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It's the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin today, the first man not only to describe the way that species evolve from one another, but to provide a chain of evidence to support his argument. This is a remarkable achievement; at once both an elegant and inspirational idea while being one of the simplest a human mind has ever had. It has no conditions, no special pleading, no supernatural entities guiding it. Just a long series of almost imperceivable mutations blindly offering up alternatives for members of each successive generation of a population of organisms, and possibly offering an advantage that enables one or two to cope with changing conditions oh so very slightly better than their siblings. Evolution + time = the modern world.
It's both a seemingly mundane and yet entirely awe-inspiring idea. And, while no one with a proper scientific training would ever completely rule anything out, there's an overwhelming and indeed growing weight of evidence to suggest that old Darwin was bang on the money first time. The discovery of DNA and its replication errors, the use of selective breeding, the constant battle against pathogens that adapt faster than medicine can thwart them; evolution is becoming more relevant every day. Philosophically, the only constant really is change.
What I find personally fascinating about evolution, however, isn't that people feel uncomfortable with the idea that we're part of the fabric of the universe we inhabit, rather than having been declared special and plonked here by some god or other, but that the argument in favour of so-called creationism itself has *evolved* significantly over the past few years as it tries to find an attack that will work against a mere idea. The irony is lost on so many people, and yet evolution is something that hasn't had to change to meet that challenge. It just explains, consistently and calmly, how come things are so.
"Theologians," wrote Lawrence Krauss in last week's New Scientist (p25),"have an obligation to attempt to understand the knowledge about the world that has been gained through science, because only through such knowledge can their theology possibly be consistent." One way of marrying science with faith is in accepting that science showcases creation, explains it and gives man an insight into "the mind of God", as Hawking has it. Rejecting science using its products and applications is at best a cynical, paradoxical exercise.
So, happy 200th birthday Charlie.
