hacking life yeah hacking life and then i thought who isn't doing well at life and has the name hackett jack hackett and so we'd like to hear some jack jack hacks wait here's one let me you want to get a pasta lighter a what yeah? Yeah. This is not a life hack.

This is a life hack. If your burning candles are too low, you can't reach the wick. You light some pasta on fire and you reach down in there. Life hack. Life hack. Remove highlighter stains with lemon juice. A lot of it's cleaning based. Yeah.

You can cut holes in a PVC pipe and have dog food come out of it slowly in holes. Puppy slow feeder. Yeah. Or identify your keys at a glance by putting nail polish on them. There you go. There's some examples. Yeah. I also just wanted to acknowledge that we're all wearing glasses today.

Yeah, we're all wearing glasses. We could all see each other very well. Now no one can tell us apart. I remember there were people who were confused between you and Forrest. Now we all have glasses. I can see that. If I shave my facial hair, I won't look so much like Forrest, but I can see we wear LA hats and the same glasses.

I don't usually wear an LA hat. Today I wasn't wearing all black, so I went with that, but I wear a grumpy hat. Forrest has lost a lot of weight. I've gained a lot of weight. We're meeting in the middle. I lost a lot. I lost a lot, then I've gained some back,

and now I'm going the other way. It's been a real Oprah ride. Minus the books and money. Alright, life hacks. Life hack-its. Do you have a song or a way you sing it? We got some life hack-its coming around. Life hack-it. Great. Why are they coming around?

Yeah, yeah. You think your life hack-its are people? I'm coming around with my little truck going, hey, you guys. It's like Mr. Rogers. So what's the thing that you lifehack? Jack Hack? Bloody noses, number one. I used to get them all the time. I don't know if it's from picking

or allergies, but it used to be when you get a bloody nose, you have to sit back and you pinch your bridge and you have to sit there until it stops bleeding. That's how idiots used to do it. Morons. Morons. What I did, I learned this from Star Trek. You take off some paper, you ball it up,

you stuff it up your nose like a cork, and then you can go on with your day. I think you guys may have remembered me walking around the office like this. Yeah, all the time. You learned this from Star Trek? I saw it in Star Trek. I'm like, that's brilliant. Didn't you learn it just from corks? Yeah. Or, yeah, what the fuck?

A tampon's a better life. Tampon's the same principle. Oh, that's brilliant. Didn't you learn it just from corks? Yeah. Or, yeah. What the fuck? I've seen this. A tampon's a better life hack. Right. Yeah, yeah. A tampon's the same principle. No, it's too big. But you can do this all the time. No, you get a light flow tampon.

You're not getting super plus. Where am I going to have a light flow tampon? There's always napkins around. So your hack of the week is plug things up. Yeah, yeah. If you see morons all the time, lean back, tilt your head back, pinch your bridge. No. Here's life hack at number one.

I feel like I've never- I do a similar thing with diarrhea. Toilet paper. Cork it. I'll tell you what, Jack. You definitely don't look like a moron with that stuck up your nose. You're right. Do you have any more?

That's a good life hack at everyone. It's good. Then you can go on and keep walking around. Do we have an applause sound effect we could play? Send your photos of yourself with a bloody nose, life hacking it to one of our pages. We'd like to see you go, I got angry at my wife, and life hack it. All right.

Let's get a couple more. Tape rolls. Tape rolls? Tape rolls. You know how sometimes you have that clear tape and you have to scrape for the end and you have to pick it up? Nothing bothers me more. Don't tell me you fold over the edge.

You fold over the edge. No one does it. What do you mean no one does it? Jim literally just said he does it. I guarantee you he doesn't do it. He may know about it, but I'm saying do it. No, but I have you doing all my taping. There you go.

Where do you think it started? My package. Then the problem is when you use that tape, you've got a bit that's hanging off the end. It's all folded over. You cut that over with scissors. You cut that off with scissors and then you tape over another bit. You will lose an amount of tape with your folding,

but you'll always find the end. I actually usually just put it on a surface and put the end of the tape right there so that it sticks out and then you pick it back up again and use it. I use a piece of pasta. Stick it in there. Stick it under there. These are good, Jack.

My life is going to change. Eating spicy food? All right. Forever. I have problems. Then my ass gets sore. Don't tell me. Don't tell me, Jack.

Don't eat spicy food? I think I know what he's going to do. Does it involve a freezer? What? Do you put toilet paper in the freezer? That's a life hack. That's a gym hack. Wow.

Why are you putting toilet paper in the freezer? When you have a rather spicy curry and your hemorrhoids are playing up and you know it's going to be stinger bit, you put your toilet paper in the freezer. That's a gym hack. Do you do that? Yeah, I have done that. Yeah. Yeah, not recently. You have to go downstairs to do that? Yeah, I have done that. Yeah. Yeah, not recently.

You have to go downstairs to your freezer? Yeah, no, no, no. I don't do it in America because your Indian food sucks. But when I lived in Britain and the Indian food was off the hook,

I was freezing toilet paper left, right, and center. All right, Jack. I was going to say if you're lactose intolerant, you don't need to drink milk to help ease the heat in your mouth. Drink Coke.

I figured that out myself, and then I looked it up online, and scientists have backed me up. I always feel like carbonated beverages make everything feel spicier. It's cola, and it coats your tongue. Water makes everything feel spicier. I know water, but does it have to be Coca-Cola? It has to be a cola. I don't know if I believe that one. Eat cola?

What are you talking about? I said scientists backed me up. I don't believe in science believe that one. E-Cola? What are you talking about? I said scientists back me up. I don't believe in science. All right. So a lot of these life hacks are like, drink Coke. You can see how the trend is going. Is this just a commercial? Have you got any more or should we go to the guest?

You got one more? Give us your last best one. I like what he said. We got some ads. It's fun. All right. Okay. Great news.

We'll be doing this segment again. My best one, which will probably make me a little embarrassed because you're going to make me do it is I know how to take off a t-shirt really fast with one hand alright do it do it do it I'll describe it first and then I'll do it for the camera people okay so what you do camera people

you guys camera A camera B the sand people Tuscan Raiders so what you do is you take one sleeve, and you'll slip your arm out, and then you just pull the rest over, and it slips off your arm,

and you can dump it on the ground real quick. You think that's faster than regular? I pull it over my head like that. Yeah, that's going to take too long. No, it won't. It won't take too long. Check this out. I've never been...

Shirt off, closet. Wait, wait, wait. Let Jack do his first. No, we go to rice. No, we go to rice. Oh, okay. But don't stand up. Imagine if they both took their shirts off. Wait, let Jack do his first. No, we go to rice. Okay, but don't stand up. Imagine if they both took their shirts off. Wait, wait, wait. Hold on a second.

I want to make sure you're both in frame, right? Standing up or sitting down? No, I'm sitting down. I don't want to do it on the stage. Okay, they're going to be sitting down. Luis, we're all good? Okay, I'm going to give a countdown here. This is quick, Jerome.

I'm going to say three, two, one, and then I'm going to say shirt guess I'm gonna say three two one and then I'm gonna say shirt you ready three two one shirt

Jim's is up first I got caught in my wrist Jim wins I get caught in your wrist you can't say it's a hack and then say you get caught in your wrist sometimes

I got caught in my watch I think I changed my I practiced that too your what Iared my neckline. Yeah, I practiced that too. Your what? I think my neckline made a stretchy noise. I love this shirt. It's my stripy t-shirt. It's my only one.

