The Origin of Species (Charles Darwin)

Charles Darwin, oh what have you done!

If one were to list the most important people in the history of mankind, few people would be as assured of their place as Charles Darwin. It would be safe to admit that Darwin shall feature in the list of the top five greatest scientists of all time, along with the likes of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.

His magnum opus, The Origin of Species, is an astonishingly vast endeavour. Let us try to imagine man’s view of the natural system before Darwin revealed his hand.

Man had observed thousands of species in all parts of the world, all well-suited for their natural environment. Each animal was well-fitted in the economy of nature and occupied a certain place, and the mutual interactions of all the flora and fauna in any given region formed an organisational web that felt more or less complete in-itself.

For naturalists at that time, it was impossible to think that such a (visibly) perfect system could have come into existence in any way other than divine intervention, and so creationism, quite conveniently, was provided as an answer for the incomprehensible complexity of the entire web of life, throughout the world.

Some problems, though, stared them in the face. How was it possible, for example, that many European species managed to spread rapidly and even replace the endemic species of Australia? If each species had been created perfectly for the place it occupied, surely no other species could be better suited to live in that area. Additionally, if all species were specially created for any specific place, which would imply taking into account factors like climate and geography, then distinct regions of the world which had nearly identical physical and climatic conditions, for example certain regions in the Old World and New World, should have nearly identical flora and fauna. But this is far from the case, if you were to observe the fauna of, say, Australia and South America. In fact, the species residing in the plains of these continents are as different as they could possibly be. Just imagine an ant-eater and a kangaroo standing side by side.

The theory of natural selection expounded by Darwin now seems so self-evident, that it is difficult for us to fathom what reserves of imagination must have been needed to come up with it in the first place. This beautiful theory says that there is a constant struggle for resources among different species residing in any given region, and the species that are more adaptive, more receptive to change will outlive others. And as they spread far and wide they will replace the species less well adapted – extinction is an inevitable consequence of natural selection as there is only a limited number of living beings that any ecosystem can sustain.

Additionally, the species which thus kill off other species will have more members, meaning more variation and they will end up giving rise to more genera from their existing arsenal than others. In short, the more successful species will spread more widely, and determine the future rise of new genera and classes.

This idea germinated in the mind of Darwin when he noticed how, within a few centuries, breeders had managed to create so many different varieties of pigeons. The Pouter, the Fantail, the Tumbler, the Jacobin – all these varieties share a common progenitor – the rock pigeon. Darwin observed that these varieties arose when breeders mated pairs of pigeons which displayed certain characteristics very strongly – the tail feathers in the Fantail, for example. This was a clear example of artificial selection by humans, who were concentrating only on the external appearances of the creatures concerned.

Darwin deduced that a similar process was happening in the natural world, where members of the same species, and species of the same genera, were locked in a battle with each other for survival, resources and their place in the ecosystem.

In this herculean endeavour, Darwin gives details of many experiments he conducted in order to find answers to certain questions – like, plants of how many genera may grow from a given amount of soil; extrapolating the distance to which seeds of various plants could travel across the sea aided by vegetative matter, and still retain their vitality, based on conducting an experiment that was basically a stripped down version of this process; comparing half a day old chicks of various pigeon breeds to see if some of the differences present in their adult configurations have been inherited at birth, and many others.

Going through the book I wondered why the word genius isn’t traditionally associated with Darwin. Einstein introduced a paradigm shift in physics and his ideas were revolutionary to say the least, but so were Darwin’s. I think it is because even a person with average intelligence would be able to understand the ideas expounded in The Origin of Species, were he to read it, while this can surely not be said about the theory of relativity. In that sense, Darwin seems like that erudite professor who lives next door, and who shares his knowledge in engaging lectures when the two of you sit down to talk in the evening, whereas Einstein is someone whose ideas we can only appreciate from a distance, but never quite understand.

The real and timeless beauty of Darwin’s idea is that his theory isn’t just restricted to biological systems, but they represent certain foundational concepts that will come into play whenever there are competing elements vying for the same thing – so there will be social evolution due to social selection (the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer), economic evolution due to economic selection (different kinds of economic systems work in different regions of the world based on the kind of society, culture and philosophies that drive those people), political evolution due to political selection (no wonder Marx realised the significance of the idea in how political systems in a given place will change over time), and so on. The list can go on and on and on.

There are some books every person should read. This has to be one of those.