Translated-version in Korean In my blog(j0hnlennon.eglo..., there are more subtitled-video clips that can't be uploeaded here due to ten minutes' time-limit.
Technically this is from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. TO see Mr. Adams actually reading this fantastic passage...this audience doesn't know how lucky they were.
To anyone who does not know, this is from the 4th episode of Richard Dawkins - "Growing Up in the Universe" lectures, 1991. You can watch the full episode from his (Dawkins') offical channel.
I grew up on the Hitchhiker's books and I still have my set, autographed by Douglas Adams when he came by my University to promote "Mostly Harmless." We miss his genius!
Royal Institution Christmas Lecture 1991, Growing Up in the Universe. How brilliant that all, nearly 5 hours, of it are available on here. I love the fact that Douglas attended.
The fact that Douglas Adams just HAPPENED to be in the audience, really proves that there is "a purpose" behind everything in the universe. My christian beliefs become all the more stronger because of it. Especially when im out in the woods murdering a defenseless animal with my bare hands..
This is one of my favorite passages from my favorite work of fiction. It's lovely to be able to hear Douglas Adams read it, thanks for posting this video.
I was gob smacked when Douglas Adams stood up. He's my all time favourite comedy writer. Hard to imagine anyone thinking he's boring. I've read all of his books, most of them more than once. The bit about the Bablefish being so improbable that it was considered as final proof of God's non-existence. Such a logical U turn at the end of the explanation. Haha. Maybe I can find it somewhere.
Of course animals are meant to be food! And they run away from us if we hunt them because they want us to have the satisfaction of hunting something! Duh, right? Also, this is sarcasm. Apparently, it's hard to tell on the internet.
I won't get into the theological debate and just say how wonderful it is to see the late great Douglas Adams reading from HG2G! Thank you much for this!
in the BBC series the dish of the day was played by Peter Davison, who was at that time both Sandra Dickinson's (Trillian) husband and the newly announced fifth Doctor.
wow! what good fortune to stumble upon this video! dawkins and adams are geniuses (imo) and advocates for reason over superstition. i never heard adams before and i loved his reading of his own words. what a shame he died so young. the world needs his humor and insight.. like carlin, sagan and a few others who worked to push the world (kicking and screaming) out of the dark ages.
Thank you to Douglas Adams!!! I have read, and re-read, his books so many times I can quote passages from memory. I hope I get to meet him on the other side.
I will ALWAYS hear that in Peter Davidson's voice. He hadn't even be Doctor Who yet, and Doctor Who still had Douglas' writing fingerprints all over it.
@allan3141 is that your stock comment for when you cant be bothered/arent able to address the actual comment at hand? i have appraised that material. michael ruse is at the centre of the evolution/intelligent design debate. his works are all within that context. richard dawkins, isnt, and so none of this applies. i maintain that it is indeed utter tripe. atheism is to religion as bald is to a hair colour, or non-stamp collecting is to a hobby. apples and oranges. utter tripe.
@Greatkingrat88 they are not objectively wrong. torture is not objectively wrong. right/wrong, justice, good, evil etc are all human constructs. although i do not like torture and do not torture people because i do not want to be tortured, torture is not objectively wrong. morality is purely subjective. just stating this in case, for clarity.
This lecture series of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures was given in 1991. His daughter was born in 1984. Presumably the little girl to which he refers was his own Juliet.
@allan3141 that someone doesnt want children to be brainwashed by a particular religion by having it taught to them as truth in a science classroom, makes them have a double standard? im lost.
I was in the audience for that series - and annoyed I didn't know he'd be there for that episode - I'd been reading HHGTTG and left it at home that day" :(
I was following along in my copy of "Restaurant at the End of the Universe" (the second book in the series of "Hitchhiker's Guide", chapter 17) and discovered he was paraphrasing quite a bit.
Well, whatever the reason, everybody loves the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's my bible... People love the radio show... and the movie...and the tv show... But all of them hold some small part of Douglas Adams that can stay with us forever. Plus, that version of the Universe is way more exciting than whatever religious view has it.