It's when I go away, I stretch them out with my method. Yeah, next week you get the hack on that. That's how to fix your collars. That was alarming. I was really fast, though. Yeah, you were really fast. I thought I was going to get like a second of him doing it and then get part of yours and I just panned to you

and you were already naked. Yeah, but I had to use both of my pesky hands. And Jack only used one, leaving his other hand open to have the T-shirt slide over it. Yeah, and then it's in your hand, you can dump it off. I'd say it's pretty good. Look. It got caught on my watch.

I practiced this maybe 10 times at home just to make sure it was good, but I didn't have my watch on. Don't wear a watch. Don't wear a watch. Next lifehacket, don't wear a watch. You don't need it. You got the sun. Take your watch off first.

Yeah, lifehacket, you don't need to buy an expensive watch. The time's on your phone. Save you a lot of money. Life hack. All right. Well, that's it for this week's life hack. Thanks, Jack, for your new segment. Now it's time for some ads.

Yeah, let's layer some ads. Green Chef is the first USDA certified organic meal kit company. Green Chef makes eating well easy and affordable with plans to fit every lifestyle whether you're keto paleo vegan armenian or vegetarian one of those wasn't a food if you can pick it out we'll send you a prize or just looking to eat healthier there's a range of recipes to suit any diet or preference ingredients Ingredients come pre-measured. What does that mean first? That means they're already measured. Ah, no.

It's before the measurement. It means you have to measure them. These are pre-measured food. That means you will also have to measure. We didn't do it for you. No, no, no. They come ready to go. All the ingredients are there, and then you just cook them.

You don't have to chop them into a certain kind of cup or whatever. Well, that's even better. You don't need to measure. So if you were mistaken like me, the food, I should have written this, ingredients come already measured. Or pre-measured. We're going around in a circle. Perfectly portioned and mostly prepped. Mostly prepped.

So you can spend less time stressing and more time enjoying delicious home-cooked meals. Green Chef is the first ever, and they put an exclamation mark here, and only keto meal kit on the market. It makes sticking to a low-carb lifestyle easy with recipes averaging only 14 net carbs each. Fuck, I'm reading good today. Bring back the Jim Jefferies show.

I'll get through this episode in 30 minutes. Jim Jefferies. I was reading good today. Bring back the Jim Jefferies show. I'll get through this episode in 30 minutes. Jim Jefferies. I was thinking about myself. Green Chef is the most sustainable milk at offsetting 100% of its direct carbon emissions and plastic packaging in every box. So you get the plastic, right? They go, oh, we'll send you the plastic packaging.

And then they kill a person who's using too much plastic. No, that's not what that means. It's the gist of how they do it. Zero carbon emissions, that means that it's good for the environment, that they're being conscious of that. So you would argue that you can feel great about what you're eating and how it got to your table? Sure.

That's good because that's what it says here. Green Chef is so easy that I can have my son help me out in the kitchen without worrying he's going to screw up dinner. I can't tell you about the countless amount of times when Hank was helping me out in the kitchen and I had to slap the shit out of him because he was screwing up dinner. I was like, come here, you eight-hole. You've screwed up dinner again.

Sometimes me and my wife would just sit at the table waiting for him. He'd be in the kitchen for about 40 minutes. He'd come out and he'd bring out a hot plate of food, spaghetti, bolognese or whatever he made, right? For four hours? Yeah, he's the kid. And he'd bring it out and I'd look at him and then I'd go, is this what you call dinner? Because the ingredients weren't

pre-measured. And then I'd go, this is slop. And I would smash it against the wall. And then I'd go, that's your job in the morning to clean it up. Sweet dreams. Taking a dark turn. Go to greenchef.com. I don't know 90. Why the 90?

Good question. Thank you for asking. And use the code I don't know 90 to get $90 off. $90 off. That's probably a lot of the meals. You get a lot of your meals for free, including. What? So free shipping and $90 off.

Green Chef. Oh, Green Chef. How do you make money? No one knows, but your food is so good. Go to greenchef.com slash idontknow90 and use the code idontknow90 to get $90 off, including free shipping. Green Chef. Chef. The number one meal kit for eating well.

And we thank them for sponsoring our podcast. On with the show. Okay. Let's introduce our guests today. Please say hello to Richard Dawkins. Oh, that's going to make the guests a lot easier. Well, I always say the name. Yeah, it's Richard Dawkins, the famous atheist.

Well. I know he does other things. I'm a mildly famous atheist myself. I've been booked once, Richard, to do like an atheist convention. I don't believe you were there. But I will say this about the high-ranking atheists. They don't half like to look like God. There's a lot of them with white beards and long hair.

Oh, that's right. And Darwin himself, of course. Everyone who denies God likes the look. You don't have the look. You don't look like God. How are you, Richard? Thank you for being on the show. I really appreciate it.

I'm a big fan of yours. I've watched all your documentaries. I'd like to say I've read your books, but the last book I read was Chevy Chase's biography. And that was a long time ago before I heard about his reputation. Well, I'm a big fan of yours as well. Thank you, Richard. Thank you.

I haven't written any books. You're safe there. And he said that to us yesterday when we were talking to him. So it's true. He's not just trying to be nice to you. That's very nice. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

So we are not talking about atheism today. What, we're not talking about nothing? Nothing's the easiest subject to talk about at all. The problem with atheism, it shouldn't have a name. It shouldn't be named anything. They're just going to be called normals. Right. Yeah, that's 100% true.

Well, Richard Dawkins is an expert in a field that uh led him i guess to being popular in the the world of atheism and stuff so uh you have any idea what it is i don't know i only know he's atheist work to be honest what type of people would like you know that i'm an atheist he would be a he be a professor. Yeah. He's right there. I know you're a professor, Richard. In your expertise, bloody hell, it would be history. No, no. Think about what I used to do.

It's a kind of history. Yeah. Think about what I used to do. I used to be. Oh, you're an overeater. I still to be. Oh, you're an overeater. I still do that. Richard Dawkins, he's here to talk about evolution. Evolution.

Yes. I'm a bit more rickety on that than the atheism, to be honest with you. The zoologist Richard Dawkins, FRS, was Oxford's first professor of the public understanding of science. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and also the Royal Society of Literature. His many honorary degrees from around the world include doctorates of literature as well as science. Among his 13 books, The Selfish Gene was recently voted in a Royal Society poll, the most inspiring science book of all time. The God Delusion has been sold, has sold more than 3 million legitimate copies. Outside the Bible. Yep. And a bootleg Arabic translation has been downloaded 13 million times, 3 million in Saudi Arabia alone.

His latest book is Outgrowing God. And Richard Dawkins also has a charitable foundation, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. For more information, please visit richarddawkins.net and follow him on Twitter at Richard Dawkins. So there you go. All right. We're up to date. So this is how it's going. richard dawkins.net and follow him on twitter at richard dawkins so there you go all right we're up to date um so this is how it's yeah i i just you know what's interesting about your bio the the bootleg versions the arabic translation 13 million downloads the god delusion and saudi arabia you say three million alone so does that lead us to believe there's a lot of well they can't sell them in print in the shops i assume right that's correct

and and i'm very pleased about that 13 million because it it does suggest to me there's a groundswell of opinion shifting in the arab world right yeah that was what was stuck out to me too where i was like oh well that that's hopeful because- Yeah, they can't speak out in public as much, but there's people doing the research. All right. So we're going to talk about evolution today. And Mr. Dawkins, this is what we discussed yesterday. I'm going to ask Jim to tell us everything he thinks he knows about evolution, ask him a few questions we have on the list here, and then we're going to see how he does.

And then after that, you're going to grade him zero to 10 on accuracy. Kelly's going to grade him on confidence, and I'm going to to see how he does. And then after that, you're going to grade him 0 to 10 on accuracy. Kelly's going to grade him on confidence and I'm going to grade him on et cetera. 0 to 10 total, your primordial soup, 11 to 20, Chuck Darwin, 21 to 30, fully evolved. Chuck Darwin. Yeah, that's in the middle. Yeah, you're just Chuck Darwin.

