Product Details

• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: NPN Videos
• VHS Release Date: September 15, 2004
• Run Time: 56 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00065YFY6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #403,474 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected based on other reviews, May 20, 2009

By 

Edith Boyce - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Life's Story: The One That Hasn't Been Told (DVD)

I certainly hoped for better quality than what it is based on other reviewers. Maybe they were comparing this to video produced 20 - 30 years ago. It has a general lack of contrast. Under the ocean is just about the most colorful and brilliant environment, but you wouldn't be able to tell that from this video.

There is good information, but the narrarator is very monotone. He has a British accent, which is fine, but there is a lack of excitement to his narration. It is obvious he is just expressively reading a script.

The video is edited in a similar fashion - quite slow and unexciting. I could see a classroom falling asleep while this is shown.

I may be spoiled by David Attenborough and BBC for quality and excitability, but it is a shame that one talking about God's creation is not as excited about David Attenborough talking about "mother nature".

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Evolution trashed by the willfully misinformed?, July 2, 2011

By 

stickler (Lititz PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Life's Story: The One That Hasn't Been Told (DVD)

I found Life's Story to be quite challenging in that I had to view it several times before I managed to get to the end without falling asleep. That was due in part to the soporific quality of narrator Nick Jackson's voice, but it mostly followed from Mark Haville's often incoherent and inane script. The script contains such a large number of misstatements and misinterpretations that it is clear that Haville's grasp of evolutionary science, to put it diplomatically, is very shaky. The video really boils down to a long argument from incredulity - Haville cannot imagine or does not accept that evolution can produce the things he discusses, so it must have been creation or design. This is not backed up with any sort of evidence (there is none) but by a series of bold assertions such as "the claims of evolutionary theory are simply impossible".

A good example of a bold assertion comes from the editorial review that accompanies the video on Amazon, which asks "What does modern DNA research now prove about the theory that simple cells evolved into all life on earth? The answer? Simply that evolution is impossible". One would expect that this claim would be backed up in the video with some weighty evidence, but the only discussion of DNA centers around the proofreading role of DNA polymerase. Haville claims that "DNA polymerase is there to stop mutations and to protect against harmful changes," but this is simplistic. Of course DNA polymerase has a high degree of fidelity - it has to for normal cellular growth and replacement. For example, in the seven years since this video was released Haville's liver has turned over between 5 and 8 times, so he (and everyone else) would be in big trouble if his DNA polymerase was not incredibly good at error checking. But that does not mean that the replication error rate is zero - the occasional base mismatch. (which might well be neutral) will still occur. Interestingly, there are several types of DNA polymerase that vary in their capacity to correct errors, and there is evidence that some organisms can exploit this. For example, one mechanism used by starving E coli involves an over-expression of the error-prone enzyme DNA polymerase IV instead of the much more accurate normal DNA polymerase I, which means that more mutations than usual occur, resulting in more genetic variation and more properties on which natural selection can act. This is the opposite of Haville's interpretation.

In spite of the phrase "modern DNA research" there is no mention of nested DNA hierarchies, which provide some of the strongest evidence for common ancestry. This omission is glaring in view of Haville's statement elsewhere in the video that "common ancestry is complete nonsense". It is not clear to me how Haville can reach that conclusion without considering the main evidence for it. Instead, in a totally unconvincing section on locomotion in the animal kingdom, he concludes from the risible notion that because sea creatures in a common watery environment move in such a wide variety of ways, common ancestry is disproved.

Additional dubious claims are made in the section on what it would take for dolphins to have evolved rather than having been the product of design. We are told: "If an animal's nostrils were still evolving, then water would enter the lungs and it would drown" - so how do seals and sea lions, sea cows and otters, and platypuses, etc manage? All aquatic and semi-aquatic mammals can close their nostrils. Again, in noting that dolphins can dive to 547 meters, Haville says that "any land mammal attempting such a dive ... would not be able to see properly, be unable to breed (breathe?), sleep, eat, hear or swim efficiently". True enough, but who says that all these functions had to appear fully formed in a single bound? Obviously they did not, as attested by primitive whales in the fossil record showing intermediate steps. Even the capacity for a 5 meter dive in a proto-dolphin, if it were beneficial, could be selected for. Haville sees problems with any land animal "losing its hair while trying to evolve into a hairless dolphin", claiming that it would die of cold before its body could develop "the unique body-heating system that dolphins use called thermoregulation". But intermediate stages of hairiness are seen in aquatic mammals such as the pinnipeds, which range from fur seals to almost hairless walruses. Also, thermoregulation in dolphins is not unique - all animals do it, especially warm blooded ones - and one particular method used by dolphins, namely a heat exchange arrangement of blood vessels in their flippers, is also used by seals. Haville makes much of the fact that dolphin calves are born tail first - a two minute google search reveals several videos of seals and sea lions being born hind feet first on land, so this is not a unique dolphin adaptation. On examination, none of the points about dolphins raised by Haville pose any difficulty for evolutionary theory.

