This past weekend we had planned two screenings of Natural Selection that were foiled, one by the snow and one by a problem with our projector. To provide an extra opportunity for the community to view this excellent program, we have scheduled an extra screening for this coming Saturday.

Charles Dawin was one of the most influential and disruptive scientists of the modern era. Born on the very same day as Abraham Lincoln – February 12th, 1809 – Darwin ignited a firestorm of controversy with his theory of evolution by natural selection. This month, the Friends of the Planetarium will be observing Darwin Day with a weekend devoted to LIFE!

Saturday, February 28th

6:30 pm: The full-dome digital show, Natural Selection. Join the young Charles Darwin on a voyage of exploration circumnavigating the world with the HMS Beagle. In Victorian times much of the physical world had been succesfully described by natural laws, but life’s central mystery was still unexplained: How could new species arise to replace those lost in extinction? Whence the variety of life? What drove the evolution of organisms, already well known in Darwin’s time through the study of fossils? Witness the thrill of scientific discovery by seeing the world through Darwin’s eyes, make observations of the most beautiful natural scenery and let the pieces of the scientific puzzle slowly but surely fall into place. Allow Darwin himself to reveal the simple and beautiful mechanism that explains the evolution of all life on Earth: natural selection, the idea that has become the central organizing priciple for all of biology.

Running time: 40 minutes; Suitable for family audiences and school groups.

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