My life would have gone in an altogether, undoubtedly more boring, direction, were it not for the genius of Douglas Adams, whose original radio version of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy made me fall in love with radio and audio, media which I've worked in for over 39 years (I started off volunteering, aged 12, for BBC Radio Sheffield). Listening to this, I wondered if Douglas was imitating Simon Jones' interpretation of Arthur Dent, but, given Douglas was the author who created the tea-drinking, headache-prone, dressing-gowned Earthman, perhaps Simon Jones is an even more exceptionally-gifted actor than I realised. Maybe, one day, wherever he is, Douglas will find some way of returning to the here and now to tell us. Of course, Douglas Adams, even when working on H2G2, was busy as a script writer and editor for Doctor Who, which is 60 years old this coming Saturday, 25th November. Douglas worked extensively with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the audio alchemists who created the incidental music (and, for the TV series, the main theme, based on The Eagles' "Journey of the Sorcerer"), and I can imagine the likes of Delia Derbyshire, Paddy Kingsland, Peter Howell, Dick Mills, Brian Hodgson et al, were just his kind of people. Whilst Doctor Who was all about The Doctor's adventures in space and time, the original BBC Radio 4 series of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy was an adventure in sound. Credit too to Dirk Maggs, whose production of the final few stories (after Douglas had left us) was beautifully respectful of the 1978 series, with direction that could quite have easily been Douglas' own. Listening to them back to back, you'd think they were of the same era, whatever era, that was, because H2G2, aurally, was out of time, out of this world, out-a(er)-space, but sadly without Douglas' deadline-defying pen able to write any more of these unbelievable-but-utterly believable stories, out of time, but for me, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy will always be my bible. Someone else who is no longer with us but who I would equally have loved to have a (very lengthy) conversation with, is the afore-mentioned Delia Derbyshire, whose original arrangement of the Doctor Who theme, back in pre-synth 1963, was an absolute work of genius. Please forgive me the shameless plug, but it was Delia's work that inspired me to produce my own arrangement of the Doctor Who theme, called "Doctor Who Theme 60: Infinity". The title is an intentional nod to H2G2: Infinity is a reference to the Infinite Improbability Drive of Zaphod Beeblebrox's stolen ship The Heart of Gold, as I remembered The Doctor's TARDIS was also stolen, and maybe this served a Douglas Adams' inspiration? Anyway, my tribute to Delia, Douglas the The Doctor is now available from all major online music retailers and streaming services and took almost a year to produce, because I was so worried in case the fans weren't keen! Unfortunately, my voiceover business is unlikely to survive until the end of this year as Artificial Intelligence (via AI voices) has brought the voiceover industry (and vast other swathes of the creative industry) to its knees, and as much of a technology enthusiast Douglas Adams was, he also had a great deal of time for people and I'm sure he would not have approved of the onward, unregulated march of AI and its destruction of so many thousands (and potentially millions) of livelihoods. Releasing this track and charging for it, is not a big money-making exercise for me, as, after losing 85% of my clients over the past 18 months (60% thanks to post-Brexit EU rule changes, 25% and counting to AI voices), I can't even afford the $70 required to get a RUclips promoter to find me 1,000 new subscribers to my RUclips channel in the hope that they'll, in-turn, buy my track. It's more of a fundraising effort so I can afford to eat, catch up with rent and bill payments (and not lose my home before Christmas) and so I can afford the train fare to Sheffield to see my family (it is a very important journey which I absolutely have to make, and I will be devastated if I cannot get there in-time). So please, I hope you can lend me your support - even if you can't afford to buy a copy of my Doctor Who theme, maybe you could let as many people as you can know about, and hopefully they will. To hear a sample of my track, and to hear (and see) more of the work I do through my business, Danmade Content, Voice and Music, please subscribe to @DanmadeTV here on RUclips, or visit www.danmade.studio to find out more. I realise this has been a very long read, so if you've got this far, thank you very much for your time, and apologies once again for the interruption. Dan Akers
Douglas's Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy was full of all sorts of fun and engaging themes and conversations, which made it interesting and fun even for an evil, no good, backwards Christian like myself.
