Richard Dawkins due at Ancestor’s Trail 2012

The organisers of the 2012 Ancestor’s Trail event are delighted to have confirmed Richard Dawkins as their keynote speaker. 

The Ancestor’s Trail is a shared walk over the Quantock Hills in Somerset, which takes place this year on the Bank Holiday weekend: 25th – 27th August 2012.

The event was inspired by Richard Dawkins’ book “The Ancestor’s Tale - a pilgrimage to the dawn of life” and rewinds the evolutionary history of our species, and many others, back to our shared origins 3.7 billion years ago. The Ancestor’s Trail traces the same journey on foot, and aligns Darwin’s Tree of Life with the many footpaths straddling the Quantock hills.

Symbolically, as each group follows their trail, they walk further into history until, at pre-specified times, they rendezvous with the walkers following the Human trail. In this way the ever-increasing band of ‘pilgrims’ arrives together at the Dawn of Life ~ Kilve beach, appropriately famous for its fossils.

Along the trail, rendezvous points will be marked by appropriate words of wisdom, music and performance. Many people choose to walk the Human Trail (13.5 miles), but there are  also numerous alternative shorter routes (some less than a mile).

In addition to the eponymous walk, the weekend includes a host of top quality lectures, and other entertainment. Confirmed speakers include, Richard Dawkins, Alom Shah (author of the Young Atheist’s Handbook), Prof. Norman Mclean (Author of Silent Summer) and many more.

For full details of evening event prices, accommodation options (including camping), and a list of speakers, please visit http://ancestorstrail.net/

Richard Green - Atheism - Challenging Religious Faith

Richard Green, a member of HASSNERS and AtheismUK led a discussion on Atheism in an evening meeting of Dorset Humanists on 24th November 2010.

Richard Green's 50 slide presentation is available for download here.

Here are the papers, by Santos et al, “Stern-Judging: A Simple, Successful Norm Which Promotes Cooperation under Indirect Reciprocity”  and by Ohtsuki et al, entitled “How should we define goodness?—reputation dynamics in indirect reciprocity” along similar lines.

Blackmore’s “epiphany” was in the Guardian in September in “Why I no longer believe religion is a virus of the mind”.

A message from Richard Dawkins about Science & Reason

A message from Richard Dawkins, Vice President, British Humanist Association. Dorset Humanists are affiliated to BHA.


Dear friends,
One of the wonderful things about www.richarddawkins.net is the enormous variety amongst its regular contributors. Old, young, in-between, highly educated, less educated, affluent, less affluent, male, female, straight, gay, serious, fun-loving, angry, mild-mannered, confident, timid, open about their atheism, unable to be open about their atheism, previously religious, never religious ... it is this depth and breadth of life experience and personality that keeps comments fresh and lively, and ensures that we all learn more about the world each time we visit the site. 

And yet, for all the contrasts, the vast majority of contributors here are totally united in one key area: a commitment to reason, a sense of awe and excitement at the knowledge that has already been achieved through science, and a passionate desire to see reason and evidence-based thinking at the heart of our societies. We listen to the music of the spheres. We gaze into the Hubble Deep Field and intoxicate ourselves with images of distant galaxies in the act of formation, close to the dawn of time itself. We dive through the tube of a microscope and immerse ourselves in a wonderland of the intricately small. Reality is where we are. It is very large; and also very small, where it matters. It is mysterious; but the mystery is yielding to the methods of reason. Reality is comprehensible. And it is the mission of RDFRS to assist others to that comprehension. Read More

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Richard Dawkins in Bournemouth

Photos: Crabsallover

BHA Vice President Professor Richard Dawkins spoke on 21 September at the joint British Humanist Association (BHA) and Humanist and Secularist Liberal Democrats’ (HSLD) fringe event at the Liberal Democrat annual conference in Bournemouth.

Richard Dawkins read excerpts from his book - 'The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution' then took 20 minutes of questions including one from Dorset Humanist Dennis Banister on the likely origin of life on earth. Life may have originated from a precursor of DNA:- RNA, that had both enzymic and replication properties.

A member of the audience asked Richard Dawkins to sign a petition about child education. Given a choice between children being taught Statistics or Philosophy he preferred they were taught Statistics.

BHA Review