:00:00. > :00:00.it is time for Meet The Author with it is time for Meet The Author with
:00:00. > :00:08.Nick Higham.. Richard Dawkins made his name with The Selfish Gene, the
:00:08. > :00:10.book that pop rised the notion that genes are the key to evolution,
:00:10. > :00:13.book that pop rised the notion that is Britain's best known eatist,
:00:13. > :00:21.Blind Watchmaker and The God authors of book like the
:00:21. > :00:25.for Wonder: The Making of a Delusion. He has written an
:00:25. > :00:25.for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist. It is the story of his
:00:25. > :00:27.life from his life in Africa to his life from his life in Africa to his
:00:27. > :00:40.mid 30s, we invited him here to our —— authorisist.
:00:40. > :00:44.Daubing, you became a schoolist Daubing, you became a schoolist and
:00:44. > :00:49.you come from a family of botanist, people who wrote books about birds
:00:49. > :00:52.laws of inheritance have been a bug laws of inheritance have been a bug
:00:52. > :00:58.collector, as a child. But you weren't. You were a bookish boy. I
:00:58. > :01:00.was, I made something of this in my memoir, perhaps I made too much of
:01:00. > :01:04.it. I was possibly a bit of a memoir, perhaps I made too much of
:01:04. > :01:10.disappointment to some members of my family, because I wasn't quite the
:01:10. > :01:18.outdoor time my ancestors would have liked. You grew up in Africa. It
:01:18. > :01:22.seems by your account it was a happenry childhood. There were a
:01:22. > :01:27.couple of occasions when you said you were gullible, when adults told
:01:27. > :01:30.you lies. They do that, to all children, but you suggest that it
:01:30. > :01:33.might be better if we were to encourage a sort of healthy
:01:33. > :01:39.might be better if we were to scepticism, in children. Surely,
:01:39. > :01:44.that is to miss the point, the innocence of childhood, magic of
:01:44. > :01:49.chide hood is something we should —— childhood is something we should
:01:49. > :01:53.value I get kicked round the room for suggesting parents should instil
:01:53. > :01:57.scepticism in their children. I can see that the magic of childhood is
:01:57. > :02:01.valuable. There soot imagine nick the scientific world view, I think
:02:01. > :02:03.that teaching a child to ask questions, to be sceptical, to be
:02:03. > :02:07.critical, if critical, if you take a trivial
:02:07. > :02:10.example, father Christmas, I would never tell a child, there is no
:02:10. > :02:12.Father Christmas, but would say let Father Christmas, but would say let
:02:12. > :02:16.us think about this, how many Father Christmas, but would say let
:02:16. > :02:20.and get the child to sort of ask and get the
:02:20. > :02:23.questions for herself. When you were eight you
:02:23. > :02:24.because your parents inherited a because your
:02:25. > :02:33.various boarding school, there are farm and you were
:02:33. > :02:36.various boarding school, there are photographs of you as the archetypal
:02:36. > :02:38.schoolboy. One of those was Oundle. A lot of successful people when they
:02:38. > :02:41.are looking back at their lives say are looking back at their lives say
:02:41. > :02:53.there was one inspirational teacher who set me on the path. Was Thompson
:02:53. > :02:55.that teacher? I think he is. I first encountered him, he taught me
:02:55. > :03:01.biology, I suppose at teenage of about 14, and he, he was
:03:01. > :03:03.inspirational in the poetic sense. He was waxing poet poetically about
:03:03. > :03:08.the living world, and that made a the living world, and that made a
:03:08. > :03:12.big impression on me, then, that was the beginning of my learning about
:03:12. > :03:15.biology, then at the end, when I was struggling to get into Oxford, he
:03:15. > :03:23.took me under his wing, and had me took me under his wing, and had me
:03:23. > :03:27.for, for extra tuition, unpaid I am sure, he was that kind of teacher,
:03:28. > :03:34.he believed in education in the proper sense, and I think he got me
:03:34. > :03:37.into Oxford. That was quite a feat, and I think Oxford was the making of
:03:37. > :03:42.me, so I do owe him an enormous debt me, so I do owe him an enormous debt
:03:42. > :03:45.of gratitude. You were a successful student, you went into become a
:03:45. > :03:50.graduate student and you became graduate student and you became an
:03:50. > :03:52.academic, one of the things you produce in book is a type script of
:03:52. > :03:56.one of your first sers are of one of your first sers are of
:03:56. > :04:01.will be selfish. One of your will be selfish. One of your
:04:01. > :04:05.colleagues has written lovely stuff in the margin.