Dr. Dawkins, you knew Douglas Adams before this lecture, yes? It wasn't really an amazing coincidence that Douglas Adams happened to be present to read this passage? It's not a criticism, just curiosity.
@tayloreh agreed, it was after adams death when I noticed how universally awesome the guide is, --considering i'm 17 that's perfectly normal-- but still.. what could he produce, who knows? p.s: hit song?
Beef with White Wine ? Love the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, felt robbed that Douglas didn't write more books. . . fortunately we had Terry Pratchett.
@allan3141 "this in the Science Classroom?" no. thats not science. but that was also not an assertion. that faith goes no way towards distinguishing false religions from true ones is demonstrable. maybe one day when supernatural claims are falsifiable, the uselessness of faith can be empirically shown. "If you say so, no but seriously!" give me any one example of the scientific method being successfully applied to the supernatural i.e. that which transcends the natural.
Adams was making these statements; There is no question. + The pile of things we don't understand is much bigger than the pile of things we do understand.
@dfpolis I believe you are quite right. Ecosystems are linked and the progress of one system can be dependant on another. In fact I agree that, instead of belittling the little girl, Dawkins should have appreciated the fact that, whilst the function of the flower is to survive and re produce, as with the bee, she was not wrong to suggest that an evolutionary dependancy that flower and bees have on each other is part of their mutual success and continued existence of their respective species.
@tommbarton24 The key word here is evolved-not primitive forms from millions of years ago who existed at the beginning of the process of evolution. Evolution means change not stasis right?
@WSWarthog It means that they co-evolved and are interdependent. The whole ecosystem is interdependent, directly or indirectly. We are one of the organisms using honey as an energy source. What do you think being for the sake of means? A being for the sake of B means that B benefits from A. So, what, precisely is the problem you see? I am not saying the little girl is a systems ecologist, only that the relation she saw is real.
Dawkins didn't even say why he had to tell the girl she was wrong from his first anecdote...Maybe you cut the clip off before he did so, but then there's no point in showing it anyway. You could have cut Dawkins out completely and called it, "Douglas Adams Reading an Excerpt From His Book".
I can remember how it goes basically: "Meanwhile the poor Bablefish is such an improbable creature that it is often seen as one of the most compelling arguments for the non-existence of God. The argument goes like this: God says, "I refuse to provide proof of my existence because proof denies faith". And Man says "But the Bablefish is a dead giveaway". "Oh", says God, "I hadn't thought of that" and promptly disappears in a puff of logic. Not sure who he's making fun of...
@makemarker I never quite noticed how i came to be an atheist. It was sort of a gradual process. But now that i think about it, reading the hitchhiker's guide might have had something to do with it since i read it at about that time. It at least showed me that it was ok to make jokes about gods and not take everything so seriousely. I guess that was quite liberating and cleared the way for more critical thinking.
Me before watching this video: "I wonder why Richard Dawkins is so hated even among his peers" After the first 35 seconds of watching this video: "Ah, that's why"
It doesn't matter if it is a countable noun or not. you may not use the term "3 natural selections" but may or may not say we have 3 instances or cases of natural selection. natural selection is a process, and you can have any number of processes you like. just like a decision you can make as many of them as you want and oh look there happens to be an "a" BEFORE decision. just like there would be if I was going to make a selection before dinner.
are you calling the Guide boring? who are you? well, i can't force you to like the Guide, but give me a hint here. How can you not like it? it's litterally my bible. (litterally because the version i have looks leather bound and has golden pages just like some golden bible) Also, when the author ties in their beliefs to a fictional story, it makes it all the more interesting. Loads of authors do this, Adams is not the first. Tolkein, Rowling, Pullman, Lewis, Stewart, Colbert, Cabot, Paolini...
This guy knows where his towel is.
Pul5ar
You sass that hoopy, Douglas Adams?
