Richard Dawkins — Genes and the Meaning of Life

Tickets from £36

Join Richard Dawkins for a ground-breaking exploration of the science of genetics and the story of evolution as you have never heard it before.

The creator of the word ‘meme’ and of the hugely influential ‘selfish gene’ model of evolution, Richard Dawkins is the epitome of the truly public intellectual—a scientist whose ideas have proven extraordinarily influential both within his own discipline and far beyond.

Celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of The Selfish Gene, Richard joins us live in conversation across the UK to explore the world-famous ideas that made his name at the age of just 35 and changed the life sciences forever. And, drawing on the latest research, he will share a groundbreaking new approach to the evolution of all life, revealing how every living creature is an archive of the worlds of its ancestors: a unique ‘genetic book of the dead’.

Richard will share fascinating examples of the power of Darwinian natural selection to build exquisite perfection. He will reveal what the ‘gene’s eye view’ tells us about what it means to be human. And, to end with a provocative sting in the tail, he will ask if there is a sense in which all our ‘own’ genes can be seen as a gigantic colony of cooperating viruses?

This is an unmissable chance to hear from a pioneer who has shaped our understanding of evolutionary biology more than any other living scientist.

“My eyes are constantly wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence... That's never far from my thoughts, that sense of amazement.” Richard Dawkins