I must admit that I’ve not always been a fan of Richard Dawkins. His views on the nature and perfidious influence of religion I cannot fault, and I share the celebrity biologist’s naturalistic world view. But in the past I found Dawkins to be a shrill advocate for atheism and scientific rationality. The messenger’s style rather than the message itself was the problem for me.

But there seems over the past couple of years to have been a change in Dawkins’ style. The trenchancy remains, but no longer does Dawkins fly off the handle or lose the plot when dealing with the more fuckwitted of our human species. I stand in awe of Dawkins’ self-control, and applaud his good humour in the face of what might make a lesser person lose the will to live.

Yesterday saw the broadcast on Channel 4 of the final episode of Dawkins’ three-part documentary series on evolution: The Genius of Charles Darwin. And quite brilliant it was too. This physicist agrees with Dawkins that the greatest scientist of all time was a biologist.

If you haven’t seen the programmes, and they come out on DVD, you know what to do. Maybe somebody will post the whole thing online as YouTube clips.

Actually, it looks as if someone has already started: