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Richard DawkinsDavid Chadderton reports from the Edinburgh Book FestivalDateline: 24th August, 2008Professor Dawkins has become a controversial figure due to his outspoken defence of atheism, but he rose to public prominence originally because of his books that explain Darwinian natural selection in such a clear and concise way and apply them to real situations. He has recently fronted a number of science documentaries on television and has even made a brief appearance on Doctor Who. Chairman Paula Kirby led Dawkins away from direct discussion of both Darwinism and religion by asking him to speculate on the origins of life on earth through looking at how life could arise on other planets. All life on our planet is based on DNA and RNA, but, asked Kirby, does it have to be? Dawkins said it probably does not, but there would probably have to be an equivalent mechanism, plus something like a protein molecule capable of folding itself into distinctive shapes if there were no proteins as we would recognise them. Life here is based on carbon, but it has been suggested that silicon could also form the right chains, and ammonia has been suggested as an alternative to water. Exobiologists scan other planets for water as it is not possible to scan for life, based on the assumption that water is not proof of life but it is a precondition for its existence, but other compounds such as ammonia may be able to fulfil the same role as water. Complexity would have to have evolved through natural selection; according to Dawkins, this is a logical assumption and not just one made from observation on this planet. Bringing religion into the discussion, there are probably creatures somewhere in the universe that, if we met them, we would worship as gods, but they would not be gods as they must have evolved through natural selection rather than having been there from the start. Of the theory that life may have originated elsewhere and been sent to earth by rocket, Dawkins said he didn't believe this but agreed it was possible, although it would not absolve us of the responsibility of finding out how that life originated. He said that scientific principles are more weird than anything in Grimm's or the Bible or anywhere else in tradition, fiction and religion. Dan Dennett in Darwin's Dangerous Idea used the terms 'skyhook' and 'crane': the former being a miraculous 'hand from the sky' explanation of events at the heart of tales of gods, fairies, witches and so on, whereas the latter is a mechanism that does the same task but its operation and its creation from smaller, more basic structures can be established. Dawkins acknowledged the confusion that may arise from the similarity of the two examples, so suggested replacing 'crane' with 'escalator'. Dawkins also went into some details about the anthropic principle and answered questions on why he deals mostly with the most rabid Christian preachers such as Jerry Falwell rather than the academics (because they are the most persuasive to many people and so their claims need to be dealt with), why we have evolved to create poetry and mathematics (perhaps as a bi-product of evolving a large brain), why religious people seem to have better mental health than atheists (perhaps because communities were based around churches, but he would like to see the evidence for this) and whether religion is likely to decline (no). He has recently edited The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing with his own comments on pieces by a wide range of scientists from Einstein to Hawking. David Chadderton
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