That's if he gets a middle score. These are hard. I'm not envious of you. All right. So I'm going to ask him these questions and then we'll get to you. I got to remember primordial soup. middle score um these are hard i'm not i'm not envious of you all right so um i'm gonna ask him these questions and then and then we'll get to you i remember primordial soup we'll get to you mr doug and we'll uh we'll we'll see how jim did and we'll get the right answer i know the broad strokes if that's what you want to know oh yeah what's evolution how's it work evolution is the

beginning of life and how things have evolved into different creatures and how we've become man or woman or you can't use the word evolved in describing what evolution is oh okay well it's evolution it's how people evolve yeah it's it's how people have trance the the animals have i don't know what the word you know what i mean you know what i mean like like how they've moved from one thing to the other and they've started with the primordial soup and there's like how they've moved from one thing to the other. You said. It started with the primordial soup, and there's like a sperm-type thing in there, right? It sort of matched together to make life, right? And then that thing started to get legs, and then that crawled out a little bit. Okay.

And then it crawled a bit more, and then it was on all fours. There's a missing link, they reckon, where they don't know. So, wait, I got soup, sperm, legs, all fours, missing links. Salamander-looking thing. Okay, great. Right? I think you got that right. Yeah. fours, missing legs. Salamander looking thing. Okay, great. I think you got that right. Yeah. The fish that could walk.

The fish that could walk. Yeah, the fish that could walk. There was a fish. You go into a fish and the fish could walk. And then the walking fish, it evolved a bit. Came a bear. We do have more with fish than you lead on, Jim. Okay.

Is evolution a fact? I believe it is yes okay but well this is the thing i i i i assume there's people who would say it's not a fact so that's a difficult one i'm asking you like we are evolving we have things like we have we have tail bones and shit on our body even now you know know what I mean, to prove that we've evolved. And you can tell from our teeth and whatnot. Who's credited with the theory of evolution? Darwin, Charles Darwin. Okay. Chuck.

Yeah. Chuckie Dar. Do you know what the name of his book was about evolution? Yeah, I do know this. Green Eggs and Ham. No, it was the theory of evolution. Sounds good. I don't know if you've ever gotten all the questions wrong.

We'll see. I'm not a big one on evolution. I believe in evolution. I just, you know, I believe in computers. I don't know how to use them. Do you know who Alfred Russell Wallace is? Jesus Christ. No one's ever going to believe anything on the same stage anymore.

Let's shoot down the things there. Okay. What's the definition of species? Species? What's the definition of species? What's a species? A species is we've got different species. We're a species?

A lion's a species? You can't keep repeating you can't use the word in its own definition it's the word to to to say what all the different things are all the different living things are different species okay i'm just skipping down you're not meant to have interspecies sex i'm just skipping oh wait here's here's the one i want to ask you what that's the tidbit that goes in there. You're not supposed to fuck a dog. You're not supposed to. Cousins are species.

I'm going to skip that. I'm going to ask you what natural selection is. I forgot to ask that. Natural selection is how we hull the herd, right? We cull the herd. We cull the herd, right? So if you've got like an animal all the animals you got the fast ones keep moving yeah and then the slow ones make the lion catch those antelopes

before the other ones run away with their speed so we weed out all the slow animals and all the shit animals and in our society with humans we're trying to save too many of the bad ones and that's why we've grown so weak. If Trump was going to describe to us what evolution is, this is what it would sound like right now. You literally sound like, you got the bad ones and the good ones. There's some bad hombres out there.

And then we have great ones. We have good ones. There's good ones on both sides. I'm going to ask you just a couple more questions because then we're gonna get we're gonna have richard dawkins help us with the answers uh what if he doesn't know the answers that's gonna be embarrassing good luck describing a species um here okay one two i'll ask you three more questions maybe four um do you know how many different species have lived on this planet and how many are we currently have? There's tens of

different species. Like lots and lots of tens. How many total ever in existence? Extinct ones? I would say a million different species. One million. And how many live on the planet right now, different species? We're finding new ones. We're finding new ones all the time.

If you take the insects out out there's too many of them yeah right okay if you just bring it down to primates and fish and uh land animals um buddy there's probably 900 000 at the moment we probably lost a few wait so 900 000 and 1 million total got it well 1 million total because we we we get all these ones that get endangered we lose them and then we go, oh, look. A new one. There's a new one. Every year there's a bug that comes into my house where I go,

that's one I haven't fucking seen. You'll have like a cockroach and then you'll see one of them and it'll start flying around the room. You go, they're flying now. When did the flying ones come in? I don't know if they're new. They're just new to you. They're new to me.

You should write a book. There was a bird in my backyard that was five foot tall the other day. I had to send a picture to Forest. And what was it? Oh, it was a heron. It was a heron. I've seen that thing flying around your house. It was a fucking giant.

It was walking around in my backyard like a dinosaur. And that was a new animal. And I got me British wife. But people have seen the herons. No, we've never seen one. Have I ever told you about this story when I saw my British wife. But it's not, people have seen the herons. No, we've never seen one. Have I ever told you about this story when I saw my first chipmunk? Not chipmunk, squirrel.

What? I saw my first squirrel. Okay, so I was living in England. I was living in England. I grew up in Australia where there's no squirrels. Imagine a world with no squirrels. You can't imagine it, can you? So Australia, no squirrels.

I'd been out to a rave. You don't even say it right. That's how much we know you've never seen a squirrel. Squirrels. Squirrels. Squirrels. Squirrels. So there's no squirrels, right?

So I come back from a rave, right? So I was coming down off some ecstasy tablets. This is 20 years ago. Things were different. And I'm walking through this park to get back to my house, and all the kids are going to school in the morning with their parents. And I see a squirrel, and this squirrel is like fucking cliche. It's like holding a nut.

It's like eating a nut and all that type of stuff. And I'd never seen one, and I'd only ever seen cartoon ones, and it was magical. And I went and looked at it and went, oh, man. And there was this group of kids walking to school with their parents and i thought the kids would enjoy seeing a squirrel because you know how adorable it was and i yelled at british children who see squirrels on the daily i yelled at them hey kids come over here. There's a squirrel.

The parents couldn't have made them walk through the park quicker. That's a rapist. So that's one species, squirrels. Yeah, 899,999, whatever. Do you know what the Scopes trial is or the Scopes monkey trial? No. I know that there was a monkey that landed, that washed up a shore in Britain up in the north near Sunderland or Hull or something like that, and they're called monkey hangers

because they thought it was a Frenchman. And it fell off like a circus boat or something like that, and they hung the monkey, and that was a monkey trial. You know about that one, Mr. Dawkins, right? I've never heard that. Call me Richard, please please richard all right yeah yeah there was the they call them monkey hangers up in uh sounds a lot worse than it is moving on up in the north of england someone correct me write to me and tell me what that real story is there was a monkey trial in the north of

england when one washed up on the shore yeah we should we should bleep that here's one you here's one you might know what is creationism our creationism is people who believe that god just made adam and made eve and then they fucked and now we got people and we got different multicultural people and all this type of stuff because all of our races have something to do with evolution with where the temperature and shit like that like white people aren't meant to be living in Australia. The sun's horrendous, you know what I mean? Like there's things like that. English people fit in the rainy little rocks off the side of Europe where they walk around.

That's where they're meant to live. Okay. One last question. Percentage of people that believe in evolution? Oh, it's going to be terrifyingly low. It's going to be terrifyingly low because a lot of people believe in evolution? Oh, it's going to be terrifyingly low. It's going to be terrifyingly low because a lot of people believe in God and they don't believe that we came from monkeys or we didn't evolve in any way.

