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Great Books is an hour-long documentary and biography program that aired on The Learning Channel. The series was a project co-created by Walter Cronkite and television producer Jonathan Ward under a deal they had with their company Cronkite Ward, The Discovery Channel, and The Learning Channel. Premiering on September 8, 1993, to coincide with International Literacy Day, the series took in-depth looks at some of literature's greatest fiction and nonfiction books, along with the authors who created them. Most of the narration was provided by Donald Sutherland.
Episodes feature insights from historians, scholars, novelists, artists, writers, and filmmakers who were directly influenced by the books showcased and discussed.
Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection has provoked acclaim and debate since it was detailed in his Origin of Species in 1859. Explore the book that revolutionized science and culture. The program examines evolutionary theory from its beginnings with Jean Baptiste Lamarck, the famous Scopes Monkey trial, and how political leaders such as Adolf Hitler have twisted Darwinian theory and used it for their own purposes.
Episodes feature insights from historians, scholars, novelists, artists, writers, and filmmakers who were directly influenced by the books showcased and discussed.
Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection has provoked acclaim and debate since it was detailed in his Origin of Species in 1859. Explore the book that revolutionized science and culture. The program examines evolutionary theory from its beginnings with Jean Baptiste Lamarck, the famous Scopes Monkey trial, and how political leaders such as Adolf Hitler have twisted Darwinian theory and used it for their own purposes.
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00:00I
00:35In the beginning, the earth was without form and void,
00:42and darkness was upon the face of the deep,
00:45and the Spirit of God was moving on the face of the waters.
00:50And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.
00:58And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life,
01:04and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of the heaven.
01:11And God created man in his own image.
01:15In the image of God created he him.
01:18Male and female he created them.
01:25Some read Genesis as history.
01:28In the 17th century, an Irish archbishop named James Usher
01:33calculated the date of creation by studying genealogies recorded in the Bible.
01:40God made the world in 4004 BC, he said.
01:49Six thousand years later, naturalists of 19th century England had some questions for God.
01:58Why did God make so many species?
02:02Why should there be thousands of kinds of birds?
02:13And why, for heaven's sakes,
02:16should there be over a million different kinds of bugs?
02:25And why did God bury the bones of unknown animals in ancient rocks?
02:30And why did high hills look like they were once at the bottom of the sea?
02:35It would take far more than 6,000 years
02:39to move a seashell to the top of a mountain.
02:46It took a born naturalist and trained observer,
02:50an Englishman named Charles Darwin,
02:52to hold the world up to the microscope of his mind
02:56and see what everyone else had seen,
03:00but in a way no one else ever had.
03:18It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank
03:22clothed with many plants of many kinds,
03:24with birds singing on the bushes,
03:26with various insects flitting about,
03:28and with worms crawling through the damp earth,
03:31and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms,
03:36so different from each other,
03:38and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner,
03:42have all been produced by laws acting around us.
03:52What Darwin gave us is an explanation,
03:56I go further, the explanation,
03:57for why we exist.
03:59The publication of The Origin of Species by Darwin in 1859
04:03ushered in the greatest intellectual revolution
04:07since the proclamation of Christianity,
04:102,000 years earlier.
04:13Darwin visualized the progress of evolution
04:16as being like a tree, a tree of life.
04:19From the solid trunk of a very limited number
04:22of primitive organisms, over time,
04:25sprouted the stout branches of fish and reptiles
04:29and plants and insects and mammals.
04:31They, in turn, branched out again and again,
04:35until finally, there were roses and radishes,
04:39pigeons and peacocks,
04:41monkeys, apes, and humans.
04:48Darwin's explanation was based on his theory
04:50of natural selection.
04:52In the random shuffle of heredity,
04:55each new individual is born slightly different from others.
05:00Occasionally, an individual will be born
05:02who is stronger, faster,
05:04or better able to cope with the changing world.
05:08That individual will thrive
05:10and pass on the advantage to its offspring.
05:14Generation upon generation,
05:16small changes accumulate
05:18until the new organism no longer breeds
05:21with what its ancestors had been.
05:23A new species has evolved.
05:27Non-random survival over countless generations
05:31leads to a gradual evolutionary change
05:35from small beginnings on our planet like bacteria
05:38over a sufficiently large number
05:41of these non-randomly selected generations.
05:43You end up with things like us,
05:45mammals, birds,
05:48highly complicated, beautifully designed creatures.
05:51There's not a shred of evidence
05:53that will stand the test of time
05:55that denies the biblical account of creation.
05:57That when God created Adam
05:59and then took Eve out of the side of Adam,
06:02they were as complete as we are now.
06:04That there was no evolution, no change.
06:07Darwin's theories moved man
06:08from his long-held position
06:10at the center of creation,
06:12causing a clash that carries over even to today.
06:18Nearly half of all Americans
06:20have said they prefer
06:21the biblical account of creation.
06:26It's like to me saying that this watch,
06:28with all of its intricate parts,
06:32somebody somewhere just threw a lot of metal up in the air
06:34one day and it came down a watch
06:36that tells me exactly what time it is.
06:39It's even more ridiculous than that
06:41because man is by far a more marvelous creation
06:43than this wristwatch.
06:46The argument goes that if there is a watch,
06:49there must have been a watchmaker.
06:51So surely the far more intricate world of living things
06:55must imply a designer.
06:58What Darwin was saying
07:00is that the struggle for survival alone,
07:03given immense spans of time,
07:06can produce the rich and varied world we see today.
07:16Darwin knew his book would get him into trouble
07:19with those who take the Bible literally.
07:21So in hundreds of pages of examples of evolution,
07:26man gets only a single sentence on the last page.
07:31In the future, I see open fields
07:33for far more important researchers.
07:36Much light will be thrown
07:38on the origin of man and his history.
07:41I think people want to believe
07:44they're quite special.
07:46That, you know, somebody, God,
07:47put them there specially
07:48as a quite unique kind of creature
07:51and minds about them differently
07:53from what he minds about other creatures.
07:55And of course,
07:56that's very much not part of Darwin's view.
07:58I mean, we're just another species out of many.
08:01Nothing special about us at all.
08:03It seems to be true
08:04that real opposition to Darwin
08:06developed when people recognised
08:08the full implication
08:09that we are closely related to apes.
