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Evolution – Teachers’ notes for using the plays
Where do we come from?
This quartet of one-act plays, on the development of evolutionary ideas and their place in the history of
scientific thought, presents an ideal opportunity for cross-curricular links. There are many possibilities:
 The plays could be performed in conjunction with the English/Drama department.
 They could link with project work in History where students could access information from library and
internet sources.
Students could be given plays to read before teaching and could get together in groups to perform them –
probably using scripts – but with more rehearsed movements and intonation where appropriate.
Students of all ages like to perform, especially when they feel a sense of ownership by presenting their
‘own production’/play.
Note on stereotyping and sex bias
Since the plays reflect development of scientific ideas during the nineteenth century, the figures in the
original story are predominantly male. In the first and last plays every effort has been made to introduce
characters that are female and who have active parts in terms of scientific ideas.
In the second and third plays this has not been possible since the characters are of necessity those from
history. Teachers should ensure that girls in the groups performing/reading these plays are not
disadvantaged. They could, for example, read male leading parts and/or act as Narrator or Presenter.
Play 1: The Giraffe’s Long Neck
It is interesting to note that Lamarck’s ideas were developing in a climate of political and social upheaval
following the French Revolution of the late eighteenth century.
Lamarck’s ideas did not, however find much favour either in France or elsewhere until they were represented by Lyell in his book, Principles of Geology, in 1830.
Lyell disagreed profoundly with the Lamarckian hypothesis but gave the ideas an ‘airing’ for the first
time and, as his book was a bestseller, they reached a wider audience at the time
Play 2: The Voyage of the Beagle
The voyage of the Beagle and the subsequent development of ideas is well documented. The early
influences of Lyell and Hooker on Darwin were probably of some significance in helping him to assimilate a
wide range of ideas and interests in zoology, botany and geology. The antagonism of Darwin’s father to the
trip and Darwin’s fear of him are also well known.
The relationship between Captain Fitzroy and Darwin was explored in the BBC TV series The Voyage of
Charles Darwin which was accompanied by a book compiled by Chris Ralling (BBC Publications ISBN
0563 176024; unfortunately out of print at this time).
Play 3: The Great Debate
Darwin’s reluctance to publish his full theory stems partly from his obsession with wanting to publish yet
more evidence to support his ideas on natural selection.
The real breakthrough in the development of the theory came with the linking of previous ideas of
Thomas Malthus on populations with Darwin’s own observations and thoughts on heritable variations and
the ways in which these variations responded to environmental pressures.
It was still up to Lyell and Hooker to put pressure on Darwin to publish. There was no animosity between
Wallace and Darwin about who should publish. This is evidenced in a letter from Wallace to Darwin in 1864
in which Wallace states: ‘As to the theory of Natural Selection itself I shall always maintain it to be actually
yours and yours alone.’
Darwin’s ill health during the 1860s is often attributed to conditions originally contracted in South
America on the voyage of the Beagle.
http://education.abrahamsbraund.continuumbooks.com
© Ian Abrahams and Martin Braund (2012) Performing Science. London: Continuum.
The significance of the Oxford debate is well expressed by the narrator at the end of the play.
Play 4: Whatever Happened to Genesis?
This last play of the quartet actually highlights the continuing debate on Darwinian ideas as well as the
conflict with ‘creationists’.
During the 1920s in the ‘Bible Belt’ of the USA the debate reached a climax when a school teacher in
Tennessee called John Scopes was brought to trial under state laws, for attempting to teach Darwinian
theory to a biology class.
There have been more recent challenges to traditional Darwinian theory. Some evolutionists believe that
a kind of disaster is needed for any major movement in evolution. Small pockets of previously rare animals
may then have the ability to survive when they are not so likely to be swamped by the size of the previously
existing populations.
Evolutionists have claimed more recently that this may have happened in the case of the extinction of the
dinosaurs. Evidence has been presented to suggest that the Earth was subject to substantial meteorite
damage at this time and that small populations of smaller, faster-moving, warm-blooded, dinosaur-like
creatures were able to make the break through the ‘extinction’ barrier.
The recent evidence on ‘great extinctions’ is now seen as an additional element in our continuing
understanding of the ways in which evolution might operate.
The notion that scientific thinking changes and develops over time is reflected in the last thing said in the
play.
Answers to questions on the student activity sheet
The questions are arranged in order of the plays. They need not be presented to the students in this way.
Q1. That it appeared in rocks at the top of the quarry (likely to be formed more recently).
Q2. He used the explanation of Herodotus; that Catastrophe wiped out everything and Creation started all
over again.
Q3. A lion finds food tougher to eat. Its teeth get slightly longer. Its pups have longer/sharper teeth. The
process continues until lions have longer, sharper teeth.
Q4. As Darwin had wasted his chance to become a doctor at Edinburgh and was then trained to be a
clergyman at Cambridge.
Q5. That the fossils were found in a natural sequence of rock strata showing no evidence of disruption
through catastrophe (e.g. earthquake, volcanic eruption, etc.).
Q6. That there was no room for them in the Ark so they got left behind at the time of Noah’s flood.
Q7. By the shape of the shell of each type of tortoise.
Q8. By divergence from an ancestral finch. Variants being adapted to a particular place/food source.
Q9. As a struggle for survival – only the fittest and those with the biggest adaptation survive.
Q10. That simple plants had not become simple animals.
Q11. Carbon dating showing many fossils to be younger than originally believed.
Q12. Answers will depend on students’ own views about the weighting they give to the various ideas put
forward in the debate.
http://education.abrahamsbraund.continuumbooks.com
© Ian Abrahams and Martin Braund (2012) Performing Science. London: Continuum.