In 1961 Walter Hearn, a biochemist, was teaching at Wheaton College in Illinois. At a symposium he remarked that the same chemical processes that bring humans into existence today could have produced Adam and Eve. His remarks were reported and denounced in The Sword of the Lord, a conservative Christian newspaper. Wheaton, a Christian campus, was flooded with letters from parents who were furious at what they viewed as the college's endorsement of Darwinism. One mother, worrying about her daughter's response to Professor Hearn's comments, wrote, ''If her faith should be shattered or even shaken, I'd rather see her dead.''

To hear religious fervor expressed with such violence is especially disquieting these days, when we are engaged in a terrifying clash of culture and belief. Yet ideas have always stirred enormous passion, and possibly no scientific idea has been considered more menacing to some religious people than Darwin's theory of natural selection. After the uproar over Professor Hearn's remarks, Wheaton began requiring faculty members to sign a statement of faith affirming mankind's direct descent from Adam and Eve, who were created by God. That policy remains in place.

The history and implications of evolutionary theory have taken on heightened meaning since Sept. 11. People with fixed ideologies have demonized Darwin since the publication of his groundbreaking work, ''On the Origin of Species,'' 142 years ago. The battle over this idea continues in schools all over the United States, where some people consider it dangerous even to discuss an opposing point of view.

''Evolution,'' on the other hand, is bustling with ideas. A powerful sense of drama, discovery and intellectual enthusiasm runs through this rich eight-hour series, which begins tonight on PBS and continues through Thursday. It opens with a two-hour dramatization of Darwin's story and continues with one-hour documentaries (two each night) exploring the influence of his theory on science, philosophy, and theology.

In the final episode, ''What About God?,'' to be shown on Thursday night, undergraduate students at Wheaton are shown grappling with their desire to reconcile their faith with their growing knowledge of science. Recently the college allowed science professors to invite a speaker who is both a devout Christian and a believer in evolution. This was considered a radical departure, exhilarating to some students, frightening to others.

But the subject is a closed topic to many evangelical Christians. ''Adam is my ancestor and not a chimpanzee,'' are the lyrics sung at a church service in Canton, Ohio, led by a minister named Ken Ham. ''If the Bible gets it wrong in biology, then why should I trust the Bible when it talks about morality and salvation?'' he says in an interview.

These passions took root the instant Darwin dared to postulate a theory that contradicted the notions of both original sin and man's superiority over other creatures. The series begins tonight with ''Darwin's Dangerous Idea,'' which combines a dramatized biography of Darwin with a science documentary explaining his theories. ''Masterpiece Theater'' meets ''NOVA'' is the marketing strategy. While it's not exactly breakthrough drama, the hybrid works surprisingly well, in part because Darwin was such a compelling character: a humble, inquisitive man who made an unlikely rebel.

Chris Larkin offers a touching portrayal of Darwin, whose passions were divided between his work and his family. Scenes are set to illustrate the profound dilemma he felt, as a person once bound for the clergy, building a theory bound to seem heretical. He marries his cousin Emma, a religious woman who asks him, upon reading his ideas: ''Can your theory account for the way my eyes and ears and hands and heart combine to reproduce the sounds that Chopin heard in his head? Isn't that a God-given gift?''

Darwin answers, looking pained. ''It's given, but not, I think, by God,'' he replies. Emma responds with sadness, ''It would be a nightmare to me if I thought we didn't belong to each other forever in heaven.''

No wonder Darwin was reluctant to publish his ideas. He understood that by questioning the Christian view of salvation he was undercutting a profound sense of comfort. But he continued his research, even though he was plagued by disease he might have contracted during his seminal voyage to the Galápagos Islands. That's where he first gathered evidence that plants and animals adapted to changing circumstances, and that the ones that adapted best were the ones that survived.

Most poignant is the moment when he feels his theory is put to the test in the most terrible way. His 10-year-old daughter dies. The script uses the moment to illuminate the starkness in evolutionary theory. It doesn't offer solace, it just explains a situation. So Darwin blames himself for weakening his daughter's chances. ''It's my fault,'' he laments. ''First-cousin marriages always produce weak children. It's my fault.'' (The logic doesn't entirely hold. He was survived by many other children.)

The drama is interlaced with commentary from scientists and writers, and by documentary segments on the influence of Darwinism today. At first these digressions seem disruptive, as though television had evolved into the Internet, wandering away from an article midstream to follow an explanatory link. But the instant analyses and explanations prove to be helpful, and it's fascinating to watch the past merge with the present.

In addition to interviews with experts there are short segments examining the relevance of Darwin's theories in medical research, conservation and religion. They include a profile of Kenneth Miller, a Brown University biologist who apparently finds no problem being a devoted Darwinist and, in his words, an ''entirely conventional'' Roman Catholic. Another follows a scientist who is following Darwin's path into Ecuador's rain forest, whose sounds Darwin once likened to ''a great cathedral at evensong.''

The series covers an enormous amount of ground but doesn't leave you feeling swamped. It's also soothing, approaching its sometimes fiery subject with a comforting sense of humanism.


PBS, tonight through Thursday

(Channel 13, New York, at 8)

Richard Hutton, WGBH executive producer; Linda Garmon, WGBH drama producer; Paul Sarony, line producer for APMS Productions; Alastair Reid, director; Allan Cubitt, screenwriter; John Daly II, cinematographer; George Akers, editor. Series presenter, WGBH, Boston; series producers, WGBH ''Nova'' Science Unit and Clear Blue Sky Productions; Paula S. Apsell, executive producer of ''Nova'' and director of WGBH Science Unit.

WITH: Chris Larkin (Charles Darwin), Jane Cunliffe (Emma Darwin), Mark Tandy (Erasmus Darwin), Ian Shaw (Captain Fitzroy), Will Fawcett (John Gould), Matthew Radford (Richard Owen), Andy Henderson (Thomas Huxley), Anthony Carrik (Bishop Wilberforce), Eleanor Ogbourne (Annie Darwin) and Toby Vaughan (William Darwin).