Richard Dawkins presented and investigated if Darwin was the most revolutionary scientist ever, and examined the evolutionary theories of his contemporaries. Dawkins suggests that there are four "bridges to evolutionary understanding" and illustrates this with four claimants to the evolution of natural selection: Edward Blyth, Patrick Matthew, Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin. The fifth bridge of evolutionary understanding is identified as modern genetics which he terms digital Darwinism.

Professor Richard Dawkins delivered this year's Open University lecture at the Natural History Museum on Tuesday 17th March 2009.