+Pul5ar LULULULululULululUluLululL
+Pul5ar - yes- Its being draped around the head of a muslim women.
Technically this is from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. TO see Mr. Adams actually reading this fantastic passage...this audience doesn't know how lucky they were.
Dawkins and Adams; what could be better than that? Warms my heart and saddens it at the same time.
To anyone who does not know, this is from the 4th episode of Richard Dawkins - "Growing Up in the Universe" lectures, 1991.
You can watch the full episode from his (Dawkins') offical channel.
Thanks!
I grew up on the Hitchhiker's books and I still have my set, autographed by Douglas Adams when he came by my University to promote "Mostly Harmless." We miss his genius!
Actually, it's not from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
The (five-part) trilogy is also called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Royal Institution Christmas Lecture 1991, Growing Up in the Universe. How brilliant that all, nearly 5 hours, of it are available on here. I love the fact that Douglas attended.
Wow, it sure was lucky that Douglas Adams just happened to be in the audience!
I love this guy.
Two legends
I wish he was still with us. Two awesome individuals there.
Exactly
What a line!
"I'll just go off and shoot myself."
Douglas Adams is brilliant!
The fact that Douglas Adams just HAPPENED to be in the audience, really proves that there is "a purpose" behind everything in the universe. My christian beliefs become all the more stronger because of it. Especially when im out in the woods murdering a defenseless animal with my bare hands..
I'm Roman Catholic. But I'm pretty sure Richard and Douglas planned that.
Michael Lamere you poor child
This is one of my favorite passages from my favorite work of fiction. It's lovely to be able to hear Douglas Adams read it, thanks for posting this video.
I was gob smacked when Douglas Adams stood up. He's my all time favourite comedy writer. Hard to imagine anyone thinking he's boring. I've read all of his books, most of them more than once.
The bit about the Bablefish being so improbable that it was considered as final proof of God's non-existence. Such a logical U turn at the end of the explanation. Haha. Maybe I can find it somewhere.
How GREAT is that! Douglas Adams just "happens" to be there! :D
They were very good friends.
Of course animals are meant to be food! And they run away from us if we hunt them because they want us to have the satisfaction of hunting something!
Duh, right?
Also, this is sarcasm.
Apparently, it's hard to tell on the internet.
Poe's Law rears its ugly head once more.
If God didn't want us to hunt animals for pleasure, He wouldn't have provided us with cheap landmines.
They run away from us because they can see we need the exercise.
I won't get into the theological debate and just say how wonderful it is to see the late great Douglas Adams reading from HG2G! Thank you much for this!
Awesome! I love Douglas Adams.
Richard Dawkins with Douglas Adams: two of my favorite authors.
And two best friends.
i love how douglas' voice for Arthur sounds like martin freeman
safeleoluv pleas do not get offended I'm only trying to help you but it's Morgan
Frans Snyman No? He means Martin Freeman, who is a different person. 😑
Aww, did anyone else notice the kid behind Douglas who thought RD was calling him on the stage and half got up?
So long and thanks for all the laughs
in the BBC series the dish of the day was played by Peter Davison, who was at that time both Sandra Dickinson's (Trillian) husband and the newly announced fifth Doctor.
Just 2 great men I admire too much.
He was a brilliant man
wow! what good fortune to stumble upon this video!
dawkins and adams are geniuses (imo) and advocates for reason over superstition.
i never heard adams before and i loved his reading of his own words.
what a shame he died so young. the world needs his humor and insight.. like carlin, sagan and a few others who worked to push the world (kicking and screaming) out of the dark ages.
01:42 A very awkward moment for the boy in red.
Two of my personal heroes.
Thank you to Douglas Adams!!! I have read, and re-read, his books so many times I can quote passages from memory. I hope I get to meet him on the other side.
peterpotpie Me too! Which is your favourite?
Very nice. A great series, thanks.
two totally bad ass mofos in the same room together...my happiness is maximized
Please go and watch all the episodes. They're really fun and informative. Just type "Richard Dawkins Christmas Lectures", and you'll see the playlist.
