100 Greatest Discoveries

Episode - The Origin of Life and Evolution

An excellent movie to watch prior or after the "Inconvenient Truth, An (2006)" and "Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006)". This film's major subject is life, its evolution and its extinction. A further moral issue is hidden within the context of this film, hence the reference to the two aforementioned documentary films which deal with, respectfully, global warming and a controversy of restricting evolutionary technologies such as the "electric car". This movies, however, has hidden themes which can be linked with our current north American standard of life, living off of oil, failing to meet important governmental protocols that could help save our entire planet. This movie attempts to explain our deep psychological questions such as, why we exist, why we try to stay alive and how we try to understand planets, other ecosystems, environment and species. From explaining the misconceived bacterial sludge to deep sea chemosynthesis, or from the theory of comets, volcanoes and an explosion bigger than all nuclear forces, this documentary, hosted by Bill Nye, is an important summary of popular and common science theories. TVO summarizes this episode as "Ten milestones that have helped to tell life's story…" In fact, on top of the already mentioned themes this discusses "Charles Walcott's analysis of the Burgess Shale; the Linnaean classification system; Darwin's theory of natural selection; Donald Johanson's "Lucy"; Mary Leakey's Laetoli footprints; and Michel Brunet's Toumai skull."

This film has a fair overview and a perfect level of light humor (spelt the United States of American way!) from Bill Nye. Even with the seriousness of some of the subjects it is appropriate for all ages. I recommended parental guidance for children under 9 years old. The movie is produced by ThinkFilm and aired in Ottawa on TVO (www.tvo.org), Channel 2 CICA, at 19h00 January 16, 2007.

"The Origin of Life and Evolution." 100 Greatest Discoveries. TVO. CICA, Ottawa. 16 Jan. 2007, 19h00. For more information see http://www.tvo.org/