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When Whales had Legs

This isn’t a book, but I wanted to point it out anyway.

I’ve been watching a cool show on National Geographic TV.  It’s called Morphed, and it’s all about evolution. There are three episodes so far. I’m not sure if it’s going to be a longer series or not, but these three are worth seeing:

  • When Whales had Legs
  • From Dinosaur to Turkey
  • Before They were Bears


If you’re familiar with evolution, there’s probably not much new here. But it’s all explained in an easy-to-understand format with good graphics and animations. And two of the three episodes are about my favorite animals: dinosaurs and whales. All I could think of after watching these is, “Anyone who thinks there are no ‘transitional fossils’ and who doesn’t believe in evolution is clearly wearing blinders.” That’s just how I always felt watching the hippos at the San Diego Zoo, too. 

Check out the website. There are some great videos and interactive animations. There are links to other shows about evolution, too.

Writerdd

Donna Druchunas is a freelance technical writer and editor and a knitwear designer. When she's not working, she blogs, studies Lithuanian, reads science and sci-fi books, mouths off on atheist forums, and checks her email every three minutes. (She does that when she's working, too.) Although she loves to chat, she can't keep an IM program open or she'd never get anything else done.

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10 Comments

  1. We saw all three, and liked them, for the most part. However, they never really explained descent-with-modification as being the mechanism at work. I am afraid many people who watched will think that the earlier forms “turned into” the later forms because of the language used. This, I think, is why many folks have a hard time “believing in” evolution, rather than accepting that populations change over time.

  2. Dawkins does a great bit on this too in “The Ancestors Tale”. Then again, everything in that book blew my mind over and over.

  3. I’m discussing evolution with a creationist right now. I brought up the whale series…

    It’s so disheartening, that someone would write something like, “Just because there are no whale fossils with Ambulocetus, doesn’t mean that there were no whales at that time.”

  4. I WANT A LA CARTE CABLE ACCESS! This is a big Federal issue and people should be aware!

    If Comcast has the technology to do “On Demand”, then they have the technology to do A La Carte! Their protestations that it is too technically difficult and costly are garbage!

    Until A La Carte, I will probably never get National Geographic Channel, which is a tragedy.

  5. Less emotional, and more detail:

    I don’t want Bravo or E!. MTV was cool when it was new… LONG AGO, then fell prey to industry. Not want. Hallmark I can live with, there is the occasional gem. SciFi and Comedy are requirements. USA is okay. Etc.

    Why should I have to live with this “bundle”? The obvious reason is: it maximizes revenue for the cable company. But: it minimizes satisfaction for this customer. So the two do not relate, which is the fundamental issue here.

    If the cable companies would just stop stonewalling (yes, they are gay) and give us a la carte, they would see their satisfaction rate go up trendendously.

  6. Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhh! Even worse! Though they promise to show the videos on the NG website, the ads don’t just interrupt the videos, they BREAK the videos!

    Horrors! This is a nightmare.

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