Lecture 1: Endless Forms Most Beautiful
by Sean B. Carroll, Ph.D.
Play Lecture One in Full
Introduction by HHMI President Dr. Thomas Cech
Introductory interview with Dr. Sean Carroll
The young Charles Darwin
Darwin's early career choices
Darwin offered job on exploration ship
HMS Beagle
Geology spurred Darwin's evolution thinking
Darwin's model of coral reef formation
Unusual plants and animals intrigued Darwin
Video: Galapagos animals challenged Darwin's thinking
Darwin begins to form his theory of life evolving
Dangerous ideas and secret notebooks
Pigeon breeding and the Galapagos finches
"Life as a Tree" and natural selection
Darwin "forced" to go public with his theory
Darwin and Wallace publish the theory of natural selection
Q&A: Did Wallace publish anything else?
Q&A: How did Darwin's family react to his theory?
Darwin's first big idea: Descent with modification
Fossil evidence for common ancestry
Burgess Shale fossils
Dinosaur National Monument fossils
Fossil Butte fossils
La Brea Tar Pits fossils
Key facts from the fossil record
Darwin's second big idea: Natural selection
Evolution's ingredients: Variation, selection, and time
Evolution in action: The rock pocket mouse
Animation: Pocket mouse predation
Coat color determined by forms of a single gene
The odds of a mutation producing a black-coated mouse
Time and selection
Selection provides force for a new variant to spread
Animation: Simulation of pocket mouse evolution
Evolution works faster than you might think
Q&A: How does the mutation arise?
Q&A: What about black mice on a light background?
Q&A: Selective difference for hetero- vs. homozygotes?
Q&A: Black mice on black background: coincidence?
Closing remarks from HHMI President Dr. Thomas Cech