On Nova (PBS)'s “Australia's First 4 Billion Years” we find a horrible misunderstanding of evolution. Or engineering. Or maybe both.
Quote (at 16:17):
Plant life had by now engineered a solution to the ultraviolet radiation that had been sterilizing the Earth's surface: an ozone layer, built from excess oxygen.No, plant life didn't “engineer” anything; excess oxygen[1] may have caused an ozone layer, which filters ultraviolet radiation, and the things that we currently know as plants survived. This was a simple feedback system — organisms produced oxygen which converted to ozone which protected the organisms — and this feedback was beneficial to the plants. This isn't “engineering”, it's simple evolution. (If the excess oxygen results in an increase in substance X, then things that benefit from the presence of substance X will survive[2].)
(There's lots of good stuff in NOVA; it's sad that the editors let things like this through.)
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