Nostalgia Interviews With Chris Deacy

My guest this week is Darren Griffin, Professor of Genetics and Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Reproduction at the University of Kent. Darren works in the field of IVF and the human genome as well as, more recently, the genomic structure of dinosaurs.  He was born in Aldershot and grew up in Leeds and in this very insightful conversation Darren explains why he was an oddball in his family, having gone to university in 1985 and effectively never left. Darren explains why he enjoys undertaking media work as it reaches far more people than is possible through conventional scientific publications, and we talk about the best ways in which to handle media appearances, before moving on to discuss the climate change and science and religion debates, including why Richard Dawkins is in some respects very similar to the fundamentalist Christians that he is castigating.  Darren recalls growing up in the same village as Alan Bennett and, in terms of his earliest memories, he can remember the mo