I will ALWAYS hear that in Peter Davidson's voice. He hadn't even be Doctor Who yet, and Doctor Who still had Douglas' writing fingerprints all over it.
i would have liked to have heard the rest of this lecture
@allan3141 is that your stock comment for when you cant be bothered/arent able to address the actual comment at hand?
i have appraised that material. michael ruse is at the centre of the evolution/intelligent design debate. his works are all within that context. richard dawkins, isnt, and so none of this applies.
i maintain that it is indeed utter tripe. atheism is to religion as bald is to a hair colour, or non-stamp collecting is to a hobby. apples and oranges. utter tripe.
Dammit, where is the "love" button. A "thumbs up" will just not do in this case!
What a great post. Two of my heroes doing what they do best... Entertaining and informing.
@Greatkingrat88 they are not objectively wrong. torture is not objectively wrong. right/wrong, justice, good, evil etc are all human constructs.
although i do not like torture and do not torture people because i do not want to be tortured, torture is not objectively wrong. morality is purely subjective.
just stating this in case, for clarity.
Great! I wasn't sure what the translation was in Korean, but now I know.
This lecture series of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures was given in 1991. His daughter was born in 1984. Presumably the little girl to which he refers was his own Juliet.
Love this! Thanks mate.
Great book and Adams! :)
Douglas Adams, So long and thanks for all the Babel Fish.
@allan3141 that someone doesnt want children to be brainwashed by a particular religion by having it taught to them as truth in a science classroom, makes them have a double standard? im lost.
@Bumblybee256 I'm pretty sure these subtitles are Korean. They have those little round shapes everywhere.
I hope the members of that audience knew just how very lucky they were. What I would have given!!
I was in the audience for that series - and annoyed I didn't know he'd be there for that episode - I'd been reading HHGTTG and left it at home that day" :(
@roac7777 That's a big claim. Could you explain your assertion?
I was following along in my copy of "Restaurant at the End of the Universe" (the second book in the series of "Hitchhiker's Guide", chapter 17) and discovered he was paraphrasing quite a bit.
Man this guy was amazing.
great clip where did you find it?
I love and miss this man
Well, whatever the reason, everybody loves the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's my bible...
People love the radio show... and the movie...and the tv show...
But all of them hold some small part of Douglas Adams that can stay with us forever.
Plus, that version of the Universe is way more exciting than whatever religious view has it.
Is Douglas Adams doing a bit of an impression of the actors from the original radio series?
wow that's the first ive ever heard from a douglas adams book and i know already he must b a comedy genius
My life would have gone in an altogether, undoubtedly more boring, direction, were it not for the genius of Douglas Adams, whose original radio version of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy made me fall in love with radio and audio, media which I've worked in for over 39 years (I started off volunteering, aged 12, for BBC Radio Sheffield).
Listening to this, I wondered if Douglas was imitating Simon Jones' interpretation of Arthur Dent, but, given Douglas was the author who created the tea-drinking, headache-prone, dressing-gowned Earthman, perhaps Simon Jones is an even more exceptionally-gifted actor than I realised.
Maybe, one day, wherever he is, Douglas will find some way of returning to the here and now to tell us.
Of course, Douglas Adams, even when working on H2G2, was busy as a script writer and editor for Doctor Who, which is 60 years old this coming Saturday, 25th November. Douglas worked extensively with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the audio alchemists who created the incidental music (and, for the TV series, the main theme, based on The Eagles' "Journey of the Sorcerer"), and I can imagine the likes of Delia Derbyshire, Paddy Kingsland, Peter Howell, Dick Mills, Brian Hodgson et al, were just his kind of people.
Whilst Doctor Who was all about The Doctor's adventures in space and time, the original BBC Radio 4 series of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy was an adventure in sound.
