I can't be the only one have watched this?

I was really looking forward to it but only found out just beforehand that Richard Dawkins was presenting it.

This made my heart sink. Firstly, he isn't the most natural of TV presenters. Secondly, I did wonder how much the programme would be about Darwin and how much would be about Dawkins.

It didn't start off dreadfully well when it looked like the whole thing might become "The Root Of All Evil" but with a bit of Darwin draped around it.

Certainly, the bits with the 16 year old kids were absolutely pointless. Equally, the bits where he kept on going on how "The Origin Of Species" was the most important book in the library of this species etc, reminded me of Brian Clough complaining about Sky commentators going on about how good every game they show is.

As he says, we aren't stupid, we know when a game is good and, equally, the story of Darwin and evolution is fucking fantastic, Richard, just tell us it and we will see that for ourselves.

I was hugely disappointed that Dawkins didn't delve more into what must have been a huge issue for Darwin when his research brought him to the conclusion that there was no God. This seemed to be completely glossed over in a way that a historian, for instance, wouldn't do.

Having said that, this whole series looks like it is going to be about Darwin's work rather than the man himself but it still would have been nice to hear about what must have been a major point in his life.

Having said all this, once the programme went on, there were some really good bits, the Aids section was excellent and Dawkins treated it sensitively. I thought that Dawkins talking over endless footage of animals fucking was an, erm, interesting bit of editing and, for some reason, I really enjoyed the piano keyboard as a timeline for the history of the world.

It will be interesting to see how next week's goes. Hopefully, they will do away with some of the "Richard tell us all how important Darwin is" parts and start showing us instead. For one thing, he isn't the greatest at interacting with other people on TV. Not a criticism, his job isn't to be Johnathon Ross but they should play to his strengths (the science bits)

I was thinking of who I may have preferred to have presented this and I was thinking of David Attenborough and (don't laugh, I know I keep referring to him) Bill Bryson and I remembered that Attenbrough is supposed to be doing his own documentary on Darwin, preseumably for BBC, so I don't know whether this is a spoiler for Channel 4

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I was hugely disappointed that Dawkins didn't delve more into what must have been a huge issue for Darwin when his research brought him to the conclusion that there was no God. This seemed to be completely glossed over in a way that a historian, for instance, wouldn't do.

Yes, this is interesting- though I associate that less with a historian than a biographer. I think I recall from a note in The Selfish Gene that there was a particularly cruel animal that finally convinced Darwin there was no benevolent God.

I didn't see this.

I think Dawkins is a fair enough choice to present, as it happens. Insofar as there's masses of controversy attached to Darwin, it's attached to Dawkins. And while I think he's at least a bit culpable for that, a huge amount of the program - from what i've heard - is premised on the existence of that controversy.

To be honest, historians of Darwin (I know about four or five of the top ten personally/professionally, so I speak with some authority) just aren't that interested in Darwin's attitude to religion. I mean, it's a profoundly interesting set of stuff that happened around him, but his personal degree of tortured reflection seems to have been relatively untortuous and at no point in his life do his views on religion - apart from his preexisting intellectual background - appear to have affected his views on biology much at all.

Re the Attenborough thing as well; yeah, the next year or so is a big big time for the Darwin industry. 150th anniversary of the Origin, y'see.

Incredibly, I missed this. Hope it's on V+.

The BBC season that includes the Attenborough film covers off Darwin's influence on political and religious thought with a three-parter by top OTF favourite, Andrew Marr.

I'm just glad it isn't Alan Titchmarsh. Or Neil Oliver.

Marr's a bit of a Darwin fan, isn't he? He did the thing on Darwin for that Greatest Ever British Dude Show a few years ago. He was shit.

On the basis of that series, we could do a lot worse than Jeremy Clarkson.

When was this shown, and which channel? I'll see if I can dredge it up on BT Vision.

Last night at 8 on Channel 4 SR. Here's the website for the show.

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

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On the basis of that series, we could do a lot worse than Jeremy Clarkson.

"If this car was an evolutionary event... it'd be the Cambrian Explosion!"

So in this programme, did that controversial little tinker Dawkins conclude by saying that evolution disproves the existence of God?

No, he just said that after Origin there was no need for supernatural explanations.

He didn't really, he didn't actually spend much time on the ramifications of Darwin's findings to God people. Those potential ramifications seemed to be one reason why Darwin kept his findings private for so long, it was only when word came through to him that another biologist was planning to publish the findings he himself had made that convinced Darwin to push ahead.

Perhaps the uproar that his book caused will be covered next week.

I enjoyed this programme and I don't mind Dawkins as a presenter. It was more of an ideal setting for him, he didn't have to argue with closed minded religious fools, something which always causes his bile to rise. He's not brilliant at disguising his frustration at debating with fools, but take that out of the equation and he comes over quite avuncular like.

Generally fascinating stuff anyway. I knew the basics of Darwin's findings but this filled in a lot of the gaps, gaps on a subject as important as this I really shouldn't have had.

The one depressing part was the schoolkids segment. They seemed pretty rational, intelligent 15 and 16 year olds, yet even after spending time with Dawkins patiently explaining things to them and showing them proof of fossils and evolution at work they still preferred to believe what their holy book had told them.

Four out of ten people in the UK believe in the Creation theory. How depressing is that figure.

The Horse wrote:

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So in this programme, did that controversial little tinker Dawkins conclude by saying that evolution disproves the existence of God?

I've never seen him claim that. It would be nonsense, actually.