Videos About Evolution

[Agent Intellect]

For those interested in learning about evolution, but don't like reading:



What Darwin Never Knew. - This is probably one of the best shows I've seen about evolution - it's layman's terms but doesn't dumb it down as if it's talking to school children.

The Code of Life - DNA and genetics; it's about 9~ years old, but much of what's said is still relevant (although a bit idealistic about the future (ie, now) of genetics).

Becoming Human (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) - takes a rather extensive view of human evolution; the second and third part are especially interesting.

The Human Spark - about what makes human minds human; first part focuses on our past evolution, second focuses on our similar behavior with chimps, third part hasn't come out yet, but it supposed to be about the human brain.

Library of shorter videos about various aspects of evolution.

EDIT: people might not like these ones as much, as they are hosted by Richard Dawkins so invariably have some anti-religious sentiments in them: The Genius of Charles Darwin (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Full interview with Steven Pinker )

 

[fullerene]

yes!

My goodness do I hate reading--like any good stupid, lazy American--but I do like learning. I'm totally watching at least some of these this weekend.

 

[Nevermind]

Cool. I'll probably watch some of these this weekend. I'm not usually a fan of biology, but I have always found evolution quite fascinating.
Nice finds, and thanks for posting!

 

[Agent Intellect]

I actually just finished the Steven Pinker interview and I would highly recommend it, even for people not all that interested in biological evolution, as it talks a lot about memetic and language evolution (and Dawkins actually lays off on the strong anti-theist rhetoric).

 

[Agent Intellect]

The third installment of The Human Spark (Brain Matters) is online now, and is a must watch for anyone interested in the human brain. I watched it when it was on TV and just watched it again online. Highly recommend it.

 

[NoID10ts]

I appreciate you sharing these. They have been fascinating. "The Human Spark" was really good and dove tailed nicely with the book "Supersense" that I just finished reading.

 

[fullerene]

ugh... I feel kind of shitty for neither responding to this nor watching them yet... but when I said I was excited to see them, there was one thing I didn't count on. My roommate is a senior bio major who's looking at grad schools now, and I would feel like an idiot if he heard me listening to online evolution videos.

I didn't know how big of an effect that would actually have...

 

[Madoness]

http://www.ninjavideo.net/cat/2214 has a nice collection of
The History Channel - Evolve

 

[NoID10ts]

This isn't about evolution, but it's fascinating nonetheless. Krauss is an entertaining speaker. I'm too lazy to start a whole new thread just for this:

YouTube- 'A Universe From Nothing' by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009

 

[Madoness]

This isn't about evolution, but it's fascinating nonetheless. Krauss is an entertaining speaker. I'm too lazy to start a whole new thread just for this:

YouTube- 'A Universe From Nothing' by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009

Though i've seen it, this guy is hilarious.

But, as it is usually with some fundamentalist christians, evolution is not cosmology as it is not abiogenesis. I know that you know that. But next time one fundamentalist may say that you yourselves do not make any difference, but we do, that's why I needed to say what I said.

 

[NoID10ts]

Though i've seen it, this guy is hilarious.

But, as it is usually with some fundamentalist christians, evolution is not cosmology as it is not abiogenesis. I know that you know that. But next time one fundamentalist may say that you yourselves do not make any difference, but we do, that's why I needed to say what I said.

This is true. I posted that on my way out to work and then found myself wondering about a few things Krauss said. Now I wish I'd started a separate thread about it to see if anyone can answer my questions. I don't want to derail this one unless it's with talk of the evolution of the Pness.

 

[fullerene]

I forgot to mention.... I did go back and watch "what darwin never knew".... but I was actually really, really frustrated with it. For all the times I've rolled my eyes at blob's sentiments over the past year or two..... I can actually see what he's talking about now.

The science in it wasn't bad. I was pretty much learning straight through for everything after about the time they got to "switch" genes... and I knew the stuff before that pretty well, so it was perfect for my level. I knew enough to see that they understood what they were talking about, but not enough to get bored.

The whole presentation and focus of the show, though, made me almost phyically ill. The first 20 minutes was more "Darwin-worship" than I even knew existed, previously, and the repeated "switch" animation (that red button they pushed where the energy shot up the gene, 'activating' it) strongly reminded me of commercials, eating into your brain by pairing images with whatever it is that they're selling to make you go "wow"!

I guess this is kind of unavoidable on tv.... if you don't keep people interested and excited, they're not going to watch your program.... but it bothered me so much that I was actually having trouble paying attention to the biology.

 

[NoID10ts]

You're just frustrated because deep down, you know you're wrong about all this "god is the creator" stuff. Faith burns as it leaves the body.

 

[Agent Intellect]

The problem is, with evolution, is there is such a strong drive for scientists to popularize it, since it is such a controversial subject. The idea of evolution and natural selection are relatively easy to understand (I contend that most people that don't 'believe' in evolution just don't get it) but there are a lot of intricacies that PBS videos never show.

There is plenty of evidence out there: mitochondrial DNA lineages, parasite co-evolution, intestinal bacteria co-evolution, DNA mutation rate testing, and Escherichia Coli laboratory evolution experiments, comparative embryology (1) etc.

But you won't find things like this in a popular science show, because it would bore most people to death.

Most of the discussion within the evolutionary biology community has more to do with things like punctuated equilibria (1) (2), horizontal gene transfer (1) (2), evolutionary stability (1) (Also, if interested, check out "The Extended Phenotype" which talks about this subject), the theory of 'The Edge of Chaos' (1) and complexity theory as applied to evolution, gene isolation and heritable genetics (1), transgenics (1) etc.

Of course, most of this doesn't make it into popular science, either.

The point is, just like with the news (or any science - try checking out physics videos on youtube sometime) people want to see what's interesting. With biology this means the tooth-and-claw world of lions and antelope, this means human evolution and the speculative stories about why we became intelligent, this means the genetic reasons why some people are tall and others are short and so on. They don't make videos about the scientific method of evolution, and of course this opens it up to all the criticism about how it's not science - because nobody actually hears the science, they are shown some skulls that look similar as if this is the only evidence there is - it's no wonder people think there are so many "holes" in the theory, it's a wonder we have any fossils at all.

 

[Anthile]

http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_dawkins_growing_up_in_the_universe.html