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OU on the BBC: Darwin's Dangerous Idea - Body and soul

Posted under What's On

Andrew Marr explores how Darwin's challenge to religion raised questions of body and soul.

24 Feb
2009

Production team Andrew Marr inspects a phial

The first programme of Darwin's Dangerous Idea explores the impact of Darwin’s ideas on religion and morality.

Andrew Marr discovers that an important part of the Beagle’s mission was to return three natives to their homeland, Tierra del Fuego, at the southernmost tip of Argentina. Years before he reached the Galapagos, they raised questions in his mind about the fragility of civilisation and what it really means to be human.

Marr explores how Darwin developed his ideas when he returned to Britain and finally unleashed his theory of evolution by natural selection on the world. Darwin’s ideas are taken up by many of the major thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud. We discover that his ideas helped motivate the Kaiser’s army in the First World War and would also help convince the United States government to drop its isolationist policy and enter the conflict.

In the 20th century, we discover a growing backlash against Darwin’s ideas among fundamentalists from the world’s major religions. At the same time science has been showing that Darwin’s theory of natural selection holds sway over our behaviour - including our morality - as much as it does over the evolution of our bodies. There is significant scientific evidence that suggests that Darwin has returned humanity to nature, in all its wonder, its glory and its danger.

Darwin's Dangerous Idea in more depth:

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Comments on: "Body and soul"

Archive Comments

RiverAsUsual has started a thread discussing Body and soul.

Re: Comments on: "Body and soul"

Archive Comments

Ah, now I see.

I didn't realise that it was a reference to ... ugh ... a TV programme.

You mean there ANOTHER ONE that actually has real, useful information in it?

Given the title, probably not .....

Re: Comments on: "Body and soul"

Archive Comments

Correction: it was the first in the series. No one had commented on it until G. Tingey dragged it up from the depths and made it look as if it was new.

Archive Comments

G. Tingey's comment may seem odd if you aren't viewing it from inside the forum: he's simply responding to an entry with a link to this page referring to "body and soul" and he is probably completely unaware that his comment has appeared here.

I imagine that the comments you're looking for are about the program with the episode title "body and soul", and it's too early to comment on it because it hasn't been broadcast yet. It doesn't look from the discription given in the Radio Times as if the title is particularly relevant, but time will tell.

Incidentally, as an atheist I have no problem with the idea of the "soul": it is just another name for something in the brain that has consciousness.

Re: Comments on: "Body and soul"

Archive Comments

So?

First define "soul".
Then detect it, and show that it exists at all.

Then we can have a discussion.

In the meantime:
De nada
Nix
Empty Set
.

Article Information

Publication details
Wednesday, 11th February 2009
Tuesday, 24th February 2009

Copyright information
• Body text - Copyrighted: The Open University
• Image 'Andrew Marr inspects a phial' - Copyrighted: Production team

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