1 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:07,560 AMBIENT MUSIC PLAYS 2 00:00:08,760 --> 00:00:11,320 People of Science, take one. 3 00:00:16,520 --> 00:00:19,200 David, why did you choose Charles Darwin? 4 00:00:19,200 --> 00:00:22,400 He inspires me, 5 00:00:22,400 --> 00:00:25,240 because he made sense out of the natural world. 6 00:00:25,240 --> 00:00:29,680 And not only just physical sense of why animals have antlers 7 00:00:29,680 --> 00:00:32,080 or why birds have fine feathers, 8 00:00:32,080 --> 00:00:34,160 but to suggest the mechanism 9 00:00:34,160 --> 00:00:37,200 which led to all these multiplicity of forms. 10 00:00:37,200 --> 00:00:40,800 And that's a huge change in the mind-set. 11 00:00:40,800 --> 00:00:46,680 So Darwin is the founding father of, really, scientific zoology 12 00:00:46,680 --> 00:00:48,000 and botany. 13 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:51,720 And it's interesting to look back on his early career 14 00:00:51,720 --> 00:00:56,080 and his motivations, really, or his inspiration. How did he get there? 15 00:00:56,080 --> 00:00:59,640 He was absolutely mad about collecting beetles, 16 00:00:59,640 --> 00:01:01,880 and when you do start collecting things, 17 00:01:01,880 --> 00:01:04,160 you say, "This one is different from that, 18 00:01:04,160 --> 00:01:07,040 "is it more different or less different from that?" 19 00:01:07,040 --> 00:01:10,160 And that means you start building genealogies. 20 00:01:10,160 --> 00:01:14,920 That was the trigger which led him to these extraordinary thoughts. 21 00:01:14,920 --> 00:01:16,480 Yeah, it seems that one of the... 22 00:01:16,480 --> 00:01:19,200 a very pure expression of what it is to be a scientist, 23 00:01:19,200 --> 00:01:23,360 that it's actually understanding the natural world is all that matters. 24 00:01:23,360 --> 00:01:26,760 I am really entertained by a sentence that he wrote in one of his 25 00:01:26,760 --> 00:01:28,400 letters in which he says, 26 00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:33,080 "Every time I see a peacock's tail, I feel sick." 27 00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:38,480 And he feels sick because he can't understand how it could have been, 28 00:01:38,480 --> 00:01:41,880 that individual bird put in all that energy into growing this 29 00:01:41,880 --> 00:01:45,200 vast and immense tail with its complex patterns and colours, 30 00:01:45,200 --> 00:01:46,520 and one thing and another. 31 00:01:46,520 --> 00:01:50,880 How it could happen and the thought that he couldn't understand it 32 00:01:50,880 --> 00:01:52,320 was what made him say it. 33 00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:55,480 But in the end, Darwin explained sexual selection. 34 00:01:57,200 --> 00:01:58,880 Back then, that's a bold statement. 35 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:01,520 Was he a bold character in that sense? 36 00:02:01,520 --> 00:02:04,480 He was intellectually bold in himself, 37 00:02:04,480 --> 00:02:06,800 but he wasn't aggressive, 38 00:02:06,800 --> 00:02:10,360 because I think he knew that the majority of the society 39 00:02:10,360 --> 00:02:15,080 would have found it deeply blasphemous to suggest that we were 40 00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:17,680 descended from simian ancestors. 41 00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:21,040 The more you know about Darwin, 42 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:24,200 the more you realise that he was enormously considerate. 43 00:02:24,200 --> 00:02:26,560 I mean, he had these strong, 44 00:02:26,560 --> 00:02:29,920 steely convictions, but he was gentle with people. 45 00:02:29,920 --> 00:02:33,000 He was a courteous, kind human being. 46 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:34,600 He was an extraordinary man. 47 00:02:38,800 --> 00:02:41,840 That's a marvellous portrait of him in his old age. 48 00:02:41,840 --> 00:02:43,680 This is 1868. Yes. 49 00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:45,840 And there, there's his Beagle. 50 00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:48,840 What was the route that they took? 51 00:02:48,840 --> 00:02:53,000 Well, they were commissioned to go down to the farthest tip 52 00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:56,560 of South America and do a survey around the Cape Horn. 53 00:02:56,560 --> 00:03:00,680 But then, of course, they decided to go home by crossing the Pacific, 54 00:03:00,680 --> 00:03:04,640 and so he then on that way calls upon the Galapagos, 55 00:03:04,640 --> 00:03:07,080 where the moment of enlightenment strikes him, 56 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:08,600 if one is to believe the stories. 57 00:03:11,280 --> 00:03:14,440 What do you think would fascinate Darwin about the world today? 58 00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:18,400 Oh, undoubtedly the discovery of genetics. 59 00:03:18,400 --> 00:03:22,280 The key that he really needed to have was the physical basis 60 00:03:22,280 --> 00:03:25,960 in which characteristics were handed from one generation to the other. 61 00:03:25,960 --> 00:03:29,400 And he postulated things he called gemmules, 62 00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:35,160 which would do that sort of job, but he had no idea what they were. 63 00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:39,160 But to a certain extent, you could say that he, as it were, predicted 64 00:03:39,160 --> 00:03:43,640 there would have to be a thing like that which we now call chromosomes 65 00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:47,400 with DNA, which carry DNA from one generation to the next. 66 00:03:47,400 --> 00:03:50,280 He was a wonderful writer as well, wasn't he? Absolutely so. 67 00:03:50,280 --> 00:03:55,480 I mean, this book, this is a first edition of The Origin of Species. 68 00:03:56,520 --> 00:04:01,840 And what is marvellous about it is that anybody can read any page 69 00:04:01,840 --> 00:04:03,560 and it makes absolute sense to them. 70 00:04:03,560 --> 00:04:08,040 It's not full of jargon, it's full of argument and observation. 71 00:04:08,040 --> 00:04:10,960 And that's another reason why I admire him so much. 72 00:04:12,600 --> 00:04:15,760 "There is grandeur in this view of life, 73 00:04:15,760 --> 00:04:19,400 "with its several powers, having been originally breathed into 74 00:04:19,400 --> 00:04:22,600 "a few forms or into one; 75 00:04:22,600 --> 00:04:26,080 "and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on 76 00:04:26,080 --> 00:04:29,280 "according to the fixed law of gravity, 77 00:04:29,280 --> 00:04:33,320 "from so simple a beginning, endless forms 78 00:04:33,320 --> 00:04:40,200 "most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."