Credit too to Dirk Maggs, whose production of the final few stories (after Douglas had left us) was beautifully respectful of the 1978 series, with direction that could quite have easily been Douglas' own. Listening to them back to back, you'd think they were of the same era, whatever era, that was, because H2G2, aurally, was out of time, out of this world, out-a(er)-space, but sadly without Douglas' deadline-defying pen able to write any more of these unbelievable-but-utterly believable stories, out of time, but for me, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy will always be my bible.
Someone else who is no longer with us but who I would equally have loved to have a (very lengthy) conversation with, is the afore-mentioned Delia Derbyshire, whose original arrangement of the Doctor Who theme, back in pre-synth 1963, was an absolute work of genius. Please forgive me the shameless plug, but it was Delia's work that inspired me to produce my own arrangement of the Doctor Who theme, called "Doctor Who Theme 60: Infinity". The title is an intentional nod to H2G2: Infinity is a reference to the Infinite Improbability Drive of Zaphod Beeblebrox's stolen ship The Heart of Gold, as I remembered The Doctor's TARDIS was also stolen, and maybe this served a Douglas Adams' inspiration?
Anyway, my tribute to Delia, Douglas the The Doctor is now available from all major online music retailers and streaming services and took almost a year to produce, because I was so worried in case the fans weren't keen! Unfortunately, my voiceover business is unlikely to survive until the end of this year as Artificial Intelligence (via AI voices) has brought the voiceover industry (and vast other swathes of the creative industry) to its knees, and as much of a technology enthusiast Douglas Adams was, he also had a great deal of time for people and I'm sure he would not have approved of the onward, unregulated march of AI and its destruction of so many thousands (and potentially millions) of livelihoods.
Releasing this track and charging for it, is not a big money-making exercise for me, as, after losing 85% of my clients over the past 18 months (60% thanks to post-Brexit EU rule changes, 25% and counting to AI voices), I can't even afford the $70 required to get a RUclips promoter to find me 1,000 new subscribers to my RUclips channel in the hope that they'll, in-turn, buy my track. It's more of a fundraising effort so I can afford to eat, catch up with rent and bill payments (and not lose my home before Christmas) and so I can afford the train fare to Sheffield to see my family (it is a very important journey which I absolutely have to make, and I will be devastated if I cannot get there in-time).
So please, I hope you can lend me your support - even if you can't afford to buy a copy of my Doctor Who theme, maybe you could let as many people as you can know about, and hopefully they will.
To hear a sample of my track, and to hear (and see) more of the work I do through my business, Danmade Content, Voice and Music, please subscribe to @DanmadeTV here on RUclips, or visit www.danmade.studio to find out more.
I realise this has been a very long read, so if you've got this far, thank you very much for your time, and apologies once again for the interruption.
Dan Akers
Thats a great video!
Wait a minute, wait a minute, now just wait...THE Richard Dawkins..AND THE Douglas Adams? Sw33t.
Douglas Adams was such a terrible loss to humanity. I miss him so much.
Douglas's Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy was full of all sorts of fun and engaging themes and conversations, which made it interesting and fun even for an evil, no good, backwards Christian like myself.
Two very great people =)
How can anyone dislike this?
But the radio show was the original starting point for the entire series.
I can't believe how many people get that bit wrong!
Dr. Dawkins, you knew Douglas Adams before this lecture, yes? It wasn't really an amazing coincidence that Douglas Adams happened to be present to read this passage? It's not a criticism, just curiosity.
@tayloreh agreed, it was after adams death when I noticed how universally awesome the guide is, --considering i'm 17 that's perfectly normal-- but still.. what could he produce, who knows?
p.s: hit song?
Beef with White Wine ? Love the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, felt robbed that Douglas didn't write more books. . . fortunately we had Terry Pratchett.
Amazing!
They were good friends. IIRC Dawkins' current wife was a friend of Adams and they for the first time at a party arranged by Adams
The original radio show was by far the best.
he actually mentions him in the Dedication as well
@allan3141 "this in the Science Classroom?"
no. thats not science. but that was also not an assertion. that faith goes no way towards distinguishing false religions from true ones is demonstrable. maybe one day when supernatural claims are falsifiable, the uselessness of faith can be empirically shown.
