Origin
of Species By Means of Natural Selection first went on
sale on November 22, 1859, and its printing of 1,250 copies was
oversubscribed. It was well received by the scientific community,
but condemned by the Christian religion. In America, the book
helped spawn the fundamentalist movement that robustly continues
into this 21st century. Denial of the primary tenets of Darwin's
theory continues today within Christianity, despite evolution's
rigorous validation equivalent to that of Newton's laws of motion.
Sadly, this continuing conflict between religion and science contributes
to a dumbing down of America. Our children and their children
and their children will surely pay a high price for the perpetuation
of scientific ignorance, as other nations race ahead of us.
Darwin
on Natural Selection
Charles Darwin was the quintessential empiricist long before developing
one of humankind’s most important and scientifically validated
theories. For more than two decades and during his five-year voyage
on the Beagle sailing ship he collected data including many fossils.
While lacking modern knowledge of molecular biology and radioisotope
dating, he was an accomplished geologist aware of the earth’s
great age, and understood unnatural selection from the breeding
of animals and plants. Ultimately, Darwin pieced together all
the evidence to theorize the process of decent with medication
through natural selection. Darwin’s On The Origin of Species
on November the 24, 1859 is arguably the birth of evolutionary
biology and among the few most significant scientific publication
of the past 200 years. Consider all that science has learned in
the since Darwin’s time, and then wonder how any scientist
today might improve on the elegance of Darwin’s own words
comprising the first two paragraphs of his monumental book:
“How will the struggle for existence, discussed too briefly
in the last chapter, act in regard to variation? Can the principle
of selection, which we have seen is so potent in the hands of
man, apply in nature? I think we shall see that it can act most
effectually. Let it be borne in mind in what an endless number
of strange peculiarities our domestic productions, and, in a
lesser degree, those under nature, vary; and how strong the
hereditary tendency is. Under domestication, it may be truly
said that the, whole organisation becomes in some degree plastic.
Let it be borne in mind how infinitely complex and close-fitting
are the mutual relations of all organic beings to each other
and to their physical conditions of life. Can it, then, be thought
improbable, seeing that variations useful to man have undoubtedly
occurred, that other variations useful in some way to each being
in the great and complex battle of life, should sometimes occur
in the course of thousands of generations? If such do occur,
can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born
than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage,
however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving
and of Procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel
sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would
be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favourable variations
and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection.
Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected
by natural selection, and would be left a fluctuating element,
as perhaps we see in the species called polymorphic.
We
shall best understand the probable course of natural selection
by taking the case of a country undergoing some physical change,
for instance, of climate. The proportional numbers of its inhabitants
would almost immediately undergo a change, and some species
might become extinct. We may conclude, from what we have seen
of the intimate and complex manner in which the inhabitants
of each country are bound together, that any change in the numerical
proportions of some of the inhabitants, independently of the
change of climate itself, would most seriously affect many of
the others. If the country were open on its borders, new forms
would certainly immigrate, and this also would seriously disturb
the relations of some of the former inhabitants. Let it be remembered
how powerful the influence of a single introduced tree or mammal
has been shown to be. But in the case of an island, or of a
country partly surrounded by barriers, into which new and better
adapted forms could not freely enter, we should then have places
in the economy of nature which would assuredly be better filled
up, if some of the original inhabitants were in some manner
modified; for, had the area been open to immigration, these
same places would have been seized on by intruders. In such
case, every slight modification, which in the course of ages
chanced to arise, and which in any way favoured the individuals
of any of the species, by better adapting them to their altered
conditions, would tend to be preserved; and natural selection
would thus have free scope for the work of improvement.”
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