Evolution (TV series)

Evolution is a 2001 documentary series by the American broadcaster Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and WGBH on evolutionary biology, from the producers of NOVA.

Not to be confused with Evolution (2001 film).
Series logo

Overview

The spokespeople for the series were Jane Goodall (overall spokesperson), Kenneth R. Miller and Stephen Jay Gould (science spokespeople), Eugenie C. Scott (education spokesperson), Arthur Peacocke and Arnold Thomas (religious spokespeople). The series was narrated by the Irish actor Liam Neeson.

The series was accompanied by a book by the popular science writer Carl Zimmer Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea.[1] An extensive website provides teaching resources for each episode's material, including "The Mating Game", further looks at Charles Darwin, and an interactive history of speciation in the invented "pollencreeper" birds.

The episode "What about God?" features discussion of the issues of evolution and creationism at Wheaton College, an Evangelical Protestant college that teaches evolution but has in the past restricted professors from taking a stance on the literal versus the allegorical interpretations of Adam and Eve in the Genesis account of creation.

Cast
ActorCharacter
Roger BrierleyCharles Lyell
Anthony CarrickSamuel Wilberforce
Jane CunliffeEmma Darwin
Manon EamesJessie Brodie
Will FawcettJohn Gould
Cornelius GarrettGentleman #2
Andrew HeathGentleman #1
Andy HendersonThomas Huxley
Chris LarkinCharles Darwin
Joshua LoseyGamekeeper
Eleanor OgbourneAnnie Darwin
John QuentinOxford Don
Matthew RadfordRichard Owen
Ian ShawRobert FitzRoy
Mark TandyErasmus Alvey Darwin
Tobias VaughanWilliam Erasmus Darwin
John WaltersJames Manby Gully

Guest appearances

Episodes
  • "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" (two hours)
  • "Great Transformations" (one hour)
  • "Extinction!" (one hour)
  • "The Evolutionary Arms Race" (one hour)
  • "Why Sex?" (one hour)
  • "The Mind's Big Bang" (one hour - covering the topics of how the human mind was born, art, language and memes in general)
  • "What About God?" (one hour)

Reception

TV critic Julie Salamon, writing in The New York Times, said that "[a] powerful sense of drama, discovery and intellectual enthusiasm runs through this rich eight-hour series ... The series covers an enormous amount of ground but doesn't leave you feeling swamped."[2]

Being made and broadcast in the country where creation–evolution controversy is strongest, the last episode What About God? focused on religion, and "through personal stories of students and teachers, it offers the view that they are compatible". Phina Borgeson, Faith Network Director of the National Center for Science Education, provided a Congregational Study Guide for Evolution.[3] Conversely, the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture produced a website to refute the documentary and started a petition it called A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism to show that there were "scientists that dispute the claims".[4]

References
  1. Zimmer, Carl (2001). Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-019906-7.
  2. A Stark Explanation for Mankind From an Unlikely Rebel
  3. Congregational Study Guide for Evolution from the National Center for Science Education
  4. A Critique of PBS's Evolution, Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture
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