Cheap Evolution Box Set (Video) (Evolution) Price

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Customer Reviews of Evolution Box Set

The PBS TV Series, -not- the David Duchovny film..
This series has very well chosen scientists who say very interesting things. Several of my favorite authors including Peter D. Ward, Simon Conway Morris, and Stephen Jay Gould provide explanations for their ideas on the subject. Compared to similar efforts, the animations of Burgess Shale organisms are a bit stiff and unrealistic. And it's maddening that all of the DNA helices seen in animations are left-handed, i.e. the mirror image of what DNA really looks like. But this series is touching all the right bases, from my p.o.v. and provides much valuable food for thought.

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Public Broadcasting's Dangerous Program
Despite all our resources and responsibilities, many Americans fail to recognize biological evolution. In my case, local schools never mentioned the subject, and I failed to learn the science behind the science of Life. Compounding this common problem, anti-evolutionists make incessant and persuasive claims against biological theories.

But solutions exist; WGBH Boston and Public Broadcasting bring eight hours worth to DVD. *Evolution: A Journey into Where We're From, and Where We're Going* (2001) offers an updated summary of biological evolution. As a student, it seems to me *Evolution* successfully introduces selected elements of Darwinian and modern synthetic evolution, but its aim is too short and too broad to be a serious argument.

Purpose and People

Don't expect to find a technical treatise in this collection. The program does not delve into punctuated equilibrium, does not delve deeply into genes, and does not delve much into biology formulas or statistics. Concepts such as genetic drift, bottleneck effect, and founder effect are demonstrated'but not labeled. Most noticeable is the absence of classic fossil evidence, such as hominid and dinosaur transitions. Likewise, the program does not seek to underestimate its audience either. Terms such as 'DNA', 'genes', 'mutation' and 'evolution' fly about with minimal definition. Doctors and researchers regularly spout dates as if the audience should already agree with them. *Evolution* seems to reach for a middle ground'for people who learned some biology, just not its uniting principle of descent with modification.

Discs with Modifications

That target audience includes me, and *Evolution* reaches out in force. An encyclopedia of biologists, zoologists, and ecologists explain their experiences and present their evidence. Famous evolution-theory authors such as Stephen Jay Gould and Kenneth Miller make brief appearances, and evangelist Ken Ham airs some concerns. Cheesy computer animation helps to reinforce pre-history points. Original footage forms the bulk of this set; much of the footage takes the audience on-location from fossils beds to Neanderthal caves to tropical jungles. Finally, in the same soft tone as his character in *The Phantom Menace*, actor Liam Neeson narrates all four discs, seven episodes, and eight hours.

*Evolution's* first disc contains a two-hour introduction, including a well-produced drama about Charles Darwin. Remaining discs each hold two single-hour episodes. From the title screen the user may play the episodes concurrently or individually, select chapters, and access web-links and closed captioning. The discs also include a reference list of related DVDs. I find the layout simple and direct.

Exhibiting Evidence

Speaking of direct, *Evolution* plunges into biological change. Anti-evolutionists, such as lawyer Philip Johnson or evangelist Duane Gish, argue that little or no evidence demonstrates biological evolution between species. Episode two, 'Great Transformations' provides a summary of fossil evidence for current evolutionary theories. Paleontologist Philip Gingrich displays the fossils of an extinct land predator with the inner ear of a whale, which he first discovered in Pakistan in 1978. He also displays fossils of whales with small hind legs, discovered in a Sahara Desert valley in 1994 by one of his former students. Not long thereafter the program shows the older fossil layer of the Devonian period, and paleontologists such as Jennifer Clack of the University of Cambridge provide a variety of extinct marine animal fossils with the limb bones of land animals. Many of these prehistoric marine fossil beds are shown at the tops of mountains or in deserts. Throughout the parade, fossils are compared and examined onscreen to establish they are transitions between fish and land animals, and land mammals and whales.

*Evolution's* fossil evidence does not speak alone, nor does it speak on just one disc. But equally important is the focus *Evolution* brings to controversy in its final episode 'What About God?' Evangelist Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis ministries explains to the camera:

'The Bible says, God created the Earth covered with water; the sun, moon, and stars on day four. Well that's very different to the big bang. If the big bang's true, well the Bible got it wrong on astronomy. The Bible says there was a global flood, but uh, today we have a lot of people say, 'No there wasn't.' Well if the Bible gets it wrong in geology' [and] gets it wrong in biology, then why should I trust the Bible when it talks about morality and salvation?'

Geology major Nathan Baird of Wheaton College asks us:

'What do you do when the evidence is before you' and you want to say, 'Well then this goes completely against my whole upbringing. This completely goes against everything I have known to be true, thus far'' That's a struggle I've gone through this year. Where is God?'

Good questions. And now I must question the scope of the program. *Evolution* is too short and too broad to stand on it's own as an argument. I already mentioned many things left out in the above Purpose paragraph. I also mentioned the failure to fully define many basic concepts. In addition, the show does not differentiate between old-earth and young earth creationism. *Evolution* does not mention intelligent design theory. *Evolution* often fails to anticipate opposing arguments, leaving me to wonder about alternative interpretations of data. Indeed, my mind felt hungrier than ever by the end of the set.

Conclusion

I wanted to see more evidence, and learn about the techniques used to interperate it. A subject as detailed and complex as biological evolution seems to me should have been presented step-by-step, in a regular series. By making a regular series, at least one year long, *Evolution* could be a thorough, methodical, and perpetually updating focus on biological evolution.

But that is an argument for another essay. I think *Evolution* is much too short and too broad. But I also feel it made selected ideas within biological theories more credible to me. High school and college students especially may find *Evolution* more interesting than a textbook. At the very least, it will help some Americans recognize the science behind the science of Life.

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Informative, Well Produced, Timely
This is a DVD Boxed set that belongs on every shelf, period. While highly informative and very well presented, it is also entertaining to watch. Before I knew it, I had watched through the entire series and was wanting even more! I wish that more had been done in the series, particularly an episode dedicated to the budding science of Evolutionary Psychology for example.

It provides an exacting overview of Evolutionary Theory in our current understanding. At the same time, it provides well explained and detailed analysis of the evidence that has been building behind the theory over the last century or more. Of interest to some was the time spent on the debate between Evolution and Creation *Science*, with a full hour dedicated to the issues of faith and science in and out of the classroom.

All in all, entertaining and informative to the open minded, likely an affront to the closed minded, this boxed set comes HIGHLY recommended for anyone regardless. Easily worth more than it costs.