Mark Pallen's video: Origin of Species in Dub: Introduction

Rationale for the track The sea features so prominently in this track in recognition of the pivotal role of Darwin’s long sea voyage on HMS Beagle (left). Darwin was a hopeless sailor and suffered long bouts of sea sickness. Nonetheless, few other sea voyages can have had so important an impact on human understanding. For more information, see The V oyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin, 1839, or the wikipedia entry of the same name. The remains of the Beagle have recently been re-discovered beneath the Essex marshes by Dr Robert Prescott of the University of St. Andrews. Notes on the Lyrics “When on board H.M.S. ‘Beagle’, as [a] naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on that mystery of mysteries the origin of species” Opening words from I ntroduction, Origin of S pecies. Note minor change from the original in the second sentence to facilitate enunciation as lyrical passage. Original passage reads: “These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species--that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers”. “ Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained—namely, that each species has been independently created—is erron[e]ous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but [that] those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species... Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.” Closing words from I ntroduction, Origin of S pecies. Note minor omission from the original in the second sentence to facilitate enunciation as lyrical passage. Original passage reads: “I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species.” Notes on the V ideo Images of sea and images of the Beagle. Images of fossil animals from South America taken from the V oyage of the Beagle. The image of a fossil alternating with that image of a bird is a cast of Archaeopteryrx.