Evolution

This PBS mini-series is first rate. Filmed in locations all over the world, it explains in an engaging way the theory of evolution, which is the cornerstone of understanding biology. The episode about Charles Darwin is the best. It's cool to see a TV show with some of my Victorian-era heroes like Adam Sedgwick and Richard Owen attending a lecture given by the young Darwin who has just brought back amazing mammal fossils from South America to England. Darwin, his family, and Captain Fitzroy are shown as real people, although Fitzroy comes off as almost fanatically religious. I have read that he was not like that in real life, but was a devout man.

The energetic orator Huxley debates Bishop Wilberforce in the famous evolution debate and enjoys his verbal sparring in a great scene.

The last episode in the series, "What About God?" interviews scientists like Dr. Philip Johnson who accept evolution and have actually had their faith in God strengthened when they think of the marvelous way the world and universe have been unfolding and changing over the millions of years.

The final episode also takes you into the homes of some college students at Wheaton College, an American fundamentalist Christian college, and the struggles of its science professors to be able to speak freely about evolution (a science). It really opens your eyes about the oppression that still exists in the good old USA. The show takes you into the wild, wacky and depressing world of Australian fundamentalist mind control a la Ken Ham and his Creationist ministries. This show isn't propaganda for evolution. My own personal experience with mind controllers teaching against evolution in the fundamentalist churches has shown me that the problem is very real and the PBS series' final episode hasn't exaggerated a thing.

This is an excellent series, which explains a lot about evolution and demonstrates how it affects our everyday lives, particularly in reference to AIDS patients and Russian prisoners. The dramatization of Darwin's life and development of his theory provides a fascinating background to the science. My main complaint with series is in the final episode, "What about God?" I have nothing against the existence of the episode, for this is a very important concept, one which many people wrestle with and which affected Darwin profoundly. My main concern is that the creationists appear to have complete control over the episode. A reply may be that the "evolutionists" had complete control over the other episodes; however, evolution is a valid science, whereas creationism is religion presented as science. The creation/evolution controversy is an important topic for discussion, especially in a series on evolution, but they didn't discuss the controversy very much. When the high school students wanted to get some form of creationism taught in their school, they made vague references to evidence against evolution, but that evidence wasn't mentioned. Most likely, the evidence is simply alleged complications that only seem difficult when one doesn't have a good understanding of science. Scientists have probably refuted all of those claims many times over, but this wasn't addressed in the show. Nor was it mentioned that evidence against evolution isn't automatically evidence in favor of creationism. The discussion of how students at a conservative Christian college were attempting to accommodate evolution to their religious beliefs was also very interesting, although not sufficiently developed. Finally, the different forms of creationism also weren't mentioned, with the episode's becoming largely a forum for Ken Ham. Probably, there wasn't enough time, but it would have been interesting to see more of this discussed.