Robert Newman

Robert Newman’s New Theory of Evolution

Saturday 4th May, 2013

7:00 pm

£ 7

Y Plas – Main Hall

All ages

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Robert Newman’s New Theory of Evolution

Archived show

This show is from a previous year's festival

Or – The Survival of The Weakest

The show explores the 150-year controversy in evolutionary theory between cooperation and competition.

There is as much cooperation in nature as competition. At least, that’s what Darwin thought. But from Herbert Spencer’s survival of the fittest to Richard Dawkins’ Selfish Gene, the theory of evolution by natural selection has been hijacked by a reductive, individualistic ideology which has left people with a narrow, pessimistic view of human nature.

Rob tells the story of the 150-year battle between competing views of natural selection. It is a story that takes us all the way from Prince Kropotkin’s daring escape from a Tsarist prison, to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show at the 1893 Chicago Expo. From the self-sacrificing amoeba, Dictyostelium discoideum, to the banking crash; and from capuchin monkeys endowed with an inalienable sense of justice, to the tragic suicide of brilliant evolutionary theorist and Manhattan Project scientist George Price in a Camden Town squat in 1974.

Selection favours the weak and weird, Rob argues, every bit as much as the strong and the well adapted. The double helix of Selfish Gene theory and Social Darwinism may have pitched us on a downward spiral, but recent advances in evolutionary biology, epigenetics and brain imaging, present a more complex, generous idea of human behavior, one which is returning Darwinism back to Darwin.

This show will be an hour and twenty minutes long.

This show is for over 14’s only and under 16’s will need to be accompanied by an adult.

Additional booking fees are not being charged by the festival this year, but are being incorporated into the overall advertised ticket price. Please see the website for further information.

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Friday 2 May - Sunday 4 May 2025

Machynlleth Comedy Festival

Robert Newman

Robert Newman’s New Theory of Evolution

Archived show

Recently added

Before & after

Robert Newman

Robert Newman’s New Theory of Evolution

Archived show

Recently added

Before & after

Rob Newman

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