Nino Ricci The Origin of Species

multiple sclerosis immigration and
Darwin are just a few of the lofty ideas
covered in the origin of species hi I’m
Rebecca Brayton and welcome to
watchmojo.com and today we’re speaking
with author nina ricci about his latest
book your latest book shares its name
with a piece by Darwin do you want to
explain to us you’re the Origin of
Species the main story involves the
protagonist Alex’s relationship with a
woman he meets at the outset who has
multiple sclerosis and hanging off of
that there are a lot of sub stories and
subplots including a trip that he took
to the Galapagos a few years before the
story opens that ended up having a very
dramatic effect on him much as Darwin’s
own trip to the Galapagos what made you
make this connection with Darwin the
last book that I wrote was a book based
on the life of Jesus and it seemed to me
the Darwin is really the next big thing
after Jesus he was a guy who really
changed the way that we think about the
world when was the seed for this book
planted in your mind I guess there were
a couple of seeds one was a book that I
read called The Selfish Gene by richard
dawkins he was able to look at things
like altruism as something that did not
contradict theories of evolution that
that essentially even altruism had a
kind of selfish origin the other source
was a woman I met who was suffering from
MS she was a very close friend who also
got me thinking about some of the deeper
questions the question of what does it
mean to be a useful member of society
and evolutionarily speaking they are not
the fittest organisms and yet seen from
another perspective they
often provide a kind of value and joy
that is really the essence of what we
consider important in life thank you
very much you’re very welcome