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A stage of evolution

Nature volume 432, page 445 (2004)Cite this article

The Darwin Variations

  • Jean-François Peyret &
  • Alain Prochiantz
Performed in French at the Théâtre National de Chaillot, Paris, until 18 December 2004.

This play sets the science in the context of the man and his time. The process of publication tends to strip away all the emotion, poetry and music of a discovery. So Alain Prochiantz, a developmental neurobiologist at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, and theatre director Jean-François Peyret have set out to recreate it. They have given Darwin the poetic licence that Ovid took for granted when he wrote his poem Metamorphoses. Like Ovid, the actors in The Darwin Variations are free to imagine the future transformation of humanity — even a humanity that takes charge of its own evolution. Their musings intertwine with Darwin's in a dialogue that takes in old and new ideas, about where to draw the line between man and animal, and about consciousness, genetic engineering and interfaces between brain and machine. Over all of this hangs the threat of the inevitable conclusion: that there is no grand design, no notion of perfection to which evolution is propelling us.

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Author notes

  1. Laura Spinney is a freelance writer based in London and Paris.

    • Laura Spinney
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  1. Laura Spinney
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Spinney, L. A stage of evolution. Nature 432, 445 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/432445a

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