Pre-NYE Potluck & PBS Documentary Night | Oakland

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Come down to the Humanist Hall in Oakland for an evening of films beginning with an optional potluck refreshments and social hour at 6:30 pm, followed by the film at 7:30 pm, followed by optional discussion after the film. $5 donations are expected.

Featured Documentaries:

Your Inner Fish
In the first episode, “Your Inner Fish,” he journeys back to a time, some 375 million years ago, when the first fish crawled up onto land. Shubin’s quest for the fossil record of this primeval predecessor takes viewers from highway cuts in rural Pennsylvania to the remote Arctic. After years of searching, he and his colleagues finally found a fossilized fish, known as Tiktaalik, that had enough strength in its front fins to do pushups and heave itself out of the water. Remarkably, we can trace the ancestry of our own hands and arms all the way back to these fins.

Your Inner Reptile
In the second episode, “Your Inner Reptile,” Shubin exposes our reptilian roots. He searches for our ancient ancestors at fossil sites in the Karoo Desert of South Africa and on the tidal flats of Nova Scotia. He also reveals modern-day links to the past through visits to a fertility clinic in Chicago and a biology lab in London. Along the way, he explains how major transitions in the history of life paved the way for our ancestors’ evolution into mammals.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.