02-Feb-2009, 00:00
Sir David Attenborough contemplates a tangled molecule.
Last night’s Darwin bicentennial special on the BBC by Sir David Attenborough was every bit as good as we all knew it would be. You know where you stand with Sir David: a landmark television event is almost a given. We shouldn’t take such things for granted, but we do.
Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life was wonderful, one-hour documentary in which Sir David brilliantly summarised Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of Natural Selection. But it was also a deeply personal programme, in which Sir David took us to his childhood geological haunts near Leicester, reminisced about learning to categorise fossils at Cambridge University, showed us his own copy of the sixth edition of On the Origin of Species bought second-hand when he was 18 years old, and drew on archive footage from his classic nature series. He even got to sit in Darwin’s study in Down House. As the greatest science communicator since (and possibly including) Darwin, he had every right to be there.
You might argue that Darwin’s great theory is worthy of a 52-week series of documentaries—and you would be right—but the one-hour format worked brilliantly: Sir David explained Darwin’s thinking, and the modern-day evidence that supports it in a single sitting. The viewer was able to see the whole picture, and understand the whole argument, without getting bogged down in details.
But the real reason we didn’t need a 52-week series of documentaries to explain Darwin’s great theory is that we have already had more than 50 years’ worth of wonderful documentary series courtesy of Sir David—every single one of which has celebrated nature’s grandeur as explained by Charles Darwin.
Darwin famously claimed that On the Origin of Species had been one long argument; Sir David Attenborough’s half-century body of work has been one long celebration of Darwin’s wonderful theory. By anyone’s standards, it is a magnificent achievement.
04-Aug-2008, 00:00
As everyone already knows, Dawkins is doing Darwin on Channel 4 this evening. My Sky+ box is set to stun.
Here, to whet your appetities, are some clips of Dawkins being interviewed at the Cheltenham Science Festival in June this year:
(Daw)kins Selection… Geddit?
Suit yourselves.
03-Aug-2008, 00:00
One of my favourite TV presenters in my youth was James Burke. His wonderful series Connections did much to cultivate my interest in the history of science.
This morning, I came across a large collection of James Burke videos on YouTube. I have just spent 45 minutes enjoying episode 8 (Fit to Rule) of his 1985 series The Day the Universe Changed, which was all about the Darwinian Revolution and the subsequent hijacking of Darwinian theory by both Left and Right. The episode has been split into five parts, as follows:
- Part 1: Linnaeus, the Romantic Movement, Buffon, The Great Chain of Being.
- Part 2: Willam Smith, Cuvier, catastrophism, Hutton, gradualism, Lyell.
- Part 3: Wallace, Darwin, archaeopterix, Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria, Wagner, Haekel.
- Part 4: Haekel, Himmler, Hitler, Sumner, Social Darwinism, Marx, Ulyanov (Lenin).
- Part 5: Conclusion: how 1980′s political ideologies in both East and West were inspired by Darwin.
Those were the days: when television treated you like grown-ups and assumed that you still wanted to learn stuff. Come back James Burke!
02-Jun-2008, 00:00
BBC2, 21:00 tomorrow night (3rd June):
The Supersizers Go… Victorian
Restaurant critic Giles Coren and writer and performer Sue Perkins spend the week on the diet of a wealthy Victorian couple. Cooking for them at home is best selling cookery writer Sophie Grigson. As Giles dons top hat and waxed moustache, Sue dresses up in tight corset and outrageously wide skirts.
During the week, they visit the Natural History Museum to try the food of Charles Darwin’s Glutton Club, a tea where they try and raise the spirits of the dead and find out what Oliver Twist and the poor really ate. The week culminates with a traditional Victorian Christmas complete with a giant pie as enjoyed by Queen Victoria herself. Despite joining the Victorian Temperance society Sue has knocked back a huge amount of alcohol during the week. So after seven days of Victorian dining, what’s the doctor’s verdict on Sue’s health?
I have steadfastly avoided this series so far—it looks rubbish—but I suppose I’m going to have to watch it now.
I wonder if they’ll eat a putrid owl (as Darwin did).
01-Jun-2008, 00:00
It’s a repeat, apparently, but I’ve not seen it before…
UK/European digital TV viewers might like to set their recorders for this coming Wednesday, 4th June, at 21:00 BST on the National Geographic Channel:
Earth Investigated: Was Darwin Wrong?
Does evolution really explain how life on Earth began? For decades, critics have attacked Darwin’s theory and supported the case for a designer behind our existence. Could Darwin have been wrong?
(Readers of the National Geographic magazine should already know the answer to that one.)
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