It's official. Evolution is a song... or at least the winning entry in Discover Magazine's "EVOLUTION IN TWO MINUTES OR LESS" video contest is. Here was the challenge:Can you communicate the most important idea in biology, and one of the most controversial ideas in our society, in a mere 120 seconds? Think you can convince even the most hard-headed creationist that Darwin was right? If so, show us—and that creationist—how it's done.
Your task is to create a video of no more than two minutes that will get the idea and significance of evolution across to an educated lay audience. Along the way, you can touch on points like how evolution works, how we know it to be true, the evolution of humanity, and the future of evolution.
The purpose of the contest was to see if a short, inspired video could help spread the truth about the theory of evolution and how essential it is to the understanding of the biological sciences. The contest judge was the noted University of Minnesota biologist and science blogger, PZ Myers. The five top-scoring videos are now being featured on Discover Magazine's website.
And the winner is...
Evolution: The Song by Scott Hatfield, a teacher at Bullard High School in Fresno, California.
The four runner-ups are...
Evolution in 120 Seconds by Steven Anderson of Texas (viewer's choice winner).
Where do we come from a cartoon by Maggie Tse, Tony Cheng and Stella Chung, of New York
It's...EVOLUTION by Benjamin from Arizona
Why Elephants Do Not Have Wings by Whitney Gray from Chapel Hill, NC
Photo Credit:
1) Charles Darwin portrayed as an ape; a 19th century anti-evolution cartoon
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Comments
I liked the viewer's choice better, because I couldn't understand half of the words in the song, and because he gave a lovely, concise explanation of the fact of evolution.
Same here, Carol.
I tried loading the videos, but Discover.com said they were currently unavailable. Did any of them show how whales evolved from cattle, as stated by my 8th grade science teacher? That one has been puzzling me for years.
Hello Croce. You can find a video about the evolution of whales at the PBS website. Just google, "evolution of whales." It's one of the first listings they show.
Thanks about the tip covering the whale evolutionary tree. It seems plausible, although whether successive adaptations were accomplished by either micro-mutations, mega-mutations, or punctuated equilibrium still stumps me. I can see obvious problems with each process. Hopefully a better fossil record could shed light on a puzzling evolution for such an amazing creature.
Common genes, common ancestor.
I liked the 2nd two - "Where do we come from" and "Evolution in 120" best. The winner was too complicated for a layperson. Plus I couldn't stand the music long enough to get through it.
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