Charismatic

...a man was born that had a revoltionary idea that would change the way we looked at the world and our place in it.

The idea was 'Evolution by Natural Selection' and the man who thought of it was Charles Darwin .

How do you feel his theory has impacted our lives in regards to science, religion, politics, medicine and business?

The Dean

I like this (from yesterday's Times front page):

"The Vatican has admitted that Charles Darwin was on the right track when he claimed man descended from apes"

(the italics are mine)

Nice to see the Catholic church has finally been dragged kicking and screaming into somewhere around the 19th century.............

Charismatic

What about Genesis? Isn't there a few contradictions?

Amazing though, next they'll be advocating tne use of birth control .

nottmbantam

Didn't Darwin himself though say that there might a few flaws in his theory?

I usually revert back to that old chestnut when talking about evolution...if we were descended from the apes / monkeys - why are there still monkeys in the trees today? Why haven't they evolved, and why are there no current existing 'in-betweens' of apes and man?

As for the Big Bang Theory, there's a whole heap of unravelling to be done there....

Roadking

Been to Cumbria recently?

Charismatic

Yes, it took him 20 years to even be sure enough to publish "The Origin of Species". Most of his concearn for his own work was around the actual methods that allowed heredity to be establish such that traits could be passed on to offspring. Something that was actually only solved 50 years ago when the structure and nature of DNA was first established (although first established in concept by George Mendel which was the start of modern genetics).

An excellent question.

The answer is that we didn't evolve from Apes, but we do share a common ancester. What gave rise to humans and apes was neither human nor ape. One problem people have is that they tend to think of species as being never changing but in fact they are quite plastic and, as any selective breeder (dogs, birds, plants etc.) will tell you, it's suprising how few generation you need to change a species.

Lets say we where to introduce to an islands cows and tigers. The tigers kill a cow or two a day, usually the one thats easiest for them to catch or see. The surviving cows breed. Soon only the cows that can outrun the other cows, due to slightly longer legs, exist and breed togeather. Eventually the cows get so good at running away that only the darker coloured tigers can catch them (due to being better able to conceal themself in their environment) and the others starve.

Suddenly you have cows with longer legs, but no short legged cows left and darker coloured tigers but no light ones left. The population as a whole changes because from the perspective of the tigers the cows are getting faster and from the perspective of the cows the tigers are getting better at sneaking up on them. The animals best adapted to they environment survive and hence breed togeather, the others get eaten or starve .

Does that make sense?

MacScot

He was heavily influenced by the Scottish Enlightenment...when he spent time at Edinburgh University.

Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus, had already proposed that living organisms were derived from a common ancestor. Lord Monboddo, Edinburgh's leading judge in the late 18th century, speculated that man was derived from primates and not Adam.

Around the time Darwin was in Edinburgh in 1831, Patrick Matthew, a Scottish fruit farmer published a book that explicitly identified natural selection as the mechanism through which biological evolution occurred - a quarter of a century before Darwin's The Origin of the Species. Darwin later acknowledged Matthew's prior intellectual claim.

MacScot

We still are apes and belong to the family Hominidae, which includes our species along with ourangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas.

Charismatic

Actually it's interesting you say that, it seems to have been "discovered" several times independantly and some suggest as far back as Greek philosophers who suggested evolution in a very broad sense (Since the dawn of farming through selective breeding in some respects perhaps?).

Probably the reason he is remembered is because his work was very well reasearched and documented. It also caught the attention of the public and answered a lot of the "criticisms" that people had found (Peacocks for example).

Anyway, I think it was good and deserves to be celebrated as an idea that changed quite literally everything that we knew about nature. We are still feeling the shockwaves today!

Charismatic

Quite right, I didn't mean to imply we wern't the fifth great ape .

Squirty Cream

I think I need to take you shoe shopping......... sorry to change the subject. I'm not overly fond of brown shoes.

nottmbantam

I only ever wear brown shoes, don't own shoes of any other colour.

Norm_uk

I bet you didn't know that Darwin was taught taxidermy by a former black slave as well?

Darwin didn't exist in a vacuum...there were plenty of others already making progress in the right direction.

N.

littlejimmy

My favourite site: http://www.answersingenesis.org/muse...3dinosaurs.asp

MacScot

Didn't say he was...but credit due where credit is due...as Darwin acknowledged...but modern day press tends to forget.