Link to The genius of Charles darwin (episode 1) documentary
Documentary Description
n the first part of the series, Richard Dawkins retraces Darwin's
journey as a scientist. He re-examines the rich evidence of the natural
world – iguanas on the Galapagos islands, giant fossilised sloths in
the Americas and even pigeons back home in England – which opened
Darwin's eyes to the extraordinary truth that all living things must be
related and had evolved from a common ancestor.
Darwin
knew his espousal of evolution would cause outrage, challenging, as it
did, the prevailing religious view of the world and our place in it.
But, as Dawkins explains, it was really his theory of natural selection
that undermined the notion of a benevolent God who designed all
creatures great and small. Returning to his own birthplace, Kenya,
Dawkins considers the brutal realities of the struggle for existence
for wild animals on the plains of Africa. Here, he argues, we see the
ongoing process sex, suffering and death, that drives evolution onward
as the fittest survive to reproduce and the weakest perish without
offspring.
And humans are not immune to the nightmarish
Darwinian process. Dawkins travels to the slums of Nairobi where
hundreds die of AIDs each year. Here he meets prostitutes who seem to
have acquired a genetic immunity to the HIV virus. This resistance, it
seems, can be inherited and so, over time, will become more prevalent,
shaping the community here. "This," Dawkins tells us, "is the
unstoppable force of natural selection".
Finally Dawkins visits a state of the art laboratory in America where
scientists can now compare the genetic code of all living things,
finally vindicating Darwin's theories once and for all. "He showed us
that the world is beautiful and inspiring without a God. He revealed to
us the glory of life and revealed who we really are and where we've
come from".
But back in Britain can Dawkins convince a year 11 science class that
evolution is the truth? Fearing that "a few hours in the science lab is
no substitute for a lifetime of religious indoctrination" he takes the
teenagers to Dorset's Jurassic Coast to examine fossil evidence for themselves. But will this win over this sceptical audience?
