DVD PBS Evolution: Darwin's Dangerous Idea (2001)

PBS Evolution: Darwin's Dangerous Idea (2001)

For 21 years, Charles Darwin kept his theory of evolution secret from all but a few friends. He confided to one: "It is like confessing to a murder." His torment resonates in society today - in the challenge his incredibly powerful idea poses to our understanding of our world and ourselves. Darwin's Dangerous Idea interweaves the drama in key moments of Darwin's life with documentary sequences of current research, linking past to present and introducing major concepts of evolutionary theory. It explores why Darwin's "dangerous idea" might matter even more today than it did in his own time, and reveals how science might be used to explain the past and predict the future of life on Earth.

Peter's DVD rating: 3.0 stars

This 2-hour episode is very uneven. The segments on Darwin's life are suspect since the producers decided to fictionalize many important details. For example, a great deal is made of how Darwin was inspired by the Galapagos finches; while he did note the variation in their beak sizes and speculated on a common ancestry in his Voyage of the Beagle, he did not say anything about them in The Origin of Species. Am "eureka" moment finds Darwin talking finches with ornithologist John Gould and exclaiming "... and they're all descended from this one - the common ground finch." As far as I know, there is no bird called "common ground finch", and this moment is as non-existent as the finch.

The biography also shows Darwin handling a pigeon for 10 seconds, and has brief clips showing him musing about dogs and cabbage, but does not say anything about how his study of domesticated organisms led him to begin The Origin of Species with an account of artificial selection. Also too brief are passing references to his study of barnacles, which became a specialty for Darwin. The segments on current research such as HIV, the vertebrate eye, and DNA are strong, but the shortcomings of the biographic segments taint this episode.

1:30	Darwin in South America, 1833	5:15	London, 1836	7:10	Darwin at dinner
11:00	John Gould: Wren, grosbeak, blackbir, are finches, descended from	14:10	Geology (planets, sun) governed by natural laws.	16:00	Darwin's finches ? like Hawfinch, Chaffinch, descended from Common Ground Finch (or Warbler Finch)?
14:40	Tree of life, grandfather Zoonomia	20:20	Tiputini, Ecuador, November 2000: Charis Schneider: rainforest birds	25:30	Leafy Mantis
32:50	Maer Hall, Staffordshire, 1837: artificial selection: breeding dogs	37:35	Cabbage, sprouts, cauliflower - bred from wild mustard.	33:15	Manuscript from Alfred Russell Wallace
46:55	Goethe University, Frankfurt 1997 HIV virus resistence decreases when patient is taken off drugs: treatment interruption	57:40	Sloth fossil	1:04:00	Human eye
1:07:15	Dan Erik Nilsson, Lunds University, Sweden: eye evolution	1:12:15	Barnacle males (crustaceans, not mollusks)	1:31:20	Huxley fisagreement with Richard Owen: Darwin handling pigeon
1:44:25	Chimp and human relationship: DNA	1:52:30	Darwin buried in Westminster Abbey, next to Newton

16:00 Darwin's finches ?

25:30 Leafy Mantis

1:52:30 Darwin


Index	Feb 18, 2006	Peter Chen