Humans: Who Are We?

Packaged as a two-part, 50-minute lesson, this Discovery Channel School entry offers a decidedly tidy but compelling overview of 5 million years of human evolution. Designed to capture the attention of middle and high school students, with fancy graphics, peppy actors in Australopithecene garb, and memorable sound bites, little attention is paid to the pickier details of scientific data (years are rounded off to the nearest million and recent scientific controversies over man's ancestral timeline are mostly passed over). In place of minute details, the program offers up thought-provoking discussions inspired by comments from geneticists and paleoanthropologists. One scientist suggests that Neanderthals were "human, but not us," while another points out that an environmental catastrophe 100,000 years ago left humans with very little genetic diversity when compared with other primates. In addition, the discussion focuses on the effect of severe climatic change and geographical isolation on creative evolutionary adaptations, providing an interesting segue into speculation on human diversity in the future. Highly recommended. Aud: J, H, P. (A. Cantú)