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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 10/11/2009 : 16:01:00
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"Darwin's Darkest Hour" is a one hour and forty-one minute PBS presentation (now available for viewing online) which recreates a crucial time in the life of the great naturalist, Charles Darwin.
Darwin struggles with a deathly ill infant son, as he also faces another crisis in the prospect of losing "priority" to Alfred Russel Wallace's independent, parallel discovery of the theory of evolution.
Shown with a great deal of human warmth, this story is a love story of Charles and his wife, Emma, while at the same time it uses flashbacks and dialog between Charles and Emma to present a capsulized but realistic view of the natural observations, experiments, and thinking which led Darwin to his conclusions about natural selection.
Having watched this program, I am now more aware of both the substance and the context of Darwin's great work. I have all the more respect both for Charles and for his religious but supportive wife and cousin, Emma.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
Edited by - HalfMooner on 10/11/2009 16:04:34
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Bob Lloyd
Skeptic Friend
Spain
59 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2009 : 10:05:33 [Permalink]
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| It's interesting to note that in the academia of Darwin's day, you could only become a fellow of universities like Oxford or Cambridge if you also took holy orders. Given the overwhelming power of the church in academia, Darwin feared not just the hostility of the church to his ideas, but also being ostracised by his academic friends and colleagues. If it hadn't been for his friends in the Geological Society, we might never have seen Darwin's work. I think Darwin achieved his results not because of Emma, but despite her. They suppressed the disagreement and accepted the distance that it caused, he because he couldn't be intellectually dishonest, she because she didn't want to displease him. It's a poignant comment on the social relations of the time. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
 Posted - 11/11/2009 : 10:22:47 [Permalink]
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Hey Bob Lloyd, welcome to SFN!
Perhaps I should mention that Bob has written a wonderful book called Leaving the Land of Woo that we will soon be reviewing. (Michelle must to get back from her trip before that happens.)
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2009 : 11:13:35 [Permalink]
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| Hello and welcome, Bob! |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2009 : 19:38:59 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Bob Lloyd
. . .
I think Darwin achieved his results not because of Emma, but despite her. They suppressed the disagreement and accepted the distance that it caused, he because he couldn't be intellectually dishonest, she because she didn't want to displease him. It's a poignant comment on the social relations of the time.
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Thank you for that observation and clarification, Bob. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 11/12/2009 : 16:11:26 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Bob Lloyd
It's interesting to note that in the academia of Darwin's day, you could only become a fellow of universities like Oxford or Cambridge if you also took holy orders. Given the overwhelming power of the church in academia, Darwin feared not just the hostility of the church to his ideas, but also being ostracised by his academic friends and colleagues. If it hadn't been for his friends in the Geological Society, we might never have seen Darwin's work. I think Darwin achieved his results not because of Emma, but despite her. They suppressed the disagreement and accepted the distance that it caused, he because he couldn't be intellectually dishonest, she because she didn't want to displease him. It's a poignant comment on the social relations of the time.
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Welcome to the fora Bob! |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Bob Lloyd
Skeptic Friend
Spain
59 Posts |
Posted - 11/17/2009 : 08:30:31 [Permalink]
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Thanks for the plug for the book, KII. It needs all it can get :)
Re Darwin, there's an excellent series of three programmes by Richard Dawkins called The Genius of Charles Darwin which has a very amusing scene in which Dawkins is facing a creationist who demands that he presents to her the fossil evidence for evolution. Dawkins' look of incredulity is just priceless, as he invites her to come to a museum, and she refuses but still demands to see the evidence. The scene then cuts to the museum where there is so much evidence, he is falling over it. I wonder what Darwin would have made of the mitochondrial DNA evidence now available. That alone wraps up the debate and old CD would, I'm sure, have been overjoyed to see it. I daresay, the church would have closed it eyes and demanded to see the evidence! |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 11/17/2009 : 10:07:35 [Permalink]
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Here is the part of the program that Bob is referring to I think. This is part one of seven of the Dawkins interview with Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America.
Richard Dawkins interviews creationist Wendy Wright.
She talks about treating people with respect and dignity, and yet she doesn’t even offer him a chair. She is condescending, and she keeps laughing at him as though he were the idiot. Frankly, had I been Dawkins, who is a decent man, I might have been tempted to punch her lights out. Sure, that wouldn’t have helped the debate, but it would have been at least somewhat satisfying to treat her with the contempt that she so richly deserved. What an awful person.
And Bob, you're very welcome. Check your message box. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Darwin’s Darkest Hour
