Channel 4: The Genius of Charles Darwin

1 August 2008

Starting next week, Channel 4 in the UK is screening a three-part documentary series on the scientific legacy of Charles Darwin, hosted by our old friend Richard Dawkins.

Digiguide describes the series:

In 1859, English naturalist Charles Darwin published his masterpiece On the Origin of Species. In it Darwin put forward his theory – that everything on this planet has evolved by natural selection rather than by God or a higher being. The book caused outrage at the time, but radically changed perceptions of our existence.

Nearly 150 years later, Darwin’s theory remains controversial, despite overwhelming evidence backing it up. Richard Dawkins â€” ethologist, scientist and one of Britain’s best-known atheists …Â â€” examines the theory in our programme of the week, The Genius of Charles Darwin. A strong three-parter, Dawkins retraces Darwin’s journey aboard The Beagle and re-examines the evidence of the natural world, showing how the ongoing process of sex, suffering and death drives evolution on as the fittest survive and the weakest perish. But although the evidence seems irrefutable, Dawkins has some tough critics to convince â€” a class of intelligent but sceptical British teenagers. Can he convince them that Darwin’s theory is true?

Screenings on Channel 4 and S4C

Watch clips from the series

Update: There’s also a BBC Radio 4 interview with Dawkins about the series available on his web site.

Possibly related posts:

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tags: Channel 4, Charles Darwin, entertainment, evolution, Richard Dawkins, science, television

Comments

This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.

4813 Responses2008-08-01+09%3A18%3A16nullifidian to “Channel 4: The Genius of Charles Darwin”

TW on August 4th, 2008 7:33 pm

It is on at the moment.

Dawkins is a good presenter but I cant help thinking this is “preaching to the choir.” Watching this it defies belief that anyone can not accept evolution. It just makes sense and well done to Dawkins for trying to explain the obvious.

Sadly, I suspect the theists (for example the stubborn children at the start) will simply ignore the obvious, ignore the evidence and learn as much as they always do….
DB on August 7th, 2008 11:15 am

Thanks for the link. I am incredibly interested in this series. I find it fascinating and love hearing about all the wonders our Earth has to offer. It is unfortunate that theists fight against this. I too feel that many will see this and still somehow reject evolution. The absurdity baffles me.
les lynn on August 13th, 2008 10:57 pm

before the year 1858 nobody realised we had a very long evolutionary history, least of all most religous founders,otherwise they would have told us. we now it stretches back some 3 billion years via primates,mammals,reptiles, amphibians, fish & bacteria. It would seem that most religions have a lot to answer for especially introducing heaven, hell & everlasting life to get believers.