Like many creationists, Haville feels the need to drag in religious scientists from the distant past in his attempt to show that true science agrees with the bible. However, while scientists such as Newton, Faraday and Maxwell were certainly religious men in a religious age, they did not invoke supernatural causes or agents in their scientific explanations - that is, they actually employed methodological naturalism. Indeed, Newton wrote in his First Book of Opticks "My design in this book is not to explain the properties of light by hypothesis, but to propose and prove them by reason and experiment".

Nevertheless, Haville provides several historical quotes, but like other creationists he does not give the source or the context of the comments. So let's examine the statement attributed to James Maxwell of electromagnetism fame. Haville provides the following `quote': "No theory of evolution can be formed to account for the similarity of molecules, for evolution implies continuous change. The exact equality of each molecule to all others of the same kind gives it the essential character of a manufactured article". He then opines "Words of wisdom from such scholarly men as these could be multiplied again and again", and the point seems to be to persuade viewers that Maxwell was opposed in some way to the notion of evolution.

Apart from the fact that the quote given in the video is a garbled version of what was actually said, it is important to note that Maxwell was giving a public lecture in 1873 that focused on the properties of molecules and atoms, particularly as they relate to the diffusion of gases. Maxwell discussed how the spectroscope had shown molecules of a particular type (for example, hydrogen) to be exactly the same regardless of whether they are found on earth or revealed in the light from distant stars. This quote contains the only two mentions of evolution in the entire lecture and it is clear that Maxwell was speaking only of molecules. He's saying that we can't formulate a theory of evolution for molecules because molecules never change and don't evolve. It has nothing to do with dismissing biological evolution in the sense that Haville wants his viewers to believe, and it amounts to nothing less than classic creationist quote mining. (For a detailed account of creationists' misuse of Maxwell and other 19th century scientists see [...].

Jacques Monod famously said "Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." I'm sure Haville believes he has a good grasp, but numerous statements in this video would indicate otherwise. Take, for example, his statement that "the theory of evolution teaches that everything is slowly, gradually, changing - evolving perfect capabilities for its living conditions". It does not. Or "horses cannot breed with cows or sheep" - who says they can? Or, when speaking of the origin of birds (while showing a clip of a lizard), "doesn't the fact that we still have reptiles and birds seem to contradict this idea?" It does not. Or "evolution is a theory about escaping death and the survival of the fittest. But the fittest later die just like the weak". One hopes the fittest had time to breed first. But the biggest indicator of Haville's lack of understanding of evolutionary theory comes from the publisher's own web site (NPN Videos), which has a section entitled "Thoughts on Evolution" adapted from the book Life's Story by Mark Haville. It says "As you can see, both of these are species of fish, but the same kind of fish if they could breed together and produce a different kind of animal, like a Dolphin or a Turtle that would be macro-evolution. Micro-evolution, producing new species of the same kind is observed all the time".

So Haville defines macro-evolution in an absurd way that no biologist would ever agree with, which is why his flawed views of evolution need not be taken seriously. There are so many questionable statements in Haville's script that it is not possible to cover them all in an Amazon review, so my advice would be to accept nothing in the video at face value - question everything, google everything.

To end on a positive note, I can report that the quality of the photography is quite good - hence the two stars. This brings me to my recommendation - if you hit the mute button the video would serve as an excellent screen saver.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Images, Detailed Narrative, December 11, 2008

By 

Angela J. Zaev "LadybugAZ" (Greater DC Region) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Life's Story: The One That Hasn't Been Told (DVD)

The 1st DVD volume in Life's Story is presented well with specific and detailed Scientific terminology. I am not sure what age-level the narrations are geared toward, but I would suggest ages 10-12 and up as some of the details are quite specific.

Part One of Volume 1, is entirely devoted to aquatic life and starts out exploring the Coral Reefs of Bermuda. The narrator mentions that due to the abundance of Coral Reefs, it is the "shipwreck capital of the world" and shows how one such shipwreck has itself become part of the coral reef.

Part Two of Volume 1 takes you to Africa where you encounter the various beasts of the field. See wildebeests, giraffes, lions, hippos, zebras, elephants and more. Some parents may like to know that while there are no graphic images, the narration does get fairly specific about the birthing process of a giraffe as well as describes in detail how a lion attacks its prey. Again, in the case of the lion, there is no footage or images of a lion attacking its prey, but there are shots of a lion eating a rib cage of an animal.

Overall, this is a well done video with various segments which can be shown as mini-episodes to introduce or reinforce a science lesson plan. The DVD bonus feature includes a detailed dictionary of the scientific terms used in the narration. Much of the vocabulary appears to be geared toward about 3rd or 4th grade and up.

There is a follow up volume 2 to this series: Life's Story 2: The Reason For The Journey