Eighteen hundred and nine was a very special year. Charles Darwin, a self-made scientific genius and arguably the greatest biologist of all time, was born that year on February 12, as was Abraham Lincoln, an equally gifted political intellectual. Of local interest, Miami University, the 10th oldest state university in the country, also was founded in February 1809.
Biologists and academicians all over the world look forward to the celebration of the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book, On the Origin of Species, in which he meticulously cataloged the evidence for evolution through natural selection as the basis for biological diversity.
After graduation from Cambridge University, England, and with little interest in becoming a physician or a preacher, young Darwin embarked on a five-year around-the-world journey on the HMS Beagle. This journey transformed Darwin into a self-made naturalist who would forever change biology and our understanding of the origin, diversity and functioning of the biological world.
During the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin observed the vast diversity of plants and animals in their natural habitats. He made extensive records and collected thousands of preserved specimens. He made careful observations of fossils, noting that living organisms on any continent were similar to fossils on the same continent and proposed a succession of organisms through time. He also documented island biogeography and observed that the species found in the Galapagos, the Azores, the Cape Verdes and the Madeira islands-although by and large specific to each island-were most similar to species on the nearest continent, implying that dispersers from the continent had evolved into presently existing species.
After the voyage, Darwin spent 20 years researching and analyzing the enormous collected evidence before publishing On the Origin of Species in 1859 that described his theory of evolution, defined as descent with modification from a common ancestor as a result of natural selection acting on genetic differences among individuals over time.
All 1,250 copies of On the Origin of Species were sold in one day. His theory of evolution provided the most unifying concept in biology and most scientists were soon convinced that Darwin was right. Alfred Russell Wallace, a leading biologist and contemporary of Darwin's, had independently come to the same conclusion as Darwin but it was On the Origin of Species that brought the idea to the attention of the scientific community and the general public. More than 50 years ago, Theodorus Dobzhansky, a leading evolutionary geneticist, stated, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."
Darwin's theory of evolution has inspired hundreds of thousands of scientists around the world to conduct research in diverse branches of biology that advance Darwin's legacies. Scientists have identified more than two million species of organisms, with considerable genetic diversity within each species. Fossil evidence confirms that single-celled bacteria originated approximately three billion years ago. These early simple life forms gave rise to multi-cellular organisms (one billion years ago), land plants (475 million years ago), fish and amphibians (360-500 million years ago), reptiles (300 million years ago), mammals (200 million years ago), birds (150 million years ago) and eventually to man. Dinosaurs existed on earth more than 70 million years ago and humans originated in Ethiopia approximately 150,000 years ago. Humans subsequently spread to other continents, coming to America 15,000 years ago.
DNA has been discovered to be the genetic blueprint of all organisms from bacteria to humans and is universally accepted as the gold standard of identity among organisms as well as relatedness among species. Phenomenal progress in DNA sequencing technology stemming from the Human Genome Project of the last decade has demonstrated 98 percent of the human and chimpanzee genomes (three billion DNA nucleotides of A,T,G,C) are identical. Much lower DNA sequence identity exists between less closely related species. Moreover, approximately 500 genes from our bacterial ancestors are conserved among all organisms today, including worms, fish, primates and humans, demonstrating the genetic relatedness of all species.
Among examples of genetic modification are the species of ice fish near Antarctica that adapted to freezing temperatures through a series of genetic modifications that selected for conversion of a digestive enzyme gene to a variant that now produces an antifreeze protein. These modifications connect ice fish to ancestors of millions of years ago. Similarly, bacteria have undergone selection for survival in extremes of temperature, pressure, acidity, etc., and presently occupy every conceivable niche on Earth. Additional examples of genetic modification through natural selection are seen in antibiotic resistance in bacteria, pesticide resistance in insects and herbicide resistance in plants, to name a few.
Sadly, there are some who deny these scientific realities. Although discredited repeatedly in the courts, creationists and Intelligent Design proponents continue to influence school boards and state legislators to include teaching of theistic creation in science classes. It is time to reestablish our global leadership in science and technology education; sharing our classrooms with pseudoscience is not the way to achieve this goal.
We hope that in 2009, in the midst of wide spread celebrations of Darwin's legacy, the teaching of evolution in our classrooms will be supported universally by courts, legislatures and the American public. If the United States is to remain competitive in an increasingly competitive world that is dependent on scientific discoveries, we cannot let religious dogma trump scientific evidence in the teaching of evolution. Allowing it to do so may find America falling off of a flat Earth.
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