It’s a bit too phenomenological, and definitely too animal-centric, but who cares? David Attenborough’s tree of life is very pretty and gets the gist of the story of life on earth across.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I can’t wait for the rest of this.
I like how he doesn’t spend 40% of the time covering the dinosaurs. Some days I just want to scream, “We all know what happened with the dinosaurs, can we move on now?!”
Why did God start with single cell life forms if he’s all-powerful and all-knowing?
I’m confused.
Such a beautiful thing to see illustrated.
It is always a pleasure to see (and hear) Sir David Attenborough. Beautiful video.
Watched it last night, wonderful television. Attenborough tackled the commonest creo objections head on. For me, the best parts were when clips of his younger self were inserted. Fifty years of magnificent work coming together.
I also saw this last night. Was Attenborough at his very best.
Great series and clip. When you see things like this I’m amazed that creationist can still fool themselves in their beliefs. It makes me wonder why?
I watched the whole show last night on BBC One. Quite nice overall; I hope that it gets shown in some biology classrooms (I used to love “video lessons”). Certainly, the whole show was too animal-centric, but I guess that plants don’t make for such nice television.
and according to the independent yesterday he has been getting fed up with the hate mail he receives from viewers upset that he does not give God credit in his nature programmes. So hes done an interview in Nature in which he says the bible (specifically the book of genesis) is to blame for the devastation of the planet. Go David.
It’s a shame he wasn’t clearer about mammals being descendants of those first reptiles. It comes across like we just showed up from nowhere.
It was qutie brilliant, and included a lovely, gentle, smackdown of creationism. He really knows how to produce a nature programme, revelling in the full beauty of the images.
I’ve posted this before, but it’s quite lovely, and see the accompanying video too:
http://coolinfographics.blogspot.com/2009/01/ultimate-mammal-family-tree.html
Both the standard defintion and the high definition versions of the programme can be downloaded via bittorent from this site.
http://www.uknova.com/
and here is the link to that news story;
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/attenborough-genesis-it-can-go-forth-and-multiply-1521668.html
I agree with what Matt Heath said.
It’s pretty, but contains plenty of opportunities to misinterpret what’s being said. I should know, since I have to deal with people with these misinterpretations ever so often. There’s a reason why I dislike nature documents that concentrate on evolution: they are always, always, simplified to the level where they become misleading in one way or another. And I really don’t see why this has to be: if a little child can understand things when properly explained in detail, what excuse have grownups?
Please help to expand the Wikipedia article on this subject and on other Darwin 200 items.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin_and_the_Tree_of_Life
Well, actually they aren’t. Unless you consider all of Amniota synonymous with “reptiles”. But if you mean Sauropsida when you say reptiles, then mammals aren’t their descendants. We’re synapsids.
I was so moved by this last night. The Attenborough programme was wonderful – I hope it will be released on DVD, as I want to give it to my godson on his 10th birthday!
It’s a bit dumbed down so the average Man United fan can understand it,but its really not bad as an intro for the clueless,not bad at all,got to admire the man.
I hear traffic has come to a grinding halt in southern England because of the appearance of 3 and a half snowflakes? Thats kinda cute…..
He also concentrated a bit too much on terrestrial life. It’s not like critters in the oceans stopped evolving after the upper Devonian Period.
Cracking good animation and use thereof.
And I could listen to him read the phone book.
I have to say I was a bit disappointed. It started off well enough with the Darwin specific stuff, but as PZ says, it was way too animal-centric and by the end it felt a bit rushed. They shouldn’t really have tried to cover both the history of the theory and the actual story of life in a single programme, if you ask me. Do an updated Life On Earth, if you want the latter.
“I hear traffic has come to a grinding halt in southern England because of the appearance of 3 and a half snowflakes”
To be fair, it’s the heaviest snow in 20 years.
Haven’t seen this yet but the topic probably deserved a series not a single programme.
More on the relationship between synapsids (who didn’t get a mention) and mammals (who as in all these brief summaries seem to spring fully-formed from the head of Zeus at the K/T event) would have been nice. Plus fins evolved before jaws in fish. And there was no mention of the Permotrias extinction event, which was much more serious than the K/T event.
