This is relevant to my interests.

[unbibium]

DOUGLAS ADAMS!  Now that I have your attention:

First of all, the Royal Institute Christmas Lecture for Children, in 1991, was delivered by Richard Dawkins, at the point where people were over the controversy of "The Selfish Gene", and he hadn't become cranky enough to write "The God Delusion" yet.

Oxford professor Richard Dawkins presents a series of lectures on life, the universe, and our place in it. With brilliance and clarity, Dawkins unravels an educational gem that will mesmerize young and old alike.  Illuminating demonstrations, wildlife, virtual reality, and special guests (including Douglas Adams) all combine to make this collection atimeless classic.

  You can watch it here, and Episode 4 fis where Adams appears, in case you don't notice his giant face dominating the thumbnail for that episode.  I find the title of that segment even more tempting: "The Ultraviolet Garden".

BTW, I also just sent "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" back to Netflix today.  When I saw it in theaters, I called it a three-star movie.  The commentaries make it clear that I just didn't catch enough of the Douglas Adams spirit that was infused throughout the film.  I still think the love story was stapled on.

Also, I had no idea the "radio theme" was an Eagles song.

Comments

[templeemc.livejournal.com]

WOW!
Thank you for posting this link.
I watched all five and found some other very thought provoking stuff on that site.
I'd have posted the comment sooner, but have been a rapt viewer of the site and wanted to get through the lectures before commenting.
Are you an atheist or on the fence?
Or I guess I should ask how you came across this (as if it's any of my business)?
I've only just gotten into Richard Dawkins in the past year or so.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

I'm an atheist. I got off the fence a few years ago.

And I actually first found this lecture set on Youtube, but it was a grainy VHS copy where the video completely disintegrated at a few points, and of course each of the five lectures was split up into seven parts, but I watched it and loved it anyway. I didn't link it then because it seemed difficult to get people to sit through it.

Have you heard of Penn Jillette's radio show? It ran an hour a day from January 2006 through March 2007. You can listen to the whole thing online at http://www.pennfans.net/ -- Dawkins was on just once. And in one of the 2007 shows, Penn lets slip that "Dawkins" was the password to all their computer security, including their gmail.

[templeemc.livejournal.com]

Part of me, I think will always want to be agnostic about it, but I'm sure I pretty much live as an atheist and as time goes by I'm becoming more and more of an anti-theist (as Christopher Hitchens would say).
I'm really only just getting into the literature. The coolest thing about that site was the links to a myriad of others with similar views. Until a few days ago I didn't even know who Dan Denning or Sam Harris were, but now they're on my reading list.
Never heard of the radio show, but I'll look it up. That's pretty funny about the password.
Thanks for the link :)

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

Penn's radio show is my favorite of all-time. It's not entirely about atheism, but it comes up. It's about all kinds of issues, and comedy, and magic, and culture, and politics, and monkeys. Lots of monkey stories.

[templeemc.livejournal.com]

Monkeys are ALWAYS good :)

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

Then I suggest you start here: Story Day: the birth of Monkey Tuesday (http://www.pennfans.net/view/Audio_Archive/PennRadio/The.Penn.Jillette.Radio.Show.2006.04.11/). There's other stories here, but one of them has a chimp, and it starts a trend.

And somehow the shows are all arranged backwards, so the "Prev" button moves you to the next day.