08:12This is hard for us to believe today
08:13because we're so obviously related to apes.
08:15I mean, they're so immensely similar to us.
08:17But it nevertheless appears to be historically true
08:20that that was what gave people the most trouble.
08:22There's that wonderful saying
08:24which comes down to us
08:25from the Victorian period
08:26of a bishop's wife
08:27who, when she heard about the idea of evolution,
08:29is supposed to have said,
08:30let us pray that it's not true,
08:33but if it is,
08:34let us hope that it will not become widely known.
08:36And I think that this is a reflection
08:40of a real discomfort
08:41that many people have always had
08:43with the notion
08:44that we are part of
08:45a planetary process of evolutionary change.
08:49Forty-three years after his death,
08:51Darwin was in the headlines all across America.
08:55They called it
08:56the Scopes Monkey Trial.
09:01Dateline Dayton, Tennessee,
09:02July 11th, 1925.
09:05In a moment, the story.
09:06Young John Scopes was charged
09:08with teaching evolution
09:09in his public school classroom.
09:11Perennial presidential candidate
09:13William Jennings Bryan
09:14rose from his sickbed
09:15to rally the prosecution.
09:18Defending Scopes
09:19was the equally famous
09:20Clarence Darrow.
09:22On the day of the trial,
09:24a full house of avid spectators
09:26from all over the nation
09:27filed in to hear the debate.
09:29The issue was no longer
09:30the innocence or guilt of Scopes,
09:32but rather the final death struggle
09:34between two basic human philosophies,
09:36fundamentalism versus modernism.
09:38In the end,
09:39Scopes was found guilty
09:41and fined $100.
09:43The verdict was overturned
09:45on a technicality,
09:46but the law stayed on the books
09:47in Tennessee until 1967.
09:49The Scopes trial
09:51was just as farcical
09:53as some of the trials today
09:55in which teachers are ordered
09:59not to teach the creation model.
10:01A teacher should be allowed
10:02to teach any and all perspectives of truth.
10:06It's been our experience
10:07that when we do that
10:08openly and fairly,
10:10creation wins hands down.
10:12That people would prefer miracles
10:14to a simple natural law
10:16puzzles some researchers
10:18and angers others.
10:19That 47% of the American population
10:23doesn't believe in evolution
10:24is a very frightening statistic.
10:27It's frightening
10:28from an educator's point of view
10:31because it denies
10:32the basic unifying principle
10:34of biology,
10:35which is,
10:36to paraphrase it,
10:38nothing in biology makes sense
10:41except from an evolutionary perspective.
10:46Darwinism has more than its fair share
10:48of scepticism
10:49and it's rather hard to see
10:50why that should be.
10:52Part of the problem is
10:53that it's simply,
10:54people are simply ignorant of it.
10:55I mean,
10:55it's an astonishing thing,
10:56but it's true
10:57of our educational system
10:58that we teach children
11:00just about everything
11:00except this really certain fact
11:04that we now know
11:04which is why we exist.
11:06I believe that there is
11:07no other explanation
11:09for the kind of elegant,
11:12apparently designed complexity
11:13that we call life,
11:15that indeed defines life.
11:17Darwin was careful to suggest
11:19that a creator might have started
11:21the whole process,
11:22breathing life into the first organisms.
11:24But the simple fact is,
11:27God wasn't absolutely necessary
11:30in a Darwinian universe.
11:32Supernatural intervention
11:34was replaced by natural selection.
11:37It was perhaps a more logical world.
11:41It was certainly lonelier.
11:50It was a world in transition.
11:53The Industrial Revolution
11:55was just beginning.
11:57In Britain, it seemed,
11:58all the world was opening
12:00to these engines of change.
12:02It was a time of big ideas.
12:06And big men.
12:07There was Erasmus Darwin,
12:09a prosperous country physician,
12:11a published poet,
12:13a free thinker,
12:14and a champion of the new technology.
12:18His son, Robert,
12:20another man of influence and girth,
12:22followed him into medicine.
12:24And when Robert's second son was born,
12:26February 12th, 1809,
12:28it was assumed he would be part
12:30of a third generation
12:31of country physicians.
12:34But Charles Robert Darwin
12:36was happier in the woods
12:38than the classroom.
12:39He preferred to be outdoors,
12:41hunting, bird watching,
12:44collecting, exploring.
12:46Charles was in and out of country houses
12:49and barnyards,
12:51and he saw how people selected
12:53the best cattle and the best pigs
12:56and the best horses
12:57and bred from them
12:58to improve the quality of the stock.
13:01Later on, Charles would call this
13:02artificial selection.
13:04His own mother kept fancy pigeons
13:06so Charles could see right at home
13:08that from a common rock pigeon,
13:10the kind you find in Trafalgar Square
13:12in England,
13:12you'd get all kinds
13:13of extraordinary breeds,
13:15Jacobins and Powters
13:16and Nuns and the like.
13:19He abandoned his medical studies
13:21and wound up at Cambridge University
13:24where he was to study
13:25for the ministry.
13:27And that's when it first occurred to him
13:30that he could make his name
13:31in natural science.
13:32He could make better beetle collections
13:34than any of the beetle collectors.
13:35He came here to the River Cam
13:37and scouted along the banks
13:39and looked at the trees
13:40and pulled beetles out of the bark.
13:42He bested a lot of them.
13:44Knowing full well
13:46that he was more interested
13:47in collecting bugs
13:48and saving souls,
13:50two of his professors recommended him
13:52for a voyage around the world.
13:54The refitted 90-foot warship
13:56named Beagle
13:57was to map the South American coast.
14:01It was the turning point
14:02in Darwin's life.
14:06Intended to last two years,
14:07it was five years
14:09before the Beagle return.
14:11Five years of collecting,
14:13observing,
14:14exploring,
14:15and writing.
14:16The most important stop for Darwin
14:19was the Galapagos Islands.
14:21This relatively young,
14:23isolated archipelago
14:25600 miles off the coast of Ecuador
14:27was a naturalist dream,
14:28a laboratory of evolution.
14:31In a feverishly busy five weeks,
14:33he followed seagoing iguanas
14:34and tracked tortoises
14:36that seemed to vary
14:36from island to island.
