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Evidence of Evolution
2009 is "Darwin year". This year marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth.
It will also be 150 years since the publication of the Origin of Species.

Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury Shropshire, England on 12 February 1809.
He studied medians at the university of Edinburgh at Cambridge.

In 1831, he joined a five year scientific expedition on the survey ship HMS Beagle.

Darwin's theory was sparked, when he arrived in the Galapagos Islands.

And so then he starts talking about natural. The first thing he talks about the idea of biogeography. And this is the one thing that struck him. Because he went on a three year tour where he sailed from Europe. He ended up down in South America. They bounced around South America.

They went across the Galapagos. Sailed across the pacific. Went to Australia. Went to all of these islands. Eventually came back to South America and to Europe.

And so what biogeography is where life is found. And because before Darwin, all scientists believed in special creation.

That god simply placed everything perfectly evolved to where it lived. That's what the scientists believed.

And he started to question that. When he went to the Galapagos for example and found that there was only one type of bird there, the finches. That there were only the tortoises there. But you did not have mammals.

You did not have goats and pigs and all those things weren't there naturally. And they also had adapted to each of the individual islands.

The natives here could tell him they could identify what an island a tortoise comes from just by the shape of its shell.

And you can see right away there's clear differences between these. In other words this one right here is the last living tortoise from island.

This is lonesome George. He has a really long neck. How did he have a long neck? Not by stretching it Darwin said. But on island where there's not a lot of vegetation, basically tortoises...