Ideas and Movements

The Genius of Charles Darwin: The Fifth Ape

2008 Culture

Richard Dawkins deals with some of the philosophical and social ramifications of the theory of evolution. Dawkins starts out in Kenya, speaking with palaeontologist Richard Leakey. He then visits Christ is the Answer Ministries, Kenya's largest Pentecostal church, to interview Bishop Bonifes Adoyo. Adoyo has led the movement to press Kenya's ...national museum to sideline its collection of hominid bones pointing to man's evolution from ape to human.[5] The collection includes the Turkana Boy discovered by Kamoya Kimeu, a member of a team led by Richard Leakey in 1984. Dawkins discusses social darwinism and eugenics, explaining how these are not versions of natural selection, and that 'Darwin has been wrongly tainted'. He then meets with evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker to discuss how morals can be compatible with natural selection. He goes on to explaining sexual selection, with peafowls as an example. To find out whether sexual selection plays a role for altruism and kindness among humans, he visits women who are looking for sperm donors, as well as a sperm bank manager. Dawkins also explains kin selection and selfish genes. Show More

Beyond Thinking

2012 Culture

We live our lives pursuing happiness 'out there' as if it is a commodity. We have become slaves to our own desires and craving. Happiness isn't something that can be pursued or purchased like a cheap suit. This is Maya, illusion, the endless play of form. In the Buddhist tradition, Samsara, or the endless cycle of suffering is perpetuated by ...the craving of pleasure and aversion to pain. Freud referred to this as the "pleasure principle." Everything we do is an attempt to create pleasure, to gain something that we want, or to push away something that is undesirable that we don't want. Even a simple organism like the paramecium does this. It is called response to stimulus. Unlike a paramecium, humans have more choice. We are free to think, and that is the heart of the problem. It is the thinking about what we want that has gotten out of control. The dilemma of modern society is that we seek to understand the world, not in terms of archaic inner consciousness, but by quantifying and qualifying what we perceive to be the external world by using scientific means and thought. Thinking has only led to more thinking and more questions. We seek to know the innermost forces which create the world and guide its course. But we conceive of this essence as outside of ourselves, not as a living thing, intrinsic to our own nature. It was the famous psychiatrist Carl Jung who said, "one who looks outside dreams, one who looks inside awakes." It is not wrong to desire to be awake, to be happy. What is wrong is to look for happiness outside when it can only be found inside. Show More

Series: Inner Worlds Outer Worlds

Zeitgeist Moving Forward

2011 Culture

A feature length documentary work which presents a case for a needed transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world society. This subject matter will transcend the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and move to relate the core, empirical 'life ground' attributes of human and so ...cial survival, extrapolating those immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a 'Resource-Based Economy'. Show More

Series: Zeitgeist

Vegan 2017 The Film

2017 Culture

The film covers the ever growing vegan movement and how it's best for the animals, human health, and the planet. It is the third instalment in a series of yearly movies documenting the global journey of veganism throughout the last 12 months. Vegan 2017 charts the movement's triumphs - as well as the adversity it has faced as it continues to ...grow. It is produced by Plant Based News Founder Klaus Mitchell. Show More

Series: Vegan

Erasing Dad

2014 Culture

It tells the stories of six fathers separated from their children after a conflicting divorce and the difficulties to maintain the link with their children. Contains critical material regarding the functioning of the courts and alleges unequal treatment of the couples in conflict. The film had its premiere scheduled for 2014 but was suspended .... The Argentinean judge Guillermo Blanch ordered producers to refrain from any transmission and / or retransmission of images or videos without the consent referrals of several people interviewed." The famous journalist and psychologist Liliana Hendel says in the documentary 'is difficult for a woman deviseth that she was beated, or their children, or that he does not give money or any form of violence'... 'the opposite of what usually happens, that any citizen is innocent until it is proven otherwise, I believe that in situations of domestic violence, cause the scale of the problem the burden of proof must be reversed. That is, if I say that he is guilty, he is guilty until proven innocent'. The Argentinean deputy Gladys González argue the documentary supports Parental Alienation Syndrome, a entity that does not exist and it has not been recognized by any health institution in the world, and with the deputy Cornelia Schmidt-Liermann signed a statement rejecting the SAP in the Chamber of Deputies Show More

Who Speaks for Earth

1980 Culture

Sagan reflects on the future of humanity and the question of 'who speaks for Earth?' when meeting extraterrestrials. He discusses the very different meetings of the Tlingit people and explorer Jean-François de La Perouse with the destruction of the Aztecs by Spanish conquistadors, the looming threat of nuclear warfare, and the threats shown b ...y destruction of the Library of Alexandria and the murder of Hypatia. The episode ends with an overview of the beginning of the universe, the evolution of life, and the accomplishments of humanity and makes a plea to mankind to cherish life and continue its journey in the cosmos. The Cosmos Update notes the preliminary reconnaissance of planets with spacecraft, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of apartheid in South Africa, and measures towards the reduction of nuclear weapons. Show More

Series: Cosmos

Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

Last Watched

Ideas and Movements