 | Dr Vinton G Cerf
senior vice president of technology strategy at MCI, chair of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, and co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and of the architecture of the internet
The theory of evolution and the origin of species
I would want people to really understand the theory of evolution and the origin of species. The power of cumulative, adaptive change in the genome, over the course of billions of years and changing conditions, is hard for many people to fully appreciate. The works of Richard Dawkins, especially his 2004 book The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life, evoke the magnificence of this mechanism. Once you understand that the genetic system allows for cumulative change, then you can see how other systems may behave similarly. The evolution of law and social systems is similar, for example. See Vinton Cerf's website.
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