So I'm going to say 20% of people believe in evolution. 20%. It might be high, but it's not going to be like 80% or something because too many religious people. And the poorer country you come from, the less education you have, the more religious you are because you have to believe in something. So all of those sort of third world countries, I don't believe they're probably getting on the evolution train at all.

Okay. And we evolved from monkeys? You said that. We evolved from monkeys, yeah. Yeah, we're primates. All right. Richard Dawkins, thank you for sitting there and listening to Jim's answers.

A few more things to tell your students. There's some other questions I'd like to get to that. You know, we sent you a list of things, but there was no point in beating that horse to death right there. There's another species horse. On a scale of zero to ten, ten being the best, how did Jim do on his knowledge of evolution? About six.

A bit less for political correctness. Six, wow. I think he's being very nice. Was I politically correct there, was I? It might have been the monkey hand. Oh, no. No, it was an actual monkey. Look up the story, Jack, when you get the chance.

There was a monkey that was hung up in the north of England. Stop. Stop saying it. Louise is going to have to bleep so many things. I'm just kidding. All right. Confidence. How do you do, Kevin?

Three. Three, yeah. That's being generous. All right. Negative two and et cetera. Okay. You're a primordial soup. There, I hear you. That's all right. School two and et cetera. Okay. So you're a primordial soup there.

I hear you. That's all right. School of the night. All right. Thank you for being here, Richard Dawkins. What is evolution? How does it work? Jim said soup, sperm, legs, forebears. I mean, you heard what he said.

It's a pretty good summary. It's a pretty good summary. I mean, it's how we all got here, starting from something like bacteria, actually more primitive than bacteria, and then becoming more and more complex, more and more diverse. And he had a nice little story about the fish coming out of the water, which I enjoyed. That was fun. So that's where he got most of his points, probably. The walking fish turned into a bear.

The walking fish, you see it it swims out and then it goes all the little legs and it walks out a little bit all right it doesn't go straight to bed okay by the way the creature you saw jim the creature you saw in your garden the heron is a dinosaur boom dinosaurs dinosaurs yeah and the dinosaurs i'll tell you how dinosaurs were killed off in australian education in the 1980s right i i believe in the meteorite theory in an ice age and i tell stuff you know we were told in school in australia that the carnivores ate all the plants and then the herb the no the herbivores ate all the plants and the carnivores ate all the herbivores and then everyone was out of food. The end.

Pretty simple. That's what they taught us in school about dinosaurs. Well, did we evolve from monkeys? Is that correct? We evolved from creatures that would have been called monkeys if you'd seen them today, yes. Okay. That's one of my points.

Yeah, I threw that for you there. I knew we came from monkeys. Everyone's been to like a zoo. They have like a Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney. They have like the picture, the monkey enclosure, and then they have the man, you know, the man, evolution man. That's like the most famous photo of evolution is coming from a monkey. Evolution man where he sort of walks forward, yeah.

Okay, I asked Jim if evolution is a fact. He said yes. It is yes. Without a shadow of a doubt, it is a fact. Jim was a bit biblical about that. He thought he was a bit dubious because some people don't believe that, but they're just wrong. They're just wrong, yeah.

Yeah. Fact. Take that. You're sitting in your car right now believing in God, getting all huffy-puffy. I asked him. And believing in God. It's not an either-or thing. at least Vickers will tell you that.

Is there many religious people who do believe in evolution or is it? Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. But the Bible doesn't believe in evolution, right? The Bible doesn't. But those religious people don't believe in the Bible. Right. They think metaphorical or something like that.

Yeah, there's a lot of girls in this town who aren't religious but they're very spiritual. That's what they tell you on the first date. Right, because they're into crystals or astrology.

They're even worse. I used to work with a guy. I was a biologist and I used to work with a guy who was also a biologist and he was very religious and he used to go on, what do you call it when you try to recruit people in the religion the um you know when you go to other countries and you try to scams oh when you become a mission

missionaries missionaries yeah so he used to do that so he was very religious but he was also studied biology and i said well what he what about fossil records and he said that fossils were were put there oh my god to test your faith that's like a that's like if god's really something prove that fact wrong it just seems like such an elaborate plan to sort of yeah to make up dinosaurs it's like a bad prank. I hope they dig right here. That'd be good. I asked him who's credited with the theory of evolution. He said Charles Darwin.

The name of the book was Green Eggs and Ham or The Theory of Everything. No, Theory of Evolution. Theory of Evolution. Theory of Everything was that movie. No, that's not right. The Origin of Species. On the Origin of Species.

On the Origin of Species, that's a bloody book. Yeah. He's not the bloke who Darwin in Australia is named after. That was a botanist. It was a different fellow, right? The city of Darwin, the town? The city of Darwin is named after the botanist that was on Captain Cook's boat who went and when they discovered Australia, he walked around and he went,

oh, this is a blah, blah, blah plant, and he did all that type of stuff. But Darwin, the city's not named after Darwin. Oh, I just assumed it was. Yeah, it was different people. Oh. I think. Sounds like they did similar things.

Yeah. It wasn't the same. Copycat Darwin. How long ago was Darwin, the real Darwin? Well, the book was published in 1859. So a bit ago. He's got to be really old by now. All right, well, 1788 was Australia, so there's other Darwins before that.

Oh, shoot. And then the- Maybe it was the same boy. I'm looking it up right now. So is Charles Darwin, he is considered the father of evolution? Is that correct? Or is that? Yes, without a doubt.

Yes. Wallace discovered it at the same, well, a little bit later. But Wallace actually deserves the credit for independently discovering the principle of natural selection, evolution by natural selection. That was going to be your next question. So they're like Alfred Russell Wallace is what I asked Jim, and you know who that was. So they're like Edison and Tesla. They were like around the same time.

Yes, they were. And Wallace was a bit younger. And Darwin actually thought of it about 20 years before Wallace, but Wallace published it, or Wallace sent his manuscript to Darwin. And then Darwin realized that although he hadn't published it, Darwin realized that Wallace was going to scoop him. And so he was a bit worried about that. And it all ended up in a rather gentlemanly way.

And a paper by Darwin and by Wallace were read at the Linnaean Society in London at the same time, so they got equal credit for equal priority. But it's very clear that Darwin got there first. And then Darwin wrote the book a year later. That all happened in 1858. Darwin wrote the book in 1859, and that was the thing that really made the difference. That was the thing that really won people over. So Darwin does deserve the credit.

Was it widely accepted as soon as Darwin did it, or did it take a while to get into the zeitgeist? Not immediately, but it became, you know, it took a while. And you said clergyman? Surely the town of Darwin must be named after Charles Darwin. Yeah, yeah. I got it wrong. I looked it up.

Yeah, it was named, yeah, after Charles Darwin. Yeah, yeah. I got it wrong. I looked it up. Yeah, it was named, yeah, after Charles Darwin because it was in honor. They named it Port Darwin in honor of their shipmate, Charles Darwin, who had sailed with them on the ship's previous voyage. And so he was from, this is HMS Beagle, sailed on the Darwin Harbor, and they named it after him. Yeah, but he was on Captain Cook's boat, Darwin.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. This is John Clement Wickham sailed into the harbor. They discovered it. Yeah. They named it after Darwin because they had been on Captain Cook's boat with him. Right, but that means that Darwin would have been like 70-something years old when he wrote the book.

No, no, no. Huh? Darwin was not on Captain Cook's boat. Oh, jeez. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Tell me the on Captain Cook's boat. Oh, jeez. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Tell me the dinosaurs died because they ran out of food. No, no, no. I'm sorry.

