The Genius of Darwin - Part 1 - Life, Darwin & Everything

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Darwin's publication of The Origin of the Species and the 200th anniversary of his birth. In the first part of this documentary series created to celebrate the occasion, Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins weaves together the story of the long intellectual and social struggle through which Darwin had to journey in order to revolutionize our understanding of the natural world and our place in the cosmos.

One natural consequence of this realization was the complete elimination of the need to appeal to obscure and untestable supernatural powers in order to explain the diverse complexity of life, including our own. Because of his brilliant explanation, Darwin also helped us understand ourselves in the context of our relatedness to the rest of the living world. Ever since Darwin's bold intellectual leap, we have made steady progress in attempting to fulfill the Socratic call to know ourselves. Thanks, Charlie!

That footage of the lion pouncing on the impala was amazing, wasn't it? Poor little thing... One might say that a natural process, driven by blind and mindless selection pressures, horrifying as they may be, might still be preferable to a universe in which such wanton cruelty and suffering are intentionally designed by a conscious creator...

Hungry for more Darwin? Check out this great dramatization of his life and intellectual development.
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