Charles Darwin was born 200 years ago on this date. His masterpiece work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was publish just a tad under fifty years later. And the world has not be the same since.
Abe Lincoln was born that same day and became the 16th President of the United States in 1861. And the world has not been the same since.
It was a good day, in a good year, on both sides of the Big Pond.
Not having much in common with lawyers or politicians, I tend to relate better to Darwin than Lincoln. And especially since the fundamental case for how natural evolution accounts for the emergence of the wealth of biodiversity in our world, I am happy to admit I feel a deep reverance for Darwin. In my mind his explication of natural selection operating on variations in the population of a species to generate "...endless forms most beautiful..." is one of the most important advances in human understanding of the natural world, perhaps the most important. Evolution by the generation of variation (by, it turns out, many mechanism, some not so random) followed by selection for fitness (on, also it turns out, several different levels) has proven to be the key to understanding so much. Even outside the strict field of biological evolution; for example in chemical and social dynamics the basic premise of Darwinian evolution can be found operating. The origin of life problem, while not actually a Darwinian form of evolution, nevertheless involves physical characteristics of a chemical environment that favors some configurations and energy states over others. The mechanical details of how those states obtain is quite different from mutations in DNA, for example, but the overarching principle of emergence of more 'fit' organization is still operative. What is missing in the origin of life work is finding the means by which early precursor molecules could autocatalyze more of their own kind (make copies) which could, at some level of complexity, harbor variations on which selection could operate. Biophysicist who are working on this problem feel they are close to possible answers.
It is fair to say that culture and societies evolve by selection of favored practices and institutions. These are readily observed to be copied with variation and then compete for mind space or economic advantage. Richard Dawkins even invented a unit of mental/social evolution called a meme to provide at least a conceptual unit for cultural selection to work on.
Darwin was the guy (well, one of the guys, Alfred Russel Wallace was a contemporary of Darwin's who came up with essentially the same idea at about the same time) who made the conceptual leap linking variation and selection to the idea of how evolution could operate. Tons of books and articles have been written about Darwin and his accomplishment, so I won't even try to extol him further here. I just want to say Happy Birthday and thanks for helping me and those who open their minds to understand how the world came to be.
[Edited, 2/13/09: Abe took office in 1861 not 1891 as I had originally typed it. Thanks to Larry Shultz's comment below for bringing that to my attention.]
Lincoln was sworn in in 1861... your friend
Posted by: Larry Shultz | February 12, 2009 at 05:46 PM
Woops! Thanks Larry. 1861. Sure enough. Just turn the 9 upside down.
George
I will edit when I get the chance!
Posted by: George Mobus | February 12, 2009 at 07:48 PM
Hello All, after a long silence.
I'm pleased we're celebrating Darwin's birthday and not surprised only 34 percent of US responders like his take on things. I'm one of those who buys his theory.
In one area, though, I think the evolutionary gains Darwin implied are highly over-rated - namely in the area of intelligence.
To me, our predecessors on this North American continent got it right when they adopted as totems beings like crows, coyotes, bear, orcas, owls and the other 'inferior' life forms. They were here before us, and they're not messed up by acquisitive compulsions the way we are. These co-inhabitants have much to teach us about living lightly on the land.
I'd love to see some discussion on this because we might learn something.
Posted by: Wayne Hamilton | February 13, 2009 at 04:42 PM