StarTalk Live! Evolution with Richard Dawkins (Part 1)

About This Episode

Science and rationality take the stage when Neil deGrasse Tyson welcomes Richard Dawkins and Bill Nye to NYC’s Beacon Theatre to discuss evolution, with help from co-host Eugene Mirman and comics Jim Gaffigan and Maeve Higgins. In Part 1, you’ll discover why evolution and natural selection are hardly random processes. Find out how genes are like computer programs, and why transmission errors are so important. Explore epigenetics, mutations, convergent evolution, speciation, neotony and more. Learn how a characteristic can evolve independently: eyes evolved about 40 times, stingers about 12 times, while echolocation has only evolved 4 times. The group also speculates about alien evolution and life in the universe, and discusses how amino acids, the building blocks of life, have been discovered on asteroids. You’ll even hear how a new species of mosquitoes is evolving before our eyes in the London Underground… and that’s just in Part 1.

NOTE: All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: StarTalk Live! Evolution with Richard Dawkins (Part 1).