Sunday, February 1

The Genius Of Evolution

It's a tough fight between Darwin and Shakespeare to top my list of the most important Brits in history. Given it has been 150 years since the former published his 'The Origin Of Species' and the BBC have dedicated a season to him, I'll allow Darwin the top spot for the time being.


Just now, David Attenborough presented an incredible programme, highlighting the scientist's discoveries, with a beautiful and simplified animated section (towards the end) illustrating the evolution of life from the simplest organisms in the oceans to the rise of the insects, mammals and other complex plants and animals on land. As if they read my mind, the very clip has been made available online. If you only watch one thing I recommend, it's this. Actually I suggest watching it here in all its HD (and larger size) glory.



Beautiful, hey?

The Open University are even giving away free wall posters documenting the Tree Of Life. Yes, free! Just type your postcode in and you're away.


The next programme 'Darwin's Struggle' is on tomorrow (Monday) BBC4 at 9PM.

(Hit the blog title to go straight to the main BBC Darwin website.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Absolute beautiful Philip I agree and a wonderful explanation as to how we got here today, but there are still lots of gaps in the theory and many assumptions as to how life evolved. We watched a programme last night on the Crusades. It was totally shocking to realise the blood that was so brutally shed in the name of religion in just that one event. It makes you think.

phil-san said...

Makes me shudder.