However the rest of the programme was absolutely fantastic.
I just looked on the debate site that the BBC Darwin site links to (http://open2.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=28) and I’m rather depressed. For the last few weeks there have been some reasonable debates on there but now that the creationists have seen David Attenborough on TV talking about evolution, they are out in force promulgating the same old canards based on misunderstandings, flawed interpretations, and outright erroneous information. I tried to respond to some, but the mountain of nonsense was just inexorably piling up. Oh dear.
Ah, I wish Canada had its own David Attenborough. He really makes you Brits look like shining stars in the world of science education.
The programme was very much his personal view – and animals have been his territory for the past 50+ years. In a way it was a valedictory for a much-loved career of passionate attachment to the natural world and the Darwinian view. Bear in mind it is one of a whole series of programmes on Darwin and the ‘Origin’, the first part between now and April, the second later in the year http://www.bbc.co.uk/darwin/
I have an admission to make. I’m not a scientist. My degree is in Ancient History. I never enjoyed science classes, and I stopped taking them at 16. And yet, I’ve always had an almost instinctual respect for science. If I had to point to one single factor in that, I’d have to say it was Sir David Attenborough (sidebar – why hasn’t he got a peerage yet? Cthulhu knows we could use more people like him in the House of Lords). I’ve been lucky enough that my lifetime has coincided with his greatest work. I missed Life on Earth the first time around, on account of being one year old at the time, but I remember being entranced by The Living Planet and by the time The Trials Of Life was broadcast I was confirmed as a lifelong fan. He never laboured the point, but the way he explained things inculated me with a respect for evidence-based thinking that I never got from any other source, sad to say.
If you had to pick one single piece of film to show that we’re part of the animal kindom, not separate or above it, you couldn’t do much better than Sir David with the gorillas in Rwanda. It’s even more impressive when you learn that the whole thing was an ad lib.
I suspect the real answer is that he didn’t want one, but I prefer to think that it is so he and his brother have different names.
We have David Suzuki.
Good programme, but it suffered from trying to fit too much into the 60 minutes given.
Some nimnod on the discussion forum has suggested an equivalent programme exploring ID. I would welcome this as long as it is shown on the Comedy Channel.
It does – he’s called “David Attenbourough”!
We Brits like to share, you know, we like to think that Darwin was yours too (though I’m not sure the US deserves him quite as much ;))
Re: simplified language, well one of the problems on a more “technical” site like this one is that people here often get too tied in to specific language issues to do with “belief” in theories vs “acceptance”, objection to terms like “Darwinist” and so on, which make little sense to the average interested onlooker. There are, it seems to me, lots of subtly different arguments over the meaning of Darwin’s legacy, especially among biologists, which cloud the issue a little for the rest of us. How could you provide a better, simpler, example of why Attenborough, as perhaps the world’s greatest natural historian, accepts the tree of life? If he were as pernickety over minor liguistic quibbles as some people are, he would be unable to communicate as successfully. I sometimes think that, without the creationists, we would be all be so tongue-tied that we wouldn’t get the message about evolution out at all!
While we’re nitpicking, I thought that bird evolution was depicted a little decptively. Firstly, he gives the impression (though he doesn’t actually say) in this video clip that birds were the only feathered dinosaurs, when we have pretty solid evidence that many of the theropod dinosaurs that went extinct were also feathered. Secondly, the animation showed archeopteryx while talking about those dinosaurs that survived the extinction. By the time of the K/T extinction event, archeopteryx was long gone and birds had already diversified into myriad billed and beaked species.
[/nitpick]
Having said that, overall I think he did a really great job.
Well thank you very much AnthonyK! Sharing both Attenborough AND Darwin, now that is one generous commonwealth friend. I feel much better now.
Do you still want the Queen? Please, take her…(you have to take the rest of them too btw)
I think that you have a confused definition of “phenomenological.”
Yes, it did suffer from being cut down to fit a one-hour slot. However, when the DVD comes out I’m sure much more will be included.
And don’t forget this freebie
http://www.open2.net/darwin/poster.html
Although I think that may be UK residents only.
re:36 (and a world of O/T): What would the dominions do if (what is now) the UK declared a republic (before they did)? Would the Queen pack her bags and reign in Ottawa or Kingston or wherever?
