Video Review Sheet

Apeman: The Story of Human Evolution, Science And Fiction

Data:

1994, 50 minutes, color, A&E Television Networks, USD Catalog Number MV2139, pt.4

Summary:

Evolutionists and creationists debate the origin of the species, but within science, scholars argue about the "purity" of our origins. The video talks with several scholars including, Milford Wolpoff, Lewis Binford, Erik Trinkhaus, Chris Stringer, and numerous others about science's obsession with the origin and line questions. Good footage of the Scopes Trial, several important individual scholars and their work, and the impact of the Piltdown Fraud are shown. Important questions about the relationship of our interpretations to the contemporary social context are raised.

Questions:

1. What is meant when it is said that evolution is a fact, but that natural selection is a theory?
2. Why is the debate over evolution so intense?
3. What impact does this debate have on the science?
4. Why has Neanderthal been so controversial a species?
5. How did Raymond Dart's ideas affect our views of ourselves, and how did his views reflect our society?
6. What does Roger Lewin mean when he says: "Believing is seeing?"
7. What conditions might affect the future of our species? Will we survive as a species?

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larry-zimmerman@uiowa.edu
University of Iowa Anthropology
08/18/98