1. Comment #14916 by traintrain on December 26, 2006 at 5:01 pm

Wow! I'm so surprised that no one has commented on this excellent piece. Its worth getting through the german intro. Sit back and enjoy hearing 4 science heavyweights speak.

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2. Comment #14990 by jsantamaria on December 27, 2006 at 10:10 pm

Great stuff. I wonder whether the German title has put many people off, by thinking that it is all in German.

Great to get different perspectives on evolution.

Douglas Adams was very funny.

Thoroughly enjoyed.it.

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3. Comment #15023 by IQHQ on December 28, 2006 at 9:12 am

It would be great if someone could upload the panel discussion that follows these excellent talks.

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4. Comment #22678 by Strider on February 20, 2007 at 3:41 pm

Just want to second IQHQs request. If anyone knows where to get a hold of this panel discussion, I would absolutely love to see it.

The whole lecture was fascinating. Even if it was a bit redundant if you were familiar with the speakers' writings at all.

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5. Comment #22997 by Machinus on February 25, 2007 at 3:17 pm

Simply brilliant.

If you stay tuned, the panel video plays.

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6. Comment #23341 by LeeC on February 28, 2007 at 2:13 am

Anyone know a site we can actually download this movie. Streaming is rather slow and the pictures are jerky...

Thanks

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7. Comment #24819 by Bremas on March 8, 2007 at 6:22 pm

This was great.

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8. Comment #31301 by Smith on April 12, 2007 at 1:25 am

For those who somehow can't get the clip here, you may wanna try the following links, which work in my PC.

1. From Muffathalle:
http://www.muffathalle.de/Mediacenter/web_tv_archiv.html
(The link is at the very bottom of the page.)

2. From Reitstoen.com:
http://www.reitstoen.com/dawkins.php
(The link to the talk is near the bottom the page.)

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9. Comment #33865 by boblin on April 22, 2007 at 10:05 am

Does anyone know when this lecture took place?

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10. Comment #34987 by Barnacle on April 25, 2007 at 8:44 pm

When Richard Dawkins speaks, he mentions the end of the century being just over a year away - so I would infer that it was late 1998. If you are after an even more specific date, I have no idea.

Very enjoyable lectures!

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11. Comment #40095 by japrichard on May 13, 2007 at 5:06 am

Can anyone help. I'm desperate to listen to these lectures. The link on this page and the subsequent links given my commentators do not seem to work. I have searched google to find other links with no success.

Anyone have any suggestions regarding where I can find a working link?

Many thanks

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12. Comment #40224 by dthuleen on May 13, 2007 at 11:08 pm

I'll second japrichard's plea for help. Is the link outdated?

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13. Comment #42634 by Combine_Dave on May 18, 2007 at 7:53 pm

Is it possible to get this in a different video format?

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14. Comment #42758 by StephenH on May 19, 2007 at 11:27 am

I don't have the video, i have audio only

Two parts because of file size limits

Audio begins from the beginning of Douglas Adams speech

Part One
http://www.speedyshare.com/976343392.html

Part Two
http://www.speedyshare.com/847197454.html

Douglas Adams, always a pleasure to listen to. Wait until you hear the "Puddle versus The Sun" piece. Enjoy

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15. Comment #42784 by Combine_Dave on May 19, 2007 at 2:47 pm

That is excellent.

@StephenH

Thanks for the file!

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16. Comment #43085 by kchartreuse on May 20, 2007 at 1:45 pm

Can anyone translate Jared Diamond's German at the beginning of his speech? "Auf Deutsch" is as much as I can pick out.

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17. Comment #43198 by Alina on May 20, 2007 at 7:12 pm

I speak German and would love to translate any German in the introduction or otherwise. However, I experience difficulties when trying to play the video even though I do have realpayer... I got the impression that the audio begins with Douglas Adams, ie it is incomplete?

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18. Comment #43799 by japrichard on May 22, 2007 at 5:11 pm

Thank you very much Stephen H for resupplying this lecture. It's very much appreciated.

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19. Comment #45190 by Alina on May 26, 2007 at 6:46 pm

Jared Diamond in German:

Am Anfang moechte ich einige Worte auf Deutsch an meine deutschen Zuhoerer richten, und besonders an meine bayrischen Zuhoerer (laughter). Ich freue mich riesig wieder in Muenchen zu sein. Im Jahre 1961 zog ich als Student hierhin um ... angeblich um Biochemie am Max-Planck-Institut an der Goethestrasse zu studieren. Aber ehrlich gesagt, eigentlich um Muenchen zu erleben. Das heisst, Musik zu spielen, ins Konzert oder in die Oper zu gehen, Bier zu trinken, Knoedel zu fressen (laughter). Im ?gebirg zu wandern, ...
..and science. (Obviously there is a short 1-5 second or so skip in the audio to the English, omitting the rest of the German and some of his English sentence.)

