Victoria University Of Wellington - Podcast

A series about the ideas that have shaped the world we live in, created in association with Victoria University of Wellington's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and RNZ. In 1859 Darwin published his monograph On the Origin of the Species by Natural Selection. That book articulated in great detail the very simple idea that species were not the product of intentional design but evolved as a consequence of scarce resources, variation in the species, and heritability of traits. Darwin’s arguments fundamentally changed the way we thought about the natural world, and the idea remains controversial to this day. In this episode we explain natural selection, look at how it has been applied to a wide range of different domains, and discuss the reception of the idea over the last 150 years. Featuring Dr Rebecca Priestley, Associate Professor Joe Zuccarello, Professor Joe Bulbulia. Hosted by RNZ's Megan Whelan.