14:38He collected 13 different types of birds
14:40that all turned out to be finches
14:42and three species of mockingbirds.
14:44The animals must have come
14:46to the islands from South America
14:47in the distant past.
14:49But these creatures
14:50varied remarkably
14:51from their mainland ancestors.
14:55Darwin was amazing.
14:56He was 27 years old
14:57when he got off the Beagle.
14:58His notebooks were bulging
15:02with data about
15:04all the places he had visited.
15:06He had enormous collections.
15:08In addition to adding
15:10to his beetle collection,
15:11he gathered 1,500 species
15:13preserved in alcohol,
15:154,000 skins,
15:17bones,
15:17and dried specimens,
15:19crates,
15:19and crates of fossils.
15:21He returned with 3,000 pages
15:23of notes on entomology,
15:25geology,
15:25paleontology,
15:26and zoology.
15:27He was the toast
15:29of London's scientific community.
15:31Even his father
15:32was finally impressed.
15:37Darwin married
15:38two years after his return,
15:40laying out his options
15:42as he might
15:42a tray full of bugs.
15:44On a scrap of paper,
15:46he listed the arguments
15:47for and against marriage.
15:49In the pro column were
15:50children,
15:52someone to take care
15:53of the house,
15:54and companionship.
15:56It would be
15:57better than a dog,
15:58anyhow.
15:59On the con side
16:01of the ledger,
16:01he listed the lack
16:02of freedom,
16:03quarreling,
16:04loss of time,
16:05and less money
16:06for books.
16:07Marriage won out,
16:09in spite of the consequences.
16:13I should never know French,
16:15or see the continent,
16:16or go to America,
16:18or go up in a balloon.
16:19Never mind,
16:21my boy.
16:21Cheer up.
16:22There's many a happy slave.
16:25He married his first cousin,
16:27Emma Wedgwood,
16:28because, he wrote,
16:29she was an angel
16:31and had money.
16:32They moved to a small estate
16:3420 miles south of London
16:35and lived at Down House
16:37for the rest of their lives.
16:39Eventually,
16:40they had ten children,
16:41but only seven
16:42survived to adulthood.
16:44Darwin's grief
16:45over the death
16:46of his beloved daughter,
16:47Annie,
16:47at age ten,
16:48brought to a bitter end
16:50any faith he still had
16:51in Christianity.
16:53Each day,
16:55Darwin would walk
16:56the paths of his estate,
16:58trying to make sense
16:59of the things he saw
17:00on the voyage
17:01of the Beagle.
17:03He wrote for three hours
17:04every day,
17:05even though he was ill
17:06for much of his adult life.
17:09Apparently,
17:09from the strain
17:10of the idea,
17:12he was secretly developing.
17:14He began a series
17:16of pocket notebooks
17:17in which he speculated
17:18about evolution,
17:19transmutation,
17:20as it was called
17:20in that day,
17:21and he brainstormed.
17:23He saw more and more things
17:24that didn't fit in
17:25with the thesis
17:26that all species
17:28are constant.
17:29And when species
17:30are not constant,
17:31that means
17:31that they are changing,
17:33they are evolving,
17:34that means that he
17:35had to come
17:36to the conclusion
17:36of evolution.
17:38So he pointed
17:38to the enormous power
17:40of selective breeding
17:41of cattle
17:42and plants
17:43and pigeons
17:44that humans
17:45have exerted
17:46and bred things
17:47like Pekingese dogs
17:48and powder pigeons
17:49and cabbages
17:50that we eat,
17:51cauliflowers and so on,
17:52all starting
17:52from very different ancestors.
17:56Our English racehorses
17:58differ from horses
17:59of every other breed,
18:00but they do not
18:01owe their difference
18:02and superiority
18:03to descent
18:04from any single pair,
18:06but to continued care
18:08in selecting
18:09and training
18:10of many individuals
18:11during each generation.
18:15Three hundred years ago,
18:17this breed did not exist.
18:19English breeders
18:20crossed smaller Arabian sires
18:22with English mares.
18:24Then and now,
18:26the thoroughbred
18:26is the fastest horse
18:27in the world.
18:33What Darwin called
18:35artificial selection
18:37continues at Newmarket,
18:39the centre of England's
18:40horse racing world.
18:42People want speed.
18:44They want early maturity
18:45and they want speed
18:47because it is so expensive
18:50to keep a racehorse
18:51in training.
18:51We might feel
18:52we can produce
18:53a lovely mile-and-a-half horse
18:54by doing a different mating.
18:56If we think
18:57we can produce
18:57a mile horse
18:58with a more commercial mating,
19:00then we will go
19:00down the latter path
19:02because we have to make it pay.
19:06Economics,
19:07aesthetics,
19:09love of sport.
19:10Such are the pressures
19:12that drive the evolution
19:13of species in the barnyard.
19:14But what then
19:16was the force
19:17behind natural selection?
19:19What was happening
19:20in the real world
19:21of cabbages
19:22and kingfishers?
19:24Well, he really made
19:25two quite independent claims.
19:27One was the belief
19:29that all existing organisms,
19:31animals, plants,
19:32the lot,
19:32are all descended
19:33from some one
19:35or a few
19:36very, very simple organisms
19:37by just the natural
19:39process of descent,
19:40the ordinary process
19:41of biological reproduction.
19:42That's, if you like,
19:43the fact of evolution.
19:45And then the second thing
19:46he said was a mechanism,
19:48a process,
19:48which would bring it about,
19:50which was his idea
19:51of natural selection.
19:53The survivors
19:55were naturally selected
19:56in the way
19:57that individuals
19:58in the barnyard
19:59were selected
20:00for what the breeder
20:02wanted in his stock.
20:05And Darwin went on
20:06to develop that
20:07original idea
20:08for 20 years
20:09after October 1838
20:12when it occurred to him.
20:13and finally
20:14it became
20:15the centerpiece
20:16of his book
20:16The Origin of Species.
20:25Nursed by warm sunbeams
20:27in primeval caves,
20:29organic life began
20:31beneath the waves.
20:32Hence, without parent,
20:34by spontaneous birth,
20:37rise the first specks
20:38of animated Earth.
20:43That ode to evolution
20:44was written by
20:46old Erasmus Darwin
20:47a decade or so
20:49before Charles
20:50was born.
