February 28, 2015 1:04 pm

The Evolution of StarTalk Live!: Dawkins! Nye! Tyson!

From our beginnings in the back room at The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY to a sell-out performance at the historic Beacon Theatre on Manhattan’s upper west side, StarTalk Live! has evolved into a unique experience where thousands of fans come to share an evening of science, comedy and popular culture. (Don’t worry, Brooklyn – we love the Bell House and you’re not getting rid of us any time soon!)

On November 18^th, 2014, it was a different kind of evolution that StarTalk fans came to see, and this Sunday you will get the chance to listen to the first part of our show recorded that night at the Beacon Theatre.

There was only one subject on everybody’s mind that night: evolution. Not a surprise, though, when you consider that three of the leading voices for science and rational thought were on hand to discuss the topic.

Richard Dawkins is perhaps the world’s leading champion of Evolution: he’s an evolutionary biologist, a Professor Emeritus at Oxford University, and the founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science, whose mission is “to remove the influence of religion in science education and public policy, and eliminate the stigma that surrounds atheism and non-belief.”

Bill Nye the Science Guy is a frequent guest host of StarTalk Radio who also hosts the majority of our StarTalk Live! road shows. But that night, Bill was on the stage as the author of the NY Times Bestseller, Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation.

And of course, our host for the evening was Neil deGrasse Tyson – and if you’re reading this and don’t know who he is, then we haven’t been doing our job!

The evening’s co-host (and the co-host of every StarTalk Live!) was of course comedian Eugene Mirman, and he brought along a NY Times Bestselling Author of his own, StarTalk Live! veteran comedian Jim Gaffigan. Eugene also imported his own guest from the UK: Irish comedian Maeve Higgins.

Normally in these blog posts I try and tell you a little about what you’ll hear in the show, but in this case, I think you all have a pretty good idea: natural selection, genes, epigenetics, mutations, convergent evolution, speciation, neotony, amino acid-bearing asteroids, blind watchmakers… and an event in Kentucky last year when Bill Nye had a discussion you may have heard of with Ken Ham concerning creationism.

Join us for Part 1 this Sunday, March 1 at 7:00 PM ET on our website, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn and SoundCloud. Part 2 will air next Sunday.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
–Jeffrey Simons