TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10
CREATION OR EVOLUTION
The Man at the Center of the Controversy
There is no theory more controversial, and more passionately debated than Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
I won’t dare take a side, preferring instead to take the easy way out – listening to both sides and agreeing with neither. Or, really, believing a little bit of both. Either way, evolution when presented simply as a theory lends itself to beautiful images of strange creatures in mysterious lands.
And when it comes to watching television, sometimes that’s enough.
Which is certainly the case with Darwin’s Secret Notebooks, a National Geographic Channel documentary that pays tribute to Darwin on the occasion of his 200th birthday.
But Notebooks is more than beautiful images, although these are never in short supply.
This documentary follows host Armand Marie Leroi as he delves into the events that led Darwin to formulate his theory, a revolutionary theory he’d kept hidden for two decades.
Darwin was, curiously, merely a worker prone to seasickness on a global expedition that began in England. He was tasked with collecting animal and plant specimens throughout South America, including a brief stop at the Galapagos Islands.
Darwin, we learn, never set out to raise questions about the creation of Earth and its inhabitants. Instead, the stunning landscapes he saw in South America led him to theorize that the earth itself had changed over time.
He eventually came to believe that animals also changed – evolved.
This is the crux of the debate, of course. Were we humans, for instance, created as we are today or were we once decidedly less human and more animal?
Notebooks sides with evolution. But that shouldn’t be a distraction. Notebooks is a beautiful documentary and a fascinating biography of the man at the heart of the creation-evolution debate.
Darwin’s Secret Notebooks airs tonight at 9pm et/pt on National Geographic Channel. Click on Video Clips to watch a preview.