20:52The idea that creatures evolved
20:55had first come
20:57from the ancient Greeks
20:58but it was explored
21:00systematically
21:00for the first time
21:01in the early 1800s.
21:04The French naturalist
21:06Jean-Baptiste Pierre-Antoine de Monet
21:08Chevalier de Lamarck
21:10published a paper
21:11proposing that all life forms
21:13originated from a single
21:14simple organism.
21:17He claimed the variety of life
21:19was the result of species
21:21responding to their environment.
21:25To explain how this happened
21:26Lamarck suggested
21:28characteristics acquired
21:29by a parent
21:30highly developed muscles
21:32for example
21:32could be passed on
21:34to descendants.
21:36The only thing wrong
21:38with his theory
21:39was that it was wrong.
21:41We know now
21:42that genes control
21:43what traits are passed
21:44from parent to offspring
21:45not what the parent did
21:47during his lifetime.
21:56Darwin wore his walking path
21:58smooth
21:58trying to understand
22:00the how
22:01of evolution.
22:03There were three elements
22:05in his theory.
22:06First
22:07in the random shuffle
22:08of heredity
22:09each individual
22:10is born
22:12slightly different
22:13from all others.
22:15All mammals
22:15most animals
22:17most plants
22:17and even
22:18many bacteria
22:20have sexual processes
22:22whereby genes
22:24from two different
22:25parental lineages
22:27come together
22:27in a single descendant.
22:29So it's the uniting
22:30of inventions
22:33made in different lineages
22:34into a single descendant
22:35that seems to be
22:36the great thing
22:37that sex does for you.
22:41The second element
22:43is the cruelty of nature.
22:45Far more individuals
22:46are born
22:47than the world
22:47has room for.
22:48There is a struggle
22:50for survival.
22:51Some of those
22:53inherited differences
22:54coupled with
22:54an occasional
22:55random mutation
22:56will give an organism
22:57an advantage
22:58in the fight
22:58to stay alive.
23:01If brighter plumage
23:02is more attractive
23:03to the opposite sex
23:04the fancier bird
23:05will have more chicks
23:06who will in turn
23:08have fancy feathers.
23:10So the cruelty
23:11of nature
23:12fills the role
23:13of the horse breeder
23:14or the farmer.
23:15Nature carefully
23:17selects those life forms
23:18best adapted
23:19to the environment
23:20to live
23:20and to reproduce.
23:22It's absolutely
23:24vital to understand
23:25that Darwinism
23:26is a non-random process.
23:28Mutation is a random process.
23:29Mutation is the
23:30random change
23:31in genes
23:32which offers up
23:34in each generation
23:35the raw material
23:35for natural selection.
23:37But it's natural selection
23:38that actually makes life
23:39the way it is
23:40and gives it
23:41its quality
23:42of looking
23:43as though
23:43it's been designed.
23:45By 1842
23:46Darwin's theory
23:48of natural selection
23:49was essentially complete.
23:51He wrote a brief outline
23:53and two years later
23:54expanded it
23:55into a 230 page essay
23:57to be published
23:58only in the event
23:59of his death.
24:00He had seen
24:02how the powerful
24:03Anglican establishment
24:04could hound
24:04humiliate
24:06and even jail
24:06those who denied God.
24:08Darwin was too
24:09cautious to publish
24:10but too ambitious
24:12and proud
24:13to have his idea
24:14die with him.
24:16For 15 years
24:17he collected
24:18and collated data
24:19supporting natural selection
24:20in his study
24:21at Downhouse.
24:22He wrote scientific
24:23papers and books
24:24but kept his more
24:26speculative work
24:27a secret.
24:28After that
24:29he was persuaded
24:30by his friend
24:31Lyell
24:32to sit down now
24:33and start working up
24:35this book
24:36on species
24:37that he had been
24:37planning so long.
24:39What a shock
24:40it must have been
24:41when he opened
24:42the mail one day
24:43in 1858.
24:45Alfred Russell Wallace
24:46a young naturalist
24:48collecting specimens
24:49in Malaysia
24:49sent him a paper
24:51asking him to review
24:52an idea
24:53he had come up with.
24:54When Darwin
24:55read this essay
24:56he was thunderstruck
24:58because it was
24:59his own theory
25:00of natural selection
25:02as he himself said.
25:05Darwin quickly
25:06wrote a summary
25:07of his work
25:07and sent both papers
25:09off to be read
25:10to the scientists
25:10and naturalists
25:11of the prestigious
25:12Linnaean Society.
25:14Now Darwin
25:15started to condense
25:17his huge manuscript
25:19condense it
25:20into what he called
25:21informally
25:22an abstract
25:22and that became
25:24the famous book
25:25on the origin
25:26of species.
25:28Now that Darwin
25:29was going public
25:30his fears of
25:32censure and damnation
25:33haunted him
25:34for the next 18 months
25:35as he tried
25:37to get the most
25:37important work
25:38of his life
25:39ready for publication.
25:41Well those 18 months
25:42were murder
25:43for Darwin.
25:44Darwin was still
25:45afraid of persecution.
25:46After months
25:47and months
25:48of struggling
25:48Darwin finally
25:49finished the last proof.
25:51He went all the way
25:53up to the farthest
25:54verge of civilization
25:55on the North Yorkshire
25:56Moors
25:57and there Darwin
25:58was miserable.
26:00He didn't have his wife
26:01and his kids
26:01with him to begin
26:02with.
26:03He tripped
26:04and his ankles
26:05swelled up huge
26:06so he could hardly
26:07walk.
26:08He had a fiery rash
26:09on his face.
26:10He developed boils.
26:12He said it was like
26:13living in hell.
26:15And what was he doing
26:16when he was there?
26:17He was writing letters
26:18to accompany
26:19pre-publication copies
26:21of the origin of species
26:23to go out to
26:24all of the naturalists,
26:26the geologists,
26:27the old Anglican
26:28clergymen
26:29whose respect
26:31he'd cultivated
26:32for so many years.
26:33And his letters
26:33were peppered
26:34with phrases like
26:35you will not approve
26:36of your old student.
26:37You will abhor
26:38what I've written.
26:39You will fulminate
26:41anathemas.
26:42You will long
26:43to crucify me alive.
26:55The first printing
26:56was sold out
26:57the day of publication.
