Treat Paine Metcalf of MassComprehension is producing a series of online videos using the words from Chapter 1 of Why Evolution is True. Part 3 has just come out, and two more videos remain. (No other chapters will be done). Here’s the latest, and you can find all three at this link.
This is part 3, 5½ minutes long. There’s now a paper book, an audiobook, and this is at least one chapter of a “videobook”:
This is a delightful series. When it’s done, I’ll sending a link to my kin who are not very well educated in such things. The music alone should lull them into submission.
I wish I had these excellent clips to hand when teaching evolution at my old high school, some years ago.In those days I used a nice film (based around Galapagos Is.) for which Alan Alda gave an intelligent and at times amusing commentary.
Excellent series so far – looking forward to rest of it.
Should eventually be in all the public schools. Great intro.
First rate work! Congrats to the film makers.
At 2:40 the commentary says 1635 for Linnaeus but the graphic ssys 1735.
Linnaeus published Systema Naturae, his work on biological classifications, in 1735. Considering Linnaeus was not alive in 1635, the audio here seems incorrect, so I used 1735 in the captions (with an asterisk indicating the discrepancy).
Beautiful! I always immensely enjoy these. In previous installments we were encouraged to give corrections or suggestions. In the hopes that that is still the case, I suggest a modification of the tree of vertebrates, starting at 1:15. There, the outgroup of the vertebrates is a jellyfish. That is a considerable jump. It is better to have a close relative of the vertebrates that lacks vertebrae instead. The appropriate one to use is a ‘basal chordate’ like Amphioxus.
What great videos. The visuals, music and explanations are superb.
Thank you!
The visuals and explanations were indeed nice, but I think the musical bed was too often a distraction: by the third video I was wishing for a knob that would lower the background by 10dB or so, the better to hear the explanations.
Very nicely done!
Fantastic. Should be used in every school.
This is brilliant! Onto Facebook it goes, where it is sure to garner some interesting comments from my Trump supporting family and friends.
Visual explanations are very valuable!