The Universe On A String

In clear, nontechnical language, string theorist Brian Greene explains how our understanding of the universe has evolved from Einstein's notions of gravity and space-time to superstring theory, where minuscule strands of energy vibrating in 11 dimensions create every particle and force in the universe. (This mind-bending theory may soon be put to the test at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.)

A Call To Arms from Biologist Richard Dawkins

The session was titled "The Design of Life," and the TED audience was probably expecting remarks about evolution's role in our history from biologist Richard Dawkins. Instead, he launched into a full-on appeal for atheists to make public their beliefs and to aggressively fight the incursion of religion into politics and education (quoting Douglas Adams in the bargain). Scientists and intellectuals hold very different beliefs about God from the American public, he says, yet they are cowed by the overall political environment. Dawkins' scornful tone drew strongly mixed reactions from the audience; some stood and applauded his courage. Others wondered whether his strident approach could do more harm than good. Dawkins went on to publish The God Delusion and become perhaps the world's best-known atheist.

Earth's Final Century? - Part 2

In a taut soliloquy that takes us from the origins of the universe to the last days of a dying sun 6 billion years later, renowned cosmologist Sir Martin Rees explains why the 21st century is a pivotal moment in the history of humanity: the first time in history when we can materially change ourselves and our planet. Stunning imagery of cosmological wonders show us the universe as we know it now. Speaking as "a concerned member of the human race," Rees harkens to the wisdom of Einstein, calling for scientists to act as moral compasses, confronting the coming developments and ensuring our role in "the immense future."

Earth's Final Century? - Part 1

Professor Stephen Hawking asks some Big Questions about our universe -- How did the universe begin? How did life begin? Are we alone? -- and discusses how we might go about answering them.

Professor Hawking also sounds a dire warning: because of the exponential increases in world population and the consumption of Earth's finite natural resources, this century could be our last.

Genes and Natural Selection - Neo-Darwinism

A lecture by Richard Dawkins, University of Oxford's Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, and the author of the landmark 1976 book The Selfish Gene. It took place during a visit to the Galapagos Islands the place that caused Darwin, through his observations as a naturalist, to discover Natural Selection.



From "Unweaving the Rainbow" by Richard Dawkins

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.

...we didn't arrive by spaceship, we arrived by being born, and we didn't burst conscious into the world but accumulated awareness gradually through babyhood. The fact that we gradually apprehend our world, rather than sudddenly discovering it, should not subtract from its wonder."

A DNA-Driven World

Aired: December 4, 2007 on BBC 1

Gene pioneer Dr. J. Craig Venter gives the 32nd Richard Dimbleby Lecture. One of the principal scientists who decoded the human genome is about to create the first artificial life form on Earth. So what does the future hold in A DNA-Driven World?

Who Are We, (Part III) - Intellect vs. Biochemistry

What if human consciousness isn't the end-all and be-all of Darwinism? What if we are all just pawns in corn's clever strategy game, the ultimate prize of which is world domination? Author Michael Pollan asks us to see things from a plant's-eye view -- to consider the possibility that nature isn't opposed to culture, that biochemistry rivals intellect as a survival tool. By merely shifting our perspective, he argues, we can heal the Earth. Who's the more sophisticated species now?