Sunday 8 November at 7:30pm on ABC1
When 21 year-old Charles Darwin embarks on a five-year voyage of to the Southern Hemisphere, it transforms him from a dilettante into a revolutionary and groundbreaking scientist. On the last and often-ignored leg of his voyage to New Zealand and Australia, Darwin goes further than ever before towards his radical theory of evolution: he witnesses the deadly competition between European settlers and the indigenous peoples, between the native animals and introduced species; in the coral islands of Cocos and Keeling off the Western Australian coast he discovers a world created through a struggle for survival, giving him an incredible insight into how life evolves. On his return to England in 1836, Darwin’s dangerous idea grows into an obsession. If life did evolve by natural means, where did that leave God? What about humans? Are we just another sort of ape? Darwin knew that if he ever went public with these incendiary ideas, the religious and scientific establishment would destroy him. But this ambitious 27 year-old can’t leave the idea alone. On the verge of dying from a mysterious disease, Darwin confides his work to two people: his religiously-devout wife, Emma and a young botanist called, Joseph Hooker who, like Darwin, has just returned from a voyage to the southern hemisphere.