26:59Darwin was startled
27:00to hear that copies
27:01were being snapped up
27:02by commuters
27:03at Waterloo train station.
27:05The press saw through
27:07Darwin's attempt
27:08to downplay
27:09the evolution of man
27:10and his long white beard
27:12quickly became
27:12an icon in magazines.
27:14From religious conservatives
27:16came the expected charges
27:17that the book
27:18was atheistic nonsense.
27:20From the scientific community
27:22came high praise
27:23and occasionally
27:24the equivalent of
27:26why didn't I think
27:27of that?
27:29On June 30th, 1860,
27:31the controversy
27:32came to a head
27:33at a debate
27:33before the British
27:34Association
27:35for the Advancement
27:36of Science.
27:37Bishop Samuel Wilberforce
27:38attacked the Darwinian view.
27:41Biologist T.H. Huxley
27:42supported natural selection.
27:44Before 700 people
27:46crammed into
27:47a stuffy library,
27:48the bishop asked Huxley
27:49whether he was
27:50descended from a monkey
27:51on his grandfather's side
27:53or his grandmother's.
27:55Huxley whispered
27:56to a companion,
27:57the Lord has delivered
27:58him into my hands
27:59and then stood
28:01and told the assembly
28:02that he would rather
28:03have an ape
28:03for a grandfather
28:04than a man
28:05who introduced ridicule
28:07into a scientific meeting.
28:09Arguments over
28:10the origin of species
28:11are still going on
28:12from church pulpits
28:14to graduate school seminars
28:15like this one
28:16James Moore taught
28:17at Harvard.
28:18It's an ape book,
28:19isn't it?
28:19The people at the time
28:21saw monkeys
28:22running through the pages
28:23or apes.
28:24I don't think
28:25he had any sense
28:25that he could
28:26write a book like this
28:27and not be writing
28:28about human beings.
28:29I think he was canny
28:29in terms of
28:30not addressing it
28:32directly to his
28:33descent of man
28:33but I think
28:34this is absolutely
28:35about the central
28:37question of the
28:38National Enquirer
28:39headline that
28:39his contemporary readers
28:41would be coming
28:41at this about
28:42okay, what does this
28:43say about us
28:43and God?
28:45Is there a correct
28:46reading of Darwin?
28:48Is there a correct
28:49reading of any of that?
28:50There's no other
28:5119th century work
28:53of biology
28:54to which
28:56contemporary biologists
28:58scientists working
28:59today would go back
29:00in order to see
29:02whether they could
29:02learn something new.
29:03In the history of
29:04biology it's difficult
29:06to conceive of a
29:06greater book
29:07than the origin of
29:08species.
29:09It fundamentally
29:10and I believe
29:11permanently changed
29:12our view of nature.
29:15We live in a world
29:16of Darwinian principles.
29:17We need a new flu vaccine
29:20every year.
29:21Pesticide resistant bugs
29:23are devastating crops.
29:25Cholera, malaria
29:27and tuberculosis
29:28are coming back.
29:30The AIDS virus
29:31changes so rapidly
29:32drugs stop working.
29:37We have encouraged the
29:39evolution of resistance
29:40to the very antibiotics
29:41we want to use.
29:42It's extremely
29:43irresponsible,
29:45careless and stupid
29:45of us.
29:46And if, well,
29:48let's put it like this,
29:49if all doctors
29:49learned some evolution
29:50theory when they
29:51were in college
29:52it might have saved
29:53a great many deaths.
29:55You have gotten
29:56tuberculosis to come
29:57back into the great
29:58cities of the United
29:59States, for example.
30:02We have at any one time
30:04about 20-some patients
30:06in this hospital
30:07with tuberculosis.
30:10If your eyesight is good
30:12and you know where to look
30:13you can watch Darwin's
30:14principles in action.
30:17Bugs, particularly
30:18the bugs that we have
30:20in our intestine,
30:21they divide every 30 minutes.
30:24Bugs are very promiscuous.
30:26We may be in a promiscuous
30:28era for adults
30:30and for children
30:32but let me tell you
30:33bugs have been promiscuous
30:35from time immemorial.
30:38A enterococcus doesn't feel
30:40that it makes any difference
30:41whether it mates
30:42with a group A strep
30:43or with a pneumococcus
30:45or with a staph
30:46or some other organism
30:47like that.
30:48It is totally impervious.
30:49It has no character
30:51whatsoever.
30:54In Dr. Neu's lab
30:55at the Columbia University
30:56College of Physicians
30:58and Surgeons,
30:59dishes filled with
31:00a bacteria-infested culture
31:02are used to study
31:03how organisms change.
31:05Once the bacteria
31:06are well established
31:07and breeding away,
31:09dots of antibiotics
31:10are introduced.
31:11The circle around each dot
31:13is a dead zone.
31:14The bigger the circle,
31:15the more bacteria
31:16have been killed,
31:17the more effective
31:18the drug.
31:20But of the many millions
31:22of individual bacteria
31:23in the colony,
31:25a tiny fraction
31:26will be naturally
31:27resistant to the drug.
31:28When their rivals die,
31:30the survivors
31:31quickly take over.
31:33Virtually all
31:35staphylococci
31:36in the world
31:37in 1941
31:38were susceptible
31:40to penicillin.
31:42By 1944,
31:44although very little
31:46penicillin
31:47had been used
31:47in a hospital,
31:48what had happened
31:50is 25%
31:51had become resistant.
31:53By 1947,
31:55when one started
31:56to use penicillin
31:57extensively in hospitals
31:59to treat
32:00pneumococcal pneumonia,
32:01to treat
32:02severe infections,
32:04what had happened,
32:05we were up to
32:0675% resistance.
32:09Those organisms now
32:10would not be killed
32:12by penicillin.
32:12So discoveries
32:14that were hailed
32:15only a few years ago
32:16as miracle drugs
32:17have not been
32:18the permanent panacea
32:20as we thought
32:20they'd be.
32:21It's Darwinian theory
32:23at its best.
32:25And this organism
32:26can only be killed
32:27by a couple antibiotics.
32:29And I will tell you
32:30that if I use
32:31this one
32:32that's inhibiting it
32:33at the present time,
32:35in a week,
32:35it will be resistant
32:36to that,
32:37it will be resistant
32:38to that,
32:39and resistant to that
32:40in a week.
