Off topic: Happy birthday Mr Darwin

by Jessica Chaston 150 years after the publication of "On The Origin Of Species" Charles Darwin is finally doing his author's book tour "“ sort of. Actually, award-winning science author David Quammen is doing it on his behalf.  Quammen has written a biography of Darwin, as much about the man himself as the scientific theory he is famous for.  I attended a lecture by Quammen last week at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, about his latest book, The Reluctant Mr Darwin.  The lecture was part of a series and in this case it was selected specifically to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, Thursday the 12th of February. Quammen described Darwin as a man with two major character traits: caution and honesty.  Darwin was amazingly cautious; he had a great reluctance to publicise his theory.  He was only 29 when he first put together his theory of evolution, and yet it wasn't until his 50th year that he finally published this work.  He spent years thinking and re-thinking every aspect of evolution and during this time collected mountains of data and biological samples as evidence.  He wanted to pre-empt every criticism that would come from the scientific community of the time, knowing and expecting that his idea would not be well- or widely accepted.  He was also cautious as he did not want to be wrong again; early in his career he had a huge flop with a geological paper he published, and Quammen suggests he was still reeling from this very public embarrassment at having gotten things so very wrong.  Darwin was also exceedingly honest. The natural laws of the universe were very important to him and he believed there was no science without them.  Quammen suggests that Darwin was fundamentally a "high-brow conservative, burdened with a radical idea" and that it was his true innate honesty that forced him to go public.  He received a letter from a fellow naturalist Alfred Wallace based out of what is now Indonesia. Wallace confided his ideas on evolution in a letter to Darwin, which forced Darwin's hand.  He realised that if he didn't publish his work quickly then others would do so first. But out of respect for his junior colleague, rather than ignoring Wallace he credited him and made a joint announcement at a London Royal Society meeting. But Darwin gets the historical credit because following the announcement he published his famous book.  Darwin is as relevant today as he was when he published - evolution is "so right, and so threatening", threatening least to some parts of the US population. Debate still swirls in America. A Newsweek article quoted that more than half the population here does not believe that evolution is true. Darwin's theory is powerful because it is both elegant and simple. The tenets of evolution are variation, reproduction and selection.  Traits are passed on from one generation to the next and natural selection (or survival of the fittest) means that only "fit" individuals survive to pass on their genes to their offspring.  Over millions of years, variation and selective pressures will lead to the formation of a new species.  Evolution is still the core of biological research, but it is also plays an increasingly important role in other disciplines. Software engineering and drug development use evolutionary principles when designing their products. Behavioural economics is also using evolution when explaining economic decisions that individuals and populations make. For example, The Economist has argued that "herd mentality" can lead to financial bubbles, where everyone is reassured by their decision to invest based on the fact that "everyone else is doing it". In nature following the herd may have often made sense when trying to escape from danger - but not always, as we are now learning. It only takes an unstable market to reveal that it is not always rational to follow the crowd.  The "˜fittest' is often not the "˜majority'. Whether evolution has made us risk-averse is still open to debate, but the point shows that evolutionary principles shape all aspects of our lives and can explain how we behave. Darwin's birthday, February 12, is a public holiday in the US "“ not for Darwin (although perhaps it should be) but because it is Abraham Lincoln's birthday. So on Thursday I will have a little birthday cake for these two influential historical giants and contemplate what life is like because of them.  ------------- Dr Jess Chaston is living and working in Chicago, IL.