My attempt of a translation:
At the beginning I want to direct a few words at my German audience in German, especially to the ones from Bavaria. (The lecture was in Munich) I am very happy to be back in Munich again.
I moved here as a student in 1961 to... supposedly to study Biochemistry at the Max-Plack-Institute in the Goethestrasse (location). But really I wanted to experience Munich. I mean playing music, to go to a concert or the opera, to drink beer, eat (literally, guzzle down) dumplings (local dish). (His colloquial "guzzle down" causes more laughter, obscuring the next sentence. He continues to list his favourite hobbies when in Munich, including going bushwalking in a local mountainous area. Then there is the fault in the audio.)

Can somebody PLEASE get the whole file including the German introduction and the discussion afterward working? Thanks heaps!

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20. Comment #49791 by ClemIsMe on June 13, 2007 at 12:51 pm

I would like to complain about the internet. When I was a young man we had a little thing called broadcast television, where we could hopefully see one good science program a month. I remember going nearly mad at missing an episode of Cosmos when it first aired. I didn't know if it would ever swing around again! A WHOLE EPISODE!

You kids and your interwebs have it dead easy.

Thanks for posting this treasure, and all the others.

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21. Comment #51714 by Wosret on June 24, 2007 at 9:16 am

This was a fantastic watch. I thoroughly enjoyed every lecture. I would love to see more like that. I haven't seen lectures that entertaining in a a long while. Wish I knew about these earlier, the first time through I thought this was all german.

Great stuff. I NEED more of these.

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22. Comment #53910 by hexhunter on July 4, 2007 at 5:19 am

All of the lecturers were good, but I now understand why Douglas Adams's death was such a blow for science, he really had the power to communicate, most scientists stumble on questions and find it difficult to explain things, but he could have made public understanding of science so much better in the UK.

I must also ask for somebody to upload the discussion from this event, even if it's not in English...

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23. Comment #57566 by roboramma on July 19, 2007 at 10:49 pm

Wow. This is one of the best things I've ever seen. Four real life heroes all talking in the same place. And what a pleasure to both see and hear Douglas Adams speaking. He's sorely missed.

As a minor aside - for those of Adam's fans here, you may have missed "Last Chance to See", I think it's out of print but it can still be found in used book shops from time to time. If you get a chance to read it you'll find the same combination of humour and brilliant understanding of the natural world that he displayed in this lecture.

The world is a better place because of each one of them. Thank you to Dr. Dawkins for this website and this video.

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24. Comment #58625 by agki on July 25, 2007 at 12:23 pm

Does anyone know where the video or audio file is now? I keep getting 404 messages.

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25. Comment #58628 by agki on July 25, 2007 at 12:39 pm

Never mind. I found it at http://www.muffathalle.de/Mediacenter/web_tv_archiv.html

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26. Comment #64645 by chumpy on August 21, 2007 at 5:43 am

Argh! I've tried every link I could find to watch this lecture, but nothing seems to work. 404 errors or RealPlayer errors. Anyone got any advice?

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27. Comment #68036 by pleclair74 on September 5, 2007 at 7:07 pm

It's a mistyped URL, here's the corrected one:
http://richarddawkins.net/video/derDigitaleDawkins.ram
P

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28. Comment #70127 by yyuryyub on September 14, 2007 at 7:29 am

While I love Jarred Diamond's books, his speech really irks me when he translates into German. For Example: Macadamia nut into macadamia nuut. Surely if the Germans can figure out what he's talking about generally they can figure out "white lab coat" without the perfunctory translation...

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29. Comment #77675 by BaronOchs on October 10, 2007 at 5:55 am

Did anyone take RD up on his Quantum computer game suggestion? That might be good if someone could make one?!

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30. Comment #109900 by the_ultimate_samurai on January 10, 2008 at 2:37 am

the ram isnt working....is there some other version? is this DRM?

(note:im running linux)

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31. Comment #112492 by rymanc87 on January 17, 2008 at 10:14 am

works for me, I'm just using realplayer in ubuntu. If anyone wants me to convert it for them, just ask!

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32. Comment #140964 by and7barton on March 9, 2008 at 8:31 am

I especially loved the Jared Diamond section. I actually learned a hell of a lot from his talk.

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33. Comment #184125 by Anters on May 23, 2008 at 5:54 pm

Like a previous poster said, it is definately worth the time to sit through the german introduction. It's not very long, and what comes after is great.

I absolutely love the way Richard Dawkins starts out. I have been looking through practically all his lectures and speaches linked to on this site, and I haven't seen another introduction so beautiful and somehow depressing and true as this one.

Please, do yourself a favor and watch this!

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