…do what you like. And science in the past grew out of a fertile field of amateur research. Even as eminent a scientist as Charles Darwin never had a government grant or an academic post. He lived as a private man, a gentleman in his own house and did…

…and animals can home it's very widespread. It's just the pigeons are the best known example. Now how do they do it? Well, Charles Darwin was one of the first to put forward a theory he said: well maybe they do it by remembering all the twists and…

…What I like most I think my most heroic example in the kind of thing I do is none other than the great late Charles Darwin and like most other biologists I greatly admire him but what I see in him and admire is different from what others admire. I…

…colonial explorers, sailors who tell us feral pigs on the most islands and how they've gone wild and so forth. All this is what Darwin draws on and he discusses it in a common sense way as there's most no statistical test, chi squared test, 5 levels of…

…is because that was always an area of concern that was seeded to religion. And in the 19th century, when Darwin and Charles Lyell and Herbert Spencer and all these people got together and created modern evolutionary theory and scientific materialism,…

…really an article of faith, and it was hard to hold the line. I mean, in the 1860s, Darwin's theory was called the Darwin Wallace theory of evolution because there was a second person in the picture, Alfred Russel Wallace, who was, for my money, a…

…Alfred Russel Wallace, who was, for my money, a better scientist and for damn sure a better field Mandev than Charles Darwin, but Wallace, who really invented evolution. And interestingly enough, based on last night's discussion, he invented it during a…

…to the greatest scientist of the age and ask his his opinion? So he copies this thing off and sends it off to Darwin. Darwin practically shits white when he reads this thing because he realizes that 30 years of work is now eight months from publication,…

…the greatest scientist of the age and ask his his opinion? So he copies this thing off and sends it off to Darwin. Darwin practically shits white when he reads this thing because he realizes that 30 years of work is now eight months from publication,…

…he couldn't figure out what to do with it, so he wrote a letter to the great scientist of the age, which was Charles Darwin in London. And when Darwin opened this letter, you know, just said, holy shit, this guy has scooped me 20 years I've been…

…to do with it, so he wrote a letter to the great scientist of the age, which was Charles Darwin in London. And when Darwin opened this letter, you know, just said, holy shit, this guy has scooped me 20 years I've been working on the origins. Here it…

…years I've been working on the origins. Here it is in four paragraphs. Who is this guy? Well, so then it became the Darwin Wallace theory of evolution for its 1st 50 years. And then Wallace dropped out of the picture because he disgraced himself by an…

…to be executed by the combined commitment of millions and millions of people had a slightly different version of evolution than Darwin did, how Wallace did. Yes, it was an interesting intellectual, and it actually has something to do with what we're talking…

…has something to do with what we're talking about, because there have been many descriptions of what the controversy between Wallace and Darwin really was, what it came down to. And I don't think most modern people realize this about evolution. In the 19th…

…is not, in fact, what it was about. That's not what it was about. The outrageous assertion of the evolutionists of Darwin, particularly in his school, was not that human beings were descended from the great apes. In fact, the outrageous assertion wasn't…

…origin of species and the descent of man. And where the real kicker was lodged was in the origin of species. Why? Because Darwin set out to show that nature could be the product of processes without purpose. That was the bit that brought the roof down.…

…to make friends, lifelong friends, into enemies and sunder families. Alfred Russel Wallace, who was the co discoverer of evolution with Darwin, really preceded him. He had a fever. He was a professional butterfly collector, as I was once in my youth. And…

…So he fired off a letter to the only person he could think of to ask who was the greatest biologist of the day. Charles Darwin. At home in England, in his garden, working over 20 years of notes on the problem of the species. When Darwin got this…

…Charles Darwin. At home in England, in his garden, working over 20 years of notes on the problem of the species. When Darwin got this letter from this unknown character, postmarked Ambon, Dutch East Indies, and read it, he paled visibly, and he went to…

…sure to come. Because what I want to say ultimately is that the program of understanding human origins that begins with Darwin in the 19th century has only proceeded about halfway. What outraged the victorian mentality so much was the suggestion that human…

…that mutations are always random, but they are given cogency and order by then undergoing the process named by Darwin, natural selection. That means the mutations which confer adaptive advantage are retained. The mutations which don't confer adaptive advantage,…

…I think about that scene. Now, here's a little trivia tidbit that I think of every time somebody mentions the name of Charles Darwin, who, of course, is one of the people credited with discovering the theory of evolution. My guess is that, like me, when…

…is one of the people credited with discovering the theory of evolution. My guess is that, like me, when you think of Charles Darwin, you recall that black and white picture of a balding old man with a long white beard. And, well, that's the image…

…And, well, that's the image of the man you associate with this important theory. Well, let me ask you this. Did you know that when Darwin left on the voyage of discovery that led to his theory, he was only 22 years old? As I recall, he was only 26…