Gifford Lecture 1: Genetic Creativity:
Diversity and Complexity
in Natural History

— University of Edinburgh, 1997

"Genetic Creativity: Diversity and Complexity in Natural History." Lecture 1 of the Gifford Lectures, University of Edinburgh, series 1997/1998. Lecture given November 10, 1997. Online at: hdl.handle.net/10217/37813

Central to the contemporary Darwinian view is emerging diversity and complexity. Genes are critical in this historic composition. In physics and chemistry, there is matter and energy, but in biology there is proactive information. Scientists divide over whether such evolution is contingent or directional. Elements of trial and error are incorporated in a searching generative process, analogous to genetic algorithms in computing.

The ten lectures were:

1. Genetic Creativity: Diversity and Complexity in Natural History
2. Genetic Values: Intrinsic, Inclusive, Distributed, Shared
3. Genetic Identity: Conserved and Integrated Values
4. Genes and the Genesis of Human Culture
5. Genes and the Genesis of Science
6. Genes and the Genesis of Ethics
7. Ethics Naturalised and Universalised
8. Genes and the Genesis of Religion
9. Genes and the Prolific Earth
10. Genes, Genesis and God.

Only Lectures 1 and 10 were recorded. Lecture 10 is next entry. Lecture series published as: Genes, Genesis and God: Values and their Origins in Natural and Human History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.