Darwin's Birthday

On February 12, 1809, both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born. I was unaware of this historical coincidence until I saw Adam Gopnik talking about it on Charlie Rose. Mr. Gopnik has written a book called Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life that I am sure I will read eventually.

My first introduction to Darwin happened in a high school biology class in 1967. Evolution was not actually taught, as we were preoccupied with dissecting frogs and learning the Krebs cycle. However, evolution was discussed in the textbook in one of the final chapters and I found it curious that we skipped it. Later it dawned on me that teaching evolution in a Texas high school in 1967 was controversial.

As a biology major at Harvard in the early 70s, I saw no one questioning natural selection, the differential reproduction of genotypes, which implies that living things are not static, but change over time. Our job was to work out the details.

There was not much talk about Darwin. I read On the Origin of Species and found it persuasive and detailed, but only useful for a historical understanding of my field.

My appreciation is now increased. As was pointed out on a recent NPR broadcast, the genius of Darwin lay in his ability to observe what was in plain sight, to formulate a theory based on easily confirmed facts, and to persuade others by detailed explication of what most know to be true. Kind of hard to argue with that, even if the theory was at odds with a competing theory that relied solely upon authority.

Funny how certain things become obvious, once they are pointed out.