Evolution

Melvyn Bragg examines the future of gene therapy and advances in evolutionary biology. Are we continuing to evolve? If so, what are the signs and if not, why not? And those apes, so very very near us in genetic kinship, why are they so far away in so much else, and will they ever evolve? And is evolution necessarily progression? If so, does our apparent lack of evolution mean lack of progress? Also on the evolutionary front, could electronic devices discover the means of self-replication, and what will that mean for us? The march of the life sciences after the discovery of DNA accelerates by the year but what are the implications?

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Guests

• Professor John Maynard Smith No other episodes
  Emeritus Professor of Biology at the University of Sussex
• Colin Tudge 2 episodes
  Research Fellow at the Centre for Philosophy

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Programme ID: p00545gl

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00545gl

Auto-category: 576.8 (Evolutionary biology)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. Our knowledge of evolution this century has expanded in ways unimaginable in Darwin's time.