I'm misreading this. So it says, on September 9th, 1839, the HMS Beagle sailed into Darwin Harbor, what is known as Darwin Harbor now. Ah, so it's a different Darwin. Yeah, and they named the region Port Darwin in honor of their former shipmate, Charles Darwin, who had sailed with them on the ship's previous voyage.

I guess he was on the HMS Beagle with them on the previous voyage. You know the irony of all this? If you've ever been to Darwin, it's the last place that evolution has hit. Like, how dare that town name itself after... Well, he's got one town, that's it. Yeah, it's still just crocodiles. It's still the town of dinosaurs.

Yeah, we're hoping it's going to get to us one of these days. You were saying some clergymen did accept it when it first came out? Yes, they did. Oh, okay. I thought everyone would be against it. All right. There's some questions I didn't ask you, but these are – we'll ask you what is natural selection, and said um call the herd call the herd he kept saying

that all over and calling the herd make to make the the more powerful genes come through it's it's basically uh i won't talk anymore yeah well richard no um but it's very important because it it is what drives evolution it's it's it's why things change in a positive direction, why things get better. It's why animals are well adapted to what they do. Is this true that when your hands or like your body's underwater for a long period of time, we get the wrinkles in our fingers because that's a part of like evolution or natural selection, where if we were underwater, it would be easier to grip things. It's when your hands are wet so your hands don't slide so you've got grippy hands.

Is that true? I doubt it. I've told that to my son. That's always my bar facts. Is it true that you've got hairy armpits so when you're swinging on vines, the sweat doesn't drip down to your waist? Are hairy nipples important too? We just want to know why there's hair on our bodies, man.

In weird spots. Alright, so you're saying no to all of those. Oh no, it's weird. Hairy armpits is more likely to be something to do with smell, I think. Oh. It keeps the smell in there. Yeah, throws it out.

All right. And then genetic variation. I didn't even ask you about that, Jim, or any of the genetics, genetic drift, mutation. These are all things. Genetic variations is like how we're genetically very close to monkeys. Okay, anyways. And then we vary ever slightly to become humans.

Richard, what is genetic variation? Why is it important to evolution? It's not what Jim just said. Big surprise. Genetic variation is what the important aspect of it is, what matters within a species, variation within a species. So people have blue eyes, brown eyes, red hair, black hair, white hair, etc. And it's this kind of variation which is the raw material for natural selection.

So natural selection within a species chooses those genetic variants which are most successful at surviving and reproduction. So genetic variation is immensely important for the whole process of natural selection. And so, you know, because we humans, that we've evolved over time, and now we have all of this technology and medicine and things that can prolong people's lives that... We're not culling the herd anymore.

No, I'm saying that. So do you think this will affect or it has affected the evolution of the human species homo sapiens that that we keep curing everything technology and it it it must do to some extent but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing i'm i i always read that question because you sound like a fascist if If you say that it's a bad thing, and I always have to say, I always like to say that I like medical science. I like doctors. Oh, no, I'm all for it.

My genetic pool has been pissed in several times. And if I was just left up to evolution, I'd be the first one culled from the herd. I'm 40 years old. I've got arthritis all through my hands. I shouldn't be here first one culled from the herd. I'm 40 years old. I've got arthritis all through my hands. I shouldn't be here. You've got glasses now too. I have glasses.

I've got glasses. I can't see shit, and I've got arthritis. I'm 43. I've only had glasses in the last four or five years, and I used to be like, I have great vision. And now if I didn't have glasses, I would get eaten by a lion back in the day or something now. We are living a little bit too long, right?

We're not meant to live this long. That's why marriage is silly. Yeah, it's probably true that you wouldn't have lived long enough to need glasses in the wild. Yeah, you wouldn't need to see anything. Because you get ate up. Yeah, I wouldn't have to work out as much either if I want to live longer.

I'm not really doing that anyway. Oh, no, you've got the body of a man who should have reached his life expectancy. You do modern medicine and cars. Yeah, no one looks at me naked like this guy can hunt. Yeah. He's a gathering type. I didn't mean to say that, Richard, either. I'm definitely pro-science and pro-medicine and all that.

I just think it's interesting. Okay, so what about something like genetic drift or mutation? Can you talk about either one of those? Are you asking me or Jim? No, no, I don't know. They've given up on me. We're done trying to learn from him today. Modification and drifting.

Modification. Natural selection is not the only reason why things evolve um genetic drift is another reason that's random genetic change so although the natural selection is the interesting kind of genetic change that's the genetic change that leads to improvement genetic drift is just random and it can be very important and it's controversial quite how important, but it probably is quite important. But you need to understand that genetic drift cannot produce improvement. So how slowly or quickly are we evolving? And is there a time where humans will be completely different than they are now?

I don't have 12-year-old molars. I was born without them. And everyone, they could tell from an X-ray when I was a child, right? And so does that mean that I'm higher up in evolution than people who have them? Well, it's probably true that wisdom teeth are on the way out. And so in that one respect and that one respect only, you are. Yes.

All right. Only. But is there something that you can foreshadow that we are going to be like not for show for the appendix is it yeah the appendix will go uh the spleen that seems like a useless fucking thing no every time someone's in a car accident they get rid of the spleen you can't predict but um and it's particularly difficult with humans to predict because we we are now so feather-bed, as you said earlier, Forrest, we are so feather bedded that natural selection in the ordinary sense of survival

of the fittest is kind of slowed down. So it's not possible to say in three million years' time we'll be more brainy or something like that. You can't say that. But our skin with like the ultraviolet rays and the hole in the the ozone layer is our skin getting tougher i this is what i would like i would like my little finger to grow into a bottle opener is that on the horizon that'll be good uh pterodactyls had one finger it wasn't the little finger it was the ring finger the fourth finger

that was the that grew enormous and that supported the entire wing of the of the creature oh yeah because they have the little they could see it on the wing well you know i didn't see it live you know and they reproduce them oh okay um the survival of the fittest jim asked you who came up with this phrase i didn't ask you that who came up with that survival survival of the fittest Jim asked you who came up with this phrase I didn't ask you that who came up with that survival of the fittest survival of the fittest that would have been probably Joe Buck doing some commentary don't know

yeah I always survival of the fittest people always equate with natural selection but it's not really the same thing it is the same thing but Darwin didn't think of it it was Herbert Spencer who coined that phrase, and Wallace actually persuaded Darwin to adopt it, and Darwin did adopt it,

but it was Herbert Spencer who first thought of it. Okay, and who was Herbert Spencer? He was a philosopher in the mid-19th century, and he was very keen on evolution. He didn't really understand it very well, and he was very keen on evolution. He didn't really understand it very well, but he was very keen on it. I hear him. Yeah. Well, survival of the fittest, it does make for a better hat.

Survival of the fittest. The merch is solid. Who said live long and prosper? That was Vulcans. I think it was Spock. Yeah, Spock. Okay. Definition of species jim said are

species they are species i don't remember what he said there's different species there's different animals we're not all the same animal forest i know that in your world we're all the same but we're not the same lions are different to us uh i have cats they don't take care of me a species is a group of animals that can reproduce with each other is there animals that can't reproduce with each other yeah how do we get them

wait a minute you cannot reproduce with another species that's the point oh right with each other yeah i thought you were really losing it like you can't have sex with a dog you know i thought there was like species that can't reproduce i'm like how do they even exist then how do we explain cat dog well there's what about ligers ligers are tigers and lions how can they do it? As you would expect, there are borderline cases.

And so you'd expect that closely related species can occasionally reproduce, but they don't reproduce in a fertile way. Right. I always look at dogs when you see crossbreeds of dogs. Sometimes I'm like, that dog shouldn't have had a go with that dog. Like a pit bull and a corgi. It's a Doberman Chihuahua. And you're like, what happened there?

