Celebrating Darwin's Bicentennial Birthday

by NANDKUMAR KAMAT
Posted on 2009-01-17
It is time to celebrate evolution-our understanding of our own origins and the very origin of life on earth. On February 12, the world would celebrate the bicentennial birthday of Charles Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882). In his autobiography Darwin said that –“he had no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in clever men….” But he was wrong. The world thought differently. A grateful world which is using Darwinian principles in every sphere of life –ecology, sociology, economics, politics - is geared to celebrate his bicentennial birthday. Amazingly, there is so little awareness of this event in our country, which has world’s third largest scientific manpower. One reason could be the superstitious mindset of people who neither believe in nor attempt to understand Darwinism. Teachers, researchers and students of biology need to rise to the occasion to celebrate this event in a big way in Goa. As professionals, there is no choice, no middle ground for teachers of modern biology-either you accept Charles Darwin or stop teaching your subject as science if you do not believe in what you’re teaching.
In personal life one may adhere to strictly dogmatic religious beliefs but when it comes to experience the beauty of science, especially biological sciences-objectivity and precision is demanded and that’s what Charles Darwin offered in his immortal work-‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life’ a long title which was abbreviated to just “on the origin of species’’ published on November 22, 1859. This historic work completes 150 years this year. Darwin is to biology what Newton and Einstein are to physics.
Today we can have a holistic view of the mind boggling diversity of life only because Charles Darwin laid down the foundation of modern evolutionary theory. As Richard Leakey has commented only about one per cent species from an original estimate of 30 billion species have survived on earth after many catastrophes. Their evolution and diversity is impossible to understand without Darwinism. The science of biological taxonomy (biosystematics) stands today on the solid pedestal of Darwinism. Revolutionary scientific ideas also get equally powerful challenges. Ideas of Darwin have been scrutinised in detail over past 150 years but like Newton’s laws of motion and Einstein’s theories of relativity these have withstood the tests of time and experimentation. As icing on the cake of Darwinism, ecologists and molecular biologists are still finding evidence in support.
A year ago, a team of 17 researchers at the J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) has created the largest man-made DNA structure by synthesizing and assembling the 5,82,970 base pair genome of a bacterium, Mycoplasma genitalium JCVI-1.0. They are close to creation of ‘test tube life’ or “playing God”.
Astrobiologists are using Darwinian ideas to hunt for extraterrestrial life on Mars, Europa, Titan, comets. One popular expression often used to describe Darwinian idea is- “survival of the fittest”. But this is not entirely correct. It is the ability of the species to choose from many options and adapt itself to changing conditions by making an informed choice- if the species fails to do that it has little chances to survive. Cells make tissues and tissues build organs. Even cancerous cells are programmed to commit suicide in a process called “apoptosis’ or programmed cell death, to increase the chances of the healthy cells to survive. Neo Darwinists like the famous paleontologist Stephan Jay Gould researched on pre-cambrian fossils to consolidate the beauty of Darwin’s ideas. Scientists and writers like Richard Dawkins have popularised Darwin’s ideas by coining terms like “selfish genes’, ‘extended phenotype’ and “memes”. On the other side there are romanticists who cannot eschew the thought of what Darwin calls as “the blind watchmaker” or spontaneous evolution of life without an external agency. Cosmologist Fred Hoyle challenged Darwinism and propounded an “intelligent universe’. What he meant was that life on earth was transported from elsewhere. But he could not answer the questions regarding extraterrestrial origin of life.
In USA there is a powerful lobby of ‘creationists’ who reject Darwin and Darwinism. Creationism is often repackaged as “intelligent design”. Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism have no axe to grind with Darwinism. Actually the upanishadic and vedantic ideas support Darwinism. Judaism, Christianity and Islam share a common view of genesis and would never support Darwinism. But such conflicts have not stalled the rapid march of modern biology.
Biologists are prepared to reject even Darwin and Darwinism if in future some new, irrefutable evidence is found about origin and evolution of organic life. Physics did not become dogmatic with Newtonian ideas. When Albert Einstein appeared on the scene, there was a paradigm shift in physics. When Darwin came on the scene, there was a similar paradigm shift in biology. Science is another name for ideological dynamism. Understanding Darwin and Darwinism is understanding our own species, accepting our own evolutionary history. It would educate us about our ephemeral, humble and microscopic existence in the cosmos because the ultimate spirituality is seeking truth about our existence and the very purpose of our lives. Darwinism objectively shows us our real place in the scheme of things and that’s a frightening thought for those who subjectively reject it.