32:43That's why diseases
32:44we thought we had conquered
32:46like malaria
32:46and tuberculosis
32:47are coming back,
32:49leapfrogging over
32:50our efforts
32:51to stay ahead of them.
32:53It does turn out,
32:55again,
32:56that many bacteria
32:57become resistant
32:58to penicillin
32:59and we can follow
33:00the changes.
33:01In the case of malaria,
33:03which is also becoming
33:04a very serious disease again,
33:07it's partly that
33:08the malarial parasite
33:09has changed.
33:10It's also,
33:11of course,
33:11that malaria
33:12is transmitted
33:13by mosquitoes
33:16and the mosquitoes
33:17have changed.
33:18I mean,
33:18we used to be able
33:19to kill the mosquitoes
33:19with insecticide
33:20and now we can't.
33:22So it's both
33:22the mosquito
33:23and the malaria
33:25are changing.
33:25We're creating
33:26trouble for ourselves.
33:28I mean,
33:29if you go into my
33:30greenhouse,
33:31you'll find
33:31there are whitefly
33:32in there.
33:33Now,
33:33you cannot kill
33:34those whitefly
33:35with any insecticide
33:37that you can buy
33:38from the garden shop
33:38down the road,
33:40though 20 years ago
33:41you would have been able to.
33:43Those whitefly
33:43have evolved
33:44a resistance
33:45to insecticide.
33:46What we are seeing
33:48in the microscope
33:49and in the headlines
33:50is natural selection
33:52at work.
33:53There's a step-by-step
33:54escalation
33:55exactly like
33:56the arms race
33:57between, say,
33:58Russia and America.
33:59Each step on one side
34:01is countered
34:01by a counter-step
34:02on the other
34:03and that's answered
34:05by a counter-counter-step
34:06on the first side
34:07and so on.
34:07No, it is a continuous
34:08little race
34:09going on
34:09between predators
34:11and their prey,
34:12diseases and their hosts
34:14and so on.
34:15Constantly happening.
34:18Unlike bacteria
34:19and viruses
34:20which can mutate
34:21and adapt
34:21with astonishing speed,
34:23man cannot.
34:25Humans change
34:26so slowly
34:27that over 95%
34:29of our genetic makeup
34:30dates back
34:31to the Stone Age.
34:32That impacts
34:33on our emotions
34:34and our reactions
34:35to stress.
34:36That there is perhaps
34:37a mismatch
34:38between the way
34:40we have evolved
34:41between, if you like,
34:43the equipment
34:44that our evolutionary
34:44ancestry has given us
34:46and the way
34:47we now use
34:48that equipment,
34:49our basic physiology
34:50in everyday life.
34:51I mean,
34:52we were not evolved
34:53in order to sit
34:54in motor cars
34:54and drive around
34:55at 70 or 80 miles an hour.
34:57We were not equipped
34:58by evolution
34:59to spend most
35:00of our working lives
35:02sedentary,
35:03sitting at desks
35:04as many of us do
35:05and pushing pieces
35:05of paper around.
35:06You only have to say
35:07these things
35:07to realize
35:08that we are living
35:09in a human environment
35:11now, largely,
35:13an environment
35:13of our own making.
35:15A new field
35:16called Darwinian medicine
35:17is an attempt
35:18to understand
35:19how traits
35:20we have picked up
35:20through hundreds
35:21of thousands
35:22of years of evolution
35:23are at work today.
35:25We may be doing
35:26things
35:27which sometimes
35:28are so different
35:29from the way
35:30things were
35:31when we evolved
35:32that we set up
35:33some tensions.
35:34A classic example
35:35that's often used
35:36would be
35:37we are equipped
35:38to respond
35:39to emergency situations
35:40with what
35:41Walter Cannon
35:42called the fight
35:43or flight response
35:44which, you know,
35:44adrenaline pumping round,
35:46blood sugar raised
35:47and so on.
35:49There used to be
35:50a point to it all.
35:52Adrenaline speeds up
35:53reaction time.
35:55Increased blood sugar
35:56gives us instant energy.
35:58Blood is diverted
35:58to the muscles
35:59and we're ready
36:00to fight
36:01nature's marauders
36:03when all we're facing
36:04is another parking ticket.
36:07Darwinian medicine
36:08also has an answer
36:09or an excuse, perhaps,
36:11for those worried
36:12about their weight.
36:14Lots of people
36:15have tried to understand
36:16why we have
36:17the epidemic
36:17of heart disease.
36:18that we have now
36:19and for that matter
36:20the epidemic of cancer
36:21as well
36:21partly caused
36:22by the amount
36:23of fat in our diet.
36:24We've all been educated
36:25ad nauseum
36:26to quit eating
36:28so much fat,
36:28quit eating so much salt,
36:29quit eating so much sugar
36:30and we all keep doing it.
36:32Well, the selective
36:33disadvantage
36:33of eating too little
36:35might be that you might starve
36:36when the next famine
36:37comes by.
36:39Therefore,
36:39a few extra pounds
36:40that are going to get you
36:41through that period
36:41will be quite advantageous.
36:43So it's not surprising
36:44that in the brain
36:45mechanisms haven't shaped
36:46that ensure
36:47that when adequate food
36:49is available
36:49we tend to eat
36:50a little too much
36:51rather than a little too little.
36:53There are some less obvious
36:55examples of evolved defenses
36:56that are more important medically.
36:59For example,
37:00some infectious bacteria
37:01need iron to grow.
37:04People with chronic disease
37:05sometimes are found
37:06to have low iron levels
37:07and some physicians
37:08who don't know
37:09about this defense
37:10are liable to give
37:10those patients iron
37:11when in fact
37:12the body has a very complex
37:14evolved mechanism
37:15for taking a lot of the iron
37:17that's free in the circulation
37:17and quickly storing it
37:19in the liver
37:19so it's not available
37:20to bacteria.
37:21Certainly our knowledge
37:22can't affect our genetics
37:24in any direct way
37:26but our knowledge
37:27about how these mechanisms work
37:29can be very useful to us.
37:35more controversial
37:37are attempts to apply
37:38Darwinian laws
37:39to human behavior.