I asked Jim, what is the estimated number of different species that have lived on this planet ever? He said one million. It's going to be way more. And I didn't ask him what percentage of those are extinct. And then how many different species are estimated to exist on the planet currently? He said 900,000. Okay. The number that have ever existed it's impossible

to know but the estimates tend to be up in the many billions right right so i was a bit wrong on that um and um number of species alive today estimates range from about 6 million to about 30 million we can lose a few then every year they want me to donate money to keep some of these species around we've got 30 million of the bloody things you were right about insects you needed to time off insects my colleague bob may said rather nicely he's an australian very distinguished australian biologist who said to a first approximation all species are insects all right yeah insects look i know. Yeah. Insects. Look, I know every species contributes something,

but it feels like some contribute less than others. Like what do you contribute? Well, I pay taxes, so I make sure there's no potholes in our streets and all that type of stuff, and that puts out fires that saves animals, so you're welcome, animals. I take care of two cats. That is a great contribution to the world. There's no cats who take care of me. So, I don't know.

I feel like if humans went extinct, it would be the one animal. This is what I always say. If humans went extinct, it's the one animal, if they went extinct, that the planet would probably be better off overall. Yeah don't know i wasn't just saying i don't know does the planet need humans that's a good question are we necessary to the life on earth or are we just a hindrance of course we're not necessary we weren't here for the vast majority of the history of the world. When you say, what do they contribute? What does it mean by contribute?

I mean, you were implying that insects don't contribute anything. They contribute to their own survival. They contribute to their own. And sometimes they feed other animals and they probably do something like, you know, obviously bees and shit are very important. You just don't like insects because they're bothering you. Yeah, they're bothering me. How are they bothering you?

They bite you and stuff. And you've got to pay to get them out of your house. I've got fucking ants. If I leave like a fucking just a drop of Coca-Cola on a bench or something, then my whole house is flooded with ants. It's a constant struggle. Yeah. I saw something years ago that said like if all humans died off,

it would take the earth a very short amount of time to basically grow over and make it appear as if we never existed. Do you know what I'm talking about? I don't know. I'm just wondering if that's an actual thing. No, I think, I mean, it's a guess, but I think it's a very good guess, yes. Okay. And the thing about extinction, so I know it's all estimates, so billions of species have lived on this planet and estimated, I forget what you said, 15 to 30 or 60 million now.

And there's been extinction periods. I forget how many of those extinction periods, I think five or six. Yes, mass extinction. I mean, extinction goes on all the time, but there are certain particularly drastic episodes, mass extinctions. The extinction of the dinosaurs was a big one 65 million years ago, and there was an even bigger one at the end of the Permian. So there are these mass extinctions, and it's said that humans are now contributing to another mass extinction. And how old is the Earth versus how old religious people think the Earth is? I always get these figures.

The Earth is about four and a half billion years old. Creationists think that the Earth is about 6,000 years old. So we have some room to compromise. Need to reach across the aisle here. Still got that new planet smell. Love it. Okay. So, and so, so it's,

it's believed or it's that we're going through an extinction period that's being accelerated by humans now. Is that what you're saying? Is that. Yes. Okay. That's a romantic way of saying that humans are responsible for a lot of destruction. What do you think will be our ultimate demise, and when do you think it might happen?

Well, the ultimate demise of the Earth itself will happen when the sun swells in about five billion years time. All right, good. Good, happy with that, happy with that. But most species have gone extinct. So if we went the way of the majority of species, we would go extinct fairly soon. It may be that we won't. I mean, we do have the technology to possibly avoid the causes of extinction that have happened before, even maybe the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. So it may be that we won't go extinct, at least not that quickly.

Eventually. It is funny when you're like, oh, the sun will swell in 5 billion years and the Earth's gone. Right now, we're like, yeah, no problem. But there will come a time if there is some sort of life that is self-aware, as that gets closer, then there'll be deniers. It's like, ah, 20 years left till the sun goes. Nope, not happening. There's suns that are exploding through the universe all the time, right? Yeah.

No, but, you know, there'll be a countdown clock. Finally, all those emails my crazy uncle sends will come true. The world will implode. I was just 600 years old. And I'd be like, I fucking told you. This is a bit off. You believe in alien life forms, I'd assume?

Almost certainly, I think, yes, because the universe is so huge and the number of planets, the number of stars is so great. It's now known that the majority of stars do have planets. And so, yes, I think it's highly probable that there is alien life. On the other hand, it's equally probable we shall never know about it because the universe is so large, as I say, and by the same token, it's very unlikely that any one form will

ever see any other form because it would be so spaced out. But if they do come and visit us and they have the exact same Bible we have, will you admit you're wrong? They won't come and visit us. He's like, I'll make sure of it. All right, well, I'm putting that out there. A former Israeli general came out recently and said that we have a contract. The United States and Israel have a contract signed with aliens, with the Galactic Federation,

and that we know about aliens, that they exist, and they're experimenting. We signed a contract with them. That's why you know that on camera, Jack. That's news. That's news right now. Yeah. You're bothering our guest, Jack. Ignore the facts.

I asked Jim what the Scopes trial, we don't want to even know what his answer was, the Scopes monkey trial. What was that? In 1925, there was a trial in Tennessee, I think it was. Right. trial in Tennessee, I think it was, it was a rather put up trial. A young teacher called Scopes was incited to start teaching about evolution, which was against the law at the time. And so he was prosecuted. And actually, he was found guilty. But it was generally regarded as a victory for our side, so to speak, even though technically speaking, Scopes lost his trial. It was rather a famous thing because two very famous lawyers went to Tennessee, went to this little town, and one was William Jennings Bryan, who was a presidential candidate, and

the other was clarence darrow who's a very very famous lawyer and so these very very high-powered lawyers went and testified went and not testified what did we do advocated um at this lit in this little town yeah i was just looking at dayton tennessee yeah yeah dayton yeah wow i've never heard of that i've been to tennessee so is it still illegal to teach it in parts of america or is that all Dayton, Tennessee it was. Yeah, yeah. Dayton. Yeah, wow. I've never heard of that. I've been to Tennessee. Is it still illegal to teach it in parts of America or is that all being cleared up? No, it's not.

But there are all sorts of court cases keep coming up when they try to restrict the teaching of evolution and try to make it equal time for creationism or as they sometimes call it, intelligent design. Is there anywhere where creationism is illegal to teach? I don't think so. There's an argument for that. You can say it, but you can't say it as a fact, I imagine.

Okay, well, I asked Jim what creationism is and he said people that believe in God, I guess this is how. They just believe the Adam and Eve theory that God made the world in seven days or seven sections. What do the religious people do? They always move their stories more information. Oh, well, it wasn't seven days. It was seven periods, you know.

And then you go, all right, Adam and Eve, and then they had two sons, and they just found some women in the forest or some shit. Yeah, so there's creationism intelligent design those are all in that same lot right that's the intelligent design yeah sorry no they're they're the same thing um the phrase intelligent design was invented as a kind of cover when creationism became unfashionable because of various legal cases. They named it Intelligent Design. A PR stunt. Oh, yeah, you put intelligent in it and then you think,

I don't want to go against that. Right. Oh, my genius theory. A little stupid evolution or the intelligent design? And this was a question I didn't ask you, Jim, but it kind of relates to what is the book of pandas and people about? So this is like. This is a topic that actually is black and white.

