Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life product reviews

Charles Darwin was quite the amazing man. The ideas that he managed to come up with because birds had different styles of beak were revolutionary, he was like an ancient-era Sherlock Holmes. Even ancient isn't an accurate term. It is still a relatively new train of thought. 2009 celebrated the year that Darwin would have turned 200, and the 150 year anniversary of the Origin of the Species.

I love Science, and I love David Attenborough documentaries. His narration has a similar effect to Morgan Freeman on the Silver Screen. Everything they make turns to gold. I'm more interested in the animal world, than looking at the people, but I still found it fascinating. The way that David Attenborough speaks, is near enough like reading out a fact book. He talks slow and pauses often, giving you the time to fully comprehend the life lesson that he has provided.

Every sentence is a new fact that you most likely didn't know, and even if you know a lot on the subject, you are guaranteed to find at least a handful of facts that will surprise you. That is the magic of Attenborough. After watching the 'Life Of...' documentaries, this provides a great prequel to explain how the animals came to be, and the life of the man who figured it all out.

Always a fan of Sir David, even at his most lecturous, I was quick to jump on this one as it also ties in with my avid fascination for science history and the grand figures behind our greatest leaps of knowledge.

Darwin, though hardly a radical or revolutionist, basically slapped a great big 'WARNING: You may be wrong' sticker on the face of the Creationist churches, when he published The Origin of Species. Even though religious tolerance was well in place, it was still hard for the devout to accept, that maybe God didn'r create everything in all it's wonderous diversity.

The thing is, even Darwin, and other like him researching heredity and genetics around that time, didn't say "God doesn't exist" - they simply suggested that the diversity was more to do with mortal matters of survival and adaptation, than a divine design of humongous proportions. This has more recently been butchered into something akin to "Intelligent Design" - wherein God created the base models, and engineered in a manner of change that allowed the critters to adjust to best suit their environments.

Whatever the religious ideals prevailing around you, this is one DVD well worth watching, if only to see how it matches up with what you know, vs what you believe. Organisms changing to better suit their environments is a fact. Proven in the world of theory and in the world of mortals. If there is a supreme entity out there that created us, be it a all-loving deity watching over it's favoured children, a facet of a sentient universe trying to understand itself, or just a pan-dimensional kid playing SimUniverse, then it sure bears thinking about, how evolution has been written in to the genetic script of each and every living thing on this dirtball.

Overall, personally, being a science buff, I found it highly illuminating and educational, and I loved the snippets of Sir David's past series that made quick cameos throughout, illustrating key points raised. I was also glad of the 50-min extra doco that delved a bit deeper into the lead-up to the publication of Darwin's Magnum Opus, and his theories on common ancestry. Well worth considering. Not sure about it? Check your local library and see if they have a copy in the reference or Audio/Visual section for hire.