Watched it. Lovely. Strange to see the David of 30 years ago alongside his current self. Life of Earth was such a eye-opening series for me (much like Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was). I went to Leicester Uni and we did a trip to Charnwood Forest, one of my tutors was the guy who helped confirm Charnia as an actual life form, and I did voluntary work in that very room in Leicester Museum. Mind you the rock where the original fossil was found had others visible, all of which got smashed by a bungled fossil hunting attempt.
Must get to Down House this year, it’s less than 20 miles or so from where I live. Been to the Nat Hist Museum and seen Charlie in his new position (couldn’t get into the Exhibition this time, damn it, tickets sold out ten ahead of us in the queue, next time).
(Re #36). Hmm, I’m not sure about that one. I’ll check in with my fellow countrymen to see how we feel about her. I’ll let you know – you may be in luck, I have a feeling she may be more appealing to most than our current jackass leader, Stephen Harper.
Attenborough – a great justification for the license fee.
But LisaJ, she’d presumably “replace” Governor General Michaëlle Jean — we’d still be stuck with Harper as PM. Unless Her Majesty would consider a career change.
I dunno about republics and such (though personally I’m a republic) but I did think it was very sweet of the US to play “God Save the Queen” during Obama’s inauguration, even if they did get the words wrong. You know, if you want to join us again, and kiss and make up over that ‘ol Boston tea party thing, I’m sure we’d let bygones be bygones…
Oh, but you keep Texas.
Some context that might be useful: it was broadcast in the middle of peak viewing on BBC1, Britain’s main terrestrial channel. Given that things intended for that slot are normally dumbed down to the point of oblivion, and the fact that this was far too big a subject to get across in sixty minutes I thought Attenborough did a very good job.
More importantly, the scheduling means that the ratings should be pretty massive – certainly in proportion to the documentaries tucked away on Five or BBC4, which is where they usually end up.
This show was part-produced by The Open University, and people in the UK can order a free poster from http://www.open2.net/darwin/index.html to accompany the series.
D (about to graduate from the OU with a BSc(Hons) Life Sciences).
Yes, fair play to the BBC. They are putting Darwin right at the front of scheduling, not just a coule of token programmes. But seing as the Natural History Department is the jewel in the crown, why wouldn’t they?
“Some context that might be useful: it was broadcast in the middle of peak viewing on BBC1, Britain’s main terrestrial channel.”
Well, yes, except that it was on a Sunday night, which is considered a graveyard slot. When current affairs series Panorama was moved to the same time, it lost a third of its audience overnight.
It’s NOT a “tree of life”!!
It’s a _net_ of life, i.e. a directed acyclic graph because of horizontal genes transfer.
Not every programme has to be a perfectly structured polemic – at its heart, this programme clearly was one man’s view of things, a personal take on Darwin’s work and its legacy, and on evolution in the natural world. It concentrated on terrestrial animals because that’s what David Attenborough is really enthusiastic about. Its unevenness was part of its charm.
As for why he isn’t Lord David rather than just Sir David – well, actually, he’s nearasdammit Saint David! The most trusted man in Britain, even ahead of Aussie Rolf Harris and his wobbleboard.
I visited Down House many years ago, when it was still in the care of the Royal College of Surgeons (work that one out!), and I thoroughly recommend any biologist to take a lazy day down in Kent, before or after going to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. It’s best done just with one or two friends, so you can take your time and soak it in.
This is nice. Hope I get to see the whole thing. It reminded me of one of the first depictions I’ve ever seen of evolution, from Disney’s Fantasia:
It still blows me away that this animated film from 1940, from a very conservative guy (Disney), had a clearer understanding of evolution than the 2001-2008 President of the U.S. How could we have allowed ourselves to go backwards?
Oh of course, Tulse, you are quite right. Well I’m definitely going to have to say no then, no frigging way. Sorry that we can’t be as generous as your country, AnthonyK.
Off-topic, but the “Free Trial” widget at the bottom of the page doesn’t work (in Safari on Mac OS). When I fill it out and click “Submit,” I get this:
Seed’s losing potential paying customers here!
