... And so to the elephant. What is it about Wildwalk (which I had never heard
of before the first posting mentioned above) that undeniably requires the
clear teaching of Darwinian evolution? ....
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I hope this is not a glut of information now and will offer some context to read the previous posts in:
Wildwalk is a linear exhibition that has two main themes:
Biodiversity
The history of life on Earth
If you are interested either go to http://www.at-bristol.org.uk/Wildwalk/simplebeginnings.htm and work your way through the different sections or read the brief outline below:
The context is set from the beginning of the exhibition with exhibits demonstrating the current diversity of life forms and the diversification (read evolution here if you fancy!) of life forms over time.
The exhibition then continues with,
Single celled organisms
Multicelled organisms
Fish
The colonisation of land
The first plants
Flowering plants
Arthropods
Amphibians
Reptiles
and Mammals
The remainder of the galleries looking at ecosystems, human use of plants and human impact on the environment.
The biodiversity element is itself partly communicated by the weighting (in the most part - microorganisms being an obvious exception) of gallery space towards groups of organisms with the most diversity.
So whilst the gallery space is telling the story of the evolution of life on earth, and presents much of the evidence on which Darwinian evolutionary theory is based, it does not call it evolution. The idea being that this would open the exhibition to people who would be put off by the idea of an exhibition based on 'evolution'.
So... yes, whether you think this a good approach or not, it sort of is trying to communicate the idea of evolution at the same time avoiding the word its self.
But... it does have many other messages (about our place amongst other life, our impact on our environment and the fascinating complexity of the natural world) that have equal footing.
Hope this helps,
Alex
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