What triggered the incredible diversity of life on Earth, and how have complex life forms, including humans, evolved? Is there direction to evolution? And is human intelligence inevitable? This program focuses on evolution’s “great transformations”—among them the development of a standard four-limbed body plan, the journey from water to land, the return of marine mammals to the sea, and the emergence of humans. Driven by a combination of opportunism and a genetic “toolkit,” these astounding leaps forward define the arc of evolution. And they suggest that every living creature on earth today, and every species that has ever existed, is a variation on a grand genetic theme—a member of one, and only one, tree of life.