So stupid. But this was a book they wrote, or is this a book the creationists wrote? Yeah, it's a creationist book. As a matter of fact, it's quite an interesting point about intelligent design. Early editions of the book use the word creationism. And then when that became difficult for legal reasons, they wanted to change it to intelligent design. Microsoft Word, whatever it was, and they did a global search and replace, and they changed creationism to intelligent design. But they made a mistake in one place, and I actually wrote it down somewhere. Yes, it appeared as C-design proponentsists.

So obviously what happened was that they were doing a global search and replacing creationists with intelligent design, and they bungled it at one point. So it came out as design proponentsists. Morons. Well, I didn't ask this. How long have humans been evolving, Jim? How long did the Homo sapiens... How long ago did Homo sapiens come to be? Six billion years.

You said six billion years for the planet, right? Six billion for the planet? Four and a half billion. Four and a half billion. Four and a half billion. So there was the dinosaurs. And then I'm going to say that we've been evolving for 1.8 billion years. 1.8 billion? And Homo sapiens have...

How long ago did Homo sapiens come to be? We've been like this for 800 million years. How's that? It depends how you define it, because since we're gradually changing all the time, it's a rather arbitrary decision when you decide to start calling it Homo sapiens. I mean, the previous species would have been called Homo erectus. But too many people giggled.

That's too sexy. As for when the first Homo sapiens came into existence, you could say, I don't know, maybe 200,000 years, something like that. Oh, okay. So it was way out. Yeah, pretty recent. This question is going to sound stupid, but I want to know, is there a scenario where another species out-evolves us like a Planet of the Apes scenario?

Not the apes, it could be any animal. Pick your poison. Dolphins. Well, it could happen, but it doesn't seem very likely because we're here. I mean, if we went extinct, then I suppose it could happen then. I don't know. I saw Jack at a Fair being beaten by a chicken at tic-tac-toe. It practiced, all right?

I was supposed to. Yeah. Music. it practiced all right i was rusty yeah i it would uh music i always think music is like whenever you ask what humans have something that humans can do that no other animals can do you know if they find a dog that can play the piano or something that it's winning america's got talent all day for sure and every year they go i have a dog that can play a thing it's just a dog bashing its head into a keyboard and it's not really making music. Well, now the big thing is like teaching your dogs how to speak using buttons. And so there are dogs now that can speak in full sentences to tell their owners what they want.

Like whether they want to go outside or have a treat or whatever. It's awesome to watch, but terrifying. You got the elephants that can paint. They give an elephant a paintbrush and off they go. The place when I worked at, the dolphins would paint stuff too. Yeah, the dolphins would paint stuff. So the animal kingdom have got painting down. They've got painting.

They can act dead. They've got acting down. More than any actor I've met. It's all music. Music. They can't do music. Would you say that's right, Richard? That the animals can't do music? Well, what about bird song? Shit.

We forgot about the fucking birds. There's no land animal. And I'm including penguins. I've never seen them bloody hum a tune either. I bet you could teach monkeys how to play instruments, though. Yeah, the simple one. Bing, bing, bing, bing. You couldn't actually teach the actual band the monkeys.

All right. Didn't ask you this, Jim, but I will now. What is the significance of the Archaeopteryx? Do you know what that is? I might be mispronouncing it. I think I'm saying Archaeopteryx. The Archaeopteryx. Archaeopteryx.

He knows what it is. That's it right there. See that word? Yeah, the Archaeopteryx. There's new animals ready to go in the Arctics, and when the planet shifts, they'll be the new force. They're going to come out of the cracks. When the planet goes like that,

because Australia was joined to Asia and all that type of stuff, and then we all separated the land. When it moves its axis, all those Arctic animals are going to come out. If I'm right on this, fuck me. Yeah. How do you do, Richard? That's not quite right. Archaeopteryx is a famous fossil.

It's intermediate between birds and what we'll call reptiles. But since birds are reptiles, it's probably the earliest bird. Right. So the bird had feathers, but then lots of dinosaurs had feathers. It had wings. It could fly. It had teeth, unlike modern birds, and it had a great big long tail, unlike modern birds.

So it's kind of intermediate. And it was like a link to help prove evolution? Yeah. Raptors are birds. They reckon the same structure as a bird. I don't know if you know a lot about dinosaurs, but I assume you know way more about them than me. How do we know that the dinosaurs got that leathery skin

or what colour it is or what voice it has? Is this all guesswork? We don't know. We don't know. Right, good. Right, because the T-Rex could have just come up and gone woof woof it'll be like a big dog i mean it it was certainly a carnival it was certainly was a very ferocious carnival um but um as for what color it was we don't know that but like even the skin can you tell it had like a leathery skin

or that it could have been covered in like, as you said, feathers? It probably had feathers. It probably had feathers. Really? Yeah. See, you thought I was going down a bad path there. Interesting answer. That's not as scary for Jurassic Park if it had feathers.

Well, birds are terrifying. Like big birds are terrifying. Yeah. They're vicious. Well, maybe because we see crocodiles, we can assume that because crocodiles were around and they have the leathery dinosaur skin. So maybe they're doing the guesswork off that. They found some dinosaur skin frozen in shit.

What are you talking about? They found some frozen dinosaur skin. They found it when they signed the contract with the aliens. Might have been alien skin. Have they ever found frozen dinosaur skin, Richardard no those are those are dino nuggets jack um oh sorry i've just been eating the breading off the nuggets or i'll find that story um i i didn't ask this jim i'll ask you this right now what is dna and how does it relate to evolution dna is um you know what it stands for?

If you don't, that's fine. What is it? Yeah, I don't know. It's the genetic makeup of every living thing on earth. And how does it relate? And everyone's DNA- Oh, God, I watched a thing with my kid on this, on Storybots, where they explained it very-

There's like three different letters and they're putting different combinations into a spiral, four different letters, putting the combinations into a spiral, and those combinations just tweaked over and over and over and over again, and that is our genetic makeup. How's that, Richard? That's about right. Yeah, that's pretty good. Thank you, Storyblocks.

I gave them the four letters, just to be clear. The people on YouTube could know that. The downloaders didn't need to know that. Well, I remember in Jurassic Park they had that cartoon. Hi, I'm DNA. Yeah, yeah. I know DNA. So DNA is a pretty recent discovery.

Yes. Yeah. Do you know who discovered it? I mean, it's not even in here, but do you know, Jim? Someone called Dinah. I think it was two guys. I don't remember their names, though. Dave and Alan.

DNA. Dave and Alan. Like guns and roses. I read a book on them, Richard, years ago. I don't remember their names now. Watson and Crick. Watson and Crick, yeah. Elementary, my dear Watson. I read a book on them. They years ago i don't remember their names now watson and crick watson and crick yeah elementary my dear i read a book on them they were like partiers they seemed to be they liked

a good drink i remember that yeah that's right yes yeah yeah they wanted to get themselves off a case where some girl didn't wake up okay i asked him percentages of people that believe in evolution he said about 20 Do you have that information? I think that's about right probably, in America anyway. I hope it's higher in Britain. I'm not sure about that. Really? 20%?

Yeah, 20%. That's sad. How is that only? 50% of the people voted for either party. We're so much dumber than we ever thought. I love when Americans go, can you believe this? Yeah. Take what I said seriously.

I don't think I know. I think there's a figure of 48%, which is people who, yeah, I think maybe 48% believe in evolution. Okay. That's much better. But I still, even still, I think maybe 48% believe in evolution. Okay. That's much better. But I still, even still, I would... They still think that God has something to... A lot of them still think God had a lot to do with it.

