BBC Horizon 1981 Did Darwin Get It Wrong

New evolutionary theory that there are sudden evolutionary changes from one species to another.

How did the elephant get its trunk? Or the giraffe its neck? Darwin's theory of evolution says that societies evolve slowly from one form to another. So ancient fossils and bones should include an elephant with half a trunk, or seven-eighths of a giraffe's neck. But they don't. And these gaps occur in all classes of animal fossils, from molluscs to man.

So the established theory is now under strong attack both by Biblical Creationists, who offer well-argued objections to Darwin, and by a range of scientists who offer an alternative explanation. Could evolution occur in a series of jerks, switching suddenly into new creatures? With the help of alligators and beetles, chimpanzees and dinosaurs, elephants and fruit-flies, Horizon examines the evidence. Narrator Paul Vaughan