Oxford University’s former Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, Richard Dawkins, is one of the world’s staunchest defenders of the theory of evolution. He is the author of The Selfish Gene and a well known atheist tract, The God Delusion. So how does he assess Darwin’s ideas on the 200th anniversary of his birth?
The BBC World Service’s Owen Bennett Jones spoke to Professor Dawkins.
RD: “Charles Darwin really solved the problem of existence, the problem of the existence of all living things – humans, animals, plants, fungi, bacteria. Everything we know about life, Darwin essentially explained.”
OBJ: “Did he make any mistakes in your view?”
RD: “Yes he made some mistakes. He lived in the middle of the 19th Century, and, obviously, we know a lot more now than he knew. In particular, he got genetics all wrong. Nobody in the 19th Century knew much about genetics, and so naturally Darwin got that wrong. But given that, it’s remarkable how much he got right.”
OBJ: “But people say modern discoveries in genetics, actually confirm what Darwin was saying…?”
RD: “Very much so, yes, and it’s amazing how far ahead of his time he was.”