37:41Some of our
37:43perhaps behavioral responses
37:45that are highly aggressive
37:46under certain circumstances
37:48may be behavioral responses
37:50that we share
37:51with chimpanzees
37:53and gorillas.
37:56Some scientists
37:57contend
37:58an evolutionary understanding
37:59may go a long way
38:01toward explaining
38:02the advantages
38:02of certain behaviors
38:03we see in the world today.
38:05The field is called
38:06sociobiology.
38:08Males of many species
38:10exhibit aggressiveness,
38:11competitiveness,
38:12jealousy
38:12and the skills
38:14that help their ancestors survive.
38:16That might explain
38:17the warlike behavior
38:18of members
38:19of the human species.
38:22If we like someone's
38:24bright eyes,
38:24glossy hair,
38:25white teeth,
38:26it's because we're programmed
38:28to look for a healthy partner
38:29often much like ourselves
38:31to help ensure
38:32that our lineage
38:33will survive.
38:35In all this,
38:36are we so different
38:37from other species?
38:38Our actions say
38:39I'm quick and healthy,
38:41sexually mature
38:42and my genes deserve
38:44to be passed along.
38:45Is this a holdover
38:46from the dawn of man?
38:48Are we all driven
38:49by biological
38:50imperatives?
38:52Highly unlikely,
38:53say the many critics
38:54of Darwinian psychology.
38:55The part played
38:56in our lives
38:57by inherited behavior
38:58is minuscule
38:59compared with the effects
39:00of real life experience.
39:02And they say
39:03the idea that our behavior
39:04is pre-programmed
39:05plays into the hands
39:06of those who say
39:07that the inequalities
39:08of our society
39:09are inevitable.
39:11The debate goes on.
39:13Still,
39:14150 years later,
39:16Darwin continues to be
39:17a key in telling us
39:19about ourselves
39:19and our history.
39:25Dancing across the screen
39:26are triplets of letters.
39:28The language of life.
39:30Those T's and G's
39:31and A's and C's
39:33spell out genes.
39:34The basic building blocks
39:36of heredity.
39:38Scientists are using
39:39this newest of the sciences
39:41to answer
39:41some of the oldest questions.
39:43and the gleaming glassware
39:45and the glowing computer screens
39:46are confirming a lot
39:47of what Darwin suspected
39:49all along.
39:50The split between humans
39:52and chimpanzees,
39:54we think,
39:55from the molecular biology
39:57was around 5 to 7 million years ago,
40:00which is very recent
40:01on an evolutionary time scale.
40:03And humans and chimpanzees
40:05are so closely related,
40:06for instance,
40:07that if you examine
40:08the proteins
40:09that are the same
40:11from the same gene,
40:13you often cannot find
40:14any differences
40:15in the subunits
40:17of those proteins.
40:17Rebecca Kahn
40:18was on the team
40:19at the University of California
40:20at Berkeley
40:21that found clues
40:22to our past,
40:23deep in our cells.
40:24They studied the genetic code
40:26from people
40:27all over the world.
40:28What we're really looking at
40:29is a process
40:30called lineage coalescence.
40:32When you did that,
40:33they all coalesced
40:34into a single ancestor,
40:36a maternal ancestor.
40:38They calculated
40:39human lineage
40:40back some 200,000 years
40:42to a theoretical ancestor
40:43the press promptly dubbed
40:45Eve.
40:46I actually don't like
40:47to use the word Eve
40:48because it has a lot
40:50of religious connotations
40:52that aren't really
40:52biologically accurate.
40:54It implies that there was
40:55a single ancestor
40:56for all people,
40:58and this is sometimes
40:59seen in the press
40:59as a single woman
41:01who gave rise
41:02to all humans.
41:03That's not really true.
41:03There could have been
41:04anywhere from 2,000
41:06to 10,000.
41:08If the Berkeley team's
41:09research holds,
41:11then everyone in the world,
41:13all the individuals
41:14and families
41:15and tribes
41:15and races,
41:17can trace their family tree
41:18back to a small band
41:20of people who lived
41:20in Africa 200,000 years ago.
41:24If anything had happened
41:25to that tiny group,
41:27famine, flood, disease,
41:29anything,
41:30the human race
41:31might not exist.
41:33There has to have been
41:34several billion years
41:36of continuous,
41:37successful parent-to-offspring
41:39transmission
41:40to get to us.
41:41At any one point,
41:42if that had not been successful,
41:44our line of ancestry
41:45would have died.
41:47In the northern hemisphere,
41:49horses evolved
41:50to fill a herbivore's niche
41:52in the ecosystem.
41:53On the isolated continent
41:55of Australia,
41:56nature took a different tack.
41:58Instead of horses,
42:00evolution came up
42:01with kangaroos.
42:03If we ran evolution again...
42:05There is a very strong
42:07chance element
42:08in exactly the way
42:09evolution goes.
42:10So, for example,
42:12I'd be fairly happy
42:13in predicting
42:13that we would get
42:14eyes,
42:17seeing organs,
42:18because eyes have
42:19indeed evolved
42:20about nine times
42:21independently
42:22in different parts
42:22of the animal kingdom,
42:23and the same sorts
42:24of eyes
42:25have evolved
42:25several times
42:26independently.
42:32I'd be pretty confident
42:34that you would get
42:35animals that we'd call
42:36carnivores,
42:37animals that we'd call
42:38herbivores,
42:39animals that we'd call
42:40parasites,
42:40and so on,
42:41and they would do
42:43their carnivory,
42:44their herbivory,
42:45and their parasitism
42:46in roughly the same ways,
42:48but they wouldn't be
42:49exactly the same.
42:50It might not even
42:51finish up with
42:52an intelligent,
42:53communicating,
42:54talking animal.
42:56I mean, it's very
42:56striking that the
42:57dinosaurs ruled the
42:58earth for 100 million
42:59years.
43:00They ran about
43:01on their hind legs
43:02so their hands were
43:03freed.
43:03There's nothing to
43:04stop them making
43:04tools,
43:05and yet they never
43:06invented or evolved
43:07an intelligent
43:08speaking form.
43:11Try to imagine
43:12what the earth's
43:13dominant species
43:14would have looked like
43:14if dinosaurs had
43:16evolved instead of
43:17mammals.
