What I learnt from Darwin

The name Charles Darwin is familiar to anyone who has completed high school or has read about him otherwise. Since his name appears in a high school textbook, his contribution to science is assumedly very basic and important.

“The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection” was what he had proposed around 1850. When a student now reads about natural selection in a matter-of-fact kind of way (which is the way textbooks render them too), they miss out on the wonderful process that effected the theory. Incidentally this year is the 200^th birth anniversary of Charles Darwin and the 150^th anniversary of the first edition of the book.

Darwin worked tirelessly for decades accumulating whatever information he could, through his own observations and experiments, and those from many other scientists all over the world. I don’t suppose we can even begin to imagine how difficult it would have been for a person to travel around the world and also keep in touch with hundreds of scientists from around the world without the help of the airplanes and the internet respectively. He pursued the information relentlessly.

I met a senior scientist of age seventy five recently at a conference who also coincidently spoke of Darwin, and he said- “he was very rich ….he didn’t need to do all this….but he did………when you get time, do read The Voyage of the Beagle”

It would be hard to digest the fact that until Darwin’s time, the commonly accepted theory, even among scientists, for the presence of the diversity of life on earth was the Theory of Creation, that all creatures were created independently. But what is stranger is that even now as many as 30 percent Americans don’t believe in evolution.

The book “The Origin of Species” is the 500 page abstract of the theory, and is meant for lay people like ourselves. Before reading the book, I thought to myself ‘wow, this was written by Darwin himself…..though I already know what I’m going to read about, it’s still worth the read because it’s written by the great man himself’. Only now, after having finished reading the book, do I realize that I was wrong. Wrong in assuming that I know what was in that book.

I’m so overwhelmed at the knowledge I’ve gained from the book that I find it hard to decide what I should stress upon here. I view the natural world now with a new found admiration and love (more than before if that’s possible). It is futile and impossible for us to try to imagine the process of evolution. It is something that happens continuously, at all times to all organisms.

No organism is perfect. Each is trying to constantly adapt to the every changing conditions….and the ones which can adapt best are the ones that will survive. Though one organism may be more complex biologically than another, it does not by any means imply superiority. Each organism has its role to play in the economy of nature, the importance of the role very often being independent of the size. Since organisms have evolved alongside each other, the ones that support each other have survived through efficiency (and this role of support is played subconsciously). The species seen now may not have existed long ago, and may not live one for very long after. These species have evolved from a parent form and they will give rise to species which will be better capable of handling the conditions on earth in the future, through “survival of the fittest”.

Many objections to the theory were raised by the scientific and general community. Darwin took each objection one by one and effectively handled them. He cleverly used the evidences from geology, geography and climate to support his claims. This book has a truly interdisciplinary approach to make it a holistic argument.

All I’ll say at this juncture is that it has been a privilege to read this book and I would urge you to do so too. This book could even be used as a supplement to biology and geography in the high school level. When students read the process of drafting the theory, there is no reason to believe that they will not be inspired to say the least.

“But the chief cause of our natural unwillingness to admit that one species has given birth to clear and distinct species, is that we are always slow in admitting great changes of which we do not see the steps”