What do you say to the people who... I get into atheist arguments all the time, much less in the last decade. I was a militant atheist throughout my 20s and 30s, and then I sort of just went, ah, believe whatever you want to fucking believe right what do you i would like a good argument for this when people say this to me you go well there was the big bang theory and there's this and there's no god and all that sort of stuff they go yeah but who created the big bang what was before the nothing what do you what do you say to those people who say that what was before the big bang well nobody knows what was before the big bang but but when when they say who created the big

bang then the easy answer to that is well who created who created it i mean who has it doesn't help you to say that somebody created it yeah that's the problem because the dominant because then you go well who created god and who created this you say chuck lorry that's what you said nbc universal i don't even know channel the big bank there is cbs yeah cbs there you go um yeah because i think about as soon as you start talking about other planets richard and you know the universe my brain already goes to that where i'm like oh my gosh and then you start to think about how everything started and nobody knows but that's the part that gets people i have a theory that humans are the only species on earth that are so smart that they can be stupid.

Right? Other animals aren't walking around going, oh, yeah, I hope God likes me. Like a dog. They don't have like anxiety in the jungle. They don't have to make these decisions whether they go to heaven or hell or anything like that because they're just walking around going, oh, I'm hungry today. Got to eat some food. Got to make sure. Like that, right?

And so we're the only one. We overthink things so much that we're dumb that we start going, oh, well, it must be magic. We always end our arguments with, and magic. Sky Daddy did it. Would you agree with that theory, Richard, or is that a bonkers? I wouldn't go as far as to say I agree with it. No, I'm quite a mute.

I like when he's quiet. You're like, Richard, would you like to back me up on that? Richard does what I'm saying. I mean, no other animal is religious. No other animal believes in a higher power. Maybe they do. I don't fucking know. Do any other animals believe in higher powers or it's just a human trait?

Don't you think your dog believes you're God? Ah, yes, see, but what came before me? Yeah, that's a good point. My dog thinks I'm God. And those ants I killed with a seeing glass thing when I was a kid, they must really think I'm God. So it's really bad. This is such a broad topic. Before we get to our dinner party fact, is there anything we should talk about evolution or anything that you think we missed here, Richard?

No, it's easy to make jokes about it, but it is very important. It is the reason we all exist. It's the reason why everything's so complicated. I mean, it's an astonishingly powerful force. Everybody ought to know about it. How do we change people's minds who don't believe in it? Is it just tell them to read

your books or is there a simple answer i can say start but i'm not sure what up to me to say that well i'll say it yeah i mean i'll say it again before yeah uh go to richard dawkins.net or go to his twitter at richard dawkins but you know read my read my books read the books don't go to those places i told you the selfish gene uh the god delusion he's got uh 13 books that he's written an outgrowing god as his new book so make sure to buy that and read that if you're in saudi arabia legally download it before we get to dinner party factor also to any of our fans out there listening if you're you listen to the podcast and you're a creationist, please write to us and give us your wacky theories. I want to hear them.

We'll hear them on Comment World. I do have the origin of monkey hanger. I don't even like saying it. Did you see me? I got shy. I have the dinosaur skin after. Okay. So monkey hanger is a colloquial nickname by which people from the town of Hartlepool in northeast England are sometimes called.

And so according to local folklore, the term originates from an incident in which a monkey was hanged in blah, blah, blah. During the Napoleonic Wars, a French ship of the type, I don't know how to pronounce that, was wrecked in a storm off the coast of Hartlepool. The only survivor from the ship was a monkey allegedly dressed in a French army uniform to provide amusement for the crew. And then they killed him? On finding the monkey on the beach, some locals decide to hold an impromptu trial since the monkey was unable to answer their questions.

And because they had neither seen a monkey nor a Frenchman before, they concluded that the monkey must be a French spy. Being found guilty, the animal was duly sentenced to death and summarily hanged on the beach. It's so fucked up. It's hilarious. Isn't it funny that they go, that must be a Frenchman. The English channel's like, I don't know, it's 40 miles or something. It's not the end of the world. And they're just like,

they're just like, ah, no, that would be what a Frenchman looks like. In medieval times, it was quite common to have trials of animals. That's so wild. There was a rooster that was tried for laying an egg. What? A rooster that was tried for

laying an egg? I thought chickens ate the roosters. That's why you tried the rooster. Yeah, I tried the rooster. It was just sitting around there with an egg underneath it. Yeah, fucking odd. I'd do that trial today. It's a witch rooster. Alright, so for the dinosaur thing, it's a nodosaur. And the article says, you can't even see its bones,

but scientists are handling it as perhaps the best preserved dinosaur specimen ever on Earth. That's because those bones remain covered by intact skin and armor 110 million years after the creature's death. What's your source? National Geographic. Never heard of it. Recently unveiled a dinosaur so well-preserved that many have taken to calling it not a fossil,

but an honest-to-goodness dinosaur mummy. Dinosaur mummy. Do you know about the dinosaur mummy, Richard? Yeah, but it's not frozen. You weren't talking about a frozen dinosaur, were you? Yeah, okay. The frozen part turned out to be wrong. Yeah, he got your ass, Jack.

It was a mummy mummy dinosaur skin yeah yeah jack thanks for uh how do you know it was a hay as well you sexist boss um big dick so richard uh this is a part of the show we have dinner party fact where our expert gives us one fact or interesting item obscure interesting that the audience might know to use to impress people on the subject okay um you are a closer cousin to a catfish than a catfish is to a dogfish that's a good one mind blown wait we're closer cousin the catfish than a catfish is to a dogfish to a dog yeah what's a dogfish? What's a dogfish? It's a kind of shark, a kind of small shark. Oh, it's like a shark.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I reckon the catfish and the dogfish would have a better chat. That might be so. Like at family gatherings. We have a more recent ancestor with a catfish. And what's that? And then the two of us have a less recent common ancestor with a dog recent ancestor with a catfish and what's that and then the two of us have a less recent common ancestor with a dogfish yeah and then later we have a branch and then it's

catfish and human that's a great this is a great dinner party fact because it's easy to remember too because you can catfish and dogfish you can just yeah i'm gonna test you richard am i closer to a giraffe or an elephant um giraffe all right that'll help with me facts when i go out there that's how our whole podcast started uh is jim used to tell women that he was a giraffe trainer at bars and he he memorized two facts of giraffes he would go out to bars and then he would be able to talk to women that way. And that's how this podcast started with the power of little information. Yeah, they have the same amount of bones in their neck as we do in the human spine. But I never went and found out how many bones that is. Unnecessary.

Too busy reading Chevy Chase books, mate. Took a decade. All right. Again, as I said, our guest has been Richard Dawkins. Please read any one of his 13 books, but his new book, Outgrowing God, is out there. Check that out. But he also has The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion, and many others. At Richard Dawkins on Twitter.

Thank you very much for being here, Richard Dawkins. Thank you for having me. This is a real joy, Richard. This is a real joy richard this is a real real pleasure talking to you um if you're if you're ever in a bar people and someone walks up to you and goes ah we didn't come from monkeys go well i don't know about that and then hang one of them in a suit let me just clarify that okay yeah because people often get that that make a mistake about that we are not we don't come from modern monkeys that often that. We don't come from modern monkeys.

Often people say we don't come from modern monkeys, which is true. What we do come from is animals that would have been called monkeys if we could see them today. But, of course, they're very, very ancient. People come up to you and they say, we don't come from ancient monkeys. You go, if you said modern monkeys, I would say you're right. But ancient monkeys, I don't know about that.

Okay. You know. Hey, everybody. Jason Ellis here from the Jason Ellis Show podcast, reminding you that my podcast, new episodes every Wednesday, downloadable where all podcasts are available. Come see my friends, Michael and Kevin, as we talk to you about what's awesome, what sucks, fitness, fighting, parenting, life, spin kicks, LGBTQ community, how to defend yourself against

a shark if it attacks you out of nowhere, and much, much more. So come join us.