43:19Paleobiologist
43:19Dale Russell
43:20of the Canadian
43:20Museum of Nature
43:21did that,
43:22and the result
43:23was a winsome
43:24green creature
43:25who probably
43:26would have been
43:26sure that it too
43:27was the inevitable
43:28outcome of
43:29biological history.
43:33Karl Marx,
43:35Andrew Carnegie,
43:37Joseph Stalin,
43:39John D. Rockefeller,
43:41Adolf Hitler.
43:43What do these men
43:44have in common?
43:45From capitalists
43:46to communists,
43:47all found
43:48in a misinterpretation
43:50of Darwin,
43:51justification for the
43:52conduct of their lives.
43:54They seized on a phrase
43:55Darwin never used,
43:57survival of the fittest,
43:59and used it to
44:00rationalize attitudes
44:01and actions that
44:02affected the course
44:03of modern history.
44:05In the late 19th century,
44:06there was a whole
44:07school of thought,
44:08or perhaps several
44:09schools of thought,
44:10which now are known
44:10as social Darwinism,
44:12which really used
44:13evolution as an
44:14underwriting of a fairly
44:16crude kind of competitive
44:18ethic in society,
44:20what we might call
44:21a free market ethic,
44:22but more than that,
44:22the notion of dog-eat-dog,
44:24the weakest of the war,
44:25and the phrase that
44:27Darwin's contemporary
44:27Herbert Spencer
44:28actually used for
44:30natural selection,
44:31which was survival
44:31of the fittest.
44:33But Spencer thought
44:34evolution had a direction,
44:36from simple to complex,
44:38from inferior to superior.
44:44Darwin's version of the
44:45theory was not
44:46survival of the fittest.
44:48It could be better
44:49paraphrased as
44:50survival of those
44:52best adapted.
44:55Well, the master race idea
44:56from which we think of
44:58in connection with the
44:5930s and with Germany,
45:01in some senses,
45:02was the low point
45:04in the whole attempt
45:05to apply evolutionary
45:07and biological thinking
45:09to human affairs,
45:10because that's to turn
45:12a scientific theory
45:12into a moral statement
45:14or even a political
45:15statement,
45:15which of course
45:16is not.
45:19The Nazis taught
45:20that Jews were
45:21evolutionary throwbacks.
45:22The Aryan race,
45:24they said,
45:24was the pinnacle
45:25of evolution,
45:26and maintaining
45:27racial purity
45:28was an evolutionary
45:29obligation.
45:33Well, it wasn't
45:34just Hitler
45:35who thought about
45:36the idea of applying
45:37biological ideas
45:38in a rather radical way
45:40to human affairs,
45:43eugenics as an idea,
45:45the idea that we
45:45should somehow apply
45:47principles to make us
45:49evolve into a superior
45:51species.
45:52Those ideas had been
45:54commonplace in the United
45:55States, in North America
45:56and across Europe
45:57for 25 years before
46:00Hitler came to power.
46:03In Darwin's time, too,
46:05there were those,
46:06most typically among
46:07the gentry,
46:08who claimed that
46:09evolution justified
46:10their lives.
46:11They said money given
46:12to the poor was merely
46:13aiding the unfit,
46:14allowing them to
46:15increase their numbers
46:16and delay evolutionary
46:17progress.
46:18The argument is not
46:20unknown today.
46:22Darwin was clearly
46:23uncomfortable using
46:24words like evolve
46:25and evolution,
46:26because the words
46:27contained the notion
46:28of going from a lesser
46:29state to something
46:31better.
46:31As Darwin defined
46:33natural selection,
46:34it had no particular
46:36direction.
46:37Descent with modification
46:39doesn't have a goal.
46:40It just is.
46:43We have no automatic
46:46right to our place
46:47on the earth.
46:48We have no automatic
46:50guarantee of our
46:52long-term survival.
46:54Most species that have
46:56ever lived are now
46:56extinct.
46:58Evolution is about
46:59change.
47:00And we suddenly realize
47:02how fragile any given
47:05or single species'
47:06life is, including
47:08our own.
47:09And I think that
47:10general moral,
47:11that there is something
47:12about our place
47:13within the living world
47:14and our responsibility
47:15as a moral and
47:17an intelligent species
47:18perhaps to try to
47:20conserve, to nourish
47:22that living world
47:24and not simply to do
47:25with it what we will
47:26for short-term gain,
47:27that may be in the
47:28long run perhaps the
47:29single most significant
47:31moral insight that we
47:32get from the idea
47:33of evolution.
47:36Such insights are a
47:37direct result of the
47:38studies of a reclusive
47:39beetle collector with a
47:41passion for facts.
47:42We will need such
47:44moral insights if we
47:46eventually use the
47:47genetic tools that
47:48modern science is
47:49developing.
47:51And I'm pretty sure
47:52that if we survive,
47:54if we do not destroy
47:55ourselves by pollution
47:56and atomic war and so
47:59on, we will sooner or
48:01later wish to take
48:02control of our own
48:03evolution.
48:04evolution, but I hope
48:06we do not do it too
48:07soon.
48:08I mean, I think at the
48:08moment we are far too
48:10ignorant, both of
48:11genetics and of what
48:12we really want, to
48:14tinker with our own
48:15evolution.
48:16So I'm not urging
48:18eugenic measures upon
48:19us, I'm really not.
48:20I hope we will not do
48:21that.
48:22But ultimately, I'm
48:23sure we will.
48:25What we shall decide we
48:26want, of course, is up
48:28to our great-great-
48:29great-grandchildren, but
48:30they will take this
48:32on.
48:35Charles Darwin lived in
48:37Down House until he
48:38died in 1882.
48:40He continued walking,
48:42thinking, writing papers
48:43and books.
48:44He finally tackled the
48:46touchy subject of human
48:47evolution in a book
48:49called The Descent of
48:49Man.
48:50But none of his later
48:52works would match the
48:53impact of origin of
48:55species.
48:56In a very real sense,
48:58that book gave us the
49:01world.
49:05There is grandeur in
49:07this view of life, with
49:09its several powers having
49:10been originally breathed
49:12by the creator into a few
49:14forms or into one.
49:16From so simple a
49:18beginning, endless forms,
49:20most beautiful and most
49:22wonderful, have been and
49:24are being evolved.
49:56The Descent of Man
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