:04:05. > :04:11.The interesting thing is, that you set that idea aside, and went on the
:04:11. > :04:16.spend the next ten years doing very different kind of scientific work
:04:16. > :04:23.before you came back to this idea, why? That is true, I was immensely
:04:23. > :04:29.inspired by the ideas of WD Hamilton who wrote a couple of very important
:04:29. > :04:36.papers in 1964. I adopted the ideas of Hamilton, in the lectures that I
:04:37. > :04:39.gave, first at Oxford and then California and coined the phrase
:04:39. > :04:41.selfish gene, I based some on the idea that the gene is the unit of
:04:41. > :04:47.natural I went on lecturing about it. I
:04:47. > :04:55.didn't dron it to that extent. years later. One of the.syou mange
:04:55. > :05:06.to square the behaviour of the young to square the behaviour of the
:05:06. > :05:10.person? And one obvious example is like a lot of teenager, the age of
:05:10. > :05:14.that is obviously a very that is obviously a very
:05:14. > :05:19.considerable contrast to the position you hole now. When did that
:05:19. > :05:23.change and why? I wouldn't say that is hard to square, because I think
:05:23. > :05:27.that the kind of bookish interest I had, I was interested in where the
:05:28. > :05:33.order and complexity of the living world come from, and before I had
:05:33. > :05:37.understood Darwin evolution it was natural to resort to a sort of
:05:37. > :05:46.religious explanation, so I think there is a kind of continuity there,
:05:46. > :05:50.I, I add more puzzled ant the kind of social relations of schoolboys
:05:50. > :05:53.don't think I was cruel myself, I don't think I was cruel myself, I
:05:53. > :05:56.didn't do anything to stop the bullying that I saw round me. That,
:05:56. > :06:00.I find, hard to square with the I find, hard to square with the way
:06:00. > :06:06.I would be now, I would be horrified and I would hope I would try to go
:06:06. > :06:07.in and fight about it. So that is one respect in which I think I the
:06:07. > :06:14.child is not father of the man. You child is not father of the man. You
:06:14. > :06:19.ask specifically about religion, I lost my religion, a bit later,
:06:19. > :06:22.probably about the age of 16. But I think there was a certain continuity
:06:23. > :06:27.question, I just came up with question, I just came up with
:06:27. > :06:33.different answers. I am curious about what motivates daubing today,
:06:33. > :06:37.you became the first —— Richard Dawkins today. You became the first
:06:37. > :06:41.science at Oxford. You did that for science at Oxford. You did that for
:06:41. > :06:47.I think ten years or I think ten years or more. Now, you
:06:47. > :06:53.have become associated in the public mind with this militant, almost
:06:53. > :07:01.aggressive eighties tick position. Are you —— atheist position. I don't
:07:01. > :07:03.buy the word aggressive S people who call me aggressive have not read my
:07:03. > :07:07.books, they have often red read what books, they have often red read what
:07:07. > :07:13.other people have said, what other people have said, what other people
:07:13. > :07:17.bit of propaganda, the other thing is we have got so used to, the idea
:07:17. > :07:23.you don't criticise religion at all, is we have got so used to, the idea
:07:23. > :07:27.you don't criticise religion at all, that even a mild criticism of
:07:27. > :07:31.religion, a gentle criticism is literally heard, heard as though it
:07:31. > :07:36.was aggressive, when the language, if you look at the language it is
:07:36. > :07:39.less aggressive than you wold find in any, I don't know, restaurant
:07:39. > :07:47.criticism or theatre criticism or book criticism, it is an
:07:47. > :07:51.exaggeration borne of the, universal presumption you don't Chris sism
:07:51. > :07:53.religion because it is not done. Thank you very