Can you wish a book a happy birthday – sure you can! Happy birthday The Origin of Species, and many more to come. You were the one that enlightened us and showed us where we come from. You showed us our place in the web of life. You showed us that the human race is not the pinnacle of life. We are nothing more than a tiny twig in the evolutionary tree; a minute thread in the evolutionary tapestry. You showed us how all living beings share a common ancestry. You showed us that Nature has now special regard for humankind. You showed us that there is not plan.
150 years ago today, Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. This is undoubtedly one of the, if not The, most important book in the history of humanity. Why? Because it was the first time a scientifically sound and coherent explanation for the origin and rise of the diversity of life was presented. It explains where we (and the rest of the living world) comes from and how we got here. The message it carries touches us all, no matter where we are, who we are, or what we believe in. If you haven’t read it yet in all that time…, what are you waiting for?
In the sixteenth century Nicholas Copernicus
told us the earth was a ball and, what was worse,
was not the center of the universe.
“Well and so,” we wanted to know,
“where does that leave us in the scheme of things?”Wherever it left us,
we were just about learning to live with it
when three centuries later Charles Darwin
grabbed our attention with the news
that we were cousins to the kangaroos.
“And so,” we wanted to know,
“where does that leave us in the scheme of things?”
(Miller Williams – How Step by Step We Have Come to Understanding)
True aficionados read a facsimile of the First Edition of the Origin of Species
This is from the “Mario’s Entangled Bank” blog ( http://pineda-krch.com ) of Mario Pineda-Krch, a theoretical biologist at the University of Alberta.
