Image Credit: an e-card image at http://www.darwinday.org

The book was written for non-specialist readers and attracted widespread interest upon its publication. As Darwin was an eminent scientist, his findings were taken seriously and the evidence he presented generated scientific, philosophical, and religious discussion. The debate over the book contributed to the campaign by T.H. Huxley and his fellow members of the X Club to secularise science by promoting scientific naturalism. Within two decades there was widespread scientific agreement that evolution, with a branching pattern of common descent, had occurred, but scientists were slow to give natural selection the significance that Darwin thought appropriate. During the “eclipse of Darwinism” from the 1880s to the 1930s, various other mechanisms of evolution were given more credit. With the development of the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s, Darwin’s concept of evolutionary adaptation through natural selection became central to modern evolutionary theory, now the unifying concept of the life sciences.

A theory which many had thought was overblown and outdated 100 years ago came to receive a proper appreciation of its relevance and accuracy when new discoveries in genetics supported it, and kept on providing more and more supporting data by showing how natural selection actually worked.

Congratulations, Charles Darwin, on your diligent observation, open-minded analysis and perspicacious insight. It’s not only scientists who can learn something from your example.

Categories: education, history, Science

Tags: darwin, darwin day, science education