‎What Darwin Didn't Know: The Modern Science of Evolution - Apple TV

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Chart the deep insights and remarkable conclusions Charles Darwin’s ideas on natural selection inspired. These 24 fascinating episodes cover 160 years of non-stop scientific advances and their relationship to Darwin’s groundbreaking theory. Among them: the discovery of the rules of heredity, the identification of DNA, the recognition of mass extinctions, and the power to manipulate genes.

Educational · 2019 · 32 min

Starring Scott Solomon

EPISODE 1

What Darwin Knew and Why It Still Matters

Retrace Darwin’s path to his theory of evolution by natural selection, which appeared in his The Origin of Species, published in 1859. Encounter collector Alfred Russel Wallace’s, almost identical, key insight. Detail the types of evidence, not known to Darwin, that have accumulated in the century and a half since his time, extending his ideas to a remarkable degree. #Science & Mathematics

32 min · 4 Jan 2019
EPISODE 2

Inheritance: Darwin’s Missing Link

Missing from On the Origin of Species is any account of how traits pass from one generation to the next. Explore the work on genetic inheritance by Gregor Mendel, whose pioneering rules of heredity remained essentially unknown for 35 years. Follow up with 20th-century pioneers, including Thomas Hunt Morgan and Theodosius Dobzhansky, who established the “modern synthesis” of evolutionary biology.

33 min · 4 Jan 2019
EPISODE 3

Genome Mutations: Evolution’s Raw Material

The arrival of genetics in the early 20th century addressed what Darwin did not know about inheritance, but there was more to uncover: How do genes function, and where do variations come from? Trace the discovery of DNA as the carrier of genetic information and the realization that mutations and other structural changes in DNA are a source of the modifications that underlie natural selection.

33 min · 4 Jan 2019
EPISODE 4

Gene Flow versus Natural Selection

Natural selection is not the only mechanism driving evolution. In this episode, discover how the movement of individuals leads to gene flow between populations. Travel to the Galapagos Islands and neighboring Cocos Island to see how finches evolved into multiple species in the Galapagos archipelago but stayed a distinct species on isolated Cocos. Consider the implications for human evolution.

30 min · 4 Jan 2019
EPISODE 5

Geology and Genes: The Geography of Life

Trace the importance of geology in Darwin’s thinking and his many observations that make sense only in light of the theory of plate tectonics, which was not developed until the 1960s. Chart the breakup, movement, and reassembly of continental plates that dispersed related flora and fauna all over the planet. Also look at the Wallace Line in Indonesia, which separates Asian from Australian species.

31 min · 4 Jan 2019
EPISODE 6

Genetic Drift: When Evolution Is Random

Explore how population bottlenecks and the founder effect lead to random changes in the frequency of genes, an independent mechanism of evolution known as genetic drift. Darwin had an inkling of this process when he proposed that “spontaneous variations” play a role in evolution. But genetic drift has proved far more significant than he ever envisioned.

31 min · 4 Jan 2019

Scott Solomon

Host