Yes PZ, your are biased. Protistz rule!
I have never been a big Attenborough fan but this was superb.
“Some context that might be useful: it was broadcast in the middle of peak viewing on BBC1, Britain’s main terrestrial channel.”
The Guardian is reporting that the programme gained an audience of around 6 million, a 23% share of viewing in its 9pm slot – pretty good for this type of programme, I’d have thought.
I wonder if I can get Attenborough to do my answering machine message?
People are being far too critical about this, sure he could have said a lot more about pretty much everything, but he had an hour and he filled it very well. This program wasn’t aimed at folk with biosciences degrees, it was aimed squarely at those who don’t know much about evolutionary theory and might wonder what all the fuss about Darwin is, or even if it is as flawed as creationists claim.
There will be plenty of other documentaries on TV over the next few months that will go into the history of evolutionary theory and the science of evolution in much more detail. Already “What Darwin didn’t know” http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00h6sbt while not perfect (oversimplified a couple of key points)discussed both Darwin’s theories and what we have learned about evoultion since Darwin published “On the origin of species”.
Sir David did an excellent job, hopefully he’ll have encouraged many viewers to learn more about evolutionary theory.
The Guardian is reporting that the programme gained an audience of around 6 million, a 23% share of viewing in its 9pm slot – pretty good for this type of programme, I’d have thought.
Half that is considered a pretty solid hit for a serious factual programme. And presumably this doesn’t factor in people watching it on iPlayer over the next week.
http://www.nemoramjet.com/tolcladogram.htm
Another, illustrated Tree of Life can be found at this link.
“The Guardian is reporting that the programme gained an audience of around 6 million, a 23% share of viewing in its 9pm slot – pretty good for this type of programme, I’d have thought”
Or to put it another way, it was viewed by about 1 in 10 of the UK population.
That’s pretty darn good for a science documentary.
Some other excellent cartoon evolutions are from the Italian film “Allegro Non Troppo” – to the tune of Ravel’s Bolero:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8GHWLUTWWms
and, of course, the lovely Simpson’s excerpt:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=faRlFsYmkeY
(apologies to those of you not able to enjoy “snow day” here in the UK, you may have to find them yourselves.
I love Sir D.A. – if only because he’s one of the few people on television who regularly utters the magic words “I don’t know” or “we don’t know, yet.”
The way he presents things makes it clear how evolution is a constant subtext in everything to do with life.
My sweetie and I were up late last night watching “Life in the undergrowth” in fact. I’ve never seen a better (or more fascinating) illustration of the cause and effect of evolution. He doesn’t come out and just slam your face repeatedly into it, but it’s there the whole time. Absolutely lovely and brilliant. I’m a pretty serious amateur photographer, and watching some of the stuff that they do makes me want to cry, it’s so good.
What, no hard polytomies? I noticed that the lineages only bifurcated when they divided (cladogenesis). ;)
How could anyone not find this inspiring?
Can’t wait to see the rest!
Well I didn’t find it particularly inspiring. I’m a layperson (non-scientist) and it was even too simplistic for me. And it seems a shame to waste David Attenborough on animations.
I’ll be showing this in my 8th grade Jurassic Park elective class Wednesday. This’ll fit well right between the Galapagos film, the paper Darwin dolls, and the Alien Planet project.
As yuor commentators have said this was produced for a mass audience ona main channel. The BBC are doing a full series of programmes on Darwin – last night there was an excellent one on his life and how his work was affected by that background. Criticise Auntie for a lot but the suite of work is just excellent.
Incidentally in passing, and in defence of the UK and its snow clearances, this is first time for 18 years that there has been a bit of snow and it is not worth the investment in snow clearing kit for such infrequency. Mind, the loons who doubt global warming are have a field day – the genius who is Gerald Warner and Christopher Booker to name but two.
I said some nice things about the BBC program on my blog – http://www.johnconnell.co.uk/blog/?p=1907. The surprising thing is, it took 2 whole days for the first anti-evolutionary idiot to come out of the woodwork with a long and very silly comment. I’m tempted simply to delete his hogwash, but might reconsider if anyone wants to have a go at him :-)