Matt Jones

Growing Up in the Universe

In 1991, Richard Dawkins presented the Royal Institution Christmas lectures for Children, and to help illustrate our tendency to think we are superior to the rest of the species on the planet, he invited a member of the audience to read an excerpt from Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

Growing up in the Universe

The lecture series, titled ‘Growing up the Universe’ has recently been released on DVD. I remember it when it was first broadcast on the BBC, and as a 15 year-old who’d had a vaguely Christian education and thus had many unanswered questions about our origins, it was a wonderfully inspiring and educational piece of television.