DescentBB

I know that several people here are well versed in all things natural selection/evolution. I'll be teaching this topic (along with evolutionary psychology) on Friday, and I would like to show a good movies (around 3 minutes long or so) that illustrates the principle of natural selection. Does anybody of you have a good tip?

I am thinking of a movie that shows
a) variability in the population
b) how variability affects survival and offspring
c) how certain beneficial traits spread through the population as a consequence.

I don't mind if it is a good simulation, I just want to make the whole idea as vivid as possible.

Thanks!

How about Pandorum? I think it covers all three points. It's a little longer than 3 minutes though.

\"Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan\"

Pandora wrote:I don't mind if it is a good simulation, I just want to make the whole idea as vivid as possible.

nearly 10 minutes though.

thanks, Floyd, that's a very cool simulation, but too long, and to abstract, for my purposes. Is there anything shorter? Its for first year students, its partially to show them how evolution works, but also to entertain them a bit

How in the heck are you going to illustrate how something works that's never been proven?

In any case short, to the point, and funny as well.



By first year students you mean college?

Well there is the

Planet of the Apes series
Terminator series
Blade Runner
The Story of Human Evolution series

Just a couple off the top of my head. You didn't say how serious a venue so don't make fun

Pandora wrote:Is there anything shorter?

okay then: the Hypotheticus
8 and a half minutes. better?

AlphaDoG wrote:In any case short, to the point, and funny as well.

yeah, this is funny
but it isn't how evolution works, though creationists may think it should. addressing the rest of your post turns this into yet another E&C topic, which is why i won't (and has been discussed thoroughly anyway).

This one is kind of interesting:

(3:32 long)

Has a couple of audio glitches, but the basic premise is sound: computer \"worms\" crawling around in a space of food, mutating new instructions. Over time, the ones that do nothing but \"sleep\" die off, while the ones that look for food and find their way around obstacles tend to survive.

His \"I am Darwin\" video provides some interesting commentary.

The premise to is pretty good, but it needs audio commentary to describe what's going on.

Lothar wrote:This one is kind of interesting:

(3:32 long)

That would make a really neat screensaver.

Floyd wrote:okay then: the Hypotheticus
8 and a half minutes. better?

That could be cut down to just 2 minutes 10 seconds total.
1:20 - 2:48, then 4:16 - 4:58

Xamindar wrote:That would make a really neat screensaver.

Try this program http://www.swimbots.com

Lothar wrote:The premise to is pretty good, but it needs audio commentary to describe what's going on.

Floyd wrote:

Lothar wrote:The premise to is pretty good, but it needs audio commentary to describe what's going on.

Right -- but those don't meet Pandora's "around 3 minutes long or so" criteria.

thanks a lot for the input so far! This is quite helfpul. I found a nice online simulator for the camouflage idea here (thanks Lothar!).

http://www.freewebs.com/scikidus/evolution/index.html

AlphaDoG wrote:By first year students you mean college?

hmmm, not sure what the US equivalent would be. It is first year university students.

Perhaps you could find something here: http://www.teachersdomain.org/collection/k12/sci.life/

However the site seems geared towards Primary (K-12)education.

thanks, Alphadog. This is a very nice site. My teaching philosophy is to keep it as simple as possible, and keep the jargon to a minimum. I hope this will allow the students to focus on the concepts rather than the technical terms. So this site really fits the bill!