Was Darwin Right?

limerick_woody

new show in national geographic now, looking at darwin and (hopefully) the IDiots. Should be interesting

Dave!

Yes, he was right

marco_polo

DaveMcG wrote: »

Yes, he was right

Oh man I shouldn't have read that :mad:, no point in watching it now. I spoilt Titanic for myself in the same way a few years ago.

James Cameron went to sh1t after T2

On topic saw that program a few days ago, it was good although of course you can only fit so much detail into an hour.

Zillah

I really wish people would stop focusing on Darwin. Sure he was very clever and started the whole evolution thing, but he's no prophet, his theories were quite underdeveloped and a far cry from modern Neo-Darwinian Evolution. A while back I read a gigantic diatribe against evolution because it (aka Darwin) failed to account for genetics.

Seriously.

marco_polo

Zillah wrote: »

I really wish people would stop focusing on Darwin. Sure he was very clever and started the whole evolution thing, but he's no prophet, his theories were quite underdeveloped and a far cry from modern Neo-Darwinian Evolution. A while back I read a gigantic diatribe against evolution because it (aka Darwin) failed to account for genetics.

Seriously.

:eek:

True, his greatest achievement was probably in noticing the natural world around him as no one else had before, not in the finer details of his original theory about the forces that drive evolution much of which has not really withstood the test of time.

In fairness to Ntl Geographic the title of the program was actually a bit misleading as it just went through the mountains of modern evidence that supports Darwins theory. From the actual tone of the documentary narrative the title should really have been called "Why creationism is a load of crap". Not sure why the producers didn't run with it TBH, I think it would have been a pretty catchy one IMO.

Galvasean

Documentaries always try using provocative titles. Imagine two possible titles:
"Was the moon created by the Nazis in 1923???"
or
"Facts about the moon."

Guess which one will raise the most eyebrows.

Dades

Galvasean wrote: »

Documentaries always try using provocative titles.

Indeed - reminds me of that "The Root of all Evil" doc...

Galvasean

Dades wrote: »

Indeed - reminds me of that "The Root of all Evil" doc...

Not to mention its ad campaign, "SHOULD RELIGION BE BANNED???" Bit over the top.

pclancy

Well he was right on many levels, his HMS Beagle voyage was a masive incease to bottany and biology in terms of new information and samples gathered, his work on coral reefs was never seen before and obviously origin of species laid out a lot of the framework that was proved mostly correct by modern science. He did get a lot of stuff wrong regarding science but so did most thinkers of his time that lacked tools and knowladge that we have now. Interestingly also he was an agnostics by all accounts!

eoin5

To put a bit of perspective to it not long ago people thought that rats were born of mud and flies of sugar, thank you science we have better theories now.

Galvasean

pclancy wrote: »

Interestingly also he was an agnostics by all accounts!

Surely this is well known? He mentions God in the last paragraph of The Origin Of Species.