"If you say so, no but seriously!"
give me any one example of the scientific method being successfully applied to the supernatural i.e. that which transcends the natural.
Adams was making these statements;
There is no question. +
The pile of things we don't understand is much bigger than the pile of things we do understand.
I recognize that quote - who's was it?
Haha "what an amazing coincidence" exactly in the spirit of Douglas Adams.
Definitely, they will have some special place there.
@dfpolis I believe you are quite right. Ecosystems are linked and the progress of one system can be dependant on another. In fact I agree that, instead of belittling the little girl, Dawkins should have appreciated the fact that, whilst the function of the flower is to survive and re produce, as with the bee, she was not wrong to suggest that an evolutionary dependancy that flower and bees have on each other is part of their mutual success and continued existence of their respective species.
As Dawkins put it: "My first and only convert." We miss you, Doug. :_(
Can anyone tell me what this is taken from please?
Thanks :)
RIP Douglas Adams
both are very valuable people two world.. shame one of them is dead.
Absolutely genius
Comedy and Philosophical ethics~
Rest in Peace.
Cheers!
Douglas Adams, what an amazing coincidence!
Fucking lol at that, Dawkins is such a ledge :P.
@tommbarton24 The key word here is evolved-not primitive forms from millions of years ago who existed at the beginning of the process of evolution. Evolution means change not stasis right?
@WSWarthog It means that they co-evolved and are interdependent. The whole ecosystem is interdependent, directly or indirectly. We are one of the organisms using honey as an energy source. What do you think being for the sake of means? A being for the sake of B means that B benefits from A. So, what, precisely is the problem you see? I am not saying the little girl is a systems ecologist, only that the relation she saw is real.
@roac7777 that "Nothing in the Bible was meant to be taken literally." ??
oh good - CUT SHORT BEFORE THE POINT WAS MADE!
Dawkins didn't even say why he had to tell the girl she was wrong from his first anecdote...Maybe you cut the clip off before he did so, but then there's no point in showing it anyway. You could have cut Dawkins out completely and called it, "Douglas Adams Reading an Excerpt From His Book".
@Greatkingrat88 If God did not create the universe, from whence did it spring?
That's a guy that knows where his towel is...
I can remember how it goes basically:
"Meanwhile the poor Bablefish is such an improbable creature that it is often seen as one of the most compelling arguments for the non-existence of God.
The argument goes like this:
God says, "I refuse to provide proof of my existence because proof denies faith". And Man says "But the Bablefish is a dead giveaway". "Oh", says God, "I hadn't thought of that" and promptly disappears in a puff of logic.
Not sure who he's making fun of...
@makemarker I never quite noticed how i came to be an atheist. It was sort of a gradual process. But now that i think about it, reading the hitchhiker's guide might have had something to do with it since i read it at about that time. It at least showed me that it was ok to make jokes about gods and not take everything so seriousely. I guess that was quite liberating and cleared the way for more critical thinking.
Me before watching this video: "I wonder why Richard Dawkins is so hated even among his peers"
After the first 35 seconds of watching this video: "Ah, that's why"
@JezusSlave BTW, what language do you speak? It´s not english.
and why not?
Hahaha... Fair play tye, Mr. Adams!!!
It doesn't matter if it is a countable noun or not. you may not use the term "3 natural selections" but may or may not say we have 3 instances or cases of natural selection. natural selection is a process, and you can have any number of processes you like. just like a decision you can make as many of them as you want and oh look there happens to be an "a" BEFORE decision. just like there would be if I was going to make a selection before dinner.
are you calling the Guide boring? who are you? well, i can't force you to like the Guide, but give me a hint here. How can you not like it? it's litterally my bible. (litterally because the version i have looks leather bound and has golden pages just like some golden bible) Also, when the author ties in their beliefs to a fictional story, it makes it all the more interesting. Loads of authors do this, Adams is not the first. Tolkein, Rowling, Pullman, Lewis, Stewart, Colbert, Cabot, Paolini...