hyzer

<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/" target="_blank">http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/</a>

Scheduled for broadcast on February 26, 2002.

"A paleontological tour-de-force and suspenseful scientific detective story, the program documents the search for the ancestor of all four-limbed animals, including humans."

I trust that NOVA will be up to the usual high standard. Should prove interesting. The show is sure to recount the finding of key fossils in rock beds along the side of Route 15 through central Pennsylvania (anthropologists like to follow PennDOT roadwork cuts).

sensate

I just finished watching the NOVA episode and I have to say it was very well done. Very informative.

As far as creation/evolution goes I think it was very revealing that scientist were able to rethink their ideas on tetropod evolution. It just proves that evolution is not the dogmatic secular humanist religion that creationist try to make it out to be. I dare creationists to be as willing to change their ideas when presented with compelling evidence.

[ February 26, 2002: Message edited by: sensate ]</p>

Valentine Pontifex

If they changed their ideas when presented with compelling evidence the creationists would be called evolutionists. ;-)

DireStraits

If they changed their ideas when presented with compelling evidence the creationists would be called evolutionists. ;-)

DS: Oh, but they have. They used to claim that evolution was impossible. Now they accept micro, but reject macro, while muddying up the distinction with their silly idea of "kinds".

Of course, this may have something to do with the need for fantastic rates of evolution in order to account for the variation in the biota since Noah's Flood, but they ARE getting the idea, if for the wrong reasons...

Kosh

Me too. Great program! Wish I'd had the foresight
to pop a tape in so my eldest son could watch,
since just the other night he was exasperating
"Dad, how could a fish turn into a monkey?".
Can't find any info on when it will run again.
Anybody know?

I know hindsight is 20/20, but it's funny that
in the end, after determining that the legs
evolved in the water,not vice versa as they had
thought, they were showing live footage of
salamaders as an example. It was right there in
front of us all along! (although, so was that
fish using it's fins to "walk" in the mud, so
I guess that could account for the consfusion).

DireStraits

I trust that NOVA will be up to the usual high standard.


DS: Well, since "NOVA" is the American name for "Horizon", a BBC production, I agree that your expectations are justified.

Should prove interesting. The show is sure to recount the finding of key fossils in rock beds along the side of Route 15 through central Pennsylvania (anthropologists like to follow PennDOT roadwork cuts).

DS: Saw it a couple of hours ago. It did. And it was as good as you would expect from the Beeb. I loved it, and learnt a lot too.

tgamble

Nah, it proves that even them evolutionists are uncertain about their own religious dogma and it proves evolution should be taught as "only a theory" instead of fact.

GOD'S WORD says creationism is true so by definition no compelling evidence against it exists. Just the biased interpretation of god hateing, bible bashing, christian persecuting, atheists.

ex-robot

No, they still think "evolution" is impossible. They have always accepted microevo or whatever for the most part.

xr

gallo

Generally well done, I thought

At one point one of the paleontologists mentioned the excitement of observing something familiar, something that had been learned as a student and realizing that what you were looking at was altogether new, or realizing that you had found something that would change what students who came after you would learn. That is the thrill of science.

At another point, one of them said that science builds on the ideas of others.

In the introduction it was mentioned that these discoveries were shaking up the theories of evolution. The program expressed some of the frustration of paleontologists at the foot dragging of Jarvik in his description of Ichthyostega. Just think. Only two short papers on the fossil between 1948 and 1998! Finally, Clack and Ahlberg went out and found their own – Acanthostega.

At one point the narrator said something about proof. I don’t like that word used in the scientific context. The evidence indicates (which was used more frequently) is usually better, even if it is overwhelming. Unless you have examined every possibility (an impossibility), you never have proof.

Also, the impression was given that “Nature tinkers.” I understand that they don’t mean that there is some sort of purpose, but does a layman who is watching? Nature tinkers in the sense that random variation in organisms will be subjected to natural selection and those variations that offer an advantage will tend to spread in the population.

If you want to read about the topic read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684856239/ref%3Dbybayouuniversit/104-2244467-6175164" target="_blank">At the Water's Edge : Fish With Fingers, Whales With Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea</a> by Carl Zimmer. Zimmer also wrote the companion book to the PBS series “Evolution”. I recommend the both books.

And DireStraits, I don't know how to tell you this, NOVA is produced by WGBH Boston. While it may be possible that they trade some work (it seems reasonable to do so), NOVA is not a reshowing of Beeb productions in the US. British television isn't recut, rescripted and renarrated in this country in order to pretend that is is ours. Generally we colonists understand the Queen's English and there is no need to rescript in order to eliminate British idioms. If you listen closely, you will notice that the narrator of NOVA doesn't have a British accent.
__________________
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use. -- Galileo Galilei

Oolon Colluphid

Here’s (maybe, see below ) the next best thing: there’s more information, and a full transcript of the programme, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/missinglink.shtml" target="_blank">here</a>.
Well I don't know about all Nova programmes, but I was certainly given to understand that generally, Nova was simply renamed BBC Horizon. Perhaps the transcript linked above will resolve the matter –- is the script the same?

Oolon