Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life

Evolution is not just an established fact, it is the only theory with the philosophical power to connect all the life sciences together into one coherent conceptual framework. As Theodosius Dobzhansky once said, "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." To deny this would be analogous to studying chemistry while denying the existence of atoms.

Today we celebrate Darwin's day with an astonishingly beautiful documentary in which Sir David Attenborough traces the history of the development of Darwin's idea, the opposition he faced even from respected intellectuals like the famous anatomist and paleontologist Richard Owen, and the overwhelming and undeniable evidence, even from independent scientific disciplines like geology, chemistry and physics, that would ultimately vindicate Darwin as one of the most important figures in the history of philosophy and science. Sit back and enjoy the visual spectacle.



Now everybody sing!



For more awesomeness, check out the Darwin tag, the evolution tag, or the Attenborough tag.
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1 comment:

  1. An excellent documentary... Attenborough's approach is much more carefree about the social and philosophical issues that developed from Darwin's theory than Dawkins' documentary is. However, I will say that seeing Darwin's statue replace Owen's made my day. That's like giving pesky creationists the finger and saying, "you lost."

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